Archaeology (Definitions, Applications and Necessities for The Iranian Plateau)

A large part of our information concerning Paleoenvironment and Paleoclimate, past human activities, are coming from archived data in the sedimentological layers. Diets regime, vegetation, climatic situation and the causes of extinction of species, migration and settlement systems are that information which can be extracted from the earth archive. Meanwhile, it is clear that not only is it possible to obtain all this information by studying cultural materials. As a result, the relatively new approaches of environmental archaeology and geoarchaeology have been adapted from the geological sciences to help archaeological problems. The task of these approaches is collecting and analysing information that helps better human behaviours and tries to understand the processes between humans and their environment. Like other parts of the archaeological researches in Iran developing rapidly, however, still using Advanced Techniques are not comparable with western countries. This paper provides an overview of some of the most important Geoarchaeological approaches associated with examples more specifically during the late Pleistocene. We have been trying to give a general picture of the research that has been taken out in recent years on Iranian Geoarchaeological and environmental archaeology.