Stones from the South. Resource Complexes in Southeastern Iran in the Context of Regional and Interregional Networks

This project deals with the question, which ResourceComplexes may emerge in a landscape defined by mostly constant natural conditions and a largely unchanged potential of natural resources but changing external conditions. What kinds of networks, made of people, materials, objects and knowledge were and are still needed for their activation and maintenance. A specific explanatory model is used as a common basis for the investigation and reconstruction of resources central to the region at distinct periods. It assumes a ResourceComplex of agriculture, crafts and trade which only becomes usable and is set in value by its integration into specifically constructed networks of relationships. Amongst others the components of these networks include producers, traders, settlements, soil, technological knowledge and objects. Such ResourceAssemblages combined from ResourceComplexes and networks serve as framing structures in the field of tension of infrastructure, value system, politics, religion etc. On one hand the ResourceComplexes supported by networks in the region are dependent on natural conditions, on the other in each different period they are subject to specific culturally and socially influenced dynamics. This in turn shapes the respective regional and interregional systems of exchange.

After having examined the archaeological base data of the hitherto almost unexplored region of southern Kerman during the first phase of funding, the archaeological part of the project will continue its work by studying the Bronze Age networks in more detail with new fieldwork. Additionally the networks of older and younger periods will serve as comparisons. Part of this will be the study of the relationship between deposits of raw-materials, settlements, routes – especially those leading towards the Persian Gulf – the dependence of settlements on natural conditions and its resulting economic potential, the hierarchies of settlements and the socio-economic relations between specific areas, such as mountain ranges, valleys and plains. The provenance of objects made from chlorite and diorite/gabbro will be determined by scientific analyses in order to reconstruct the ancient networks of exchange.

In a complementary way cultural anthropology will study the contemporary networks in the region. This will include specifically the settlements within the archaeologically studied sub-regions together with other locational factors, the cultural significance of regional and interregional exchange relations, the current use of mineral resources (chromite, and gemstones), as well as intangible resources, such as technological knowledge, social capital and the analyses of (social, economic and political) connections between geographically different sub-regions.