Marjan Mashkour

Archaeological research along the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf, has been intermittently conducted for several decades. However, frequent and prolonged interruptions have impeded the production of consistent and reliable results for both Prehistoric and Historical era. Despite the implementation of numerous archaeological surveys in Bushehr Province, the outcomes of these investigations have, regrettably, not been adequately published. In recent years, a series of archaeological projects have revealed that human communities inhabited the northern shores of the Persian Gulf as early as seven thousand years ago. These communities not only settled in the area but also exploited marine resources. Precise information regarding settlement patterns during the fifth millennium BCE remains limited. However, architectural evidence from the fourth millennium BCE ascertains the emergence of permanent settlements in this region. By the historical and Islamic periods, these areas had become fully and continuously inhabited. Toll-e Sohzu, a significant prehistoric site located in the Dashtestan District of Bushehr Province, offers valuable insights into these early communities. Based on stratigraphic excavations (Trench A) and radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) analyses, the site was occupied from the late fifth to the mid-fourth millennium BCE. The material culture suggests interactions with the interior regions of Fars and southwestern Iran, as well as evidence of sustained exploitation of marine resources. Two primary cultural phases have been identified at Toll-e Sohzu: the Bakun phase (Chalcolithic period) and the Lapui phase (Early Urbanization period), both of which contribute significantly to our understanding of the region’s prehistoric development.

Southwest and Central Asia were pivotal regions for the domestication and dispersal of domestic herbivores. Here we investigate long-term variation in bony labyrinth morphology of domestic bovids (sheep, goats and cattle) across the last 10 000 years. We focused on the osseous cavity of the inner ear, located within the petrous bone. We analysed semicircular canal (SC) size and shape using micro-computed tomography and geometric morphometrics (GMM) on 78 modern reference specimens and 234 archaeological petrous bones from 51 sites spanning the Iranian Plateau, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Indus Valley. Bony labyrinth morphometrics yielded a strong taxonomic signal, enabling species-level identification of 228 out of 234 specimens and revealing greater diversity than anticipated. Comparative analyses further documented contrasting, nonlinear diachronic trajectories in SC size and shape among sheep, goats and cattle, reflecting species-specific responses to domestication and long-term herd management. Together, these results demonstrate that bony labyrinth GMM provides a robust, non-destructive framework for taxonomic identification and evolutionary inference and underscore how long-term, interdisciplinary approaches can capture the complex, nonlinear dynamics of animal domestication across the longue durée.

While the western Fertile Crescent has long dominated narratives of Neolithization, the Iranian Plateau remained largely overlooked, despite growing evidence of independent domestication in the Zagros and distinctive diffusion patterns. This shift in perspective warrants closer examination of how postglacial climatic change reshaped regional biodiversity and, in turn, the subsistence and timber management strategies of early. We present new insights from the anthracological investigation of five Neolithic (Early Holocene) sites located in the Shahroud and Bastam plains, in the northeastern part of the Iranian plateau, covering the period of approximately 9,100 to 6,900 cal yr BP (7,150-4,950 ca yr BCE).The analysis identified 21 woody taxa from at least four distinct habitats: gallery forests, open scrub, open xeromorphic shrublands, and Hyrcanian montane forests. Whereas plant communities available in the vicinity of the sites seem to have been preferred, wood was also occasionally collected at a certain distance. The anthracological assemblage displays a wide range of plants belonging to an ecotone from the dry-adapted Irano-Turanian to temperate humid Hyrcanian trees, reminiscent of the present-day situation.Supported by archaeozoological data from the same sites, our results indicate that the increasing moisture at the onset of the Holocene appears to have facilitated the development of the open woodlands and shrublands available for human exploitation. This research provides new insights into timber management and contributes to current knowledge on the daily life of the first sedentary agro-pastoral communities in the interior Western Asia.

Fourteen Late Chalcolithic obsidian artifacts from Tepe Gerdashawan, southwest of Lake Urmia, were sourced to Nemrut Dağ and Meydan Dağ near Lake Van in eastern Türkiye. pXRF analysis confirms that these sources, also represented at contemporary sites in northwest Iran and northern Mesopotamia, reflect integrated exchange networks across the region. The predominance of eastern Anatolian sources in the west and south of Lake Urmia, contrasted with Syunik dominance in the north and east, suggests differentiated supply spheres and two principal routes: a western corridor along Lake Urmia and a trans‐Zagros connection via northern Mesopotamia.

Archaeological evidence suggests that dogs diverged from wolves during the Palaeolithic, more than 15,000 years ago ^1–7 . The earliest unequivocal genetic evidence, however, is associated with dog remains from Mesolithic archaeological contexts approximately 10,900 years ago ^8,9 . Here we generate both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from canid remains at Pınarbaşı in Türkiye (15,800 years ago) ¹⁰ and Gough’s Cave in the UK (14,300 years ago) ¹¹ , as well as from dogs excavated from two Mesolithic sites in Serbia (Padina between 11,500–7,900 years ago and Vlasac 8,900 years ago) ^12,13 . Our analyses indicate that a genetically homogeneous dog population was already widely distributed across Europe and Anatolia during the Late Upper Palaeolithic (by at least 14,300 years ago). This finding suggests that dogs were exchanged among genetically and culturally distinct western Eurasian Late Palaeolithic human populations, namely the Magdalenian, Epigravettian and Anatolian hunter-gatherers ^10,14–16 . Last, we identify a major influx of eastern Eurasian dog ancestry during the Mesolithic, concomitant with the movement of eastern hunter-gatherer populations into Europe ¹⁴ , which led to the establishment of the primary ancestry characteristics that define European dog populations today.

Animal domestication and development of pastoralism in southwest Asia revolutionized human subsistence strategies. Various centres of ruminant domestication and diffusion routes of agropastoralism have been identified. The area between the northern and central Zagros Mountains on the Iranian Plateau is a cradle for goat domestication and eastward spread of agropastoralism. However, the early exploitation of ruminant milk by pastoral communities in the Zagros remains insufficiently studied. Here we show residues of caprine dairy products that were detected from the analysis of lipid residues in pottery vessels and protein residues in human dental calculus. These results, combined with the faunal spectra and radiocarbon analyses directly on the dairy residues, show that sheep and goat dairy products were widely exploited in the Zagros from the seventh millennium BC. This pattern parallels the contemporaneous exploitation of cattle milk in Anatolia. Neolithic communities in both regions reveal similarly complex dynamics of early ruminant milk use, marking the emergence of independent yet synchronous trajectories in the diffusion of agropastoral lifeways.

Stratégies d'exploitation des bois de cerf (Cervus elaphus Linnaeus, 1758) et compétences techniques des communautés du Néolithique et du début du Chalcolithique du Plateau iranien. Sur le Plateau iranien, le bois de cervidé a été une matière première utilisée par les sociétés préhistoriques au Paléolithique moyen. À la suite d'une période d'exploitation plus intense au cours du paléolithique supérieur, elle décline au cours du Néolithique, coïncidant avec l'émergence des pratiques domestiques et la disponibilité accrue des matières osseuses issues d'animaux domestiqués. Néanmoins, les bois de cervidés sont restés un élément important de la culture matérielle, fournissant des informations clés sur l'évolution des relations entre les premières communautés agropastorales, la faune sauvage et leur environnement au cours de la période néolithique. Or la production de bois de cervidés reste insuffisamment étudiée, tant du point de vue morpho-typologique que techno-fonctionnel sur le Plateau iranien, région d'importance stratégique pour comprendre les processus qui ont sous-tendu l'émergence et la diffusion de la domestication. Dans le cadre du projet EXAMS, nous avons entrepris le premier inventaire complet des outils en bois de cerf associés aux communautés néolithiques/chalcolithiques de transition en Iran. Cet article présente les résultats préliminaires de cette recherche, ainsi que les premières données issues de l'analyse techno-fonctionnelle des assemblages récupérés sur trois sites néolithiques clés: Tepe Abdul Hosein, Tepe Sang-e Chakhmaq et Tepe Zagheh.

Cet article analyse les stratégies pastorales du site néolithique de Kültepe I, situé sur l’une des voies d’accès au Caucase, au moment de l’arrivée des populations agro-pastorales et au cours de leur développement. Nous caractérisons les stratégies pastorales à travers les méthodes de l’archéozoologie classique et de la biogéochimie isotopique. Une partie importante de nos données proviennent d’analyses de ratios isotopiques (δ18O, δ13C et 87Sr/86Sr) issus de prélèvements séquentiels d’émail dentaire de caprinés. Ces analyses portent sur les âges d’abattage, la saisonnalité des naissances (δ18O), les variations intra-annuelles dans l’alimentation (δ13C) et la mobilité intra-annuelle entre des zones géologiquement distinctes (87Sr/86Sr). Elles suggèrent que les troupeaux de Kültepe I fréquentaient des pâturages sur divers substrats géologiques et avec des compositions végétales variées. Des animaux ayant fréquenté des pâturages distincts, probablement non-locaux, ont également été consommés sur le site, ce qui suggère que les habitants de Kültepe I avaient également des contacts avec d’autres éleveurs, provenant certainement de régions voisines. Nos données renforcent les hypothèses d’une origine multiple de la néolithisation du Caucase et de la construction d’identités régionales.

Le site de Tepe Sialk, situé dans la plaine de Kashan (Iran) et dont les premières fouilles ont eu lieu dans les années 1930, présente une occupation allant du Néolithique récent (6000 BC) à l’âge du Fer final (500 BC). Dans cet article, nous avons utilisé de nouvelles méthodes d’analyse biomoléculaires sur des résidus lipidiques préservés dans les céramiques archéologiques et sur des protéines préservées dans le tartre dentaire humain afin de documenter les stratégies de subsistance et la fonction des céramiques funéraires sur ce site. La majorité des céramiques contiennent des lipides provenant principalement des graisses de carcasses de ruminants et de non-ruminants. Alors que des résidus laitiers n’ont été trouvés que dans une seule céramique à long bec datant de l’âge du Fer, les protéines laitières (α-caséine et β-lactoglobuline) détectées dans le tartre dentaire humain attestent de l’exploitation du lait de ruminants dès le IVe et le IIIe millénaires av. J.-C. Ces résultats montrent que des produits secondaires des ruminants étaient exploités dans la région à partir du Chalcolithique. Ces méthodes biomoléculaires de pointe nous ont permis de commencer à élucider le régime alimentaire et la fonction des récipients funéraires sur l’un des sites les plus célèbres de la protohistoire iranienne.