396 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



and 4, between Landing Grounds K and H, and on Landing Ground 

 H, on the air route between Habbaniyah and Jordan. 



Some flint flakes were found 25 miles north of Ana by a member 

 of the Iraq Petroleum Co. oil prospectors (Field, 1951, p. 89). 



Field (1952a, pp. 44, 136-137) reports that he found typologically 

 Paleolithic implements at widely separated points across the face of 

 Kurdistan Iraq. The finds include implements recovered in the Kir- 

 kuk gravels, and in the mountain passes at Zakho, Aqra, and Rowan- 

 duz, and at Suleimaniyah. He found "hundreds of microlithic im- 

 plements" on the talus slope in front of Havdian cave, a few miles 

 to the northwest of Rowanduz (Field, 1951, p. 90). Field (op. cit., 

 pp. 89-90) also reports a few flakes near Erbil, and a flint hand ax 

 and some choppers near "mile 21" on the Kirkuk-Suleimaniyah road. 

 Some implements were recovered by the Directorate General of An- 

 tiquities of Iraq and Field at Barda Balka on the same road. 



W. B. Lucas, of the Iraq Petroleum Co., picked up several flints near 

 Kirkuk which appear to have a Paleolithic cast. 



The first Paleolithic finds in northeastern Iraq were made in 1928 

 by Dr. Dorothy A. E. Garrod (1928) during the course of a prelimi- 

 nary survey undertaken on a joint expedition of the Percy Sladen 

 Memorial Fund and the American School of Prehistoric Research. 

 She recovered several Mousterian artifacts on the surface of gravel 

 beds near Kirkuk, and found (op. cit.) Mousterian-type artifacts on 

 the surface of a small wady near Tarjil, a few miles southeast of 

 Kirkuk. A small flint tortoise core was found in place near the base 

 of a bed of gravel that had been cut into by a stream. It would be 

 interesting to relocate the Tarjil site and try to correlate the gravels 

 with one of the terrace systems mapped there by the Iraq Petroleum 

 Co. geologists. 



Dr. Garrod's (1930) expedition to the Suleimaniyah area of Kurdi- 

 stan Iraq was the first to conduct a Paleolithic excavation in Iraq. 

 They discovered the Upper Paleolithic ("Gravettian") site of Zarzi, 

 and the Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian) site of Hazer Merd, both of 

 which are cave sites. At Hazer Merd, efforts were concentrated on 

 the excavation of one of six caves, called the Dark Cave. This cave 

 yielded the Mousterian-type artifacts that form the type specimens 

 for this period in Iraq. The expedition excavated a little less than 

 two-thirds of the deposit, and established the presence of three layers: 

 A, B, and C. Layer C, which contained the Mousterian artifacts, had 

 a thickness ranging from 50 cm. to 3.90 m. 



It is suggested that the Dark Cave of Hazer Merd was occupied 

 during a cold period, or at least a period colder than today (Garrod, 

 op. cit., p. 40). Yet Dorothea M. A. Bate's (in Garrod, op. cit., pp. 

 38-39) examination of the animal remains reveals (though not in 



