Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire

Roger Matthews is Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Reading. He is President of RASHID International, and previously was Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq and of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. He is an elected Fellow of the British Academy and a Corresponding Fellow of the German Archaeological Institute. He has directed major field projects in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey for more than 35 years, and has published widely on the prehistory, archaeology and heritage of the Middle East. His current projects focus on early farming communities of Iran and Iraq, and on bureaucratic practices in early urban communities of the Middle East.Hassan Fazeli Nashli is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Tehran. From 2005 to 2009 he was Director of the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the German Archaeological Institute. Since 1996 he has directed numerous international joint research projects and fieldwork with colleagues and universities from the USA, Germany, UK, Italy, Canada, Poland and China. He has conducted more than 25 years fieldwork in the central plateau and northern regions of Iran, with a focus on socio-economic transformations from the late Epipalaeolithic to the Iron Age. Since 2017 he has directed a multi-disciplinary project in Mazandaran province of northern Iran in order to investigate long-term human-environment interactions through the Early and Middle Holocene.

"The authors have here produced an indispensable research resource for students and specialists in the archaeology of Iran, dealing with a complex series of topics in masterly fashion. Especially innovative is the interweaving of multiple strands of archaeological evidence throughout the narratives of the book, including palaeoclimatology, archaeobotany and archaeozoology, which together succeed in bringing new perspectives on the past of Iran."~Dr John Curtis, The Iran Heritage Foundation, Iran

• 1. The Archaeology of Early Iran: Perspectives from the past for the Present;  2. Placing Iran: Land, Environment and Ecology;  3. Approaching the past of Iran: A History of Archaeological Investigation;  4. Peopling Iran: The Palaeolithic Period, 500,000-12,000 BP;  5. Domesticating Iran: The Neolithic Period, 10,000-5200 BC;  6. Early Social Complexity in Iran: The Chalcolithic Period, 5200-3200 BC;  7. Iran’s First State? The Proto-elamite Horizon, 3200-2900 BC;  8. People on the Move: Prehistoric Networks of Bronze Age Iran, 3400-1100 BC;  9. Iran Beyond Borders: Bronze Age Societies of Eastern Iran, 3100-1250 BC;  10. Elam in the World of Bronze Age Southwest Asia, 2900-1100 BC;  11. Iran Imperial: Villages, Cities, States and Empires of the Iron Age, 1250-330 BC;  12. Themes and Issues in the Archaeology of Early Iran