درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Due to its specific location, the Persian Gulf has been at the center of attention throughout Iran’s history. Apart from commercial ships that passed through this strategic waterway, the Persian Gulf turned into a major point for the emergence and export of various thoughts and religions from one place to another in the region and beyond. In addition to historical texts, burial practices and rites seem important enough to evaluate and assess religious tendencies of the people who lived in this area. Among these rituals, those belonging to Zoroastrians on the edge of the Persian Gulf are of immense importance, which include some known samples found in Khark Island, Siraf Port, and Bushehr’s Shoghab. Man-made caves located on the Persian Gulf shores near the Parsian (=Gavbandi) next to cultural remnants of Islamic periods called “Javad Al-Aemeh Fishing Port” near the Bostanu Village help us know this kind of architecture. It seems that Bostanu caves served as rock-cut tombs and were included in the burial tradition of the Sassanian period that was also used in the Islamic period. Also, the location of Bostanu can be matched with the ancient Apsaneh and take its history back to the era of Alexander of Macedonia.  

Archeological survey of all counties in Mazandaran Province was carried out under the master plan of drawing an archeological map of this province. In this setting, coastal areas of the city of Nowshahr were reviewed for the first time, with a focus on the mountainous area of Kojur district which was studied in order to complete the previous research conducted there. A book entitled Archaeology and History of Nowshahr jointly authored by Seyed Mehdi Mousavi Kouhpar and Shahin Aryamanesh was published in 2021. In this book, the authors have investigated all aspects of the Parthian kingdom and goes beyond the political history of the Parthians to familiarize the readers with the archaeology, history, culture, religion, art, and society of the Parthians.

Khark is one the very important islands in the Persian Gulf and considered to be a vital link for commercial ships passing through this strategic waterway since the ancient time. Some researches dealing with archaeological and historical significance of the island have already been carried out but more efforts are needed to unearth hidden truth, including archeological finds from there. The current paper aims to review a book entitled The Persian Gulf Khark: The Island’s Untold Story by Willem Floor & D. T. Potts.

Historically, the Caucasus region during the Sasanian period was among the important parts of Iran. Many studies have been conducted by archeologists, historians, and linguists on this region. The book entitled Middle Persian Inscriptions of the Era of Khosrow Anushirvan in Darband, Caucasus (Dagestan) by Cyrus Nasrollahzadeh is one of the attempts to investigate this region through available inscriptions. 

Philippe Gignoux was born in Solaize (Isère) on 1 March 1931. He completed his secondary education at Dominican College of Oullins (Rhône) near Lyon. He graduated in Persian Language from École nationale des langues orientales vivantes, and studied at Ecole pratique des hautes études (EPHE) (IVth and Vth sections) and at the Catholic Institute of Paris. 

Amlash is one of the most important parts of Guilan Province in northern Iran. It has endured unending political and military turmoil due to its special geopolitical and geostrategic position, during the early and middle Islamic eras. The establishment of numerous castles in the area is one of the manifestations of this state of affairs during that period. This study, based on library and field study, is aimed at analyzing the factors that might have led to the formation of the castles. The library studies included a review of literature on military castles and fortresses for an analysis of the factors that might have contributed to the castles in the Amlash region. The field studies included direct observation of the locating, photographic imaging, and numerical measurement and topographical features of those castles.

Bardak-e Siāh is one of the important archaeological sites in Bushehr province. Recently, archaeological researches about the Achaemenid site of Bardak-e Siāh in Bushehr, under the supervision of Ismail Yaghmai, have been published. This article reviews the book entitled A Hypothesis of the True Origin of Achaemenids Based on Archaeological Excavations of Bardak-e Siāh Palace, Dashtestan, Doroudgah Village.

Donald Scott Whitcomb was born on 27 April 1930. He was a revered scholar whose contributions to the field of Islamic Archaeology especially in the Persian Gulf region were immeasurable. He was research associated in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago since the beginning of 1981. Whitcomb then served as an Associate at this Institute, since 1990. His Master’s thesis dealt with the Proto-Elamite Period at Tall-i Ghazir, Iran despite the fact that his expertise was in Islamic Archaeology.

Bandian Dargaz site in Khorasan, is one of the fire temples dating back to the Sasanian period. In this fire temple, carved miniature motifs including animals such as goat, deer, ram, cow, horse, snake, scorpion, wolf, fox, turkey, swallow and dove have been found. In this article, carved miniature motifs are examined and analyzed. 

The lifeways of mobile human societies are a field investigated by anthropologists and archaeologists. Mobility is considered an effective way of foraging and resource production among human societies (for hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and farmers, respectively). Various classifications regarding the mobility patterns of human societies have been proposed so far. As of today, the majority of archaeologists use Murdock’s multi-purpose classification which divided mobile human societies into four groups: (1) Nomadic societies, (2) semi-nomadic societies, (3) semi-sedentary societies, and (4) sedentary societies. But some societies have characteristics that do not allow them to be placed in one of these groups. For identification of these unclearly defined societies, the authors will refer to 5 criteria of demographic dimensions: Mobility, number of movements, movement distance, residential criteria, and lifeway. For instance, it was not until 2003 that archaeologists began to recognize the intermediate trajectory of nomadic pastoralism from early village-based herding to the formation of full-fledged pastoralism in the western part of Central Zagros. Extensive study of pastoralist communities, however, can be used for the identification of several intermediate stages of the 5 criteria. Current archaeological evidence in most of the early Neolithic sites in Central Zagros such as Qazanchi, Sheikhi Abad, Sarab, Asiab, and Guran, unlike the Levant region which was settled in the Epipaleolithic (Natufian) period, indicates that these sites are seasonal. So how can we explain the mobility of human societies in the proto-Neolithic period of Zagros? As a result, the authors try to use these criteria to identify the intermediate stages of sedentarism in Zagros, from mobile societies in the Epipaleolithic period to sedentary societies in the late Neolithic period. For this purpose, the authors have studied the mobility patterns and residential criteria of human societies in the cultural landscape of Hawraman. The research was conducted in two seasons, in the summer of   2016 and the summer of 2018, respectively. At first glance, the patterns of mobility and lifeways of human societies seemed homogeneous and identical in the cultural landscape of Hawraman. But with a deeper analysis, Four main mobility patterns were identified. The patterns include (1) single-stage agriculturalist residential mobility in Koh-e-Takht, (2) multistage pastoralist residential mobility in Kosalan and Shahu Mountain, (3) logistical mobility (transhumance) in Javeh River, and (4) logistical mobility (based on cultural exchanges) all over the Hawraman. The patterns show that the Zagros societies did not become sedentary in a single stage. Therefore, semi-sedentary societies with residential mobility and semi-sedentary societies with logistical mobility can be placed in the intermediate stages.  

Biological samples such as bones, tooth, and hair obtained from archaeological excavations are mainly used for dating measurements. However, these findings provide valuable information about the diet, lifestyle or migration, and genetic interaction of communities, and disease because the biochemical content of biological tissues such as bones, teeth, and hair changes under the influence of the lifestyle of the past population. Therefore, it seems that human remains' biochemical, microscopic, and histological studies could be advantageous for clarifying the dark events of the past societies. Bioarchaeology, as an interdisciplinary science, assesses the historical-cultural relationships in ancient samples and human remains like hair, bone, or tooth by biological tools and techniques. In this science, the biological data of specimens are combined with archeological information to obtain a more accurate sociology of past civilizations. The purpose of the present review article is to familiarize archeology researchers with the usual methods in bioarchaeological studies.