Archaeological surveys and excavations ahead of construction of the Daryan Dam, on the Sirwan River in Kermanashah Province near what is now the Iran-Iraq border about 650 kilometres west of Tehran, revealed evidence of human occupation from the Middle Palaeolithic to the late prehistoric and into the historic periods, including nomad and herder seasonal sites of the late Islamic period. Originating in the Zagros Mountains, the Sirwan River is a tributary of the Tigris.
     Considered a cradle of Kurdish art and culture, the Hawraman/Uramanat World Heritage Site is characterised by agriculture on dry stone terraces and seasonal pastoral migrations up and down steep slopes. Among the recorded sites, sixteen caves, rock shelters, graveyards, and villages located along the Sirwan, Gerdalan, and Zhawaro Rivers were tested or excavated, providing information on the seasonal settlements of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, Chalcolithic villagers and herders, and Iron Age burials and settlement of the 2nd and 1st millenniums BCE. A museum has been built on the site of an Iron Age grave, and protective measures taken in one of the excavated caves, before flooding of the reservoir.

Edited from Tehran Times (21 December 2021)