Archaeozoology/Archaeobotany

Protohistoric populations of the southern steppes experienced a series of significant changes in settlement and material culture between the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) and the end of the Iron Age. Analysis of new archaeozoological data from Turkmen sites and re-examination of published data from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan reveal considerable economic flexibility and adaptive responses to the variety of ecosystems. They indicate that localised cultural choices, perhaps responding to local environmental constraints, persisted throughout this period, despite successive cultural or political shifts, including the Achaemenid conquest of the region in the sixth century BC.

Between 2009 and 2013 twelve Iron Age graves were excavated in Kamiltepe, a mainly Neolithic site in the Mil Plain, southern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In this period Transcaucasia was populated by small groups of independent cultures like Hocalı-Kedabeg or Taliş-Mugan. Known are archaeological remains of structured societies which buried their elite in great kurgans, a tradition which first appeared in the Middle Bronze Age. The burials of Kamiltepe are to be dated into early Iron Age towards middle Iron Age. The graves show regional burial customs, also known from neighbored areas like Mugan Plain or Karabagh. The pottery assemblage shows different influences, amongst others technology transfer from northwestern Iran and Urartu. Until today our knowledge about this period is quite limited, new finds provide an insight into unknown burial customs and society structures

2018 S. Kroll, M. Mashkour, J. Bendezu-Sarmiento, J. Lhuillier, C. Bon, M. Tengberg, D. Bosch. Where did they come from and where did they go. Stable isotope analyses of Bronze Age societies in Central Asia and Iran. Talk presented at the Conference 11th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE), Munich, Germany in April 2018.

With the beginning of the 3rd millennium the emergence of complex societies in Central Asia are observed next to the great cultures of Mesopotamia, Elam and Indus. Archaeological evidence point at the existence of an important communication network long before the famous Silk Road. The rising occurrence of various raw materials just as analogues of pottery, use of patterns and manufacturing technologies in contemporaneous sites in Iran show dynamic interactions to human communities in Central Asia. Iran and Central Asia are located in a geographic zone with contrasted environments. This has an impact on the adaptability of human communities to climatic constraints that models the way of life and residency. Stable isotopes analyses of human remains indicate the composition of populations respectively the origin of individuals. The results provide information about the sedentism or mobility of human and animals in these pastoral societies. Based on the origin of individuals the intensity of migration and therefore the external cultural influences can be reconstructed. The talk will present stable isotope analyses from several sites from the Iranian Central Plateau and the foothills of Kopet Dagh and Pamir Mountains. Focus are the Bronze Age human communities of Tepe Sialk in Iran, Ulug Depe in Turkmenistan and Dzharkutan in Uzbekistan.

For archaeozoologists, Haft Tappeh is probably one of the most important sites in the Middle East because of the exceptional finding of a rather complete elephant skeleton. Unfortunately this valuable and uncommon find is very poorly documented1. The finding was related to the craft activities in the site. Unfortunately there is no information, to our knowledge, other than this find, regarding animal exploitation in Haft Tappeh. However this anecdotal and spectacular find did not learn about the everyday life and the economic aspect of animal consumption, during this historical period.
The present paper, presenting the results of a complete archaeozoological study, constitutes thus a first picture of man/animal interaction in Khuzestan during the second millennium B.C.

A rich documentation on the subsistence economy is provided for the long sequence of occupation of Haftavan
Tepe in Western Azerbaijan between the Bronze Age to the Islamic period with a set of novel radiocarbon
dates for this site. In all periods, Bovines constitute the bulk of the assemblage even if Ovicaprines play
an important role for this agropastoral economy where hunting remains a marginal activity. On a regional
scale, the pattern observed in Haftavan Tepe seems to express the same global tendency for northern Iran
compared to adjacent sites in Turkey where the exploitation of Suids is more characteristic.

Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia 8,500 BC. They then spread across
the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated
independently or more likely appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild
boar. As a result, European wild boar mtDNA lineages replaced Near Eastern/Anatolian mtDNA signatures in Europe and
subsequently replaced indigenous domestic pig lineages in Anatolia. The specific details of these processes, however,
remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we
analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA and dental geometric morphometric variation in 393 ancient pig specimens representing
48 archeological sites (from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period) from Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia,
Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Our results reveal the first genetic signatures of early domestic pigs in the Near Eastern Neolithic
core zone. We also demonstrate that these early pigs differed genetically from those in western Anatolia that were
introduced to Europe during the Neolithic expansion. In addition, we present a significantly more refined chronology for
the introduction of European domestic pigs into Asia Minor that took place during the Bronze Age, at least 900 years
earlier than previously detected. By the 5th century AD, European signatures completely replaced the endemic lineages
possibly coinciding with the widespread demographic and societal changes that occurred during the Anatolian Bronze
and Iron Ages.