  Darra-e Kur (South Asia) Show map of South Asia | |
| Alternative name | Bābā Darwīsh; Cave of the Valley; Darra-i-Kur[1] |
|---|---|
| Location | northeast of Kalafgān near the village of Chinār-i Gunjus Khān |
| Region | Badakhshan province,Afghanistan |
| Coordinates | 36°47′07.728″N69°59′42.504″E / 36.78548000°N 69.99514000°E /36.78548000; 69.99514000 |
| Type | rock shelter |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1966 |
| Archaeologists | Louis Dupree |
Darra-e Kūr orBābā Darwīsh, is anarchaeological site inBadakhshan province inAfghanistan. It is situated just northeast of Kalafgān near the village of Chinār-i Gunjus Khān 63 km (39.1 mi) east ofTaloqan, on the road toFaizabad. The cave is situated atop the side of the valley near the hamlet ofBābā Darwīsh.
Darra-e Kūr is arock shelter, well-stratified insilt deposits, laid down by a stream. Approximately 800 stone implements were recovered, of two basic types:flint and sickle blades, and large diabase points. Other finds included celts, scrapers, pounders, blades, simple jewelry,fauna, such as fish, rodents, wild horse, domesticated sheep and goat andonager, a fragment of a human righttemporal bone, many bonefossils and three fragments oftin andbronze. Unearthed pottery was mostly crude, black wares, sometimes decorated. The only architectural traces found were 80 post-holes, suggestive of tents. Three articulated goat burials were discovered.[2]
Collection:
Field-work:
TheMousterian artefacts come from a layer that was dated to around 30,000BP. One of the younger layers above, referred to by the site archaeologists as coming from a "Goat Cult"Neolithic layer, was dated to around 3780 BP.[1]
DirectAMS dating of the temporal bone (NMNH 387961) reveals that the bone is a lot younger than previously thought, giving an age range of around 4530-4410 BP. Previously thought to have been from thePaleolithic, due to the presence of the bone among the layer containing MousterianLevallois artefacts, direct dating has revealed that the bone is actually from the Neolithic. Researchers now believe that the temporal bone came from a later burial that intruded into the Mousterian layer, likely coming from the culture associated with the "Goat Cult" Neolithic layer.[1]
In 2017, researchers successfully extracted the DNA from both thepetrous andsquamous part of the Darra-e Kur temporal bone. The Darra-e Kur specimen is the first ancient human remain from Afghanistan from which DNA has been successfully sequenced. The individual was found to belong toHaplogroup H2a.[1]
