The Prehistory of Southwestern Iran: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

Current research on the prehistory of the Near East is proceeding at a pace unmatched since the ‘golden era of archaeology’ immediately preceding World War II. Iran, because of its great archeological potential and its stable political situation, has become a prime target for new investigations. Expeditions from the United States, Great Britain, Denmark, France, and Japan have all made substantial contributions to knowledge of Iranian prehistory in the last five years.One recurrent problem in the new research, however, is a lack of coordination and communication between expeditions, which means that many opportunities for useful cooperation are lost. For example, in 1961 we surveyed in some 15 valleys in western Iran, plotting the distribution of pre-Uruk settlements. Unbeknown to us, at least one American and one Danish survey team crossed our path, duplicated many of our survey runs, and excavated one of the sites found on our project. We later learned that we, in turn, had duplicated several survey runs made previously by a British team, who were interested mainly in later sites but would have been happy to share their data on sites in our range of interest. Had all of us known what our colleagues were doing, we could have saved ourselves many hours of duplication.This situation is worsened by the fact that many surveys and test-excavations remain unpublished, and diagnostic artifacts remain undescribed. With regard to pottery sequences, the urgency of the problem has recently been stressed by one of our colleagues (Young 1966: footnote 28).

Origins of Food Production in Southwestern Asia: A Survey of Ideas

“…The settlement pattern and subsistence data suggest that there was, rather, a change in emphasis as to what wild foods were being collected or hunted (cf. Hole and Flannery 1967;Flannery 1965Flannery , 1968and below). Furthermore, hunters and gatherers It is argued here that vitalism, whether expressed in terms of inherent forces orienting the direction of organic evolution or in its more anthropocentric form of emergent human properties which direct cultural evolution, is unacceptable as an explanation.…”

“…The ecological approach to the study of the origin of food production is best seen in recent articles by Kent Flannery Hole and Flannery 1967) and Lewis Binford (1968b). Flannery (1965) begins by asking a series of ecological questions.…”

“…Herds of wild cattle, wild ass, and gazelle once grazed on this piedmont steppe. Where salt is no problem, rainfall agriculture may be practiced, and it is in this environmental zone that the transition to irrigation agriculture was made (Hole and Flannery 1967).…”

“…Around the edges of the plateau are sources of copper, iron, and lead. Hole and Flannery (1967;Flannery 1968) have divided the culture history of southwesternAsia into several adaptive eras. One of these is termed the "Broad Spectrum Revolution"; it began about 20,000 years ago.…”

“…Hornless female sheep occur at Ali Kosh by 7000 B.C. (Hole and Flannery 1967). Goats appear to have been domesticated at Jericho and at El Khiam (Ducos 1968) by about 7000 B.C.…”