Paleoethnobotanical Research in Khuzestan

Abstract

PALEORIENT, vol. 11/2 - 1985 PALEOETHNOBOTANICAL RESEARCH IN KHUZESTAN N. F. MILLER Khuzestan has one of the most detailed and well documented archaeological sequences in the Near East, thanks to years of excavation and survey by many researchers. This work has led to some understanding of political, economic, and social life in southwestern Iran from the time of the early villages to that of the early states and the historic empires. Over the millennia, agriculture and pastoralism formed the economic basis of the region. But ecological and economic relationships were by no means static, for the people of southwestern Iran transformed their environment even as they built their civilizations. Paleoethnobotany has the potential to offer unique insights into the agricultural and pastoral economies of ancient Khuzestan, and can provide a case study of the long-term interrelationships between environmental, economic and social conditions. Compared to the amount of archaeological research carried out in southwestern Iran, there has not been much paleoethnobotanical work. After Hans Helbaek's pioneering efforts on the Deh Luran plain (1), flotation samples were taken sporadically during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, in addition to the Deh Luran report, there are several studies on the Deh Luran plain at Farukhabad (2) and in Susiana at Susa (3), Bendebal and Jaffarabad (4), and a brief mention of plant remains from Shara- fabad (5). An analysis of pollen from the Deh Luran sites completes the inventory of paleoethnobotanical studies in Khuzestan (6). In addition, I have a few samples from Susa, Qabr Sheykheyn, and Sharafa- bad that are not yet analyzed. The most comprehensive of these studies is Hans Helbaek's analysis of materials from AH Kosh (7). He documented the presence of early agricultural communities in the lowlands, away from the natural (1)HELBAEK, 1969. (2)RADFORD, 1980; MILLER, 1981. (3)MILLER, 1982. (4)MILLER, 1977, 1983. (5)WRIGHT et ai, 1978. (6)WOOSLEY and HOLE, 1978. (7)HELBAEK, 1969. habitat of the wild cereals. He also established an environmental and economic base line against which new data could be compared. The more recent studies cited above do not present a radically different environmental picture (8). Although new crops occur in deposits post-dating the AH Kosh materials (notably bread wheat, dates, and rice), without extensive sampling for plant remains it is not possible to make fine distinctions among the agricultural practices of different sites and time periods. A reanalysis of the AH Kosh materials was presented to show how refinements in recording procedures and the development of new interpretive frameworks can be applied to archaeobotanical data. It was suggested that much of the charred seed assemblage could plausibly be interpreted as the remains of dung fuel, thereby directly shedding light on animal dietary patterns, and only indirectly on human food habits (9). The differential distribution of wild and cultivated plants in the deposits suggested differing strategies for feeding animals, possibly related to the degree of transhumance practiced by the inhabitants of the site. The reanalysis raised more questions than it answered, but it serves to illustrate some of the problems and potential of archaeobotanical analysis : First, charred plant remains tend to be small, fragile, and sparsely distributed within the site matrix. Therefore, flotation is often used to recover plant remains. Since it is neither possible nor desirable to float all excavated sediment, sampling procedures must be devised to ensure recovery of an adequate and representative quantity of plant remains. Typically, this means taking several hundred sediment samples, rather than the more usual ten or twenty. It is also important that archaeologists provide material from a variety of deposits, both seemingly sterile and rich, and to actively seek middens and other refuse disposal areas. (8)See also KIRKBY, 1977. (9)See MILLER and SMART, 1984. 125