Studying the Relation and Social Structure of the Sub-Regional Areas of Parthian Period Based on Archaeological Studies: The Parthian Areas Set, Kolak Region, Sistan

One of the most important issues in history and the archaeology of each period and everywhere is to understand the structure of the socio-political systems as well as the relationship between different places in a region which implies the interactive systems of the human societies in various aspects. On the other hand, it can be said that the socio-political systems are composed of various interactive systems which can be studied in three categories namely: sub-regional, regional and cross-regional. Although complete achieving the mentioned structures in a region through the archaeological studies is impossible but applying scientific and logic method to some extent we can reconstruct them in a given region which its results could be largely applied to different regions. Given to the horizontal settlement system of the region, the Parthian era and the areas belonged to it in Sistan is featured to have a relative high quantity and quality, and in some regions we can identify all areas of one Parthian set. One of these regions is Kolak castle region in Maal, Sistan. On one hand, the most important challenges debated on such settlements is to study the hierarchy between the existing settlements in the region, and on the other hand, the relationships between them which can be fundamentally questioned as “how is the relation structure of the sub-sets in one settlement set dated back the Parthian era?”. I order to respond the above question, firstly, by conducting archaeological studies applying step-by-step survey in an area with 44. Square kilometers, leading to identify some 76 archaeological sites dated back the Parthian era, then study the characterizations of every area, cultural material, the settlement period, the distance, the distance with main areas and the placement location towards the reconstruction of the relation structure of the sub-sets in any settlement set were studied. In the present research, on one hand, it was specified that the arrangement of the existing areas in a region is in form of small-size subsets consisting of 9 to12 archaeological sites in distances less than 400.meters that every sub-set has been formed in a specific boundary and can be easily separated from other sub-sets existing in the main set. It was cleared that in every sub-set most of the areas are similar in terms of area and only one or some sites have larger area. Ultimately, it can be concluded that the settlement set of Koolak region indicates a type of social structure relying on feudalism and small and large serfdom villages in which the main sub-set and Koolak Castle are located. In other word, it was the main core and set of government of the region’s governor. In this structure, other settlement sub-sets represent small and large villages which according to the area and distance from the main core have had different significance and functions but on the basis of a well-organized pattern they were all directly or indirectly linked to the main core and other sub-sets. In the above-mentioned social structure, the governor in order to administrate the region under his governorship tried to maintain his monopoly of important and leading industries, on one hand, and he indirectly tried to make the relationships between the satellite villages with each other so as to control the region easily on the other hand. But it should be mentioned that the governor of the region was regarded as the subordinate of the great governor or feudal lord of Sistan who in a higher power hierarchy was governing and controlling all the region’s subservient rulers.