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The Earliest Communities of Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

C.C. Lamberg‐Karlovsky
C.C. Lamberg‐Karlovsky*
Affiliation:
Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Tepe Yahya, Kerman
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Extract

Recent archaeological excavations in Iran have contributed fundamentally to our understanding of the economic subsistence patterns in man's earliest communities. Excavations at the sites of Tepe Yahya in Kerman, Ali Kosh in Khuzistan, and Ganj-i-Dareh in Western Azerbaijan, to name but a few within different environmental zones and ecological niches, show that within the area of present-day Iran the cultural and economic transition from an earlier subsistence of hunting and gathering to settled village agricultural communities took place. This transition has been documented in other areas, i. e. Palestine, Anatolia, of Southwestern Asia. The development from a hunting and gathering economy to settled village agricultural productivity, often referred to as the ‘Neolithic Revolution’, was not an historical event (taking place in a moment of time) nor restricted to a single geographical area, but a cultural process which necessitated millennia for its achievement. The important role which Iran played can perhaps best be documented by summarizing the developing economic subsistence patterns in three loosely defined periods of time about 7000, 6000, and 5000 B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Winter 1969 , pp. 2 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1969

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References

Notes

1. C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, ‘Excavations at Tepe Yahya, 1968’ Iran, Vol. VII, (in press), ‘The Neolithic at Tepe Yahya’ with Richard Meadow in Archaeology, (in press). See also ‘Survey and Excavations in the Herman area,’ Iran, Vol. VI, pp. 167 ff. 1967.Google Scholar

2. Hole, Frank and Flannery, Kent ‘Excavations at Ali Kosh, Iran, 1961’, Iranica Antiqua, Vol II, pp. 97-147.Google Scholar

3. Smith, Philip E. L. ‘Ganj Dareh’ Iran. Vol. VI, pp. l50ff.Google Scholar See also Smith, Philip E. L. and Young, T. C. Jr. ‘Research in the Prehistory of Central Western Iran’, Science, Vol. 153, No. 3734, 1966.Google Scholar

4. Mcllaart, James ‘The Earliest Settlements in Western Asia’, Cambridge Ancient History, 1968. (Fascicle 59).Google Scholar

5. V. G. Childe, Man Makes Himself. Mentor. 1951 (First published in 1936).

6. Wright, H. E. Jr. ‘Natural Environment of Early Food Production North of Mesopotamia’, Science. Vol. 161. pp. 334-338. 1968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Braidwood, R. and Howe, B. Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqui Kurdistan. Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. 1960.Google Scholar

8. Renfrew, C. ‘Obsidian and Early Cultural Contact in the Near East’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. XXXII. 1966.Google Scholar

9. Hole, F. in New Perspectives in Archaeology, ed. by , S. R. and Binford, L. R. Aldine Publishing Co. Chicago. 1968.Google Scholar

10. See Dyson, R. H. Jr. for the most recent review of Iranian prehistory in Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, ed. Ehrich, R. W. University of Chicago. 1965.Google Scholar