Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Takehiro Miki

The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, JAPAN

Abstract

During the 5th millennium BCE in southern Iran, black-on-buff painted pottery spread from the Susiana Plain to the Zagros Mountains. Some researchers argued that the expansion of the painted pottery was due to the specialist potter's migration from the Susiana Plain to the Zagros mountains. However, others also considered potteresses' movement due to interregional marriage and exchange of the pottery as another mechanism for expanding the painted pottery. This presentation approaches the expansion process of the black-on-buff pottery using social network analysis to understand this mechanism's dynamics. This paper uses published/unpublished drawings of exterior-painted black-on-buff ceramics reported in archaeological sites ranging from Luristan to Kerman for this analysis. These materials were roughly subdivided into three phases (the Early, Middle, Late phases) of the 5th millennium BCE to reveal diachronic changes of network patterns. One of the pottery attributes, horizontal design structures, was used to reconstruct networks based on the Brainerd-Robinson coefficient of similarity, thereby allowing for visualization of two different kinds of networks. This paper presents a preliminary result of network analyses and discusses the potentials and limits of this approach.

Keywords

• Chalcolithic
• Southern Iran
• Black-on-Buff Pottery
• Social Network Analysis