Chogha Mish 2000 Overview

Chogha Mish: A Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, SW Asia Project Summary.

The aim of this project is to fully present, analyze, and interpret a set of archaeological data that is relevant and essential to studies of the formation of complex societies.

The pertinent archaeological data were collected in the course of 11 seasons of excavations at the prehistoric site of Chogha Mish in lowland Susiana, southwestern Iran, by Helene J. Kantor and Pinhas Delougaz of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Lowland Susiana is a geological extension of the Mesopotamia alluvium and, like Sumer, a cradle of civilization and a center of socio-economic and political interaction between highland Iran and lowland Mesopotamia.

Chogha Mish is unique in southwest Asia in its long, uninterrupted archaeological sequence from the early Neolithic to the end of the Protoliterate period, spanning some 4000 years of occupation. Such a long, uninterrupted sequence of occupation provides invaluable data on the processes of the evolution of socio-economic complexity and formation of early states.

The archaeological materials from Chogha Mish consist of handsome, elaborately decorated ceramics, evidence for metallurgy, clay sealings to control access to stored commodities, evidence for craft specialization, long-distance trade, irrigation agriculture and animal husbandry, and planned architecture. Surface surveys in the region also indicate that Chogha Mish was the regional center in a three-level settlement hierarchy system. Thus, the archaeological materials from Chogha Mish, now at the Oriental Institute, provide a rich source of evidence on the early stages of the genesis of the ancient Near Eastern civilization.

Beyond the complete descriptive presentation of a large corpus of important unpublished primary data, the proposed monograph will include analysis of stratigraphy, chronology, architecture, production activities, artistic and symbolic representation, and settlement systems that will form the basis for an interpretation of Susiana society.