Education

2004- 2010

Dr Phil, Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology; Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
Dissertation title: ‘Early Upper Palaeolithic occupation at Ghār-e Boof Cave; a reconstruction of cultural traditions in Southern Zagros Mountains of Iran’ 

1999-2004

BA English literature, Department of Foreign Languages, Kharazmi University of Tehran, Iran

1997- 1999

BA in Persian literature, Teacher Training Centre of Fatemeh Zahra, Qaemshahr, Iran
specialisation in teaching Persian language and literature

Professional Activities

* director of the research team)

2022

*Four weeks of Palaeolithic excavations in the Eskouldar Rockshelter, Iran.
*Six weeks of Palaeolithic excavation and survey in Southern Caspian Corridor.
2021

*Two weeks of Palaeolithic survey in Southern Caspian Corridor, northern Iran.

2019

*Three weeks of Palaeolithic excavations in the Eskouldar Rockshelter, Iran.
*Three weeks of Palaeolithic excavations in the Metz Tagher Cave, Republic of Artsakh, Armenia.
*Two weeks of laboratory work on the lithic artefacts from Azokh Cave at Azokh satellite Museum. Republic of Artsakh, Armenia.
Two weeks of laboratory work on the Yawan Rockshelter in Kermanshah; Iran.

2018

Two weeks Palaeolithic survey in the southern Caspian Corridor, Neka, Behshahr, Galougah; Iran.
Three weeks Palaeolithic excavation at Azokh Cave, Republic of Artsakh, Armenia.
Three weeks Palaeolithic excavation at Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, Kermanshah; Iran.

2017

*three weeks excavation in the Sarvanjogh Cave in Eslamabad-e Gharb; Iran.
Three weeks excavation in the Yawan Rockshelter in Kermanshah; Iran.

2004-2016

Participating in more than 20 field work seasons (excavation and surveys) in Iran and Germany.
 

Early Upper Palaeolithic occupation at the Ghār-e Boof Cave, a reconstruction of cultural traditions in Southern Zagros Mountains of Iran. Kerns Verlag, Tübingen, 2014.

Editorials

Palaeolithic of Iran 1, archaeological reports monographs. Edited by Saman Heydari-Guran, Ruhollah Shirazi and Elham Ghasidian. The Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT), 2021 (in Persian with English abstracts)

Translations

Technology and terminology of knapped stone. Inizan et al. 1999. CNRS. Translated from English into Persian. 2010, Samira Publishing House, Tehran, Iran.

Articles

Modelling Neanderthals' dispersal routes from Caucasus towards east. Elham Ghasidian, Anooshe Kafash, Martin Kehl, Masoud Yousefi, Saman Heydari-Guran. PloS One, (2022).
The discovery of an in situ Neanderthal remain in the Bawa Yawan Rockshelter, West-Central Zagros Mountains, Kermanshah. Saman Heydari-Guran, Stephano Benazzi, Sahra Talamo, Elham Ghasidian, Nemat Hariri, Georgo Oxilia, Samran Asiabani, Faramarz Azizi, Rahmat Naderi, Reza Safaierad, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Robert Foley and Marta Mirazon Lahr. PloS One, (2021) 16(8), p.e0253708
Early Upper Palaeolithic occupation at Gelimgoush cave, Kermanshah; West-Central Zagros mountains of Iran. Saman Heydari-Guran, Katherina Douka, Thomas Higham, Susanne C. Münzel, Katleen Deckers, Shaghayegh Hourshid, Rahmat Naderi, Samran Asiabani, and Elham Ghasidian. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 38, (2021) p.103050.
Consistency of the "MIS 5 humid corridor model" for the dispersal of early Homo sapiens into the Iranian Plateau. Saman Heydari-Guran and Elham Ghasidian. Pearls, Politics and Pistachios; Essays in Anthropology and Memories on the Occasion of Susan Pollock’s 65th Birthday. The editorial collective. Archaeologie im Iran und Touran (2021).
New Evidence of a Late Pleistocene Occupation on the Southern Slopes of the Alborz Mountains. Hamid Hariryan, Saman Heydari-Guran, Abbas Motarjem and Elham Ghasidian. Lithic Technology (2021). DOI: 10.1080/01977261.2020.1860350.
Species distribution models advance our knowledge of the Neanderthals’ paleoecology on the Iranian Plateau. Masoud Yousefi, Saman Heydari-Guran, Anoushe Kafash and Elham Ghasidian. Scientific reports, 10(1) (2020), 1-9.
Late Pleistocene hominin settlement patterns and population dynamics in the Zagros Mountains: Kermanshah region. Saman Heydari-Guran and Elham Ghasidian. Archaeological Research in Asia 21. (2020). doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2019.100161 .
Rethinking of the Upper Palaeolithic of the Zagros Mountains. Elham Ghasidian. Journal of PaleoAnhropology (2019): 240-310. 
Diversity of culture among the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers on the Iranian Plateau. Elham Ghasidian, Saman Heydari-Guran and Marta Mirazon Lahr. Journal of Human Evolution 132 (2019): 101-118.
Excavations at Ghār-e Boof in the Fars Province of Iran and its bearing on models for the evolution of the Upper Palaeolithic in the Zagros Mountains. Elham Ghasidian, Knut Bretzke and Nicholas J. Conard. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Vol 47 (2017): 33–49.
The MUP Zagros Project: tracking the Middle–Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Kermanshah region, west-central Zagros, Iran. Saman Heydari-Guran and Elham Ghasidian. Antiquity 91 (355) (2017) project gallery.  
Upper Palaeolithic Raw Material Economy in the Southern Zagros Mountains of Iran. Elham Ghasidian and Saman Heydari-Guran. In H. Nishiaki, T. Akazawa and A. Aoki eds. Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 2. Springer (2018): 157-174.
The Rostamian cultural group and the taxonomy of the Iranian Upper Palaeolithic. Nicholas J. Conard and Elham Ghasidian. In N.J. Conard, P. Drechsler and A. Morales eds. Between sand and sea, the archaeology and human ecology of South-western Asia. Kerns Verlag. Tübingen, Germany. (2011): pp. 33-52.
Middle Palaeolithic settlement on the Iranian Central Plateau. Saman Heydari-Guran, Elham Ghasidian and Nicholas J. Conard. In N.J. Conard and A. Delagnes eds. Settlement Dynamics of the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age, Volume IV. Kerns Verlag. Tübingen, Germany (2015): pp. 171-203.
And 25 more publications in English and Persian.
 

2023- continuing

Founder of the DiyarMehr Publishing House; Iran. 

2015- continuing

Co-founder of the DiyarMehr Institute for Palaeolithic Research; Iran. htttp://sites.google.com/diyarmehrinstituteforpalaeolithicresearch/home

2011- continuing

Society for Iranian Archaeology. Directing the Iranian Palaeolithic Research Group.http://sites.google.com/site/societyforiranianarchaeology/home 

2018

Society for American Archaeology. http://saa.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx 

2005- 2010

Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte und Förderverein des Urgeschichtlichen Museums Blaubeuren e.V. (Society for Prehistory and Friends of the Museum of Prehistory), Blaubeuren; Germany.http://www.gfu-blaubeuren.de/ 

2007- 2010

Hugo Obermaier Gesellschaft für Erforschung des Eiszeitalters und der Steinzeit e.V. (Hugo Obermaier-Society for Quaternary Research and Archaeology of the Stone Age). http://www.obermaier-gesellschaft.de/ 

2001-2003

Iranian Centre for Palaeolithic Research. Tehran; National Museum of Iran.