The abundance of natural resources and regular social and economic interaction with settled farming communities have contributed to the sociopolitical structure of these two tribal confederations. Compared to other pastoral nomadic tribes in Iran such as the Komachi of Kerman (Bradburd 1994), or the Yamut Turkmen of northeastern Iran (Irons 1971, 1994), the Qashqai and the Bakhtiyari had developed a relatively complex social and political system that at times was only one level below the state, one may even say a state within a state (Barth 1961: 128-29; Beck 1986: 35, 52; Garthwaite 1983; Oberling 1974: 195). The military prowess of the two tribal confederations was clearly demonstrated when, in the 1920s and 1930s during the reign of Reza shah, government troops with airplanes, artillery, and machine guns could not easily overwhelm and subdue these zagros nomadic tribes, who were armed with only some World War 1 rifles, sling shots, and rocks. The built-in military superiority of the zagros pastoralist tribes should be considered as another factor in their sociopolitical development. studies suggest that the military advantage of nomadic groups alone can lead to extortion that in turn may lead to warrior-client interaction and subsequently to stratification and increased social complexity (Saenz 1991). Because of the economic and demographic power of these confederacies and of those that preceded them, their strategic locations, and their relatively complex political hierarchy, they were feared by the state. This, of course, does not mean that various states in 1ran were unable to control nomads and to extend state administration to include the nomadic regions. While highly centralized nation-states with modern technology would not tolerate autonomous areas in their territories, prior to the rise of the nation-states in the Middle East the cost of maintaining troops and administrative offices in tribal nomadic regions far exceeded its benefit (see Irons 1979: 372).
1n agricultural regions pastoralists were, of course, numerically inferior to the settled farming communities; but even in the absence of horses, camels, and firearms this numerical inferiority does not necessarily translate into a military one in southwestern and south-central 1ran. 1n the absence of state organizations, or in situations where organized military response cannot be immediate, fleet-footed mobile tribesmen can bring a settled regional population to submission by sheer harassment. 1t is easy to imagine the vulnerability of farmers during or immediately after the harvest; a small band of nomads could easily set fire to the harvest and disappear without a trace into the nearby mountains; similarly, flocks of sheep and goats sent by farmers to the nearby hills could easily be stolen. This type of hostility need not be routine; the threat of violence and the possibility of losing livelihood would create a strong strategic advantage for the nomads. Such intimidating strategy could be successful even within a decentralized state society.
The environmental features in southwestern and south-central 1ran also create a context in which pastoral nomads can easily switch from mobile pastoralism to settled farming and vice versa. Barth (1961: 16-17) has shown how relatively easy it is for a pastoral nomad of Ears to become sedentary, and that this sedentarization does not necessarily develop into sed-entism. The reverse, however, is difficult, if not practically impossible. Settled farmers with no tribal nomadic membership cannot simply become nomads, as some archaeologists like to think when a region seems to be suddenly depopulated. Most traditional village farmers in the Middle East own a few sheep and goats and perhaps a cow or two. 1n addition to the major problem of lacking the right to use pasture lands that belong to nomadic tribes, pastoral nomadism as a viable subsistence economy requires some sixty to one hundred animals, which is clearly beyond the reach of most settled farmers.
Farming by the rank-and-file Zagros nomads provided insurance against environmental calamities, but for the nomadic chiefs it had political advantage. The most important impediment to political and economic aspirations of nomadic chiefs lies in the special mode of nomadic production, over which the khans had little control or room for variation and expansion. This limitation would make it difficult for the khans to exercise tight political and economic control over their fluid subjects. 1t is therefore imperative, perhaps also visceral, for the nomadic khans to expand the nomadic production and demography bases to include farming
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And settled farmers. Once the khans have solved this problem through the acquisition of land and the integration of farming into pastoral economy as a much more secure and manageable source of surplus, they would then be in a position to use coercion that is necessary for the development and maintenance of state organizations.
Because this imperative is born out of the pastoral mode of subsistence and facilitated by a resource-rich environment, there is good reason to maintain that this same problem also existed for the early zagros nomadic chiefs, as the nature of nomadic production with its limitations remains the same, regardless of sociopolitical changes and ethnic replacements that occurred in the region.
Prehistoric mobile pastoralism
With this short overview of some fundamental features of the two contemporary zagros pastoral confederations, we may now turn our attention to a brief account of the archaeology and history of Mesopotamia and Iran before we address its implications. ubaid 0 is the earliest phase of prehistoric settlement of southern Mesopotamia (table 8.1). From the beginning of this phase in the early sixth millennium until the end of the Ubaid 2-3 phases, Susiana and southern Mesopotamia shared a similar repertoire of material culture. By the beginning of the fifth millennium, the Ubaid and Middle Susiana cultures diverged and expanded beyond their old boundaries. Middle Susiana expanded into the central Zagros and Fars, and Ubaid into northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and southeastern Anatolia.
This trend continued until the end of the fourth millennium when a number of regional rival centers developed and vied for regional supremacy. The Akkadian dynasty unified the region, but was overthrown by the highlanders. After another period of political fragmentation, the Ur III dynasty once again unified the region only to be overthrown again by the highlanders. The same fate befell the Old Babylonian, the Kassite, the Neo-Assyrian, and the Neo-Babylonian dynasties. This basic trend of unification and fragmentation continued until the sixth century B. C. when Mesopotamia became part of the Achaemenid empire, with its homeland in highland Fars.
The events in lowland Susiana and the Zagros Mountains were vastly different. Lowland Susiana, in the province of Khuzestan, is often referred to as an extension of the Mesopotamian plain (figs. 8.1-2). This is, of course, true geologically and to some extent environmentally; both regions consist of flat alluvial fertile land with major rivers. Nevertheless, there are some major differences between the two regions that may have contributed to their specific long-term trajectories of cultural development. Lowland Susiana is much smaller in area and much closer to the mountains than southern Mesopotamia; the entire width of the plain can be crossed on foot in less than a day. The center of the plain used to be crisscrossed by many small natural streams that could be easily tapped for small-scale irrigation. In the upper Susiana plain, the pebbly soil is fed by underground springs and a high water table from the seepage of the Karkheh and the Dez, which made the area ideal for both pasture and low-risk dry farming (Adams 1962).
In the eastern sector of the plain, before the area was cut by numerous wadis that today mark the landscape, seasonal floodwaters were distributed widely across the area, making the practice of recessional farming possible. This area used to be the heart of the winter territories of some Bakhtiyari tribes, and compared with the lands on the west bank of the Karun, both ancient and modern-day settlements here are rare (Alizadeh et al. 2004). Lowland Susiana is also surrounded from the north, east, and southeast by a number of intermontane valleys with fertile soil and excellent winter pastures (figs. 8.1-2).
With this short introduction, we can now turn to the archaeology of the region. After its initial settlement in the seventh millennium B. C., the site of chogha Mish grew to about 15 ha and became the largest site in the region in the Late middle susiana period (ubaid 3) around 5200 B. C. (alizadeh 2008b; Delougaz and Kantor 1996). By the end of the sixth millennium B. C., presumably because of a violent event that resulted in the destruction of its monumental building, chogha mish and a number of its satellites were abandoned for several generations. The first phase of chogha mish abandonment seems to have been a turning point in the region. after chogha mish was abandoned, susa, on the opposite side of the plain, was settled and became the largest population center in susiana, replacing chogha mish. During this phase (Late susiana 2/susa 1) there was a drop in the number of settlements, and susa’s contemporary settlements consisted of small villages scattered on the plain. The number of sites began to decrease steadily until the end of the fifth millennium B. C., when susiana reached its lowest level of prehistoric population (table 8.1).
The demise of chogha mish in the early fifth millennium B. C. may have been the result of the initial conflict of interest between the pastoralist and farming communities of the region, as there was no contemporary nearby population center in the area that could have posed a serious danger to chogha mish. I mentioned before that eastern Khuzestan, where chogha mish is located, has been used by a large number of the Bakhtiyari tribes as their winter grounds. If this pattern, which is dictated by the region’s geographical and geological features, obtained in late prehistoric times, then the unprecedented population growth in this region around the turn of the sixth millennium B. C. may have created increasing demands for more land to be brought under cultivation,2 which in turn would have reduced vital resources such as pasture and fuel (wood/trees) and would hinder the movement of herds.39 Or, chogha mish was abandoned because of major unresolved issues between the farming and pastoralist sectors of the society. Both these scenarios demand archaeological evidence for the existence of prehistoric nomads.
The abandonment of chogha mish around 5000 B. C. roughly corresponds with the appearance of the ancient nomadic cemeteries of Hakalan and Parchineh and with the diffusion of the specific early fifth-millennium B. C. black-on-buff pottery of southwestern Iran into highland Fars, the central Zagros region, and surprisingly enough into the central plateau. Because I am interpreting these events as connected with the region’s prehistoric pastoral nomads, we should now consider this evidence.
A series of surface surveys and limited excavations were conducted by Henry T. Wright (Wright 1984, 1979; Wright and carter 2003; Wright and Redding 1979) in some Zagros intermontane plains as well as in the small marginal plains surrounding susiana (Zagarell 1982). These highland valleys have always been part of the territories of the historically known pastoral nomads of the region and usually contained a modest mudbrick fortification with a few small villages scattered throughout (Zagarell 1982). Wright and his colleagues discovered a similar settlement pattern that may be classified as exhibiting a two-tiered settlement hierarchy.
2 There is no evidence of irrigation canals in prehistoric susiana. This implies dry farming which requires much more land under cultivation than in canal irrigation agriculture.
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While the archaeological evidence from these surveys and limited excavations may be ambiguous, vanden-Berghe’s discoveries of a large number of isolated highland cemeteries are less controversial (fig. 8.3). Apart from numerous cemeteries dating from the fourth to the first millennia B. C. (Vanden-Berghe 1970, 1973a-c), in the early 1970s Vanden-Berghe discovered two fifth-millennium B. C. cemeteries of Hakalan and Parchineh in northern Deh Luran (Vanden-Berghe 1975, 1987; see also Haerinck and Overlaet 1996 for the final report).
In both cemeteries, pottery vessels were the most abundant objects. The pottery found in these tombs exhibit several regional styles with parallels in Mesopotamia, the central Zagros, highland Fars, and lowland Susiana. Other objects consisted of stone and copper mace-heads, stone vessels and tools, stone and shell beads, and seventeen stamp seals. The obvious continuum of the material richness of the tombs at both cemeteries is an indication of at least a level of socioeconomic differentiation, perhaps a ranked society. At this level of social evolution, the society that is represented in these cemeteries does not seem to have been much different from that of the contemporary lowlands.
The archaeological discoveries just mentioned are not the only lines of archaeological evidence we have to bear on the existence of prehistoric mobile pastoralists in highland Iran. In 2001, we selected a fifth-millennium B. C. site in the eastern part of Susiana for excavation (Alizadeh 2008a; Alizadeh et al. 2004). Known locally as Dar Khazineh (KS-1626) the site seemed to be a settlement of the fifth millennium with Late Susiana 1 and 2 ceramics. In this part of the Susiana plain, both prehistoric and historical sites are buried under some two meters of alluvial deposits (Alizadeh 2008a; Alizadeh et al. 2004). As a result, sites in this area are only visible in the exposed sections of the wadis that have sliced the plain. At the site of Dar Khazineh, we could see from the exposed sections that under some two meters of alluvial deposits the cultural layers continued down to the bed of the wadi. When we eventually cleared the sections, we realized that the depth of the mound ranged only from 30 cm to about 180 cm and that in some parts of the mound there was no cultural deposit at all. Excavations in our main trench revealed a peculiar depositional pattern not reported before from any other sites on the plain. Clayish and sandy sediments ranging from 5 to 10 cm thick were sandwiched between thin lenses of cultural deposits. We found no solid architecture except fragments of badly preserved pise partition walls whose faces were usually burnt, similar to some contemporary fireplaces of the Bakhtiyari; we also found postholes, traces of ash, and fire pits. Excavations at other parts of the site revealed a single burial with grinding stone implements and a copper pin as well as a stone pavement similar to that from the nomadic site of Kalleh Nisar and to those that the nomads usually use in and around their tents to keep supplies and bedding dry (Vanden-Berghe 1970, 1973a; see also Hole 1978: 151 for the ethnographic evidence). The most revealing evidence of the ephemeral nature of the site was the fact that the surfaces on which such remains were found consisted of alluvial deposits. Thus, when, in the main area of excavation, we factored out the alluvial levels from the cultural lenses, we were left with just over 30 cm of deposit for perhaps the entire duration of the fifth millennium B. C. We believe that this type of stratigraphy can happen when a site lacks solid architecture and is repeatedly occupied (in winter) and left exposed to the elements for several months (in mid-spring and summer).
Earlier 1 mentioned that the ceramics of the Late Susiana 1 phase penetrated into highland Fars and the central Zagros area. This easily distinguished black-on-buff pottery was also found as far as the Central plateau (fig. 8.1). Here, side by side with the black-on-red Cheshmeh Ali pottery, genuine Late Susiana 1 black-on-buff ceramics were found on at least six mounds (Kaboli 2000). 1f the appearance of the typical southwestern ceramics in the
Central plateau had anything to do with trade in copper ore and semi-precious stones (lapis and turquoise), zagros mobile pastoralists would have been in the best position to take advantage of it. Taken together, I propose the lines of evidence just described as strong archaeological clues for the existence of prehistoric nomadic groups in both the highlands and lowlands.
Having discussed the evidence of the ancient mobile pastoralists in prehistoric times, I now return to lowland susiana. After the abandonment of chogha Mish, susa and its much smaller satellites enjoyed relative peace and prosperity until the end of the fifth millennium B. C., when susa shrank to about 5 ha and the millennia-old tradition of painted pottery disappeared. By the middle of the fourth millennium, Susa grew again to about 20-25 ha and Chogha Mish was reoccupied with an area of about 17 ha; once again southern Mesopotamia and susiana shared not merely a similar but an almost identical repertoire of material culture. By the end of the fourth millennium B. C., Susa again shrank to about 10 ha and Chogha Mish and most of its satellites were once again abandoned (for site size estimations, see Johnson 1973). The outcome of the fourth-millennium events in Susiana was drastically different from that in southern Mesopotamia, where major population centers developed into local polities and consolidated their hinterlands, while Susiana became almost completely depopulated.
The following period is known as Susa 3 or the Proto-Elamite period (Alden 1982, 1987; Miroschedji 2003). Despite the almost empty landscape, Susiana appears to be the center of a truly international exchange network system that included Ears, Kerman, Sistan, and the western Central plateau (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Tosi 1989). The pottery of this period later developed strong similarities with those from the central Zagros area, Deh Luran (Neely and Wright 1994), and the Hamrin and Diyala regions (see Haerinck 1986; Carter 1986), all primary nomadic regions in historical periods.
The evidence of an unprecedented network of exchange that was recorded in the Proto-Elamite script with its center at Susa is in sharp contrast to the settlement pattern in the lowlands and highland Ears. John Alden (1982, 1987) once suggested that during the Proto-Elamite period, Susa was a port of trade with Mesopotamia and the highlands. While this may well be the case, the forces of the production and the administrative hierarchy presiding over it remains to be addressed. Given the long-term cultural development in southwestern Iran as outlined here, a pastorally based polity could be the most likely force capable of producing sheep, goats and their products, and man-power, as well as conducting or controlling interregional trade. But we still have to account for the bulk of grains as listed in the tablets (Dahl 2005). As mentioned before, it is perfectly possible for the Zagros mobile pastoralists to engage in cereal farming without being attached to fixed settlements. It is, therefore, logical to assume that the large quantities of grains recorded in the Proto-Elamite tablets from Susa were produced by the zagros agro-pastoralists.
The Proto-Elamite period coincides with the rise of Early Dynastic states in Mesopotamia. These, and later the Akkadian and Ur III states, intermittently controlled lowland Susiana, while the nascent Elamite polities were consolidating in the highlands. The highlanders eventually overthrew the Akkadian and ur III empires, but it was not until the fourteenth century B. C. that a truly national Elamite state emerged that effectively united both the lowlands and highlands. Eor the first time, the Elamites used their own language and script, invested heavily in large-scale irrigation projects, and erected monumental buildings throughout their territories. Nevertheless, the known Elamite texts are highly laconic and rarely contain details and historical information. Eurthermore, in the Elamite world there is no evidence of poetry, hymns, mythology, legends, chronicles, or law codes, to name a few urban cultural productions. The absence of these important urban activities in Elamite centers does not, of course,
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Mean their absence from the Elamite society, in which oral tradition must have prevailed, just as in any non-urban, particularly pastoral society.
In summary, I argue that the lowlands and highlands are to be understood not separately and in isolation, but as parts of an interacting adaptive system that successfully combined both regions’ resources. I also hypothesize that the political hierarchy of that system was drawn from the highlands.
Mesopotamian sources make it clear that from at least the beginning of historical periods, it was the various highland, not lowland, polities who had both hostile and non-hostile contact with Mesopotamian states. Nevertheless, the only model for primary state formation in southwestern Iran has lowland Susiana as the locus of this development (Johnson 1973; Wright and Johnson 1975). Yet, the long-term pattern of cultural and political development in western Iran, and the fact that the landscape of Mesopotamian contact with the east was populated with highland polities, means that there is no overwhelming theoretical reason the problem of state formation in western Iran should not be investigated in the highlands.
Starting in the third millennium B. C., Susiana as a region became the bone of contention between the highlands and southern Mesopotamian states. Susiana was important for the Zagros nomads, both as the ideal pasture grounds and as the largest and most fertile contiguous region in Iran. Control of Susiana with its human and natural resources was necessary for the highland polities to expand their military and political control in the region and beyond. Once the unification of the Zagros highlands and Susiana lowlands was achieved, the relentless struggle for the control of lowland Mesopotamia began in earnest. This struggle lasted until 538 B. C. when lowland Mesopotamia and highland Iran were finally integrated under the Persian Achaemenids.
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Figure 8.3. Satellite image of Lowland Susiana
World History
