ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the Proto-Elamite phenomenon, examining all key sites and issues across Iran, before turning in the next chapter to look at the Early Transcaucasian sphere, which features large in the prehistory of north-western Iran and chronologically overlaps with the Proto-Elamite horizon. For the next few decades the Proto-Elamite phenomenon was viewed through a Mesopotamian prism, a situation not helped by poor or inadequate publication of relevant excavations in Iran. The significance of trade in underpinning the wide geographical spread of the Proto-Elamite phenomenon was further elaborated in the stimulating work of John Alden, who postulated a role for Proto-Elamite agents as “wholesalers” securing goods and materials from local producers on behalf of “retailers,” who procured those goods from the wholesalers and passed them on to consumers. Proto-Elamite diet and economy were based on agricultural production and animal herding, particularly of goat and sheep, with evidence for seasonal pastoral mobility in some regions such as Fars.