نیلوفر مقیمی

The archaeological site of Kholah Kouh, due to its special location in urban districts of Takestan town, has been threatened by construction and developing activities. Some parts of the site completely destroyed by construction of mall, residential houses and mosque. Just 3.5 ha of site remained from 7 ha core zone. Takestan Municipality, in the framework of construction programs of 2010 decade, decided to transform this mound to a park and a car parking area. In this regard, Kholah Kouh Salvage Archaeological Project started subsequently in 2014 by various research and administrative goals. Main objectives of excavations were identifying cultural characteristics of occupational periods, protection of site destroying by continuity of archaeological activities, and investigating site’s feasibility to establish an archaeological site museum and tourism cultural landscape in the site. Evidence of a Transitional Chalcolithic / Early Plateau B village from the first half of the fifth millennium BC had been discovered during excavations in the lower accumulations of site. This step of village settlements had significance due to substantial transformations in culture and economy of habitants of Central Plateau of Iran. Hence, the new evidence from Kholah Kouh were evaluated for better understanding of how and scale of these transformations. This paper, at the first, has a glance to the results of excavations. Then, by using the cultural ecology approach, attempts to interpret the finds, emphasising relative and absolute chronology, cultural interactions, herding and agriculture. The results indicate that, Kholah Kouh has local and neighborhood regions traits. The pottery traditions show the cultural homogeneity in Central Plateau during Transitional Chalcolithic. Considerable developments are observable in agricultural activities based on irrigation and expand of exploitation of various products of sheep, goat and cattle during the period under discussion. The archaeobotanicl and paleontological researches indicate the domination of the dry climate in the mid fifth millennium BC which affected human habitats.

The study of transition process of prehistoric societies from egalitarian stage to the classified and state, is one of the important subjects of archaeology. The administrative technology is one of the symbolic features of prehistoric complex societies, indicating the presence of elite class for controlling the socioeconomic and political affairs. Large amounts of garbage with various deposited cultural materials were discovered during the archeological excavations in 2016 at the ancient site of Ālou in Radekan Village, Qazvin Plain. The site chronologically related to the Late Chalcolithic/ Late Plateau period. The administrative artifacts including clay seals and counting objects (tokens) were found in this project. These artifacts are the main devices of administrative technology. The main purposes of this paper are to introduce and interpret the administrative technology devices in Ālou site and the research on the origins of socioeconomic developments in the Central Plateau of Iran. It reevaluates, at first, the background of cultural developments in the Central Plateau with emphasis on administrative technology and information processes, and afterwards, studies the related cultural materials from excavations of Ālou. The results indicate that the societies of Central Plateau, in the mid-fourth millennium BC, had achieved the socioeconomic complexities by the classified — or chiefdom — structure, prior to the Proto-Elamite horizon. These developments therewith cultural interactions and communications with adjacent regions, originated in the Central Plateau of Iran.

Tepe Giyan, which situated in Nihavand city, is one the most important and the first excavated sites in the cultural-geographical zone of Central Zagros. Excavations in this site had been conducted in 1931-32 with the nonscientific methods to discover the antique and precious objects. During excavation, cultural material and remnants from various periods of prehistoric deposits of Giyan were found and were assigned to have been as the basic for the chronology of the region. The considerable assemblage of Tepe Giyan was housed in Moghadam Museum of University of Tehran. In this paper, 20 intact pottery vessels of this assemblage were selected with the aim of introducing, typology, and offering comparative chronology. Also, the study of this assemblage prepared the appropriate opportunity to scrutiny and re-identifying the chronology of cultural periods at Tepe Giyan. In order to gaining the mentioned aims, all indications of 20 intact vessels were studied and documented for typological and chronological debates. According to the physical characteristics of poterries such as shape of vessels, diagram and style of paintings, Giyan were compared with other corresponding sites, and finally the relative chronology of assemblage was suggested. As a result, all vessels of Moghadam Museum assemblage belong to the middle and late Bronze Age and transition period from Bronze to Iron Age.

In order to investigate the performance of sugarcane bagasse in the removal of nitrate from effluent subsurface drainage water, a study was conducted at the physical models laboratory of Water Sciences Engineering Faculty of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the summer of 2013 till the summer of 2014. A physical model with the dimensions of , which simulated the drainage trench, was utilized in this experiment. Bagasse combined with soil by 3:7 volume ratio, the combination installed as a filter besides the drainage pipe. In this study, the influent nitrate concentration was 160 mg.L-1. Influent nitrate flow was continues. At first, every two days, and then every four days the drainage pipe was sampled. Input and output drainage model solution sampled with plastic bottles. Then some parameters like Nitrate, NH4, PH and EC measured. The presence of bagasse as a carbon material in the soil caused the amount of nitrate to reduce from 160 milligrams per liter to 60 milligrams per liter; a reduction of nearly more than 60 percent. The amount of ammonium increased very little in this study. The use of sugar cane bagasse as a filter drainage, reduces the acidity of the drainage outlet. It had no effect on the electrical conductivity. Physical model results show that the clogging of the filter in this period was relatively low and carbon filter had good performance. At first, the water output velocity was high but it decreased by time. According to analytics, the difference between input and output parameters in level of five percent were significant for acidity and electrical conductivity.

The study of the circumstances surrounding the development of record-keeping for information purposes, and of what these records looked like, in prehistoric human societies has always played a significant role in archaeological research. Such research is important because it relates to the beginnings of the use of accounting and reckoning systems, which came to be one of the principal elements of institutionalized management and bureaucracies under during the urbanized historical periods. Tepe Zagheh is one of the key sites of the transitional period from Neolithic to Chalcolithic in the Qazvin Plain, having provided a considerable collection of tokens (counting objects) in addition to the various other pieces of cultural evidence that were discovered through the successive excavations projects. Thus 238 Zagheh tokens were available for typological study and theoretical analysis. The main goal of this paper is to re-identify accounting and reckoning systems applied in Tepe Zagheh and to study the evolutionary processes of accounting systems in this prehistoric site. It is apparent from the study that the Zagheh society experienced an early form of accounting system for keeping track of farm products and of animal counts, and that tokens were the tools used to document such reckoning processes.

The study of circumstances surrounding the development of record-keeping for information purposes, and of what these records looked like in prehistoric human societies has always been of significance in archaeological research. Such research is important because it relates to the beginnings of the use of accounting which came to be one of the main elements of institutionalized management and bureaucracies under urbanization and in historical periods. Tepe Zāgheh is one of the key sites during the transitional period from Neolithic to Chalcolithic period in the Qazvin Plain, having provided a considerable collection of tokens (counting objects) in addition to various other pieces of the archaeological evidence discovered in the excavations carried out there. Thus 238 Zāgheh tokens were available for typological study and theoretical analysis. The principal goals of this paper are to re-identify accounting and reckoning systems at Tepe Zāgheh and to identify the evolutionary stages of these systems in Zāgheh. It is apparent from implemented studies that Zāgheh society had an early form of accounting system for keeping track of farming products and of animal counts, and that tokens were the principal devices used in this process.

“Globalisation” is one of the most influential philosophical thoughts with direct effects on the economic, political and cultural entities of countries in the modern era. Most scholars relate the emergence of this phenomenon to the period after Renascence. However, with little contemplation, one could trace the roots and origins of philosophical thoughts and mythical concepts – of course not in their present form – to ancient civilisations. Doubtless, Sasanian empire (224-651 CE),  with 427 years of glory in the world,s  political arena, can be considered as one of the greatest and most powerful cultural foregrounds of ancient era that was managed by the direct instructions of Zoroastrian philosophers. The founder of this empire (ArdašīrPāpakān: 224-241 CE), in response to the question that why have you risen against your reigning king (Ardavan V Ashkani), clamed: “To make a world with a single-God”. Now, the question is. Can “Ardašīr’s efforts in establishment of a world under governance of a single God” be counted as the first efforts toward unification of the world and the initial steps in globalisation? – efforts that were accompanied by practices and widespread endeavours. The principal hypothesis is that the thoughts of globalisation were nurtured in the thoughts of Zoroastrians’ eminent Mōbads and practiced by the founder of Sasanians Empire. The main aim of the present research is to investigate the first veinsofglobalisation notions and the associated practical measures of Sasanian kings. In doing so, all of the Sasanian historical and archaeological evidences that certify the research hypothesis are envisaged and discussed in the context of globalisation and cosmopolitanism thoughts. The cosmopolitanism idea, with roots in the ancient world, is also used to associate the today’s globalisation concepts with the ancient ones. These concepts together with archaeological and historical evidences are clear indications that globalisation and cosmopolitanism thoughts have been introduced 1800 years ago in Iran; and indeed practiced on the relevant scale by Sasanians.