CrossHighlands: Mobility and Resource Procurement Strategies in the Mountains of Kohgiluyeh (southwestern Iran)

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This project investigates mobility patterns and resource procurement strategies in the mountain region of Kohgiluyeh (southwestern Iran). Thus, it directly addresses two of the research foci of the SPP 2176 “Iranian Highlands”: “Mobility and Networks” and “Landscapes and raw material regimes”. Located at an elevation ranging between 600 and above 2000 m a.s.l., where very diverse environmental conditions are found in a limited horizontal distance, Kohgiluyeh represents an ideal case for the study of mobility and resource procurement strategies in mountainous environments. Furthermore, its proximity to the plains of Susiana makes Kohgiluyeh a privileged place to investigate socio-cultural interactions between lowland and mountain peoples during the prehistoric and early historical times. Mobility patterns and raw material procurement strategies are the result of the interactions through time of environmental, social, economic and cultural factors. This study considers all of these components in a solid interdisciplinary framework, creating a bridge between expertise from archaeology, history, and natural sciences. Based on original fieldwork data, novel scientific analyses of selected organic and inorganic materials, and available archaeological and historical datasets, this interdisciplinary project investigates mobility on a local, regional and over-regional scale. The archaeological investigations of the sites of Bibi Zoleikhaee and Tole Kouchak, and of the remains of bridges and roads in the intermontane plains of Kohgiluyeh are the starting points for this research. For the first time in the investigated region, the project will apply a range of innovative scientific methods, including isotopic, geochemical analyses, photogrammetric documentation and 3D reconstructions, for the study of ceramic and stone artefacts, as well as bioarchaeological remains. These newly acquired datasets will be correlated and integrated into the existing archaeological and historical data to generate a solid reconstruction of past mobility trajectories. This will lead to identification of multi-causal reasons that triggered mobility decisions and possible changes in raw material procurement trajectories over time. Moving beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries, we expect that this project will greatly contribute to the current scientific debates on mobile pastoralism, resource management, state formation, and human-environmental interactions along the Zagros of Southwestern Iran.