Dehlorān

Dehloran lies on the southern edge of Ilam province, where mountain routes descend to the Dehloran Plain near the Mesopotamian lowlands. Seasonal rivers and springs made the plain a meeting point for settled farmers, herders and travelers between Iran and Iraq.

The surrounding plain contains some of western Iran's oldest farming settlements. Ali Kosh, Chogha Sefid, Tepe Sabz and Tepe Farukhabad record early villages, irrigation and herding from the Neolithic into the Chalcolithic period. Pottery, stone tools and plant remains show the gradual domestication of wheat, barley, sheep and goats.

Later Lur and Kurdish communities used the same borderland for pasture and trade. Roads through Dehloran connected the Zagros foothills to Susiana and Iraq, while date gardens and grain fields occupied the irrigated plain. Its early importance came from water, rich soil and passage between highland and lowland worlds. Floodwater farming and date gardens supported the plain villages, while roads linked them to both Susiana and the Zagros highlands.