ABSTRACT
The eastern perspective on highland Iran through the third millennium BC is equally distinctive, whereby the evidence suggests relatively low-level movement of materials and finished artefacts between the societies of eastern Iran and their contemporaries in Baluchistan and the Indus Valley to the east through the early third millennium BC, likely “to reflect sporadic trade contacts, individual trips or marriages rather than systematic, specialized forms of long-distance trade”. The region of north-eastern Iran, often viewed as “the northeastern frontier of the ancient Near East”, comprises the Alborz mountains eastwards from Tehran, the Caspian plain to the north of those mountains including the fertile Gorgan plain and the plains to the south of the Alborz that fringe the great Dasht-e Kavir. Faunal remains from Ghal-e Ben include cattle, sheep, goat and pig, while cereals and pulses were grown.
