ancient Orient. There is no evidence, however, for other types of flints of Paleolithic manufacture.
It is possible that Iran passed through the Neolithic stage of development, although it is not until the very latest subperiod, the so-called "Chalcolithic," when copper was being introduced for ornaments, that we can obtain clarity of vision. Professor Herzfeld recently announced the discovery of a village near Persepolis which must be assigned to this stage of man's development.[1] The village, with its single-story mud-brick dwellings on either side of a narrow street, remains today almost as early Chalcolithic man left it millenniums ago. His stone implements and stone bowls are a lasting memento of his life at this site; and his wheelmade pottery, carefully fashioned and magnificently painted, is a permanent tribute to his craftsmanship. Two ornaments of copper, presumably hammered, are trifles among the thousands of stone objects; but they show that this man lived at the very dawn of the Metal Age.
While Europe was still in the later stages of Paleolithic culture, Iran, like the rest of the Near East, advanced rapidly into the Copper Age. Man, having made the acquaintance of metals, used them freely in his everyday life, although stone implements were still widely employed. At the same time he began to domesticate plants and animals. At Jemdet Nasr in
- ↑ E. Herzfeld in the Illustrated London News, May 25, 1929, pp. 892 f., and Iranische Denkmäler, Lfgn. 1 and 2 (Berlin, 1932), pp. 3–18, Pls. 1–30.
