Evidence of Administrative Technology during the Fourth Millennium BC in the Qazvin Plain, Iran

The study of transition process of prehistoric societies from egalitarian stage to the classified and state, is one of the important subjects of archaeology. The administrative technology is one of the symbolic features of prehistoric complex societies, indicating the presence of elite class for controlling the socioeconomic and political affairs. Large amounts of garbage with various deposited cultural materials were discovered during the archeological excavations in 2016 at the ancient site of Ālou in Radekan Village, Qazvin Plain. The site chronologically related to the Late Chalcolithic/ Late Plateau period. The administrative artifacts including clay seals and counting objects (tokens) were found in this project. These artifacts are the main devices of administrative technology. The main purposes of this paper are to introduce and interpret the administrative technology devices in Ālou site and the research on the origins of socioeconomic developments in the Central Plateau of Iran. It reevaluates, at first, the background of cultural developments in the Central Plateau with emphasis on administrative technology and information processes, and afterwards, studies the related cultural materials from excavations of Ālou. The results indicate that the societies of Central Plateau, in the mid-fourth millennium BC, had achieved the socioeconomic complexities by the classified — or chiefdom — structure, prior to the Proto-Elamite horizon. These developments therewith cultural interactions and communications with adjacent regions, originated in the Central Plateau of Iran.