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Formation and destruction of pastoral and irrigation landscapes on the Mughan Steppe, north-western Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Karim Alizadeh  and
Jason A. Ur
Karim Alizadeh
Affiliation:
1Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, Bahârestan Sq-Ekbâtân Ave., Emarate Masoudieh, 11416, Tehran, Iran (Email: ksalizadeh@yahoo.com)
Jason A. Ur
Affiliation:
2Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA (Email: jasonur@fas.harvard.edu)
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Extract

CORONA satellite photography taken in the 1960s continues to reveal buried ancient landscapes and sequences of landscapes – some of them no longer visible. In this new survey of the Mughan Steppe in north-western Iran, the authors map a ‘signature landscape’ belonging to Sasanian irrigators, and discover that the traces of the nomadic peoples that succeeded them also show up on CORONA – in the form of scoops for animal shelters. The remains of these highly significant pastoralists have been virtually obliterated since the CORONA surveys by a new wave of irrigation farming. Such archaeological evaluation of a landscape has grave implications for the heritage of grassland nomads and the appreciation of their impact on history.

Keywords

SasanianIranaerial surveyarchaeological formation processCORONA satellite surveylandscape evaluation
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 81 , Issue 311 , 1 March 2007 , pp. 148 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2007

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