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.