The Birth and Rise of Mobile Pastoralism in West Central Zagros: From Tepe Tûlâî (6200-5900 BCE) to Tuwah Khoshkeh (4900-4000 BCE)

Year 2017, Issue: 34, 49 - 81, 30.12.2017

İzzet Çıvgın

https://doi.org/10.1501/antro_0000000347

Abstract

The Fertile Crescent is the earliest centre of food production in the world. Zagros region played a major role in the process of domestication. Early settlements were few and often widely separated. The earliest food producers who lived in the valleys and foothills of the Zagros mountain range were agro-pastoralists. But the warm and humid Early Holocene was interrupted at 6300-6200 cal. BCE. by a drastic reduction in precipitation. Some archaeologists put forward the idea that deterioration in the local environment stimulated the increased reliance on ovicaprid herding, the intensification in using their secondary products and the development of mobile pastoralism at the end of the 7th millennium. The existence of pastoral mobility as early as 6200 BCE has been suggested by the remains at Tepe Tûlâî, a seasonal campsite on the Susiana Plain. The goat herders of Tepe Tûlâî were probably not yet really nomadic. It seems that they have temporarily left the village environment (in the Susiana and/or Deh Luran plains) and led their flocks through vast open areas to graze. It is suggested that Tûlâî was frequented by mobile groups from a (or two different) lowland region(s). Tuwah Khoshkeh (1500 years younger than Tûlâî) is another mobile pastoralist campsite in the Islamabad Plain. These two examples show that the shift from sedentary crop-livestock farming to mobile pastoralism was an adaptive response to environmental pressure

Keywords

Neolithic of Western Iran, Mobile Pastoralism, Transhumance

Orta Zağros’ta Hareketli Çobanlığın Doğumu: Tepe Tûlâî’den (MÖ. 6200-5900) Tuwah Koşkeh’e (MÖ. 4900-4000)

Abstract

Bereketli Hilal’de tarım ve hayvancılığın keşfi, MÖ. 9000-6000 arasında gerçekleşti. Bölgenin en doğudaki parçası Zağros, “Neolitikleşme” sürecine erken katıldı. Batı İran’da besin üretimi, Zağros dağ-arası vadilerinde ve yamaçlarında doğdu. Tarım ve hayvancılık, Güneybatı İran’ın geniş/bereketli ovalarına (Deh Luran ve Susiana) MÖ. 7500-7000 arasında ulaştı. Ovalardaki çobanlık ve çiftçilik, Ali Koş, Çağa Sefid, Çoğa Bonut gibi “köy”lerde gerçekleşiyordu. Peki MS. 20. yüzyıla kadar Zağros ekonomisinde özel bir yeri olan “göçebe çobanlık” ne zaman doğmuştu? Yakın Doğu’da göçebelik (uzun zaman iddia edildiği gibi) MÖ. 4. binyıl sonlarında mı ortaya çıkmıştı, yoksa daha mı eskiydi? Arkeologların 1973’te Güneybatı İran ovalarını Zağros’a bağlayan hat üzerinde bir çadır kampı olan Tepe Tûlâî’yi keşfetmeleri soruyu yanıtlamayı kolaylaştırmıştır. 40 yıldır yürütülen tartışma, adı geçen mekânın “göçebe çobanlara ait bir kamp” mı olduğu, yoksa ova köylerinden birine ya da birkaçına mensup “yerleşik” çobanların burayı yaylacılık amacıyla mı kullandıklarıdır. Makalenin ilk hedefi, Tepe Tûlâî bulgularını sergilemek ve 8000 yaşındaki bir kampın Neolitik geçim ekonomisinde ne tür bir rol üstlendiğini saptamaktır. İkinci hedef, Tûlâî’den 1500 yıl sonra (MÖ. 5. binyılda) yine hareketli çobanlara ev sahipliği yapan Tuwah Koşkeh kampına ait bulguları ortaya sererek Zağros’ta göçebe çobanlığın doğuşunun iklim değişiklikleri (kuraklıklar) ile bağlantısını araştırmaktır

Keywords

Batı İran Neolitiği, Hareketli Çobanlık, Yaylacılık, Göçebe Çobanlık, Zağros

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