Abstract
In the mountainous lands of northern Iran, most of the excavated sites of the Iron Age (1450 BC ~ mid-3rd century B.C.) have been graveyards. Consequently, except for funeral customs, there is a lot of obscurity about certain basics such as the modes of habitation and the occupations.
In this paper, we analyze dates from surveys of recent years together with the results of earlier investigations and present the basic data of the distribution of Iron Age sites of the study area. Based on this, we investigate the modes of habitation and occupation.
In this analysis we date the surveyed sites in more detail, based on the results of the study of pottery. We also group and analyze sites according to their natural geographic conditions and compare them. In this way, through an understanding of both the detailed chronological changes and the detailed regional diversity of the distribution of sites, we attempt to grasp the relation between the distribution of the sites and the geographic factors.
As a result, we find that in the Iron Age the number of settlements increased notably and their zone of distribution also expanded. But certain aspects of these changes were not always uniform throughout the region. Based on the diversity by area of the distribution of the sites, we can trace the process in which an area which has the particular geographic conditions began to be chosen. Because the increase of settlements was especially remarkable in that area, we can hypothesize that these shifts were accompanied by the establishment of new modes of habitation as well as shifts in occupation.
