BARDA
BALKA
![](Barda_Baka_Paleolithic_site,_Sulaymaniyah_Iraq,_c._100000-60000_BCE._A_large_megalith_once_stood_here_and_was_demolished_deliberately.jpg)
Barda
Balka, March 2021. The 4-meter high megalith was deliberately demolished
and its fragments are scattered on the site
Location
:
Iraq
Type
:
Surface site
History
:
Material
: gravels
Periods
: Middle
Paleolithic, Neolithic
Cultures
: Late
Acheulean
Site
notes
:
Excavation
dates :
1951
Archaeologists
: Bruce
Howe and Herbert E. Wright
Barda
Balka is an archeological site near the Little Zab and Chamchamal
in the north of modern-day Iraq.
The
site was discovered on a hilltop in 1949 by Sayid Fuad Safar and
Naji al-Asil from the Directorate General of Antiquities, Iraq.
It was later excavated by Bruce Howe and Herbert E. Wright in 1951.
Stone tools were found amongst a particular layer of Pleistocene
gravels that dated to the late Acheulean period. The tools included
pebble tools, bifaces and lithic flakes that were suggested to be
amongst the oldest evidence of human occupation in Iraq. They were
found comparable with tools known to have been made around eighty
thousand years ago.
Similar
material was found in other locations around the Chemchemal valley.
A
Neolithic megalith is also located at the center of the site around
which the tools were found.
Gallery
:
![](Barda_Baka_Paleolithic_site,_Sulaymaniyah_Iraq._c._100000-60000_BCE._A_large_megalith_once_stood_here_and_was_demolished_deliberately.jpg)
Barda
Baka in March 2021
![](Barda_Bakal_Paleolithic_site,_Sulaymaniyah_Iraqi_Kurdistan,_c._100000-60000_BCE._A_large_megalith_once_stood_here_and_was_demolished_deliberately.jpg)
Barda
Balka, the large megalith once stood here was demolished
![](Fragment_of_the_Paleolithic_megalith_of_Barda_Balka,_Sulaymaniyah,_Iraq,_c._100000-60000_BCE._The_megalith_was_deliberately_demolished.jpg)
A
fragment from the megalith of Barda Balka, in situ
![](640px-A_piece_of_stone_from_the_archeological_site_of_Barda_Balka,_modern-day_Chamchamal,_Iraqi_Kurdistan._The_Sulaymaniya_Museum,_Iraq..jpg)
A
fragment from the megalith of Barda Balka at the Sulaymaniyah Museum,
Iraq
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Barda_Balka