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The Emergence of Complex Metallurgy on the Iranian Plateau: Esca** the Levantine Paradigm

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Journal of World Prehistory Aims and scope

Abstract

Models for the development of metallurgy in Southwest Asia have for a long time been focussed on research carried out in the lowland regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia. These models do not take into account the different developmental trajectories witnessed in the resource-rich highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Iran. In this paper, the beginnings of the use and production of metals in Iran will be juxtaposed with a cursory overview of the lowland model (the ‘Levantine Paradigm’) in order to highlight these differences. By synthesizing data from a number of current research projects exploring the early metallurgy of the Iranian Plateau, this paper demonstrates how at least one of the highland regions of Southwest Asia was at the very forefront of technological innovation from the seventh through the second millennium BC.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Lesley Frame, Jonathan Golden, Barbara Helwing, Vince Pigott, Ben Roberts, Lloyd Weeks, and the other authors in our 2008 SAA session in Vancouver for their helpful comments and criticisms. Tim Taylor and two anonymous reviewers also provided important revisions to this work. Special thanks to Lesley Frame, Emran Garajian, Ernst Pernicka, and other colleagues for allowing me to comment upon their unpublished data for this synthesis. I am also very grateful to Hassan Fazeli, Claudio Giardino, Barbara Helwing, Gero Steffens and Thomas Stöllner for providing me with images. The editors are very grateful to Dr. Leila Papoli-Yazdi for providing the Persian translation of the abstract.

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    Christopher Peter Thornton

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Thornton, C.P. The Emergence of Complex Metallurgy on the Iranian Plateau: Esca** the Levantine Paradigm. J World Prehist 22, 301–327 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-009-9019-1

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