درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The consequences of climate change could be so severe and extensive that the issue has prompted human societies to change their subsistence system and adopt strategies to deal with those challenges. In the past, droughts and the reduction in water resources caused serious problems for human societies and made it difficult for water-dependent communities to continue living in a specific region and area. In order to get out of the crisis, many communities either migrated to favorable areas or attacked other communities. In the second millennium BC, Central and West Asia witnessed large-scale human migrations and violent invasions, which apparently overlapped with climatic stresses. The extensive migration of Aryan tribes and predatory invasions of the Sea Peoples in Egypt, Levant, Anatolia, and Greece during the second half of the second millennium BC coincided with the 3.2 ka BP mega drought event. This research, with an environmental archeology approach, actually tries to warn about the unfortunate consequences of global warming, i.e. climate migrations and social tensions. Here, the reason for population displacements and attacks on civilizations in the second millennium BC has been investigated from the climatic perspective. The Paleoclimate research indicates frequent climatic events in the early Late Holocene in Central and West Asia, which probably triggered many socio-political events.

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.

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.