The neolithisation of Iran : the formation of new societies

The period c. 10,000-5000 BC witnessed fundamental changes in the human condition with societies across the Fertile Crescent shifting their alignment from millennia-old practices of seasonally mobile hunting and foraging to year-round sedentism, plant cultivation and animal herding. The significant role of Iran in the early stages of this transition was recognised more than half a century ago but has not been to the fore of academic consciousness in recent decades. In the meantime, investigations into Neolithic transformation have proceeded apace in all other regions of the Fertile Crescent and beyond. Here, 18 studies attempt to redress that balance in re-assessing the role of Iran in the early neolithisation of human societies. These studies, many of them by Iranian scholars, consider patterns of change and/or continuity across a variety of topographical landscapes; investigate Neolithic settlement patterns, the use of caves, animal exploitation and environmental indicators and present new insights into some well-known and some newly investigated sites. The results re-affirm the formative role of this region in the transition to sedentary farming. Cover 1 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Contents 6 Editors’ preface 7 List of contributors 8 Chapter 1: The Neolithisation of Iran: Patterns of Change and Continuity 10 Chapter 2: Investigating the Neolithisation of Society in the Central Zagros of Western Iran 23 Chapter 3: Neolithic Settlement Patterns of the Sarfirouz Abad Plain, Central West Zagros 44 Chapter 4: Tappeh Sarabe Yavari: A Neolithic Site with Tadpole Ware on the Kermanshah Plain, West Central Zagros 57 Chapter 5: The Neolithisation Process in the Seimarreh Valley: Excavations at East Chia Sabz, Central Zagros 64 Chapter 6: Revisiting Neolithisation in the Zagros Foothills: Excavations at Chogha Golan, An Aceramic Neolithic site in Ilam Province, Western Iran 85 Chapter 7: Proto-Neolithic Caves and Neolithisation in the Southern Zagros 93 Chapter 8: The Neolithisation of Fars, Iran 106 Chapter 9: Tepe Rahmatabad: a PrePottery and Pottery Neolithic Site in Fars Province 117 Chapter 10: Mapping the Neolithic Occupation of the Kashan, Tehran and Qazvin Plains 133 Chapter 11: Tepe Khaleseh, a Late Neolithic Site in Zanjan Province 156 Chapter 12: Animals and People in the Neolithisation of Iran 187 Chapter 13: Sediments, Soils and Livelihood in a Late Neolithic Village on the Iranian Plateau: Tepe Sialk 198 Chapter 14: Tappeh Sange Chakhmaq: Investigations of a Neolithic Site in Northeastern Iran 210 Chapter 15: Tappeh Sang-e Chakhmaq: A New Look 250 Chapter 16: Northeastern Iran in the Neolithic: the Site of Pookerdvall 265 Chapter 17: The Late Neolithic Site of Rashak III Rock Shelter, Mazandaran, Iran 281 Chapter 18: Telle Atashi (Bam, Southeastern Iran) and the Neolithic of the Eastern Near East 293 Edited By Roger Matthews And Hassan Fazeli Nashli. British Association For Near Eastern Archaeology (banea) Includes Bibliographical References.