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Unraveling the Environmental History of the Western Zagros Piedmont at the Time of Early States

CHELAZZI, Francesca / GLATZ, Claudia / KASAPIDOU, Georgia / HASSAN, Hoshyar

For nearly a century, archaeological studies of 4th millennium BCE Southwest Asia have focused on the founding narrative of the State, searching for signs of ‘social complexity’ based on evidence from a small number of key sites. However, many of these studies suffer from a core-centrism, overlooking regional idiosyncrasies and divergent patterns of social and spatial organisation. New social theories, scientific methods, and empirical data from previously inaccessible regions offer a tremendous opportunity to rethink traditional narratives of urbanism and state formation. This paper presents preliminary findings from both on-site and off-site geoarchaeological and phytolith analyses in the Sirwan River Valley, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. These results help trace the landscape history of the region, including changes in land cover and use from the 5th to early 3rd millennium BCE. The complex physical landscape of the western Zagros piedmont zone challenges conventional narratives of state formation based solely on agrarian economies. Understanding how amenable such diversified economies were to centralisation and what form such centralisation would have to take in order to be successful, are key questions this research project seeks to address.

Session 1. Exploring Archaeology as a Global Science [info]