Project description
The development of agro-pastoralism in Indo-Iranian borderlands
The agro-pastoral way of life emerged in southwest Asia in the late 10th millennium BCE, transforming the social organisation of prehistoric communities. However, the Indo-Iranian borderlands (IIBL) on the eastern diffusion route of agropastoralism remain poorly explored due to the limited number of known occupation and regional studies. The ERC-funded AGROCHRONO project aims to study the development of agropastoralism in the IIBL region from the 7th to the 4th millennium BCE. The project will establish a timeline for early agro-pastoral occupations, document human subsistence practices, examine palaeoenvironmental conditions and explore cultural and economic connections between settlements using archaeological, bioarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental dataset. The findings will allow for testing scenarios about the emergence of agropastoralism in the IIBL.
Objective
The emergenceThe emergence of an agropastoral way of life in South West Asia from the late 10th millennium BCE revolutionised the social organisation of prehistoric communities. The spread of this new economic and cultural model followed several trajectories. A key region comprised between the Zagros mountains of the Iranian Plateau to the Indus Valley in the plains of Pakistan, known as Indo-Iranian borderlands (IIBL), is yet poorly explored. Current knowledge of agropastoralism dynamics and dispersal in this area remains fragmentary due to the lack of a robust chronological frame drawing temporal links between the settlements. The AgroChrono project particularly explores the development of agropastoralism among agropastoral societies of the 7th to 4th millennium BCE in the IIBL around four research themes: (i) The chronology to resolve the time frame of early agropastoral occupations in this region; (ii) The economy to document human subsistence practices with the exploitation of domestic resources; (iii) The palaeoenvironment setting and variations that may have influenced the settlement patterns and availability of natural resources necessary for their subsistence; (iv) The cultural and economic links between the various settlements by gathering all the archaeological datasets available.
All these aspects are investigated using a combination of classical archaeological, bioarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental methods, together with the latest developments in biomolecular, isotopic and chronometric techniques. It particularly includes the next stage of development for compound-specific radiocarbon analyses of archaeological and environmental matrices, a state-of-the-art method essential for resolving the local problematics regarding the chronology. All the generated data will be modelled to test various scenarios on the emergence of agropastoralism in the IIBL and to determine if this resulted from a single cultural diffusion or local independent trajectories.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
75015 PARIS 15
France