A team of archaeologists is currently working on a mound located near the town of Malard in the southwest of Tehran (Iran) in order to find artifacts of the Kura-Aras culture. Findings of the Kura-Aras culture were previously discovered during a series of initial excavations done by the team led by Akbar Purfaraj of Tehran's Allameh Tabatabai University.
     The excavation allowed scientists to gather a large number of shards scattered on the ground of the mound, Tehran Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department Director said. Various motifs are seen on the shards, which are mostly red in color.
     The Kura-Aras culture includes a series of civilizations, delimited by the Greater Caucasus from the north, Lesser Caucasus from the west and the Talysh Mountains from the south. Signs of the Kura-Aras culture were discovered at the Yanik Tepe, a multi-period site located northwest of Lake Urmia in Iran, which was extensively excavated by Charles Burney in 1960s. The earliest layers date back to the late 7th millennium BCE; these represent some of the earliest permanent settlements in the region.

Edited from Tehran Times (17 August 2011)