The Earliest Neolithic of Iran: 2008 Excavations at Sheikh-E Abad and Jani

Wendy Matthews, Yaghoub Mohammadifar, Roger Matthews, Wendy Matthews, Yaghoub Mohammadifar

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2013
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782972266
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Over a period of several millennia, from the Late Pleistocene to the Early Holocene (c. 13, 000-7000 BC), communities in south-west Asia developed from hunter-foragers to villager-farmers, bringing fundamental changes in all aspects of life. These Neolithic developments took place over vast chronological and geographical scales, with considerable regional variability in specific trajectories of change. Two vital and consistent aspects of change were a shift from mobile to sedentary lifestyles and increasingly intensive human management of animal and plant resources, leading to full domestication of particular species. Building on earlier campaigns of archaeological investigation, the current phase of the Central Zagros Archaeological Project is designed to explore these issues in one key region, the Zagros zone including central west Iran. Two Early Neolithic mounds were excavated: Sheikh-e Abad in the high Zagros and Jani, in the foothills of the Mesopotamian plains, each comprising up to 10 m depth of deposits indicating occupation spanning over 2000 years, and providing great scope for diachronic and spatial analyses. These two sites make major contributions to knowledge regarding the origins of sedentism and increasing resource management in Southwest Asia, and associated developments in social, cultural and ritual practices in this formative region of human cultural development.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: From Hunter-Forager to Farmer-Herder in the Central Zagros: Research Context, Issues, and Methods
• Chapter 2: Contexts of Neolithic Interaction: Geography, Palaeoclimate and Palaeoenvironment of the Central Zagros
• Chapter 3: A Survey of Caves and Rock-Shelters in the Kurtavij Region
• Chapter 4: Excavations, Surface Collection, and Geophysics at Sheikh-e Abad
• Chapter 5: Section Investigations at Jani
• Chapter 6: Radiocarbon Dating of Sheikh-e Abad and Jani
• Chapter 7: Investigating Early Neolithic Materials, Ecology and Sedentism: Micromorphology and Microstratigraphy
• Chapter 8: Biomolecular Investigations of Faecal Biomarkers at Sheikh-e Abad and Jani
• Chapter 9: Preliminary Techno-Typological Analysis of Chipped Stone Materials from Sheikh-e Abad
• Chapter 10: Post-Neolithic Pottery from Sheikh-e Abad
• Chapter 11: Material Networks of the Neolithic at Sheikh-e Abad: Objects of Bone, Stone and Clay
• Chapter 12: Zooarchaeology: Preliminary Assessment of the Animal Bones
• Chapter 13: Isotope Analysis of Animal Bone
• Chapter 14: Human Burials
• Chapter 15: The Plant Macrofossil Evidence from Sheikh-e Abad: First Impressions
• Chapter 16: Phytolith Indicators of Plant Resource Use at Sheikh-e Abad and Jani
• Chapter 17: Molluscs from Sheikh-e Abad and Jani
• Chapter 18: Heavy Residue Analysis from Sheikh-e Abad
• Chapter 19: Site Management and Local Impact at Sheikh-e Abad
• Chapter 20: Networks of Neolithic Engagement
• Bibliography