Political Economy in 5th Millennium BCE Southern Iran. Publication of the Excavations at Tepe Sohz

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Susan Pollock
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2012 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 231029253

The proposed project involves the analysis and publication of the excavations at the 5th millennium BCE site of Tepe Sohz located in the Behbahan Plain in southwestern Iran. The excavations were undertaken in 1970 by Prof. Dr. Hans J. Nissen. Tepe Sohz was chosen due to its presumed sociopolitical prominence (it was the largest site on the plain during the 5th millennium) and because of its geographical location between the Susiana cultural tradition of Khuzistan and the Bakun tradition of Fars. Excavations at the site were originally intended to be large scale but were cut short, and no comprehensive analysis of the material has been conducted. All of the documentation as well as much of the excavated artifacts and samples are stored at the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin and are available for study and publication.The principal goal of the analysis of the Tepe Sohz material is to evaluate two competing models of the political economy of southwestern Iran in the 5th millennium BCE, developed with the evidence from Fars by Abbas Alizadeh and William Sumner, respectively. The enclosing nomadism model proposed by Alizadeh envisions a situation in which a considerable portion of the population practiced vertical nomadism, moving from the lowlands in the winter to highland pastures in the summer. People living in small villages were farmers, but they produced primarily for their own needs. Central places, such as Tepe Sohz, were home to specialized artisans who produced goods for exchange with the economically and politically dominant nomads. In a contrasting model, Sumner argues for intensified agriculturally based settlement in the 5th millennium, including the use of irrigation, together with small-scale animal husbandry. Villagers generated surpluses that were used to support specialist craftworkers living in larger communities. For Sumner, political hierarchization is only minimally present, and full-scale nomadism only appears in later periods. The excavated materials from Tepe Sohz, including faunal remains, ceramics, and a variety of small finds, provide a useful basis for evaluating these models, based on a multi-proxy approach. Stylistic and X-ray fluorescence analysis of the ceramics together with faunal analysis, including isotopic study of a sample of sheep, goat and cattle remains, will provide crucial information on degree of mobility and interregional connections maintained by the population at Tepe Sohz. Spatial distributions of lithics, ground stone tools and animal bones as well as analyses of phytolith are designed to assess the extent to which irrigation was practiced. They will contribute to an evaluation of the degree of settlement-internal variation in subsistence production.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France, United Kingdom, USA
• Participating Persons: Professorin Dr. Marjan Mashkour; Dr. Melody Pope; Professorin Dr. Arlene Rosen