Susiana - Muhammad Jaffar

  General Description   "The Archaic Susiana 0 Phase. The appearance of the Painted-Burnished variant of ware, a new class of painted pottery that provides antecedent for the entire Archaic Susiana ceramics, marks the transition to the Archaic period. Another site, Tappe Tuleʾi (named after an edible tuber), southwest of Andimesk in northwestern Ḵuzestān, is the only other site in ancient Kuzestan that was occupied during this phase (Hole, 1974; Idem, 1975). The fact that neither Tappe Tule’i nor Coga Bonut was located close to any detectable canal or source of water may be an indication of sufficient precipitation for dry farming. Faunal, floral, and phytolith (fossilized pollen) evidence from Coga Bonut indicated the presence of marshes in upper Susiana during this phase (Redding and Rosen in Alizadeh, pp. 129-49).
Evidence of gazelle, onager, and domesticated sheep, goats, and dogs, as well as that of wheat and barley points to a mixed economy of farming, herding, and hunting in this phase. In addition to these species, the presence of bones of the giant Indian gerbil and bears at Čoḡā Bonut also indicates the wetter climate in this region during the initial phases of the Archaic period.
The Painted-Burnished variant ware is fully represented at Tappe Tuleʾ’i, but is rare in the nearby Dehlorān (Deh Luran) plain to the north (FIGURE 5). Apart from this distinct class of early Neolithic Susiana pottery, the stone tools, chipped stone industry, and small objects such as T-shaped human figurines and animal figurines are almost indistinguishable among the two Susiana sites and Coga Safid and Alikos in Dehloran. The great similarity in the objects other than pottery suggests that while the stone industry and the manufacture of small clay and stone objects found at these sites may have had a shared origin, the Painted-Burnished variant ware was developed in Susiana proper.
The architecture of the Archaic Susiana 0 phase at Coga Bonut consists of two separate buildings, but their complete plans cannot be restored (Alizadeh, fig. 10). A rather large rectangular structure is all that was left of one building that, based on its comparatively large size, must have been a hall or courtyard of a much larger structure. The three surviving walls are neatly made of long, cigar-shaped mud bricks laid as stretchers. Two platforms or buttresses, made of the same construction material, were built against the outer face of its southern wall. The western portion of this building, where the living quarters had been presumably located, was entirely destroyed, but the presence of two rows of headers, one slightly higher than the other, could have provided access to the rooms on this side. The other, smaller building was better preserved. The building material was the same as for the larger structure, but the neat division of space and the straightness of its walls indicate a certain degree of architectural sophistication, if not specialization, even in this early phase of architecture in Susiana.
For reasons not known, sometime during the Archaic Susiana 0 phase, Coga Bonut was deserted and did not become reoccupied for at least a thousand years." ^[1]
Four sites excavated: Choga Mish, Boneh Fazili, Chogha Bonut and Tula’i. ^[2]
Tula’I is a herders’ camp, at the least a seasonal camp.
25 sites on the Susiana Plain that have ceramics of one or the other of the periods.
No good information on agricultural settlement
Choga Mish, Choga Bonut and Boneh Fazili have a large settlement.

[1]: (Alizadeh 2009, Encyclopedia Iranica Online, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/coga-bonut-archaeological-site)

[2]: (Hole 1987, 39-40)