Shir-i Shian and the Fifth-Millennium Sequence of Northern Iran

Abstract

For decades, the fifth-millennium cultural sequence of northern Iran has not been well understood due to a dearth of radiocarbon-dated stratigraphic excavations in this region. Recent work by Anglo-Iranian teams in north-central Iran has done much to change this picture, but an in-depth study of the material culture—particularly the ceramics—from this research is desperately needed to sort out many of the chronological problems associated with the new radiocarbon sequence. In order to instigate this discussion, this article seeks to draw out the remaining discrepancies in the archaeological sequence of the fifth millennium in northern Iran, and to juxtapose them with a complete publication of the fifth-millennium site of Shir-i Shian in north-eastern Iran, based upon archival records in the University of Pennsylvania Museum. This enigmatic site, excavated in the 1930s by Erich F. Schmidt but never published, displays a material culture known from mid-late fifth-millennium sites in both northern Iran and southern Turkmenistan. As such, it provides a critical link between these two regions, and highlights many of the problems inherent with forming a unified chronological sequence for the fifth millennium BC.