Ali Kosh

An early farming site near Deh Luran in southwestern Iran, occupied c 7500-5600 BC. It was the first excavated farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected using the flotation technique, a landmark in the study of farming origins. The earliest phase, named Bus Mordeh and dated c 7500-6750 BC is characterized by simple mud-brick buildings and a combination of wild and domesticated foods, some herding, and the catching of fish. The succeeding phase, Ali Kosh and dated c 6770-6000 BC had similar plants and animals, hunting and fishing, but a decline in wild plant foods which points to more successful cereal cultivation. The buildings were much more substantial in this period. The final phase, Muhammed Jaffar and dated c 6000-5600, saw the introduction of pottery and ground stone. The evidence shows some strain of over-exploitation and by the mid-6th millennium BC, the area was abandoned. The site illustrates the transition from food gathering to food production and the improvement of house-building quality.

Tell in the Deh Luran plain of Khuzistan, southwest Iran, occupied c7500-5600 be. This site, excavated in the 1960s by a team led by Frank Hole and Kent Flannery, was the first early farming site where significant quantities of plant remains were collected by the flotation technique, representing a landmark in the study of the origins of farming. The earliest phase at Ali Kosh, named Bus Mordeh and dated c7500-6750 bc, is characterized by simple rectilinear mud-brick buildings and an economy combining wild and domesticated foods. The population herded goat and a few sheep, hunted a variety of wild animals and caught fish. The plant side of the diet was provided by an enormous variety of grasses and legumes; most of these were wild species, but cultivated two-rowed hulled barley and emmer and einkorn wheats occurred in small quantities. In the succeeding Ali Kosh phase (c6760-6000 bc) the same domesticated plants and animals occurred; hunting and fishing were still of great importance, but there was a decline in the collection of wild plant foods, suggesting that cereal cultivation was proving a more successful way of obtaining plant food. The site of this period was larger than the earlier one and had more substantial buildings. The final phasee of occupation, named Muhammad Jaffar (o6000-5600 bc) saw many innovations, including the introduction of pottery. Farming was firmly established by this phase, but the economic evidence shows signs of strain, perhaps as a result of over-exploitation of an area which was always marginal for agriculture, and in the mid-6th millennium bc the site was abandoned. See Mesopotamia, Table 2, page 320.