The Role of Highland-Lowland Interactions in the Development of Social Complexity

Jesse Casana教授（达特茅斯学院），Claudia Glatz博士（格拉斯哥大学）和一个国际研究小组将调查高原和低地社区之间的区域间互动在推动早期帝国国家的出现和发展中的关键作用。 该项目的重点是伊拉克南部的美索不达米亚平原和伊朗西部的扎格罗斯山脉之间的考古学未开发的边境地区，该项目将记录有关在世界上第一个帝国崛起的历史时期居住在该地区的社区的丰富信息。 研究结果将改变对大美索不达米亚高地-低地相互作用的理解，从而为考虑全球类似过程提供一个新的模型。在当今世界的许多国家，海拔变化在划分人口和构建人口之间的关系方面发挥着重要作用。这项研究将这种相互作用置于一个长期的时间背景下。此外，这项工作将提供该区域宝贵的文化遗产管理数据，记录新的考古遗址、掠夺或破坏的证据，并评估扩大农业和建筑业对未来的威胁。 作为在伊拉克这一地区开展的唯一一个国际考古项目，该项目还将通过培训、技术转让和公共讲习班，在提高当地文物管理部门的能力方面发挥重要作用。该项目涉及并挑战了长期以来的学术研究，这些研究认为旧世界复杂社会的起源，从尼罗河到长江，作为一个过程嵌套在城市中心的低地河谷。 相比之下，山区通常被视为边缘地带，居住着低地国家宣传和许多现代研究延伸描述为未开化和野蛮的社区。 在美索不达米亚这个众所周知的文明摇篮，高地和低地的观点之间的二分法可能是最明显的，因为几乎所有的考古和历史数据都来自低地城市，而扎格罗斯山脉侧翼的高地在考古地图上仍然是模糊的空白，据推测是游牧民族的家园。 该项目以伊拉克北方库尔德斯坦地区的迪亚拉河（锡尔万河）上游河谷为重点，采用多尺度研究战略，包括区域考古调查、在新发现的公元前第二个千年的哈尼马西遗址的发掘以及对发现物的人工分析，包括古植物学研究、动物材料的稳定同位素分析和陶瓷的有机残留物分析。 研究结果将揭示对定居点和土地使用模式、畜牧战略、手工艺生产和饮食方式的细微见解，展示不同环境区的居民参与共享文化习俗的程度，以及这些关系如何改变低地和高地群体，并在公元前第三和第二个千年的过程中发生变化。

Prof. Jesse Casana (Dartmouth College), Dr. Claudia Glatz (University of Glasgow), and an international team of researchers will investigate the crucial role that inter-regional interaction among highland and lowland communities had in driving the emergence and development of early imperial states. Focusing on an archaeologically unexplored borderland region between the Mesopotamian plains of southern Iraq and the Zagros Mountains of western Iran, this project will document a wealth of information regarding the communities who inhabited the area during a historical period that saw the rise of the world's first empires. Results will transform understanding of highland-lowland interaction in greater Mesopotamia, and will thereby offer a new model for considering similar processes globally. In many states in the world today altitudinal variation plays a significant role in partitioning populations and structuring relations among them. This research places such interactions into a long term chronological context. Furthermore, this effort will provide invaluable cultural heritage management data in the region, documenting new archaeological sites, evidence of looting or damage, and an assessment of future threats from expanding agriculture and construction. As the only international archaeological project to have ever worked within this part of Iraq, the project will also play an important role in developing capacities of the local antiquities authorities through training, technology transfer, and public workshops.This project speaks to and challenges a long history of scholarship which views the origin of Old World complex societies, from the Nile to the Yangtze, as a process nested squarely in the urban centers of lowland river valleys. Mountainous regions, by contrast, are generally seen as peripheral zones inhabited by communities who lowland state propaganda, and by extension much modern research, depicts as uncivilized and barbarous. In Mesopotamia, the proverbial cradle of civilization, the dichotomy between perspectives on highlands and lowlands is perhaps most stark, as virtually all archaeological and historical data are derived from lowland cities, while the flanking highlands of the Zagros Mountains remain nebulously blank on archaeological maps, presumed to have been home to pastoral nomads. Focusing on the Upper Diyala (Sirwan) River Valley in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, this project employs a multi-scalar research strategy involving regional archaeological survey, excavations at the newly-discovered second millennium BC site of Khani Masi, and artifactual analyses of finds, including paleobotanical studies, stable isotope analysis of faunal materials, and organic residue analysis of ceramics. Results will reveal nuanced insights into settlement and land use patterns, pastoral strategies, craft production, and foodways, demonstrating the degree to which inhabitants of distinct environmental zones engaged in shared cultural practices, how these relationships transformed both lowland and highland groups as well as changed over the course of the third and second millennia BC.