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The Bronze Age in northeastern Iran Christopher P. Thornton

<1>Introduction Despite over 150 years of excavation, the northeast remains one of the least understood areas of prehistoric Iran. The reasons for this are varied, but the noticeable lack of a comprehensive excavation monograph from even one site in this region is the most likely culprit. Indeed, even the most important typesites of this region such as Tepe Hissar (Hesar), which has been studied and discussed by some of the great prehistorians of the 20th century (e.g. Childe 1942: 3578; Piggott 1943; Mallowan 1965: 11727), have seen less than 10% of the excavated finds published. This dearth of published data has caused considerable confusion among scholars attempting to use the incomplete publication record from such sites such as a reference for their own research (e.g. Helwing 2006; Mousavi 2008; Mahfroozi and Piller 2009). Since 2004, the author has been involved with a number of projects at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, working with Robert H. Dyson Jr., Holly Pittman, Ayse Grsan Salzmann, Michael Gregg, and others to publish its excavated Iranian collections. These include artifacts and/or archival records from a number of northeast Iranian sites, including Tepe Hissar, Tureng Tepe, Hotu and Belt (Pers. Ghare Kamarband) Caves, Shiri Shian (Shir Ashian) and Sange Chakhmaq, as well as related sites in northcentral Iran such as Cheshmeh Ali (Rayy) and Murteza Gerd. In addition, the author has been fortunate enough to travel to northeastern Iran thanks to Dr. Hassan Fazeli and the ICAR. In Iran, the author benefited from numerous dialogues and sitevisits with exceptional Iranian colleagues working in this region, including

Ali Mahfroozi in Mazandaran; Kourosh Roustaei in DamghanShahrud; Qorban Ali Abassi and Hamid Omrani in the southern Gorgan Valley; Ali Vahdati in western Khorasan; and Emran Garajian in the northern Gorgan and Nishapur. Thus, much of the information synthesized in this chapter comes from personal observation of museum collections and personal communications from generous colleagues. Furthermore, this synthesis builds upon the pioneering work of J. Deshayes (e.g. 1968, 1969a), R.H. Dyson, Jr. (e.g. 1977, 1991), V.I. Sarianidi (e.g. 1971), S. Cleuziou (e.g. 1986, 1991), M. Tosi (e.g. 197374), P.L. Kohl (1984a) and others who attempted to bring the late prehistory of northeastern Iran to the attention of the wider archaeological world. This chapter is divided into three main sections. First, the cultural geography of northeastern Iran will be summarized in order to outline the various environmental factors that have affected human behavior there over the past 10,000 years or so. Second, the history of archaeological investigation in this region will be summarized, with a focus on the major excavations and regional surveys that have provided data enabling a broader synthesis. Third, the culture history of the late prehistory of northeastern Iran, from Neolithic to Late Bronze Age (c. 70001500 BC), will be summarized with a particular focus on those typefossils (ceramics and small finds) that serve as chronological markers. While a chapter such as this cannot hope to be comprehensive, it should provide a useful reference for new excavations in the region as well as for projects aimed at publishing old excavations.

<1>Cultural geography The region of northeastern Iran can be divided, somewhat crudely, into three distinct cultural and ecological zones: the Caspian littoral, the Alborz highlands, and the relatively fertile plains of the

Iranian plateau that gradually disappear into the salt deserts to the south. The southern Caspian littoral and the lush Gorgan plain provide some of the best agricultural land in all of Iran. Well watered by moisture coming off the Caspian Sea that collides with the high Alborz mountains, the Caspian littoral has a semitropical climate and produces fantastic fruits, huge quantities of grain (including, today, rice), and fresh fish that is exported to the upland interior. Similarly, the Gorgan plain receives plentiful rainfall and provides superb land for irrigation, making this region a mini breadbasket for all of northern Iran. The northern part of the Gorgan plain gradually merges into steppe grassland (the Turkoman plain) more suitable for nomadic herdsmen than agriculturalists, while in the eastern part of the Gorgan plain, low hills gradually transition into the Kopet Dagh mountains along the IranTurkmenistan border. The contrast between the semitropical lowlands along the Caspian Sea and the often snow covered highlands of the nearby Alborz mountains cannot be overemphasized. These mountains, many as high as 35004000 m asl, are even today sparsely populated by only the hardiest of people. In recent centuries, loggers, miners, and transhumant pastoralists have comprised the majority of those living at such high altitides. In reality, our knowledge of the prehistoric highland communities who inhabited northeastern Iran is minimal and studies of similar societies elsewhere in Iran, e.g. in the Bakhtiyari mountains (Zagarell 1982), provide a poor substitute. However, we can infer that in prehistory, any peoples living in these areas would have had access to important resources such as timber, metal ore, gold, and semiprecious stones (notably turquoise) which they, in turn, could have purveyed to lowland populations to the northwest and to the societies of the Iranian plateau to the south and east. Without a doubt, the Iranian plateau has been the heartland of Persian society for thousands of years, long before the modern nationstate of Iran was formed. Averaging 900 m asl, the Iranian

plateau was a rich but impenetrable landscape overlooking the agricultural populations of Mesopotamia and southern Central Asia for millennia. Until the 20th century, the people of this region subsisted on both herding and irrigated agriculture using qanat technology to draw water from beneath the nearby mountains. These agropastoralists also engaged in resource procurement, craft production, and longdistance trade, making them almost entirely self sufficient or, at least, symbiotically subsistent with their neighbors. The plateau does not, however, lend itself to large populations water and irrigable land are scarce, so settlements were generally small until the Middle Ages brought new hydraulic technologies and extensive trade networks to feed large urban populations. To my knowledge, there has never been a comprehensive geographical or anthropological study of northeastern Iran focusing specifically on land use and patterns of social movement (see, e.g. Adle 1971). The Turan Project of Brian Spooner and his students focused on important issues such as desertification and traditional village life on the Plateau (Spooner 1965, 1974, 1985; Spooner and Horne 1980; Martin 1980; Horne 1994), but did not seek to understand interactive patterns of socially conscribed landuse and population movement. Similarly, William Irons (1972, 1975) study of the Yomut Turkmen along the IranTurkmenistan border has become a classic reference on tribal organization of steppe nomads, but gives little insight into the totally different pastoral and agricultural communities in the rest of northeastern Iran. The only study of northeast Iranian cultural geography that provides information on large scale patterns of population movement and socio economic relationships across the varied landscape was carried out by MohammadHossein PapoliYazdi (1991), who examined the movement of Kurdish groups along the IranTurkmenistan border. Most Kurds in northeastern Iran moved (or were moved) there in the 16th century to serve as a buffer against the raiding

Uzbek nomads from the north. The Kurds were perfectly suited to this role, as their traditional easttowest migration pattern (across the modern IranIraq border within Kurdistan) helped them to monitor the long stretch of plateau south of the Kopet Dagh Mountains. While we cannot know whether such longdistance seasonal migration patterns existed in prehistory, the well documented movement of goods such as lapis lazuli from east to west for thousands of years must have been orchestrated by groups familiar with such long distance routes. PapoliYazdi (1991: 21350) also described the shortdistance transhumance patterns of semisedentary pastoralists (seminomads) of Turkic, Persian, and Kurdish ethnicity in northern Khorasan. While the prevailing directions dominating such migratory patterns are uphill vs. downhill, many of the traditional routes taken by these pastoralists were northtosouth movements through the passes in the Kopet Dagh to the piedmont zone of southern Turkmenistan. One can imagine similar groups moving from the highlands of the Alborz mountains or the Iranian plateau down to the Caspian littoral and the southern Gorgan plain. As such, PapoliYazdi provides us with a modal for the cultural geography of northeastern Iran: intraregional, highlandlowland relationships complemented by interregional, easttowest movement of people and trade goods.

<1>History of excavation In the mid19th century, the Russian diplomat, Baron Clement Augustus de Bode, published a short account of a hoard of gold and alabaster vessels, bronze weapons, and stone figurines found near the city of Astrabad (modernday Gorgan) in northeastern Iran (de Bode 1844). Although numerous Western explorers had previously travelled through this region and often

noted archaeological sites and antiquities in their writing, the Astrabad treasure can be credited with sparking serious academic interest in the region (e.g. Rostovtzeff 1920). Indeed, it is probably no coincidence that many of the earliest surveys in northeastern Iran were carried out in the Gorgan valley (de Morgan 1896; Sykes 1911) and that some of the first archaeological excavations in this region were carried out at Tepe Khargush (de Morgan 1896), Tureng Tepe (Wulsin 1932, 1938), and Shah Tepe (Arne 1935, 1945), just outside of historic Astrabad. A second early source of information on the archaeology of this region was provided by A. Houtum Schindler (1887), who reported on some painted pottery from a mound near the city of Damghan called Tepe Hissar. Similar sherds were studied in the 1920s by the great Iranian expert Ernst Herzfeld (Dyson 2009), leading him to encourage the young German-American archaeologist Erich F. Schmidt to carry out the first systematic excavations at Tepe Hissar (Schmidt 1933, 1937) after the French monopoly over excavations in Iran ended in 1931. Schmidts superb excavations and detailed (if incomplete) publications have served as a model for archaeologists working across the Middle East, and made Tepe Hissar one of the best known sites in Near Eastern archaeology. With the onset of World War II, archaeological research in northeastern Iran slowed considerably and did not resume until the 1950s, when the lowlands of the Caspian littoral became a popular place to work. The anthropologist Carleton S. Coon excavated Belt and Hotu caves near Sari in Mazandaran (Coon 1951, 1952, 1957), inspiring Charles McBurneys excavations at nearby Ali Tappeh cave in the early 1960s (McBurney 1964, 1969). A French expedition headed by Jean Deshayes excavated Tureng Tepe from 1960 to 1977 and produced a number of important articles, yet no final monograph about the Bronze Age levels (Deshayes 1968, 1969b, 1977, and numerous preliminary reports in the journal Iran). In the early 1960s, an

AngloAmerican team headed by David Stronach and Vaughn Crawford excavated further north in the Gorgan plain at the site of Yarim Tepe (Crawford 1963; Stronach 1972), but thise site too remains incompletely published. Finally, a Japanese team headed by Matsuzaki Hisashi excavated a prehistoric site just southeast of Tureng Tepe called Tepe Hoseynabad in the early 1970s, but that has only recently been published outside of Japan (Ohtsu et al. 2010). By the 1970s, archaeological interest in northeastern Iran had mostly moved back onto the plateau as Marxian ideas about craft production and trade networks drove scholars closer to such resources. A Japanese team headed by Seiichi Masuda excavated the Neolithic site of Sange Chakhmaq near Shahrud, one of the most important (and least understood) Neolithic sites in the Middle East (Masuda 1974, 1977, 1984; cf. Thornton 2010, forthc.). At the same time, an ItalianAmerican team returned to Tepe Hissar under the direction of Maurizio Tosi and Robert H. Dyson, Jr. to carry out limited excavations in order to retrieve stratified organic material for radiocarbon dating (Bulgarelli 1974; Dyson 1972, 1977; THRRP). In addition to these large projects, a number of important archaeological surveys were conducted in the 1970s, including a Japanese survey of the Gorgan (Ohtsu et al. 2010), a German survey of eastern Khorasan (Gropp 1995), an Italian survey of the Atrek Valley (Venco Ricciardi 1980), and an American survey of the Darreh Gaz (Kohl and Heskel 1980; Kohl et al. 1982). The Islamic Revolution of 197879 and the ensuing IranIraq War (198088) effectively ended prehistoric research in Iran until the 1990s, when Iranian scholars resumed survey and excavation. Much of this research is unknown to Western scholars as it is either unpublished, or published only in Persian and often in journals and booklets that are difficult to access in the West. Notable work in this region by Iranian archaeologists after the Revolution includes survey around Gorgan by the late M. Darvish Rouhani in 19845 (Abbasi 2007: 251); survey and test

excavations across Semnan Province from 198892 by Hassan Rezvani (1999); and salvage excavations at Tepe Hissar in 1995 by Ehsan Yaghmaiyi (Mashkour and Yaghmaiyi 1996; Mashkour 1997). Since the 1990s, a number of young, welltrained Iranian archaeologists have focused their attention on northeastern Iran. Much to their credit, these scholars often publish both in Persian and in Western languages (notably in English), which will no doubt have an enormous effect upon the wider worlds appreciation of northeastern Iran. At the same time, a handful of Western scholars (and their students) have spent much of the 1990s and 2000s attempting to publish pre Revolutionary excavations conducted in this region (e.g. Martinez 1990; Orsaria 1995; Hiebert and Dyson 2002; Leone 2004). Despite the tense political situation over the past decade, a lucky few have even carried out excavations in northeastern Iran with their Iranian colleagues (Mahfroozi and Piller 2009), or with their Iranian students (Fouache et al. 2010; Vahdati and Francfort 2011). Our understanding of the late prehistory of northeastern Iran is in its infancy, in spite of 150 years of interest in the region, but a new generation of both Iranian and Western archaeologists is seeking to change that.

<1>Typological and chronological sequence Northeastern Iran has long been recognized as an important frontier zone between the oasis settlements of Central Asia and the highland sites of the Iranian plateau in late prehistory (Sarianidi 1971; Tosi 197374; Kohl 1984a; Cleuziou 1986). Less wellrecognized is the important social boundary (Wright 1984, 1989, 2002) between the western and eastern halves of northeastern Iran (Biscione 1981; Kohl et al. 1982: 1718), whereby the material culture of

eastern Mazandaran, Semnan, Golestan, and western Khorasan is entirely different from the contemporary material culture of northcentral and eastern Khorasan (southern Khorasan is archaeologically terra incognita). A useful model has been put forth by Emran Garajian (pers. comm. 2008), who suggested that the regions around Sari, Damghan, and Gorgan (up to the Sumbar Valley of western Turkmenistan) could be thought of as the eastern frontier of northern Iran, while Khorasan could be considered the northern frontier of eastern Iran. Recent surveys by Ali Vahdati (pers. comm. 2010) have placed this social boundary zone somewhere between Sankhast (east of Jajarm) and Touy (west of Esfarayen) in northwestern Khorasan (Vahdati 2011). Continued exploration and excavation by Iranian scholars in this region has done little to change this model of a divided frontier zone in late prehistory (Garajian 2006, 2008; Vahdati 2010a, 2010b, 2011; Vahdati and Francfort 2011).

<2>Khorasan (east of the social boundary) Although, wWith the possible exception of the Kopet Dagh region along the northern border with Turkmenistan (Kohl and Heskel 1980; Venco Ricciardi 1980; Kohl et al. 1982; Rahbar 1997), our archaeological knowledge of Khorasan is quite limited (Korbel 1983; Gropp 1995). However, it is clear that this province shared the material culture of the relatively wellknown Namazgarelated sites of southern Turkmenistan in the fourth and third millennia BC (Masson and Sarianidi 1972; LambergKarlovsky 1973; Kohl 1981, 1984b, 1992; Masson 1992; Sarianidi 1992, 2002). The association between Khorasan and southern Turkmenistan is attested at a number of excavated sites, including Tepe Borj (Garajian 2006) and Nishapur P (Hiebert and

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Dyson 2002) near Nishapur; Tepe Damghani near Sabzevar (Vahdati and Francfort 2011); and Yam Tepe in the upper Atrek Valley (Biscione pers. comm., unpub.). However, there are a few subtle differences between the sites of Khorasan and those in southern Turkmenistan. For one, Late Neolithic, Djeitunstyle ceramics of the 6thearly 5th millennia BC are sofar unknown in Khorasan the earliest ceramics found are comparable to Anau IA blackonred wares of the midlate 5th millennium BC (Vahdati 2010b: 2830; see below). Second, in the Namazga IIIII period (midlate 4th millennium BC), blackonred wares with distinctive zoomorphic motifs such as those from NishapurP (Hiebert and Dyson 2002: 138) and the Kopet Dagh region (Kohl et al. 1982: 8) appear to be relatively common, while they remain quite rare (possibly imported?) at Namazga IIIII sites of southern Turkmenistan. Third, burnished grey wares the hallmark of the western region of northeastern Iran in the 4th through 2nd millennia BC appear with some regularity at 3rd millennium sites in Khorasan (Hiebert and Dyson 2002; Vahdati and Francfort 2011; Biscione and Vahdati in prep.; Garajian 2006), while they remain relatively rare at Namazgasequence sites in southern Turkmenistan. Whether these three observations will continue to be correct after further excavation remains to be seen, but the highlandlowland dynamic between the intermontane valleys of northern Khorasan and the settlements along the northern piedmont of the Kopet Dagh in Turkmenistan is a topic worth pursuing.

<2>Semnan, Mazandaran, Golestan, and western Khorasan (west of the social boundary) The western side of northeastern Iran also exhibits an interesting highlandlowland dynamic i.e. between the plateau sites along the southern flanks of the Alborz mountains (from Semnan to

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Jajarm) and the sealevel sites along the Caspian littoral (from Sari to Gonbad i Qavus). Unlike in the east, where significant populations do not seem to appear until after Neolithic Djeitun related villages had disappeared from the Turkmen piedmont (Harris 2010), settlements in the west arose on both the highland plateau and the lowland Caspian plain in tandem with developments in southern Turkmenistan. Despite extensive archaeological research in both the highlands and lowlands of the western region of northeastern Iran, the cultural and economic relationship between the two is a complete mystery. Was there seasonal migration between them? Did they share a symbiotic relationship based on production and trade? Did they rise and fall in tandem or did they alternate in significance over the millennia? The complete publication of excavated sites such as Tepe Hissar and Tureng Tepe, and perhaps new field investigations focused on these lacunae in our knowledge, are needed before these questions can be answered. The earliest excavated sites in this region date to the 87th millennia BC and belong either to the Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic (on the Caspian coast) or the Aceramic Neolithic (on the plateau). Examples of the former include the cave sites near Sari, such as Belt and Hotu Caves (Coon 1951, 1952, 1957; Dupree 1952) and Ali Tappeh (McBurney 1964, 1969). Examples of Aceramic Neolithic sites are rarer still, with the incompletely published Japanese excavations at Sange Chakhmaq near Shahrud providing the best sequence (Masuda 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1984). Although an updated synthesis of this site has been published elsewhere (Thornton 2010, forthc.), a brief synopsis will be given here of the transition from the Aceramic Neolithic to the early Chalcolithic in northeastern Iran. The sequence from the two mounds (West and East) at Sange Chakhmaq can be divided into four general periods (Table 10.1): Aceramic Neolithic (c. 7th mill. BC), Early Ceramic Neolithic (c. late 7thearly 6th mill. BC), Late Ceramic Neolithic (c. 6th mill. BC), and Early Chalcolithic

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(c. late 6thearly 5th mill. BC). The Aceramic Neolithic levels are exclusively on the West Mound and consist of large, wellbuilt structures with prominent hearths containing evidence of in situ lithic production, groundstone tools for processing grains, and bone tools made from deer antlers and long bones. The Early Ceramic Neolithic levels above this period on the West Mound were mostly eroded, although a few sherds described as burntumber colored with polished surfaces (Kamuro 1977; Thornton forthc.) suggest parallels with what Dyson (1991: 266) called Caspian Neolithic Soft Ware from Belt and Hotu Caves. The Late Ceramic Neolithic levels at the base of the East Mound sequence are notable for their strong parallels with the Djeitun Culture of southern Turkmenistan (Harris 2010; Harris et al. 1996; Masson 1971, 1992). There are also notable connections with northcentral Iran (specifically Sialk I) and with the Caspian cave sites, as well as a tradition of adapting these different influences in a local style of pottery, small finds, and architecture (Thornton 2010, forthc.). The transition from the Early Ceramic Neolithic on the West Mound to the Late Ceramic Neolithic on the East Mound does not seem to have been abrupt, as many artifact types and burial styles remained unchanged. The transition to the Early Chalcolithic levels at Sange Chakhmaq (called the early Transitional Chalcolithic period in Fazeli et al. 2009) tells a different story (see Masuda 1977). Burials changed from simple, flexed inhumations to one of extended corpses lying on their backs. The mudbricks used in house construction became shorter and squarer, more standardized, and similar to Sialk II bricks in northcentral Iran. Antler and deer bone essentially disappeared, to be replaced almost exclusively by cattle bone for the manufacture of tools (Masuda 1976: 64). While the multiple ceramic types of the Late Ceramic Neolithic levels still appeared in small quantities in this latest phase, the dominant ceramic type in these Early

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Chalcolithic levels is so called Cheshmeh Ali Ware a wellfired, blackonred ceramic type of the early Sialk II period (c. 52004700/600 BC) found at every site in the western part of northeastern Iran around 5000 BC (Dyson and Thornton 2009: 4, n. 6). The reasons and mechanism for the spread of the Cheshmeh Ali Ware technological style (including the use of grit temper, wellcontrolled kilns, elaborate painted designs, and possibly the fast wheel; see Fazeli et al. 2010) from northcentral Iran to nNortheastern Iran remain unclear. It is important, however, to reiterate the key point made by Fazeli and Abbasnejad Sereshti (2005) that interregional ceramic styles such as Cheshmeh Ali Ware are notable only in relation to the relatively unknown intraregional ceramic styles of the Late Neolithic through Early Chalcolithic phases. This is particularly true in northeastern Iran, where discussions of longdistance connections with northcentral Iran or southern Turkmenistan have superseded careful study of indigenous processes of social and cultural development in localized regions (Thornton forthc.; Vahdati Nasab et al. forthc.; Gregg and Thornton forthc.). The middle of the 5th millennium BC appears to have been a period of decline in both north central and northeastern Iran, although very few sites of this phase have been found (Dyson and Thornton 2009). In this period (called Late Transitional Chalcolithic in Fazeli et al. 2009), the Cheshmeh Ali Ware style devolved into less finely made ceramics involving simple geometric and linear designs, abandoning the elaborate zoomorphic designs of the preceding period. These later ceramics are called Anau IA Ware after the famous site in southern Turkmenistan where they were first found and described (Schmidt 1908; Hiebert and Kurbansakatov 2003). While the western part of northeastern Iran may have retracted somewhat, it is important to note that in the Anau IA phase (ca. 4500 BC) sites first appeared in the Darreh Gaz, the Atrek Valley, and in the other intermontane valleys of the eastern part of northeastern Iran (discussed above).

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For unknown reasons, the Anau IA phase ended somewhat abruptly with the rise of numerous localized cultural traditions towards the end of the 5th millennium BC. In northcentral Iran, the late Sialk II phase gave way to the distinctive Sialk III13 phase (c. 43004000 BC), distinguished by the return to robust mudbrick architecture and naturalistic motifs on painted pottery, as well as the rise of large, elaborately painted zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines (Thornton and Pittman forthc.). In southern Turkmenistan, we see the development of the Namazga I II culture out of the preceding Djeitun tradition. In northeastern Iran, the best known of these local styles is the Hissar I culture of the Damghan plain (Schmidt 1933, 1937), although so little of this material has been published from the Tepe Hissar excavations that it is difficult to reach any conclusions about it. Both Qaleh Khan (Garajian 2008) and Aq Tappeh (Shahmirzadi and Nokandeh 2001) in the upper Gorgan Valley appear to have postAnau IA layers, but in the absence of comprehensive reports on these sites it is nearly impossible to define the local cultures. By the midlate 4th millennium BC, we have a much better understanding of the development of these localized cultures across northeastern Iran, thanks mainly to the pioneering work of the ItalianAmerican team at Tepe Hissar. I which in 1976, this team carried out one of the first re study projects of an Iranian typesite utilizing modern methods of stratigraphic assessment, ceramic typological analysis and radiocarbon dating (Dyson 1977; Dyson and Howard 1989). By cutting back old sections and placing small test trenches in key locations, the team managed to contextualize the older excavations at Hissar (Schmidt 1933, 1937), Tureng Tepe (Wulsin 1932, 1938), and Shah Tepe (Arne 1935, 1945) and to situate these within an absolute chronology (Dyson 1991; Thornton et al. 2012). While the analysis of these data is still ongoing (Grsan Salzmann forthc.), it is clear that the rise of the Hissar II culture (c. 36002800 BC) was driven

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mainly by the creation of workshops dedicated to the largescale processing of lapis lazuli and alabaster, and the equally largescale production of copperbase alloys and lead/silver, presumably for export (Tosi 1984; Thornton 2009). During this period of economic and cultural florescence in northeastern Iran, we also find the earliest evidence of complex societies in the fertile lowland plains along the Caspian littoral. While Djeitun, Cheshmeh Ali, and Hissar ICstyle ceramics have all been found at sites in the Gorgan plain, they usually appear eroding out of later mudbricks as the strata to which these sherds originally belonged are unreachable below the water table notable exceptions being Yarim Tepe (Crawford 1963) and Pookerdvall near Gorgan, which has stratified, Djeitunstyle ceramic layers above the water table (Abassi et al. in press). Thus, only in the Hissar II period can we begin to understand the complex dynamics of interaction between lowland sites like Tureng Tepe, Shah Tepe and Narges Tepes (Abassi 2007) and their counterparts on the plateau, like Tepe Hissar. Interestingly, this was also the period in which reductionfired, monochromatic grey wares first appeared at sites from northcentral Iran to southern Turkmenistan. However, it was not until the end of the 4th or early 3rd millennium BC that grey wares superseded other ceramic types, such as the distinctive burnished, incised, or blackpainted red wares of the Gorgan and Mazandaran plains, which are found as far north as the Sumbar valley in southwestern Turkmenistan (Khlopin 1997: Pl. 13) and as far south as Tepe Hissar (Thornton et al. 2012). Other distinctive finds from this period across the western part of northeastern Iran include doubleheaded spiral pins, stone handbags, and certain bead types. The rapid expansion and collapse of the protoElamite phenomenon across the Iranian plateau at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC effectively ended complex society in northcentral Iran for nearly a millennium, yet it had little overt effect upon the societies of northeastern Iran.

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Although Tepe Hissar seems to have declined in tandem with the protoElamite collapse (the nebulous Hissar IIIA period), due perhaps to some sort of economic inter dependence with northcentral Iran, the lowland sites flourished in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. Whereas lapis lazuli production had peaked at Hissar in period IIB, c. 34003000 BC, lapis production at Tureng Tepe peaked somewhat later, in period IIIA, c. 30002500 BC (Deshayes 1968: 37; 1969: 14). A similar situation can be observed further north at the contemporaneous Parkhai II cemetery of the Sumbar valley, where richlyadorned graves of Period IV (c. 3000 2500 BC) contained elaborately decorated altars and ornaments of lapis, silver, and other valuable materials, suggesting a time of great prosperity (Khlopin 2002: 141). This shift to the north in the early 3rd millennium BC parallels the rise of important centers of production and trade in the Namazga IV period of southern Turkmenistan, such as Akdepe to the west (Kircho 1999; Gundogdyyew et al. 2010) and Altyndepe to the east (Masson 1988; Kircho 2001; Masson and Berezin 2005; Kircho et al. 2008). Highland settlements in northeastern Iran such as Tepe Hissar returned to prominence in the midlate 3rd millennium BC (Hissar IIIB period), due perhaps to their intermediary role between the rising centers of Margiana and the expanding trade routes of the plateau. The many burials from this period excavated by Schmidt (1937: 23261), as well as the plethora of valuable items found in the Burned Building (Dyson 1972), all suggest that this was a phase of heightened socioeconomic status and increased wealth. This was also a time of great artistic achievement in the lowlands of northeastern Iran, as evidenced by the finely made, patternburnished grey ware ceramics and the decorative beads, pins, pendants, and vessels in various materials distributed from Gohar Tepe near Sari (Mahfroozi and Piller 2009: Fig. 5) to the Period III graves of the Sumbar valley (Khlopin 2002: 4561). In addition, hoards of drinking vessels and fenestrated

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braziers from Hissar (incorrectly attributed to Hissar IIIC by Schmidt 1937: 1589) and elaborately dressed figurines from Tureng Tepe (Olsoen 2012) bespeak a level of ritual activity not previously attested in northeastern Iran. The end of the 3rd millennium was a period of significant change in northeastern Iran, the sequence and drivers of which are still not understood. Dramatic changes in the architecture of settlements occurred at both highland and lowland sites. At Tepe Hissar, the wellplanned architecture of Period IIIB was abandoned and replaced by the poorlyorganized structures of the early Hissar IIIC period (Deshayess Period IIIC1) that were laid out without regard to the plan of the earlier settlement (Schmidt 1937: 155; GrsanSalzmann forthc.). At Tureng Tepe an enormous, mud brick haute terrasse (high terrace) was constructed in the center of the settlement, representing perhaps the earliest example of monumentality in this region (Deshayes 1977; Leone 2004). Paralleling this material evidence of social stratification and political centralization was the first appearance of truly elite burials, such as those of the Warriors, the Priest, and the Little Girl at Hissar (Schmidt 1933: 43852). At around the same time (whether before or after these architectural changes is unclear), material culture of the early BactriaMargiana Archaeological Complex (early BMAC or Namazga V, c. 22002000 BC) appeared at all of these sites, sometimes intermixed with local grey ware ceramics (Hiebert and LambergKarlovsky 1992). The most obvious examples of BMAC items are the grooved stone columns found atop the haute terrasse at Tureng Tepe (Deshayes 1975: Fig. 1); in Period IIa levels at Shah Tepe (Arne 1945: 282); and in elite burials and hoards at Hissar (Schmidt 1937: Pl. 61). The Astrabad treasure discussed above also contained a number of BMACrelated items, such as miniature trumpets (Rostovtzeff 1920: 6 7) with ready parallels at Hissar (Schmidt 1937: 209), but it also contained a number of Hissar

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IIICstyle (nonBMAC) artifacts, such as stylized female figurines made from stone plates (Schmidt 1933: Pl. 132). Entirely missing from these purported BMAC assemblages in the western part of northeastern Iran is even a single sherd of Namazga VVI pottery, with the sole exception of a BMAC necropolis found in the frontier zone between Jajarm and Isfareyan at Tepe Chalow near Sankhast (Biscione and Vahdati in prep.). Although the data are sparse, the archaeological and biological evidence (Hiebert 1998; Hemphill 1999) suggests that wealthy and influential immigrants from Margiana likely migrated into northeastern Iran around 2000 BC, where they seem to have integrated into local communities in ways that we do not yet understand. The early 2nd millennium levels at Tepe Hissar were mostly all eroded by the time Schmidt arrived at the site, although certain artifacts from nearsurface contexts such as jars with vertical handles (Schmidt 1937: Pl. 41, H2871) and socketed spearheads (Schmidt 1937: Pl. 50, H2779) suggest that such layers may have existed. Far better evidence of early 2nd millennium occupation comes from the lowlands of the western region of northeastern Iran, from Tepe Bazgir in the east (Nokandeh et al. 2006) to Tureng Tepe (period IIIC12) in the west (Deshayes 1973). We know little about this late BMAC period in northeastern Iran (equivalent to Namazga VI), and even less about the Late Bronze Age, post BMAC period (c. 18001500 BC; equivalent to the Takhirbai period in Margiana). Many sites in the lowland areas contain Late Bronze Age assemblages that transition into the Early Iron Age, e.g. at Gohar Tepe (Mahfroozi and Piller 2009: 183), in the Sumbar Valley (Khlopin 1986), and possibly at Tureng Tepe (period IIIC2; Deshayes 1973). However, most of this material is unpublished or from mortuary contexts, so our understanding of social development in this region remains limited.

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<1>Conclusion Decades of anthropological and archaeological research haves shown that socalled frontier zones were often areas of intense social and cultural innovation, where ideas and styles were hybridized and manipulated for local usage (Lightfoot and Martinez 1995; Parker and Rodseth 2005). While our understanding of the late prehistory of northeastern Iran is still quite limited, it is clear that we are dealing with a duelfrontier scenario. First, the entire region played an important role as a frontier zone between central Iran (and, by extension, the greater Near East) and southern Turkmenistan (and, by extension, Central Asia). This is what I would call an inter regional frontier zone. Second, northeastern Iran was divided for millennia between the east (Khorasan) and the west (Semnan, Gorgan, Damghan, Mazandaran) for reasons that are still not entirely clear. This is what could be called an intraregional frontier zone, demarcated by a number of social boundaries over the millennia in the westernmost part of modernday Khorasan province. Northeastern Iran has long been a dynamic cultural landscape in which diverse groups of people interacted in various ways. Precious resources such as timber, semiprecious stones, salt from the dasht, and metal ores no doubt drew people to this region, while arable land and well protected valleys encouraged them to stay. Just as PapoliYazdis important study of the movement of pastoralists across this landscape in recent history raises a number of intriguing possibilities of relevance to traditional patterns of migration and trade, the archaeological record suggests even broader diachronic movements of ideas, trends, technologies, and people between central Iran and southern Turkmenistan through this critical frontier zone. Hopefully the forthcoming publication of a number of older excavations in this region, combined with new stratigraphic excavations by Iranian colleagues, will shed light on the intra regional interactions

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that caused northeastern Iran to play such an important role in the development of large scale societies in the Middle East and Central Asia.

<1>Acknowledgements Thanks first and foremost to the editor for inviting me to contribute to this volume. Ali Vahdati and Raffaele Biscione provided important comments and new information that greatly improved this paper, while Kyle Olsoen must be thanked for translating a number of articles from Persian to English for me. David Massey provided the topographic map, while Narges Bayani and Anne Bomalski provided the plates. Finally, this chapter would be impossible were it not for a number of fantastic colleagues, both in Iran and elsewhere, whose generosity and dedication to the late prehistory of northeastern Iran are truly inspiring.

<1>Further reading There has not been a compelling synthesis of the archaeology of northeastern Iran since the 1980s (see citations in text). A good reference for prehistoric Iranian material culture in general is Voigt and Dyson (1992), but that is somewhat out ofdate. The new research of Hassan Fazeli Nashli and his colleagues (e.g., Fazeli Nashli et al. 2009, 2010) and Barbara Helwing and her colleagues (e.g., Helwing 2004; papers in EMM) in northcentral Iran provides the closest parallels to sites in the northeast and anchors the chronology of this region substantially.

<1>Bibliography

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