Journal of Archaeological Studies

An Interim Report of the New Excavations at the Neolithic Site of Chogha Golan, Ilam Province, Western Iran

Hojjat Darabi; Saeid Bahramiyan; Hamzeh Ghobadizadeh; Jamal Sheikhi; Mehdi Eskandari

Volume 16, Issue 2 , September 2024, , Pages 51-67

https://doi.org/10.22059/jarcs.2025.381313.143288

Abstract

Chogha Golan has previously found a spectacular place in studies of the emergence of early agriculture and sedentary life in western Asia. Earlier brief work by the University of Tübingen ... Read More

The Creative Millennia: Highlighting the Transitional Neolithic (ca. 9800-8000 BCE) in the Central Zagros, Iran

Hojjat Darabi

Volume 14, Issue 2 , September 2022, , Pages 37-58

https://doi.org/10.22059/jarcs.2022.343781.143122

Abstract

The Central Zagros received pioneering research on the emergence of early agricultural and village life by R. Braidwood in 1959-60. However, later shifts in research toward the Levant ... Read More The Central Zagros received pioneering research on the emergence of early agricultural and village life by R. Braidwood in 1959-60. However, later shifts in research toward the Levant put the Central Zagros in shadow for several decades until recently, when investigations have once again highlighted its key place in the Neolithization processes in West Asia. Unlike the Levant, where a protracted change from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic is seen, the border line between these two periods is evidently sharp in the Central Zagros suggesting that unprecedented features appeared during the first two millennia of the Holocene, a foundational time that is poorly known in the region. In light of new evidence, this period is addressed here under the chronological term ‘Transitional Neolithic’ (ca. 9800-8000 BCE). Current datasets suggest that, following an environmental improvement at the end of the Younger Dryas, local communities engaged in short-term inhabitations, collective or communal ceremonies, and had an increasing reliance on the wild progenitors of early domestic plant and animal species. This time span’s close interactions with natural resources provided people with growing ecological knowledge. We may think of longer occupation in desirable places and thereby population increases in the 9th millennium BCE. This instead could have gradually resulted in an environmental depression, however, caused either by population growth or by possible unfavorable climatic events. Archaeological evidence shows that from the mid-9th millennium BCE on, a change happened in subsistence strategies toward low-level food production. In fact, this was an eco-cultural event that broadened the human diet. The central Zagros saw multiple creative behaviors during both the early and late phases of the Transitional Neolithic, providing people with a robust foundation for the succeeding truly Neolithic way of life that took shape during the 8th millennium BCE

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Keywords = Neolithization

An Interim Report of the New Excavations at the Neolithic Site of Chogha Golan, Ilam Province, Western Iran

Abstract

The Creative Millennia: Highlighting the Transitional Neolithic (ca. 9800-8000 BCE) in the Central Zagros, Iran

Abstract