خلاصة:
Throughout prehistory, the cultures of Iran and Western Asia differed in important respects. Many of these differences can be attributed to the different geographic and environmental conditions in the two regions. Western Iran is largely a heavily divided mountainous region with difficult access whereas Mesopotamia is relatively flat and open to travel and trade. The early Holocene environment of the Mesopotamian plain was very dynamic and unstable, whereas the major changes in the Zagros involved the spread of cereal grasses and trees. These different environments affected the kinds of cultures and settlements that could occur. Other differences stem from the broader regions of interaction in which each area was involved. Interactions within Mesopotamia occurred between the north and south, while the Zagros was part of a northern and eastern sphere of interaction. These differences are reflected in the general absence of interaction between the Iran and Western Asia during the long period of prehistory.
ملخص الجهاز:
"In this short paper I shall compare the cultural succession in western Iran - the region that is identified today with southern Kurdistan, Luristan and Khuzistan - with that of southern Mesopotamia from the time of the earliest settlements to the early third millennium B.
2) A g r i c u l t u r e b e g a n i n t h e e a s t e r n Mediterranean/Southern Anatolia, whereas domestication of goats, sheep and pigs may have originated in the mountains and piedmont of the Zagros-Taurus ranges (Bar-Yosef and Meadow 1995; Cappers and Bottema 2002; Harris 2002; Hole 1996; McCorriston and Hole 1991; Nesbitt 2004; Renfrew 2006; Naderi, Rezaei et al.
Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic The first substantial occupations in central Mesopotamia occur at the site of Tell es-Sawwan where a village on the banks of the Tigris revealed a number of large, multi-room houses and pottery decorated with dark matt paint on a buff / Fig. 2: Selected Neolithic sites in Western Iran and Mesopotamia (After: Voigt 1983: Figure 2).
That transhumance may have had even older roots is suggested by the site of Tula'i in Khuzistan (Hole 1974) and traces of early ceramics in rock shelters and caves in the mountain valleys (Mortensen 1972), as well as by the necessity to move herds seasonally to fresh pastures (Abdi 2002; Abdi 2003; Mashkour and Abdi 2002).
At the end of the fifth millennium there was a drastic decline in settlement in the Zagros and in Khuzistan, with many sites and even some valleys abandoned (Abdi 2003; Hole 1994; Johnson 1987; Wright 1987)."