Mobility structures are already visible in the polydirectional spread of different groups at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, for example at Ghar-e Boof in the Zagros (Ghasidian 2014; Heydari-Guran 2015).

Hypotheses of migration are connected to a debate on Neolithisation in certain regions of southwestern Iran (e.g. Zeidi et al. 2012). Early indications of a spread of a Neolithic way of life are found along the Zagros Mountains, whereas on the central plateau, such societies only appear later.

Evidence for extensive mobility has been identified as of considerable significance for 4th mill. BCE sites on the central plateau. Unlike the situation in major lowland plains such as Mesopotamia, evidence of complex social, political, and economic configurations in highland Iran are at least partially coupled with reduced settlement and population densities. These observations raise a series of as of yet unanswered questions regarding the forms and roles of mobility in connection with emerging states.

Beginning in the early 3rd mill. BCE, we see a clear change in northern and western Iran as well as the central plateau, caused by intrusions from the northwest that are Trans-Caucasian in character. These groups took possession of settled landscapes (e.g. Kangavar valley, Qazvin plain), but also inserted themselves into pre-existing Late Chalcolithic economic systems. However, this “Kura-Araxes expansion” also brought about new forms of transhumance and extensive herd keeping (Summers 2014). The precise balance between integration and takeover as well as the social and economic mechanisms by which these took place are in need of more detailed investigation.

The narrative of the “Indo-Iranian migration” from Central Asia into the Iranian Highlands was once a central theme of the population history of Iran. Today, it belongs to a set of outdated mobility discourses that tied pottery – here a grey ware – to linguistic groups (Young 1967; but see Kramer 1977). Current research suggests that the origin of “grey wares” may date back to the 3rd mill. BCE but the extent of regional differentiation is still debated (Piller 2005; Malek Shamirzadi 2011).

At present, ideas concerning the origins and importance of pastoral nomadism are promoted by Abbas Alizadeh (2006, 2010) who posits an exceptional development of Iranian highland societies towards state organization based on tribal nomadic structures. His proposals have been rejected by Daniel Potts (2014) on the grounds that they lack supporting evidence. New methods as well as conceptual developments in archaeology and archaeometry now enable us to empirically test the hypotheses, using isotope analysis of faunal and human remains and micro-archaeological examinations of artifact distributions and disposal.

[1] Stefan Burmeister: Migration Studies in Archaeology – a Methodological and Theoretical Challenge: Human Movement and Mobility in HighLandScape Environments, Online April 27-29, 2022; Preliminary papers.              

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One main interest concerns the extent to which current standard narratives of increasing differentiation (“specialisation”) of institutions and their consolidation correspond to a (pre-) historic reality anchored in the societies of the highlands. Archaeological approaches too often remain simplistic in their assumptions of uniform neolithization, urbanisation or state-formation processes. A dearth of Neolithic material symbolism makes a significant difference with respect to Anatolia and the Levant (Matthews/Fazeli Nashli 2013; Matthews et al. 2013; Pollock/Bernbeck 2010). This might be due to specific, village-internal social and political configurations.

An examination of the variable structures and formation processes of early highland states is necessary as part of an evaluation of the range and variability of state formation processes in the Iranian Highlands. For example, Aidan Southall (1988) has argued that religious and political institutions should be analysed for potential differences in their geographic reaches. “Segmentary states” may be characterised by special resilience against external military attacks (Bernbeck 2003/04). Other polities, especially the Sasanian Empire, show a strong interconnectedness of political and religious institutions (e. g. Daryaee 2009);[1] many facets of their geographic, economic and administrative relations still elude us.

Other problems in the field of institutional history concern a traditional over-focus on contents of institutions to the detriment of formalities. David Kertzer’s (1988) analysis of political rituals can be creatively integrated into historic comparative studies, with less attention paid to specific meanings of rituals and more to their formal character as a sequence of actions. Clifford Geertz’s (1981) model of a “theatre state” may be applicable to aspects of governmental practice in great empires such as the Achaemenids (see Briant 2002). Other anthropological concepts can be beneficial to bring linguistic and archeological interdisciplinary research in dialogue, dealing with questions about a reversible dynamic of symbolic and social order in daily life practices (e.g., Babcock et al 1978).[2]

In previous research on Iranian highland societies, examinations of the interaction between public institutions and subsistence practices have remained largely undeveloped, even though this aspect of political economy is an imperative element of every permanent state form. Much is known about the distribution and consumption at the Middle Elamite, Achaemenid or Sassanian courts, partly also about the origin of the goods distributed (Henkelman 2010). But we have nearly no knowledge about local village-level civil organization (settlement, economy, daily life) of the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. To improve this situation, micro-regions need to be examined systematically, as has been undertaken in a few areas (e.g., Darre-ye Bolaghi; Mamasani: Potts et al. 2009; Tappeh Rivi: Thomalsky et al. 2016). A unique project focuses on the rural Achaemenid early Islamic economies in the Talkherud basin (Mahneshan) in the surroundings of the mineral salt mine of Douzlakh/Chehrābād (Āali, Stöllner 2015).

[1] Daryaee, Touraj. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, London 2009.

[2] Babcock, Barbara A. et al (ed.). The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society (Symbol, Myth, and Ritual), Ithaca 1978.

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The beginnings of a specific regime of raw material acquisition can be traced back to the Upper Palaeolithic foraging groups whose lithic inventories display an astonishing diversity (Biglari, Shidrang 2013; Ghasidian 2014). One may question whether this is associated with the diversity of appropriation strategies of the highland inhabitants, or whether it is a natural consequence of new technologies brought into the region.

The special role of highland societies in the early use of metallic raw materials is evident. Since the end of the 5th millennium BCE, significant metallurgic centers with their own metallurgic knowledge and procedures developed in the region itself (Pigott 1999; Helwing 2013). Exchange relations with Mesopotamia, later with the Indus valley and the Oxus civilization (BMAC), may have played important roles in this early metallurgy in Iran. However, it is still not clear how technical knowledge was obtained and passed on, and how raw material regimes, often based on semi-mobile groups, could develop in a stable manner.

One of the main questions concerns the sharp drop in settlement numbers in the Iranian Highlands since the middle of the third millennium and the early second millennium BCE. Some chronological and typological studies (e.g. Piller 2005) show that habitation gaps are not as abrupt and widespread as initially supposed. In addition, the traditional explanation of an increase of pastoral nomadism remains an unproved hypothesis. Therefore, it is important to understand raw material regimes as a contribution to explain this sharp drop.

In the early 1st mill. BCE, raw material supply networks seem to be organized more stably and permanently, but the detail of how traditional mechanisms and new “state control” formed remains unclear. Important insights including routes and stock–keeping are expected to emerge from research into the rich corpus of the Achaemenid “Persepolis Fortification archive” (Azzoni et al. 2017; Henkelman 2017). In the same period, we see sustainable large-scale exploitation and distribution of raw materials, such as sodium chloride (salt). Are they a symptom of new forms of resource procurement that endured until the early/middle Islamic period?

The exploitation of ubiquitous resources such as ground water left extended monuments everywhere on the high plateau. Water, but also wind, were managed by technically sophisticated installations. Among them are Sasanian-period qanats that resulted in dense settlement of hitherto undeveloped regions (Goblot 1979; Weisgerber 2004). Understanding the introduction of such technologies with respect to their influence on landscape-based agricultural regimes is one of the pending questions. 

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Our Iranian Highlands research group is equally aware of the theoretical burden of resilience in a cultural studies perspective. In our international, i.e., intercultural and interdisciplinary research group constellation as a priority programme, we are deliberately on the lookout for possible solutions to relieve this burden at the theoretical level. Therefore, in our understanding of Iranian Highlands resilience theory, we consciously accept the risk of an in-between theoretical position close to the boundary concepts (e.g., boundary objects; connected/entangled histories). With our specific Iranian Highlands boundary concept of resilience, we are at the same time linking to broad theoretical debates, e.g., in the sense of principle openness and incommensurability of the fields of interaction and operations between agency and system, or system-environment relation in network theory, system theory and of course also theoretical directions of risk and resilience such as in ecology, economics, archaeology etc.

With our specific Iranian Highlands resilience concept, we thus represent an in-between theoretical position “as an approach to lifeways” (Bernbeck/ Pollock/ Eberhardt 2022). What does it mean to speak of “life ways” using the key concept of “Resilience” and at the same time regarding to the Iranian/Persian pre-modern history? Debating on Resilience as theory framework from which horizon of history, from which understanding of modernity and premodernity?

In order to clarify and justify this point of view of the “in-betweenness”, in relation to the theoretical burden of resilience, we would like to roughly address three crucial scientific levels:

• Firstly, from the disciplinary point of view in the sense of looking back at the origin, and positioning archaeology between science and history (Snow 1959; Martinón-Torres/Killick 2013);[1]
• Secondly, in referring to the current inter- and transdisciplinary epistemological and historiographical debates on methodsdistinguishing between history and memory, between “being-affected by an event” and “writing of history” (Ricoeur, 2004, p. 66 f.);[2] or linking to a conception of “interculturality” as phenomenology (Waldenfels1990; 2006); or following a critical anthropological point of view regarding questions of “othering” by going beyond eurocentrism: “How can one be a Persian?” (Latour, 1993 p. 104); [3]
• Thirdly, in doing so (1, 2), finally we address the general question of knowledge in humanity research in relation to the gap between theoretical and empirical research, or metaphysical and sensual levels (e. g. Kripke 1980; Davidson 2005), or with another terminology between agency and patiency (Köpping et al 2009). [4]

To achieve the goals outlined above, we are proceeding on two tracks in the coordination programme: first in individual projects (PIs), and second in the CoPro in its responsibility as an umbrella structure. Our aim is to construct a viable theoretical basis for an analytical descriptive category with normative action orientation under the leading role of the archaeological discipline.

[1] Snow, Charles Percy, The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, London 1959. Martinón-Torres, Marcos, / Killick, David, ‘Archaeological Theories and Archaeological Sciences’, in Andrew Gardner, Mark Lake, and Ulrike Sommer (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Theory (online edn, Oxford Academic, 16 Dec. 2013: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199567942.013.004).

[2] Ricoeur, Paul, Memory, History, Forgetting, London 2004.

[3] Latour, Bruno, We have never been modern, New York 1993. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, The climate of history in a planetary age, Chicago 2021.

[4] Kripke, Saul, Naming and Necessity, Cambridge 1980. Davidson, Donald, Truth, language, and history, New York 2005. Handlung und Leidenschaft: jenseits von actio und passio, Klaus-Peter Köpping; Burkhard Schnepel; Christoph Wulf (ed.), Berlin 2009.

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