Southwest Asia was the center for the development of the Earth’s first civilizations and advancements of knowledge. Towns, such as Ali Kosh, Iran(6600 to 6000 B.C.), became widespread on the plains of the Mesopotamian Highlands and the plains of Iran, more specifically the Deh Luran plain. The Deh Luran plain is in Southwestern Iran, an arid piece of land at the base of the Zargos Mountains, and the focus of research and discovery looking at assumptions about the advancements of agriculture, herding, and irrigation.
Rice University did some of the first Archeological works done on the Deh Luran plain in the 1960’s. These excavations were done in the village site of Tepe Ali Kosh in the early 1960’s, and the village site of Tepe Sabz. The Rice University excavation projects used the first systematic sieving techniques to uncover and retrieve all artifacts and animal bones, and water floatation to recover “carbonized” seeds. The Rice University excavation project defined many cultural phases to the Tepe Ali Kosh and early civilization wonders. The cultural phases that were discovered include: evidence of the beginning of plant cultivation, early goat and sheep herding, and the early use of irrigation.
Ali Kosh, Iran was inhabited in the Neolithic or Formative period, which is defined by the presence of sedentary villages and domesticated plants and animals. The archeologists who excavated the Ali Kosh village were trying to find out more about the economic life of the “pre-agricultural community” and the evolution of the “domesticated agricultural adaptation.” After the excavations of the Ali Kosh village came the discovery of a cultural phase called the Ali Kosh Phase. This phase helped answer some of the questions that archeologists were trying to find more about. What the Ali Kosh phase attests to early civilization is: greater reliance on crops, within an economic structure built around hunting and gathering; greater reliance on domesticated emmer and barley (40%of the seeds recovered in the excavation of Ali Kosh). The residents of the Ali Kosh village also possessed pottery from 6000 to 5500 BC. The residents of the Ali Kosh and the Deh Luran plain also traded with other villages in lower Mesopotamia.
Refrences:
“Archeological Research on the Deh Luran Planes.” www.umma.lsa.umich.edu/Oldworld/Deh_Luran/Deh_Luran.html April 10, 2001.
“Goat busters track domestication.”www.findarticles.com/m1200/15_157/62052381/p1/article.jhtml April 11, 2000.
Hole, Frank. “Prehistory and human ecology of the Deh Luran Plain.” Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 1969.
“Study Guide - Domestication and the Neolithic Period in the Old World.” http://www.ukans.edu/~hoopes/110-h3.htm April 15, 2001.
Written By: Adam Anderson