A tell site near Damghan in northern Iran, occupied from the 5th to the early 2nd millennium BC. Before 2500 BC, earlier than elsewhere in Iran, the painted pottery tradition was replaced by one of gray monochrome ware. This is usually held to mark the first movement of Indo-European speaking peoples from central Asia into Iran. The settlement was destroyed somewhere between c 1900-1600 BC. Evidence from the later 4th-early 3rd millennia BC suggests Proto-Elamite phenomenon manifested in pottery, seals, and tablet blanks. There are more than 1600 prehistoric burials and a Sassanian palace on the site, which has an interesting pottery sequence and metal objects.