Going East: the Neolithic spread of agricultural economies on the Iranian Plateau

A recent publication based on ancient human DNA (Sci. Rep. 6, 2016) suggests that the Zagros region in western Iran was one of the main cradles for agriculture and herding in early Holocene southwest Asia and that the Neolithic way of life then spread from here towards the East. Indeed, the study of faunal and botanical remains from archaeological sites across Iran and western Pakistan allows us to trace and date the diffusion of agro-pastoral economies on the Iranian Plateau. As domesticated animal and plant species as well as breeding and cultivation practices spread they progressively adapted to new environmental conditions and became the foundation of local subsistence economies. The present paper aims at summarizing our present knowledge on the eastern spread of agriculture and herding relying mainly on results from recent archaeozoological and archaeobotanical research undertaken by the authors in collaboration with several archaeological teams. The presentation will focus on two regions in particular. On the one hand, the results obtained by recent excavations conducted in the Sharoud plain will allow us to discuss the diffusion towards the northeastern parts of the Iranian Plateau as well as southern Central Asia. On the other hand, we will relate to southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan where new data associated with information from older excavations allows us to reconstitute the beginnings of agro-pastoral economies in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. Besides revealing the specific character of early production systems in these regions the chronology and diffusion paths of the eastern spread will be considered in a larger perspective