Iranian Journal of Archaeological Studies
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2015

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) was known throughout Eurasia in the second millennium BC in regions with warm, moist summers, where its cultivation reduced agricultural risk. Its cultivation during the warm, but dry months at Kyzyltepa and other Iron Age sites in western Central Asia was probably made possible through irrigation practices that were long known and originally developed in the winter-wet, summer-dry climate of West Asia. The adoption of millet by sedentary people of Central Asia is likely associated with intensification of agricultural production rather than as a strategy to reduce agricultural risk.

Trace element analyses was carried out using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer and XRF on a small collection of bones and teeth from horse and human bone samples to check the ratio of Strontium and Calcium and other elements like zinc and copper. Interestingly the copper representation in humans is much higher compared to that of Sr/Ca. This shows that their diet consisted mainly of animal meat and fish rather than other vegetarian foods. However, the high representation of Copper found in horse bone samples makes this scientific evidence an anomaly and needs to be seen with caution and to be checked with a larger set of samples. Similarly too the Zinc samples have a very weak representation. Of course the bones examined in this study came from museum repositories and did not accompany the soil samples hence the values presented here represent only the bone chemistry.

Among the many Assyrian written sources and inscriptions some texts report the military expeditions of the kings of Assyria. These accounts, the so-called Itineraries texts, describe in detail the different stops of the armies through territories outside the Assyrian heartland. With regard to the Zagros area, the reports mention different long and ruthless campaigns undertaken by some Assyrian Kings before the reign of Sargon II (720-705). However the texts of the campaigns of Sargon II differ considerably from the other written sources like the Annals because the expeditions undertaken by him are related through a chronological succession of events. It means that the different place names (towns, villages, mountains, plains and watercourses) are mentioned according to their order of appearance during the marches of the Assyrian armies. That’s the reason we call them Itineraries. To reconstruct the different routes taken by the armies and to fix the different stops of these military expeditions on the geographical maps, we have used a methodology based mainly on the possibilities offered by the local geography. The logic is that the establishment of diagrammatic charts must correspond to the most passable tracks and ways at least to explain the choices of all the army movements through mountainous areas of the Zagros However despite some deficiencies, we have to recognize that the Itineraries of Sargon are exceptionally interesting. Indeed the reports of the 6th and 8th campaigns undertaken in 716 BC and 714 BC contain a great number of precious topographical and geographical information about the Iranian populations of the Zagros. In this study we tried to reconstruct the most complete and precise map showing the real political geography of the Zagros as the Assyrians knew it during the 8th century B.C.

This research focuses on reconstructing migration and dietary strategies of individuals in the Iron Age. Elemental analyses from archaeological skeletal remains yield an important perspective on temporal shifts in diet in relation to social and environmental circumstances. The elemental ratio data such as dietary and environmental changes have shed light on crucial issues in archaeology. The central concern of the research is about Sr, Zn and Ca compositions of teeth (N=16) from the two Iron Age sites of Gohar tepe and Sanjar tepe, in an effort to ascertain whether this materials provides reliable paleodietary and paleomigration information. This study suggests that Sr/Ca ratio most likely demonstrates paleoecological as well as paleomigration information obtained from these sites, it is also demonstrated that geologically similar sites differ in the degree they impart certain elements to ancient enamel and Zn/Ca and Sr/Ca ratio indicates paleonutritional data. Moreover, the results obtained by trace elemental analysis were combined with the results of our previous isotopic studies on the materials of Gohar tepe site northern Iran, to provide a basis to interpret variable paleodietary systems of its occupants.

Today, more than ever, archaeological research is interdisciplinary, covering many areas of interest some of which are Geo-archaeology, Environmental archaeology, Experimental Archaeology and etc. These are all integral parts of archaeological research. In fact, the impact of human behavior on the environment and environment on human behaviors can be studied through the use of remote sensing technology. The use of this important technique gives archaeologists the opportunity to understand these impacts, which are often invisible to the naked eye. Moreover, remote sensing is an emerging field in archaeology that uses high resolution satellites with thermal and infrared capabilities to pinpoint potential sites of interest in the earth around a meter or so in depth. During the first quarter of the second millennium BC and after collapse of Shahr-i-Sokhta, evidence of occupation in the region of Iranian Sistan disappeared until the Achaemenid period in the sixth century BC. During recent decades, archaeological field work, including surveys and excavations, have been conducted to find this gap. However, using remote sensing techniques popular in Europe and America, the present paper aims to propose a new survey method based on remote sensing and GIS techniques in the area in order to interpret the environmental characteristics of the area and to identify the gap between the collapse of Shahr-i-Sokhta and emergence of Dahan-e-Ghlaman.

It is argued that whenever the political situation provides a favourable environment, the archaeological activities have been encouraged to provoke nationalism, and historians in various capacities have used archaeological data and historical records to advocate nationalist agendas. Owing to its rich archaeological and historical past and its contemporary socio-cultural diversity, Iran is, particularly interesting for exploring the connection between archaeological activities and manipulations of historical records, especially by taking into account the re-establishment of Achaemenid history by late nineteen century and then the rise of Reza Khan to power in the early twentieth century. Those developments, however, left a deeper impact on Iranian Historiography which the case of Pirniya’s Ancient History will be discussed in this paper. In this paper the process of establishment of Achaemenid history is reviewed and then, it has been argued that how the archaeological activities and re- establishment of Achaemenid history raised the historical nationalism and led to new trend in historiography of Iran in twenty century. It has been concluded that Pirniya’s approach to ancient history of Iran can be called as beginning of scholarly and modern historiography in Iran.