Although
Iraqi Kurdistan is not well known from an archaeological point of view, the available evidence nevertheless shows that the relatively favourable ecological conditions of the Iraqi part of the Zagros attracted human groups from early prehistory onwards. Lower Palaeolithic archaeological sites have to date not been found in the Iraqi part of the Zagros Mountains, but they are known from the Iranian side where numerous cave sites have been found during archaeological surveys. Information on the early prehistory of the wider Little Zab region itself comes from the
excavations carried out by the
Oriental Institute at archaeological sites east of
Kirkuk and south of the Little Zab. The earliest evidence for human occupation in this region comes from the Middle Palaeolithic site of
Barda Balka, where Late
Acheulean stone tools have been found. Archaeological research elsewhere in the Zagros confirms the importance of this area to early human
hunter-gatherers – including groups of
Neanderthals as evidenced by the finds in
Shanidar Cave in the Great Zab basin.
Mousterian stone tools that were used by either Neanderthals or
anatomically modern humans have recently been excavated in
Erbil, between the Little Zab and the Great Zab. Both open-air and cave sites are attested for the
Zarzian culture, which straddles the
Upper and
Epipalaeolithic periods. After the Zarzian, the focus of human occupation shifted from cave-sites, which continue to be used as secondary or seasonal occupation sites up to today, to open-air sites and it was in this period that the trend toward
domestication of plants and animals set in. Domestication of the goat probably occurred first in this area of the Zagros.
Jarmo, a
tell east of Kirkuk, was a
Neolithic village community that practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. Pottery occurs from the early occupation levels onward; in its later phases it resembles pottery from
Hassuna. The early occupation of Tell Shemshara, in the Ranya Plain, can also be dated to this period. The archaeological fieldwork in the Ranya Plain showed that this area was occupied during the
Ubaid,
Uruk and Ninevite V periods – roughly from the middle 6th to the mid-3rd millennium BCE. Evidence for these periods comes from the
Citadel of Erbil as well. The region enters history at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, when Erbil is mentioned as Urbilum by king
Shulgi of the
Ur III dynasty. From that time onward, the Little Zab basin became increasingly entangled in the affairs of the successive Mesopotamian empires that sought control over the Zagros Mountains. In the early second millennium BCE, king
Shamshi-Adad of Upper Mesopotamia waged war to the land of
Qabra, which was probably located along the lower course of the Little Zab, and installed garrisons in the conquered towns. The archive of
clay tablets found at Tell Shemshara (ancient Shusharra) shows that the local governor switched allegiance and became a vassal of Shamshi-Adad. During the 14th century BCE, the region was part of the
Mitannian kingdom, with sites like
Nuzi and
Tell al-Fakhar, south of the Little Zab, yielding
clay tablet archives for this period. During the late second–early first millennia BCE, the lower Little Zab basin belonged to the heartland of the
Middle Assyrian and
Neo-Assyrian empires. After the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, control of the Zagros shifted first to the
Medes and in 550 BCE to the
Achaemenid Empire. The last Achaemenid ruler
Darius III was defeated by
Alexander the Great at the
Battle of Gaugamela in northern Iraq and after Alexander's death in 323, the area fell to his
Seleucid successors. On the
Ortelius Theatrum Orbis Terrarum maps of Turkish Empire and Persian Kingdom it is listed as
Noue aque fl. == See also ==