مطالب

Two important points have been the motivations of the writers of this article. The first motivating factor is the importance of the Neolithic Period especially the phase of shifting from Epi-Paleolithic to Neolithic in nowadays archaeological argumentation. The second factor is the importance of Khorramabad valley at the Paleolithic period and the abundance of early Chalcolithic sites and having no knowledge about the valley’s archaeology in Neolithic Period. Exploring two important sites namely Roāhol and Merijelo and finding three sites namely Sarab Kotela, Kohele and Kharmanjā Haft Cheshmeh in this valley, have opened promising horizons for archaeologists to understand the cultural changes of the Neolithic period. Surveying the surface findings and studying on the settlement layers of these sites have provided an opportunity for initial recognition of the existence of social life in Neolithic period in the valley. The general archaeological researches on central Zagros and specific researches on Khorramabad valley and also identifying and preliminary surveying of two under- discussion sites have created a proper opportunity for proposing a new mission to excavate the sites and to conduct systematic compact survey on Khorramabad valley. This article reviews the literature of archaeological studies on central Zagros and Khorramabad valley briefly and propounds the theories of beginning of food production and Neolithisation, proposes key questions and presupposition corresponding to the writers’ suggestive plan.

The appearance of animal images on the archaeological remains is always considered as an evidence to determine their natural living and their role in human's cultural and ritual life. Animal imagery is found in every medium of art in the Proto Elamite period include stone statuette, pottery, metalwork and finally seal impressions. The glyptic art and pottery through their diversity and the nature of their symbols provide the researchers with the basic information with which to piece together the iconography and the social and economy history of the Proto Elamite period. This paper examines serpent, turtle and feline imageries and related pastiches on two media at Tepe Sofalin, including seal impressions and pottery fragments.

The archaeological site of Afalleh is located in the north of Khachak village, in the intermountain plain of Kojour, in southern end of Nowshahr District, Mazandaran Province. Drawing on the available evidence, the site is dated to the Parthian period. Afalleh is clearly an archaeo- metallurgical center in the area, and by virtue of its relatively large size (more than 5 ha) might be one of the most significant and/or important archaeo- metallurgical sites of the Parthian period in the entire region. Large and dense scatters of slag and kiln wasters, especially in southern and western quadrants, hint at extensive and/or long-termed archaeo- metallurgical activities at the site. The surface slag could be divided into two groups of sponge and dense with a dark color near to black. Most slags are seen on southern part of the site. A stone building is partially exposed in western side of the site, where a dirt road has cut a part of the archaeological deposits. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses indicate that the slags are rich of fayalite and wustite, ferrous silicate and iron oxide minerals, respectively. Inside one of these slags a thick prill of iron is observed that has been largely replaced with secondary iron oxides. This observation indicates an indirect reduction of iron from its ore-producing carbonized iron (steel and cast iron)-and refers to its separation from silicate melt more probably outside of furnace. In this paper we describe the site and data has produced concerning the probable extent of the smelting activities, this is a comparative study and is a discussion on possible provenance of ore deposits.

The costs of retaining an existing customer are one fifth of the costs of acquiring a new customer for a firm. This statement is considered as a predominant notion in marketing. According to this notion, existing customers switching of a firm leads to create lots of costs for that firm. Therefore, the present study has been conducted with the aim of finding the causes of the switching intentions and influential factors on the customers switching intentions in Iran Banking Industry. This study is a descriptive-survey research carried out on Iran Banking Industry. 397 customers from five selected banks in Tehran were chosen for this research. In order to examine and analyze the [R1] data, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) have been used. “Satisfaction”, “trust”, “loyalty” and “switching barriers” are considered as the main factors weakening “switching intention”. The findings confirmed that the variables of satisfaction, trust and loyalty have significant negative impacts on the switching intention, but the impact of the switching barriers on the switching intention in Iran banking was not significant. The present research has been conducted only on banking services industry and only in Tehran which reduces the generalizing effect of the study. Moreover, quantitative analysis methods were used in order to evaluate the subjective factors such as customer switching behavior. [R1]Not Of