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From human niche construction to imperial power: long-term trends in ancient Iranian water systems

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Abstract

This article summarizes the outcome of a workshop sponsored by the Durham University Centre for Iranian Cultural Studies, where papers were presented on the entire chronological range of water management systems in Iran from around 8000 years bc until around 1000 ad. The primary aim was to recognize major research questions that could be used to create an agenda for future studies of ancient water use in the country. In the Durham meeting, it appeared that although the small-scale prehistoric systems probably constituted an example of ‘human niche construction’, the later imperial systems did not. Despite the recognition of occasional irrigation systems of third millennium bc date in the Deh Luran plain by Neely and Wright, as well as perhaps in Khuzestan, there appears to be a general dearth of evidence of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age systems in Iran. However, by the first millennium bc there was a considerable increase in the construction of major water management systems, some of which were, at least as far as the associated evidence suggests, constructed by imperial authorities. All agreed, however, that just because a system appeared large in scale, it was not necessarily a result of imperial management. For the subject of qanats it was argued that not only were they usually built by small-scale societies, but also that there may have been multiple centres of origin; one primary centre being a broad zone of south-east Iran, Pakistan and south-east Arabia.

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Notes

  1. Organized by Derek Kennet (Durham Archaeology and Director of CICS) and Tony Wilkinson (Durham Archaeology) the workshop was held on June 6th 2011 in the Department of Archaeology to an attendance of around 17 participants.

  2. Prof. Tony Wilkinson (Durham University, UK) From Human Niche Construction to Imperial Power: Long-term trends in Iranian Water Management; Prof. Gavin Gillmore (Professor of Environmental Geoscience, Kingston University) Prehistoric water use on the Tehran Plain; Dr. Rémy Boucharlat (CNRS, Lyon) Water for pleasure, water for irrigation in the Pasargadae area; Dr. ir. Maurits W. Ertsen (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands) and Tijs De Schacht (Ghent University, Belgium), Hydraulic analysis of the Sad-i Didegan dam site and system (Pasargadae, Fars, Iran); Prof. Peter Magee (Bryn Mawr College, USA) The Qanat as Arid Zone Adaptation: New evidence from Iran and the Arabian southeast; Dr. Khodadad Rezakhani (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK) A comparative study of water-control systems in Khuzestan, Damghan and the Gurgan plains in the context of agricultural change in the late Sasanian period.

  3. Kouroush Roustaei has pointed out to Wilkinson a number of Neolithic or Chalcolithic sites where this might have occurred (Roustaei pers. comm. 2007).

  4. Namely inclusions of opaline silica that develop within plant cells.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Durham University for funding the Centre for Iranian Cultural Studies, under whose auspices the workshop was held. We also thank Kouroush Roustaei (ICAR) and Louise Rayne, as well as two anonymous reviewers whose comments significantly improved the final version of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Durham University, Durham, UK

    T. J. Wilkinson & Derek Kennet

  2. CNRS, Lyon, France

    Rémy Boucharlat

  3. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Maurits W. Ertsen

  4. Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, UK

    Gavin Gillmore

  5. Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA

    Peter Magee

  6. London School of Economics, London, UK

    Khodadad Rezakhani

  7. Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Tijs De Schacht

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  1. T. J. Wilkinson
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Correspondence to T. J. Wilkinson.

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Wilkinson, T.J., Boucharlat, R., Ertsen, M.W. et al. From human niche construction to imperial power: long-term trends in ancient Iranian water systems. Water Hist 4, 155–176 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-012-0056-9

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