“…Archaeological investigations have been undertaken on the Gorgan Plain since the late 1800s, and as such, a vast number of archaeological sites and landscape features have been recorded representing settlements from the prehistoric through to the more recent times (Abbasi, 2011; Arne, 1945; De Morgan, 1902; Kiani, 1982; Nokandeh et al, 2006; Omrani Rekavandi et al, 2007, 2008; Schmidt, 1940; Shiomi, 1976, 1978; Wilkinson et al, 2013) (Figure 1b). Our understanding of long-term settlement development and land use in the plain, however, is limited by the lack of an absolutely dated stratified ceramic assemblage from any one site, as well as incomplete publication, or accessibility of the material (see Thornton (2013) for a discussion of this problem for the prehistoric periods).…”