Afghanistan has close ethnic, cultural and genetic links to people of the Iranian plateau. Via the Iranian plateau Afghanistan was since earliest times connected to the ancient civilizations of Iran, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Iranian plateau is a geological region encompassing the mountainous regions between Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent. In played a central role in the formation of cultures and genetics of people of Afghanistan. Via the Iranian plateau probably the first humans arrived in Afghanistan and it is likely that already in the Mesolithic people from the Zagros to Hindukush mountains shared lot of ancestry. The Mesolithic Zarzian culture (18,000-8000 B.C) from North Iraq and West Iran with it Microlith technologies already expanded in the Mesolithic towards Central Asia and spread likely ancestry related to the western Iranian plateau (Schnaider et a. 2020). Later the neolithic cultural package would enter Afghanistan through the migration of Neolithic people from the western part of the Iranian plateau. The neolithic cultural package included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The oldest evidence of a neolithic culture comes from the Levant, where agriculture was first practiced 11,000 years ago. Around 8000 B.C. we find the first evidence of Neolithic culture in the central Zagros region and from here spread much further east into Central and South Asia. But this process took thousands of years and was a gradual process with many different stages. In the earliest stages rarely solid architecture and ceramics were seen but rather accumulations of pits and fireplaces. Some communities in the early Neolithic even went back to Hunter Gathing in too-arid regions or periods (Helwing 2012). But the end of the Neolithic we see first settlements of massive size, intensive farming often through irrigation, long-distance trade, complex social structures and highly sophisticated and specialized crafts.
Neolitization of the Iranian plateau started in a period when climate was hotter and more humid. Unlike in much of Mesopotamia or Egypt irrigation was less needed for agriculture because rain-fed water resources were easier available in regions like the Zagros and Alborz mountains. But at the same time, the Iranian plateau with its rugged and uneven geography kept settlements small (usually 50-100 inhabitants) and separated. The settlements would be concentrated in regions rich in water, animal and plant food but many regions inbetween would be in the early Neolithic either unhabited or still populated by Hunter Gathers(Bernbeck, 2001; Hole, 1987a; 1987b). This explains why despite the early Neolitization of the western Iranian plateau and its richness in resources cities and literate civilizations formed later than in Mesopotamia or Egypt.
The earliest Neolithic Iranians fall under a very specific and distinct genetic cluster. In archaeogenetics the term Neolithic Iranians is the name given to the ancient Neolithic population of the Iranian plateau spreading the Neolithic package to Central and South Asia. Neolithic Iranians belonged to a population that was distantly related to other early Neolithic populations in the Fertile Crescent and Caucasus but split from them already in the Paleolithic. Thanks to ancient DNA from Mesolithic Iran we know that Neolithic Iranians directly descended from earlier Mesolithic populations of the Iranian plateau. The earliest genomes from the Iranian plateau come from the Hotu caves on the slopes of the Alborz mountain range in northern Iran . The oldest skeleton Hotu I was dated to (9119-8637 B.C) and carried Y-DNA J2a (Lazaridis et a. 2016). He could be modelled as 90% Neolithic Iranian and 10% Ancestral North Eurasian or Central Asian Hunter Gather but this slight Central Asian shift could just be the result of Hotu being more located in the northeast than most of the Neolithic Iranian samples from the Zagros mountains.
These Mesolithic results make it clear that Mesolithic Iranians already in 10,000 B.C and their direct descendants in the Neolithic were not an unmixed population and they seemingly carried besides of their mainly Paleolithic West Asian ancestry also some Mesolithic Central Asian ancestry of mammoth hunters rich in haplogroups like R2, R* and Q*. Two Y-DNA R2a samples were found in one of the earliest Neolithic Iranian site in Ganj Dareh dated around 8000 B.C. But we need more ancient dna from Mesolithic Iran and Central Asia to calculate how much of Iran Mesolithic and Neolithic ancestry came from ancient West Asia and how much from ancient Central Asia. It likely was significantly higher during the Mesolithic and Neolithic in regions east of Hotu and Ganj Dareh close to Central Asia, where mixing with Central Asian Hunter Gathers and later pastoralists is well documented for the Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age period. In the southeastern end of the Iranian Plateau admixture with native South Asian Hunter Gathers with very specific and diverged ancestry from other West Eurasians likely also took place at a very early stage. At the northwestern end of the Iranian plateau closer to Anatolia and Mesopotamia admixture with Neolithic Anatolians and Mesopotamians took place and later after the initial migration of Neolithic Iranians these admixed groups should also immigrate to Central Asia. These admixed groups of mainly Neolithic Iranian ancestry often played a central role in the formation of the BMAC, IVC, Elam and Sumerian civilizations.
Artifacts of civilizations rich in Iran Neolithic ancestry
So it is no surprise that much of the autosomal, paternal and maternal ancestry of Afghans is derived from ancient Neolithic Iranians. Y-DNA Haplogroups like L1a, G2b, R2 and various J1/J2 clades among Afghans, Central and South Asians likely have their origin in this ancient population. But after countless of migrations, invasions and population expansions this ancestry is present in many different layers and was already in the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages heavily admixed with other components. The earliest possible sites of Neolithic Iranians in Afghanistan with even possible evidence for Goat domestication are Ghar-i Mar and Ghar-i Asp in North Afghanistan, which were dated to around 8.000-10.000 B.C but the radiocarbon datings are controversial (Allchin 2019) and we have no ancient dna from these sites. Considering the poor state of prehistoric research in Afghanistan and the likely mobile pastoralist nature of early Neolithic Iranians in much of Afghanistan (sites in the Neolithic often lack evidence for sedentism) we have not much archaeological data about early Neolithic Iranians in Afghanistan. So we will concentrate here on early Neolithic Iranian sites in Iran and Central Asia, which were also studied for archaeogenetics. This still will give us a very good picture about developments in Afghanistan, because Neolithic Iranians in Afghanistan arrived ultimately from Iran and much of the cultural developments in Neolithic Iran are also relevent for Neolithic Afghanistan.
One of the earliest Neolithic genomes from Iran were obtained from Ganj Dareh site from the Zagros Mountains region. The earliest of the genomes were dated to around 8000 B.C. The site is also famous for showing one of the oldest pieces of evidence for goat herding in the world. Ganj Dareh people practiced also a Goat cult indicated by the incorporation of goat horns and skulls into architectural niches (Weeks 2013). Farming on the other side was at a primitive stage, so Ganj Dareh people of the Neolithic were likely pastoralists and not fully sedentary (Gallego-Llorente et al. 2016). Ganj Dareh also lacked pottery like much of the early Pre-Pottery Iranian Neolithic untill around 6500 B.C.
Goat Herding Cult:
Interestingly goats were often venetrated by Neolithic Iranians and BMAC as symbol of life and fertility. We also have evidence for a Goat cult from Darra-I-Kur the only ancient archaelogical site from Afghanistan studied for archaeogenetics so far. Thr sample was from the Bronze Age and rich in Iran Neolithic ancestry and also carried Y-DNA R2 like many of the earliest Neolithic Iranians. Even today pagan Goat cults can be found in the Pamir, Hindukush and Karakorum regions the same places where Iran Neolithic ancestry is common today. This is one example of very old cultural continuity in the region dating to the Neolithic period.
Other very early Neolithic era Iranian genomes are from the Wezmeh Cave (WC1, 7455-7082 B.C) and the Tepe Abdul Hosein site (3 samples,8.205-7.756 B.C). These samples clustered very close with the samples from Ganj Dareh and maybe were even part of the same broader ethnolinguistic group. But considering the big distance between Neolithic Iranian settlements it is quite possible that Neolithic Iranians despite their genetic similarity spoke many languages and often languages already splitting from each other in the early Neolithic if not Mesolithic. The Wezmeh Cave is located in the Kermanshah region at the western end of the Iranian plateau. The site is spare in human-made artifacts and a clear neolithic context is missing, but paleodietary data supports WC1 being part of a Neolithic culture (Broushaki et al. 2016). Interestingly his Y-DNA was G2b and more specifically G-Y37100. G2b is today a very common Y-DNA among Karlani Pashtuns and the ancestor of this Afghan Y-DNA clade likely originated not too far away from Wezmeh. Tepe Abdul Hosein is an early Pre-Pottery Neolithic mound located in the central Zagros region. Evidence for early agriculture is found in the site with plant remains including pistachios, almonds, and small quantities of barley, emmer wheat and lentils but domestication of these plants can not be confirmed. Interestingly one of the Tepe Abdul Hosein individuals like in Ganj Dareh had an artificial cranial modification probably resulting from an intentional shaping of the head during childhood (Broushaki et al. 2016).
It took more than two millennia for Neolithic Iranians of the Iranian plateau to develop a fully Neolithic package around 6000-6500 B.C that included sedentism , cultivation of plants (not just collecting of grains) and production of pottery. This stage is generally called Pottery Neolithic or Late Neolithic period and typical for this stage were permanent villages in solid houses constructed from packed mud or mudbrick with much more sophisticated agriculture based on domesticated plants. During this period the number and density of sites increased dramatically. Still huting and collecting of wild plants played an important role in this period too. The earliest pottery-producing Neolithic sites were found in northern Iraq and western Iran (Jarmo site). From the Zagros mountains, the so-called “soft-ware” pottery should spread rapidly. So we see it shortly after it developed in the Zagros region in Tal-IIblis and Tepe Yahya in southeastern Iran and in Sang-i Chakhmaq in northeastern Iran. It is not clear yet if there was here a break or migration between the Pre-Pottery and Pottery periods at these sites.
Not much later than in Iran we see evidence of a late Neolithic culture at the very eastern end of the Iranian Plateau at Mehrgarh in Balochistan, which is situated at the bottom of the Bolan Pass. It also marked the arrival of the Neolithic cultural package in southern Afghanistan. Mehrgarh is an archaeological complex dated to 6000–2000 B.C with Pottery related to the “soft-Ware” type arriving around 5500 B.C. Related sites in eastern Afghanistan and eastern Balochistan played a central role in the formation of the Neolithic Indus Valley civilization of South Asia, which brought the Neolithic Package to the Indian subcontinent. It is also possible that people of Mehrgarh spoke languages ancestral to Dravidian languages of South Asia but this is a topic of future research and far from being confirmed. Interestingly Dravidian is still spoken by Brahui in Balochistan, but their origin is disputed and many scholars think Brahui remigrated to Balochistan during the early medieval period.
Another important site possibly marking the arrival of the late Neolithic package in parts of northern and western Afghanistan is the Jeitun and other nearby sites in southern Turkmenistan. Being located in the footshills of the Kopet Dag mountains Jeitun farmers had access to constant streams and small rivers which especially would swell up during spring floods. The earliest layers were dated to 6210–5770 B.C. It shows the earliest evidence of extensive farming in Central Asia and grains of domesticated barley and wheat have ben idenntified here. Also domesticated remains of domesticated animals like sheep and goats were found. Jeitun also shows ceramics of the ‘soft-ware’ type. The Jeitun cultural assemblage has a well-recognized similarity in cultural material and development to that seen in Afghanistan in later prehistoric periods. In this region of Central Asia including northern Afghanistan we also had a very early acculturation of Central Asian HGs rich in Ancestral North Eurasian (ANE) ancestry and related to Neolithic people of West Siberia and the Tarim Basin (see Xiahoe mummies)
Even bigger changes to the Iranian Plateau and surrounding regions happened in the Chalcolithic (also named Eneolithic or Copper-Stone Age) period (≈2900-6000 B.C). The Chacolithic period in the Iranian plateau included significant technological developments in a wide range of fields but most importantly the use of Copper (not Bronze yet) for metallurgy (Greek “Chalcolithic“ = Copper-Stone Age). This period is generally seen as a transitional period between the late Neolithic and Bronze Age. Other important developments in the Bronze Age were the intensification of agricultural production and especially the use of irrigation, which drastically increased the area of arable land. Also we see in the Chalcolithic the development of craft specialization, new social hierarchies, long-distance trade (oil an wine for example), and complex ritual iconography (Matthews/Nashli 2022). It was also period of massive genetic change in West Asia.
We also have some ancient DNA samples from the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia dated to the Chalcolithic period. Interestingly most of them show some admix related to Neolithic populations of Anatolia, the South Caucasus and to a lesser extent the Levant. The exact origin of this new ancestry in the Iranian Plateau is still unclear but most likely it originated somewhere in northern Mesopotamia and eastern Anatolia. Some of the pottery in Chalcolithic West Iran (J-Ware dated to (5200–4700 B.C) was derived from North Mesopotamian Halaf culture (5900-5100 B.C), so the Halaf culture of northern Mesopotamia looks like a possible source (Sharp/Kaercher 2018) . Another candidate is the Dalma culture originating near lake Urmia and rapidly spreading its specific Dalma Tradition pottery into Central Iran and the Central Zagros region around 5000-4500 B.C (Matthews/Nashli 2022).
In archaeogenetics, this new mixed population is called Chalcolithic Iranians and later their descendants should also play an important role for the formation of ancient people of Central Asia and Afghanistan- Chalcolithic Iranians in the western Iranian plateau derived around 50-70% of their ancestry from Neolithic Iranians. 30-50% of their ancestry was related to Neolithic East Anatolians (also carrying Caucasian Hunter Gathter ancestry) and North Mesoptamians. This is a very high percentage and it is likely that these mysterious immigrants from West Asia already carried Iran Neolithic ancestry so the Iranian Plateau has seen a massive migration in the Chalcolithic and possibly even population replacement in some (northwestern) regions. The North-Mesopotamian and East Anatolian-like ancestry was highest in the northwest and gradually decreased east- and southeastwards.
Two typical Chalcolithic sites of Iran where this new DNA profile was detected are Tepe Hissar and Seh Gabi. Tepe Hissar is a late Chalcolithic urban settlement showing long continuous settlement (5000-200 B.C) in the Semnan province along the Silk Road bridging Central Asia and Mesopotamia. Via this route much of the earlier Iran Neolithic and Iranian Chalcolithic ancestry arrived in Central Asia. It played a central role for the export of metal artifacts and semi-precious stones from Central Asia and Afghanistan to Mesopotamia and Egypt Tepe Hissar also mass produced high quality ware decorated with geometric, plant and animal patterns.
Another important site with contacts linking Mesopotamia and the western Iranian Plateau to Central Asia is Seh Gabi (6000-3000 B.C) in the Kermanshah region where both Halafian-related J-Ware and Dalma ware was found. Seh Gabi was already populated in the late Neolithic and one sample from this period also clustered with earlier Iranian Neolithic samples from Ganj Dareh, Wezmeh and Teppe Abdul Hossein. The Chalcolithic samples on the other side have shown a significant East-Anatolian/North Mesopotamian shift. Seh Gabi was nearby the much bigger Chalcolithic site of Godin Tepe, which is thought to have acted as a center for the trade of metals or semi-precious stones from Central Asia and Afghanistan. For example lapis-lazuli from Badakhshan was found here
This new West Asian ancestry is also visible in Eneolithic samples of Central Asian farmers. So Iran Chalcolithic ancestry reached Central Asia and likely Afghanistan in the Eneolithic. Most of these Eneolithic Central Asians could be modelled as around 15-40% Iran Chalcolithic-like. They also carried significant Ancetral North Eurasian admix via Central Asian Hunter Gathers.
In the Chalcolithic many new sites appear in foothill oases of Kopet Dag in southern Turkmenistan and sedentarly Neolithic groups expanded eastwards. The new technologies of the Chalcolithic rapidly stimulated population growth and there likely also was significant migration from North Iran. Sites like Tepe Anau (starting from 4000-4500 B.C) and Namazga Tepe (4000-1500) in southern Turkmenistan show also similarities to older and contemporary sites in north-Central Iran like Tepe Sialk, Cheshmeh-Ali and Teppe Hissar, which were likely the source of Iran Chalcolithic ancestry in samples of these sites. These Central Asian sites were is in many aspects a continuation of the earlier Jeitun culture but up to the Bronze Age were in close contact with North Iran from which it adopted technologies like stamp seals.
Another centre of Chalcolithic culture was the Geokysur oasis (second half of the 4th millennium BCE) southeast of Tepe Anau and Namazga in the ancient delta of the Tedzhen river. Probably founded by eastern Tepe Anau groups it quickly grew and was surrounded by a dense network of canals. From the Geokysur oasis Iran Chalcolithic-rich groups should further migrate into Afghanistan and Tajikistan. A result of this deeper colonization of Central Asia was the foundation of Sarazm (3500-1800 B.C), which was located in the Zerafshan valley in Tajikistan. It was the most northern site in Central Asia with direct evidence for farming in this period. The site’s chronology spans from 3500-1800 BCE and represented a colonization of Chalcolithic farmers from the Kopet Dag and Geokysus oases. Still Sarazm shew significantly less Iran Chalcolithic and more Central Asian Hunter Gather ancestry than these farmer groups so these new settlers likely mixed with earlier Neolithic groups in the region (Narasimhan et al. 2018). Being close to mines of metal and gemstones in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan it acted as important trade and metallurgy centre. But Sarazm had also contacts to sites in Balochistan showing some influences on its pottery (15% of it pottery with parallels to Mehrgarh) from Balochistan. Also seashell bracelets were found in Sarazm typical for Balochistan (Dani 1992). So Sarazm likely had immigrants from Balochistan and South Afghanistan.
https://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_2011_num_37_2_5420
(check for sokhta article and mehrgarh)
At the end of the Chalcolithic and beginning of the Bronze Age, we see the emrgence of the Helmand, BMAC, Indus Valley and Elam civilization with large urban or proto-urban settlements. The three features of an early agricultural mode of life, namely, solid mud-brick houses, developed painted pottery and terracotta figurines representing a female fertility goddess or various ungulates, are present in many of these civilizations. In Afghanistan and Central Asia the presence of
copper deposits favoured the development of metallurgy and played an important role in the formation of the Helmand civilization in southern Afghanistan and BMAC civilization in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan. These two very important civilization for the history of Afghanistan formed in arid regions depending on big river systems and irrigations
The Helmand civilization flourished in the fourth and third millennia BC in southern Afghanistan and southeastern Iran (3300-2500 B.C). It rise predates the Indus Valley and BMAC civilization. Mundigak in south Afghanistan near Kandahar (4000-2400 B.C) and Shahr-I Sokhta (3200-2350 BC) in Iranian Sistan are the most important cities of the Helmand civilization with Shar-I-Sokhta being one of the biggest cities in the world in this period and containing between 20.000-40.000 graves. Shar-I-Sokhta is located in a very arid and hot region near the Lut desert one of the hottest places on earth. But the climate was far more hospitable for agriculture in ancient times when the Hamun Lake and marshlands (near which Shahr-i-Sokhta was located) were much greater in size. Importantly we have ancient genomes from Shar-I-Sokhta which are of huge importance for Afghans and South Asians. Other important places of the Helmand civilization are Bampur and Said Qala Tepe. It is the earliest known culture in the region to build cities. A large palace and a monumental temple have been excavated at Mundigak. The palace in particular demonstrates an advanced social structure of society. Bronze was processed. Part of the pottery is painted. Numerous terracotta figures can be found in the finds. Seals with geometric patterns were found at various sites. We have found tablets with a so-called “Proto-Elamitic” script but this script is not deciphered and not necessarily related to later Elamitic spoken in western Iran.
These ancient people were in close contact with the Indus cultures in the east, ancestors of the BMAC culture in the north and the Jiroft and Elam civilizations in the west. These contacts are also visible in many ancient genomes of the Shar-I-Sokhta site. Some of the samples shew very high Iran Chalcolithic admix whereas others show very high AASI (Ancestral Ancient South Asian) admix and clustered even with modern-day South Indians. Still a very high and dominating percentage of their ancestry came from Neolithic Iranians (50-70%). It is also interesting that the sample samples that are richest in AASI-admix are also lowest in Iran Chalcolithic-like admix just like modern-day South Asians, which derive their Iranian Plateau ancestry almost fully from older Neolithic types (Iran Chacolithic admix shows only significantly up Iron Age Swat and most northwestern Indians).
Another ancient civilization central for the history of Central Asia is the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) dated to c. 2250–1700 BC, which was centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River) in Bactria, Murghab river delta (Margiana in southern Turkmenistan) and in the Kopet Dag mountain range. There are a few later (c. 1950–1450 BC) sites in northern Bactria but they are mostly graveyards belonging to the Post-BMAC Sapalli culture in Uzbekistan. A single BMAC site, known as Dashli, lies in southern Bactria in modern-day northern Afghanistan. Sites found further east, in southwestern Tajikistan, though contemporary with the main BMAC sites in Margiana, are only graveyards, with no urban developments associated with them for now. The BMAC culture existed for a short period and still remains despite extensive archaeological work at many sites very mysterious. It suddenly appeared in Central Asia and then quite quickly dissapeared for regions not fully understood. We have just like for the Helmand-Jirof and Indus Valley civilization no deciphered scripts for that Civilization but we have found well-designed and planned architecture, monumental buildings, and a wealth of splendid artifacts made of the most precious stones or metals depicting a unique and fascinating pantheon. Their pantheon especially was rich in female and snake figures very atypical for later Indo-Iranians in the region again showing the Pre-Indo-European character of this culture, but BMAC still had a huge influence on the culture and religion of Central Asian Indo-Iranians especially Iranics.
Artifacts from BMAC and Post-BMAC sites:
It is also one of the best sampled ancient cultures of Central-South Asia from which we have many ancient genomes. The famous BMAC city Gonur (2400-1600 B.C) and many related later Post-BMAC sites like Sappali Tepe (1700-2000 B.C), Bustan (1400-1700 B.C but has older Eneolithic graves), Parkhai (1300-1500 B.C has also older Eneolithic samples) and Dzharkutan (1400-1900 B.C) were studied for archaeogenetics. Remarkable about the BMAC and Post-BMAC genomes is, that they show even higher Iran Chalcolithic admix than the Eneolithic South Central Asians. Some females from Dzharkutan are even recent immigrants from the South Caucasus. There are especially from Gonur also outliners of mainly South Asian or Central Asian Hunter Gather/Pastoralist origin. It seems BMAC attracted immigrants from all directions but especially from the western Iranian plateau. On the otherside these BMAC-related groups (including the later ones dated to 1700-2000 B.C) dont show significant Steppe MLBA admix nor carried they Steppe Y-DNA. This either means that Steppe MLBA groups rich in Y-DNA like R1a-Z93 either bypassed these groups or arrived slightly later in the region. But considering that Indo-Aryans show up already around the 15-18th century in West Asia (Maryannu) they likely already were present in
Comparing the oldest Neolithic genomes from the Iranian Plateau to modern people from Afghanistan and surrounding countries revealed that modern day Afghans derive around 20-60% of their ancestry from people very similar to these Neolithic Iranians from Ganj Dareh, Wezhmeh and Abdul Tepe Hosein (here Ganj Dareh was used as reference). Today this ancestry peaks in Balochi with around 55% and is also very high among Pashtuns, Nuristani and Tajiks in eastern Afghanistan with around 35-45%. Lowest in Iran Neolithic ancestry are Hazara and Uzbeks, who derive around 20% of their ancestry from Iran Neolithic-like populaitons.
Iran Chalcolithic is also high in Afghans and much of the Iran Neolithic ancestry in Afghanistan arrived probably not directly from early Neolithic groups but from later Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and even historical/medieval era migration waves from the western part of the Iranian plateau. Today many Afghans are Persian-speaking for example and this language was brought by massive but much later immigration waves from the western part of the Iranian plateau (Achaemenids, Sassanids, Muslim era Persians). The highest Iran Chalcolithic ancestry is found among Tajiks from Herat and historical Sogdiana. Baloch and Hindukush populations are lowest in Iran Chalcolithic ancestry and seem to derive their Iran Neolithic ancestry from a Sarazm-like wave (with Iran Chalc affinity but much lower than in Namazga or later BMAC)
Sources
- Gallego-Llorente, Marcos, et al. “The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran.” Scientific reports 6.1 (2016): 1-7.
- Allchin, Raymond, ed. Archaeology of Afghanistan: From Earliest Times to the Timurid Period: New Edition. Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
- Broushaki, Farnaz, et al. “Early Neolithic genomes from the eastern Fertile Crescent.” Science 353.6298 (2016): 499-503.
- Lazaridis, Iosif, et al. “The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers.” bioRxiv (2016): 059311.
- Helwing, B. (2012). The Iranian Plateau. In A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, D.T. Potts (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444360790.ch26
- Weeks, Lloyd R. “The development and expansion of a Neolithic way of life.” (2013).
- Matthews, Roger, and Hassan Fazeli Nashli. The Archaeology of Iran from the Palaeolithic to the Achaemenid Empire. Taylor & Francis, 2022.
- Sharp, Melissa, and Kyra Kaercher. “Chalcolithic ceramic connections between Mesopotamia and Iran, c. 5900–5100 BCE.” Iraq 80 (2018): 233-250.
- Shnaider, Svetlana V., et al. “New insights into the Epipaleolithic of western Central Asia: The Tutkaulian complex.” Quaternary International 535 (2020): 139-154.
- Narasimhan, Vagheesh M., et al. “The genomic formation of South and Central Asia.” BioRxiv (2018): 292581.
- Dani, Ahmad Hasan. et al. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Paris: Unesco, 1992. Print.
Further reading
Genetics
- The formation of Human populations in South and Central Asia
- Population genomics unravels the Holocene history of bread wheat and its relatives
- The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia
- The genetics of an early Neolithic pastoralist from the Zagros, Iran
Archaelogy
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