Benjamin Mutin

Omran Garazhian

The Neolithic settlement in the southern Lut Desert, Iran

Keywords: Iran, Lut Desert, Neolithic, Tell-e Atashi, Archaeological Survey, Excavation

This article presents results from recent archaeological survey in the southern Lut Desert area (Kerman Province, southeastern Iran). This fieldwork, conducted in the Bam region since 2016, has recorded numerous Neolithic sites, probably among the largest concentrations of Neolithic sites reported so far in southeastern Iran. This region is located in the lowlands east of the Jebal Barez Mountains, while all other Neolithic sites known in southeastern Iran are west of these mountains. It is also halfway between India and the Zagros Mountains of western Iran. As such, this fieldwork not only has brought important new data on the Neolithic period in the southern Lut Desert area and southeastern Iran, but it also has allowed us to address again broader research questions relating to the development of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent, across the Iranian Plateau into South Asia. In this article, we describe the main characteristics of the regional Neolithic settlement we have surveyed and offer preliminary interpretations as to its chronology and spatial distribution. We first provide information on the ancient climate and topography of the Bam region, for these are key aspects to understanding settlement pattern during the Neolithic period. We also summarize results from three excavation-seasons at Tell-e Atashi, the single Neolithic site that has been excavated in the southern Lut Desert area. We conclude by discussing our results with consideration of current knowledge on the Neolithic period in southern Iran and Pakistan and questions relating to the emergence of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent.

Introduction

Agriculture is largely believed to have been invented in the Fertile Crescent, between the Levant, southern Anatolia, and the Zagros Mountains, around 9500 cal. BCE (e.g., Weeks, 2013b;[START_REF] Bar-Yosef | The origins of sedentism and agriculture in western Asia[END_REF]. Research in Europe has shown that agriculture then began spreading west of the Fertile Crescent during the seventh millennium cal. BCE. Many scholars agree that plant cultivation and animal breeding began spreading at about the same time eastward across the Iranian Plateau to Central Asia and South Asia. Yet, while we are relatively well-informed as to the processes and chronology of this development in Europe (e.g., [START_REF] Silva | Amplitude of travelling front as inferred from 14C predicts levels of genetic admixture among European early farmers[END_REF], current knowledge on this topic in the regions east of the Fertile Crescent is much more limited and at times inconsistent, especially as far as the chronology of the early farming villages in these regions is concerned. Consequently, it is unclear whether and in which cases agriculture emerged across the Iranian Plateau and South Asia as a result of cultural or demic diffusion, or local, independent processes. Different types of data tend to support the demic diffusion hypothesis. Results from recent human DNA analyses are consistent with this hypothesis [START_REF] Narasimhan | The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia[END_REF]. Also, most available radiocarbon dates do not contradict this scenario as they show that the earliest Neolithic sites in the Fertile Crescent are older than most Neolithic sites known at present further east (and further west in Europe). Additionally, a number of plant and animal species are thought to have been introduced onto the Iranian Plateau and in South Asia from Southwest Asia. Yet, there are significant disagreements on the latter line of evidence (see Bellwood, 2005: 84-86;[START_REF] Harris | The Beginnings of Agriculture in Western Central Asia[END_REF]Kingwell-Banham et al., 2015: 267-273;[START_REF] Patel | South Asian Contributions to Animal Domestication and Pastoralism: Bones, Genes, and Archaeology[END_REF]. On the DNA studies, despite an increasing set of analyses and major improvements in this field, it is legitimate to argue that they do not cover the immensity and complexity of the Neolithic landscape in the regions east of the Fertile Crescent. As for the radiocarbon dates, one may contend that many Neolithic sites have yet to be discovered, potentially including sites where local, independent development of agriculture occurred and Neolithic settlements as early as those in the Fertile Crescent.

A fact indeed remains that our understanding of the emergence of agriculture in these regions is currently based on a limited number of well-dated Neolithic occupations. As such, it may radically change as new discoveries are made. This has been the case in Fars Province, southwestern Iran. For decades, the Neolithic period in Fars was mostly known through pottery Neolithic sites dating to between the mid-seventh and the late-sixth millennia cal. BCE. Yet, recent fieldwork in this province, in Cave TB75 in the Tang-e Bolaghi area, has yielded new insights into the initial processes of animal management in this province as early as between the tenth and eighth millennia cal. BCE. Additionally, aceramic Neolithic deposits dating to 7047-6744 cal. BCE were identified at Tepe Rahmatabad (Tsuneki et al. 2007;[START_REF] Azizi Kharanaghi | Tepe Rahmatabad: a Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic Site in Fars Province[END_REF][START_REF] Nishiaki | The Late Aceramic Neolithic Flaked Stone Assemblage from Tepe Rahmatabad, Fars, South-West Iran[END_REF]Weeks 2013b). It is also important to remember that, over 1400 km east of Fars, the earliest Neolithic occupations at Mehrgarh in Pakistan, which are aceramic, are thought to be no later than the eighth millennium cal. BCE and to have emerged out of an earlier, local background that has yet to be discovered (C. Jarrige et al. 1995: 9-19;Jarrige, 2008: 152-153;Jarrige et al. 2013: 151-152). One issue with this claim, however, is that many radiocarbon dates from the Neolithic period at this site (from aceramic Period I and pottery Period II) are between 6000-4000 cal. BCE (C. Jarrige et al. 1995: 9-11, 555-556;Jarrige et al. 2013: 151-152). Mehrgarh is the single Neolithic site in Pakistan that has been extensively studied. Therefore, resolving this chronological conundrum is crucial to understanding the emergence of agriculture in South Asia, including whether and how it relates to developments on the Iranian Plateau and further west.

In summary, although a set of evidence tends to show that agriculture developed across the Iranian Plateau and northwest South Asia as a result of diffusion from the Fertile Crescent, the possibility remains, and part of current data tends to show, that local experiments leading to agriculture occurred independently from a western influence. Furthermore, considering the diffusion hypothesis, it is "not readily apparent whether there was demic diffusion, involving movement of agropastoralist populations; cultural diffusion, involving the adoption of agropastoralism by populations previously using other subsistence strategies; or nuanced combinations of the two." (Kingwell-Banham et al. 2015: 270). Again, the fact that current chronology of the Neolithic period east of the Fertile Crescent is not firmly established does not help answering these questions. Additionally, although thinking big picture is fundamental, it is important to remember that numerous, likely diverse Neolithic communities populated the stretches of lands between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Yet, we still know very little about these communities at the regional and local scales. In other words, one of the most urgent tasks is to renew data on this topic through multi-scalar field projects that consider both locally and regionally focused studies as well as broader comparative approaches.

Just east of Fars and halfway between the Zagros Mountains and South Asia, southeastern Iran (Fig. 1) is a key area with great potential for answering the above-mentioned questions relating to the emergence of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent. As of today, field investigations that inform us on the Neolithic period in southeastern Iran are mostly limited to: an excavation at Tepe Yahya in the Soghun Valley (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1986a); a test-trench at Tepe Gaz Tavila and surveys in the Daulatabad Plain (Prickett, 1986a(Prickett, , 1986b)); an excavation at Tal-i Iblis in the Bardsir Plain [START_REF] Caldwell | Investigations at Tal-i Iblis[END_REF]; and an excavation at Tepe Gav Koshi in the Esfandagheh Plain [START_REF] Soleimani | The Re-evaluation of Kerman Neolithic Chronology based on the Excavation of Tepe Gav Koshi. Esfandagheh-Jiroft[END_REF]. All these places are west of the Jebal Barez Mountains in western Kerman Province, and, except for the sites presented in this article, no Neolithic site has been reported further east and south in Iran, including in Sistan-va-Baluchestan Province (see [START_REF] Mutin | New discoveries in the Bampur Valley (south-eastern Iran) and their implications for the understanding of settlement pattern in the Indo-Iranian borderlands during the Chalcolithic Period[END_REF][START_REF] Sarhaddi-Dadian | New Data on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods in the South-Eastern Greater Periphery of the Jazmurian Basin: Archaeological Survey along the Sarbaz Valley and in Adjacent Areas in Iranian Baluchestan[END_REF]. Data from these fieldworks shows that agriculture emerged in southeastern Iran during the seventh (at Tepe Gav Koshi) or sixth (at Tepe Gaz Tavila and Tepe Yahya) millennium cal. BCE (Prickett, 1986a: 410 Tab. 3.1, 416-429, 544-545, 576-579;[START_REF] Soleimani | The Re-evaluation of Kerman Neolithic Chronology based on the Excavation of Tepe Gav Koshi. Esfandagheh-Jiroft[END_REF], therefore considerably later than in the Fertile Crescent. The Neolithic material culture in western Kerman generally parallels assemblages from other Neolithic sites across Iran and from Mehrgarh in Pakistan. It seems more specifically connected to assemblages in eastern Fars Province, just west of Kerman, especially its pottery (Piperno, 1973;Beale, 1986b: 86;Beale, 1986c;[START_REF] Heskel | Metallurgical Technology[END_REF]Prickett, 1986a: 576-577, 762-763;Vandiver, 1986Vandiver, , 1987;;[START_REF] Soleimani | The Re-evaluation of Kerman Neolithic Chronology based on the Excavation of Tepe Gav Koshi. Esfandagheh-Jiroft[END_REF]. The subsistence economy of Neolithic Tepe Yahya and Tepe Gaz Tavila, which is based on domesticated barley, wheat, goat, and sheep (as well as cattle) [START_REF] Meadow | The Geographical and Paleoenvironmental Setting of Tepe Yahya[END_REF], is also consistent with what is observed elsewhere in Iran and Pakistan during this period. In summary, "[t]hese shared attributes of production technology [likely] reflect some degree of communication and diffusion" (Lamberg-Karlovsky and Beale, 1986: 266), but it remains unclear whether agriculture and additional technologies associated with the Neolithic emerged in southeastern Iran as a result of local developments, outside forces-which could be demic or cultural diffusion-, or both combined. At the scale of southeastern Iran, we also do not know well what the Neolithic period consists of in the regions east of the Jebal Barez.

In 2016, we developed a new field research project in the southern Lut Desert region, southeastern Iran. One objective of this project is to get more data on the Neolithic communities in southeastern Iran and on their relationships to their neighbors on the Iranian Plateau and in northwest South Asia. Our overarching goal is to contribute to current research on the emergence of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent. This project is in the Bam region, in the lowlands east of the Jebal Barez, eastern Kerman. Previous research in this area revealed the existence of a few Neolithic sites including Tell-e Atashi, where aceramic deposits were exposed in a test-trench in 20084 [START_REF] Adle | Qanats of Bam: an Archaeological Perspective. Irrigation System in Bam, its Birth and Evolution from the Prehistoric Period up to Modern Times[END_REF][START_REF] Garazhian | Darestan: a group of Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in south-eastern Iran[END_REF][START_REF] Garazhian | Stratigraphic Excavation at Tal-e Atashi, Darestan, Bam: Living Floors of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic Site, Southeastern Iran[END_REF]. Starting from these encouraging results, we systematically surveyed significant portions of the Bam region and recorded many additional Neolithic sites. We also resumed excavation at Tell-e Atashi. In this article, we summarize our survey results with a focus on the Neolithic sites we recorded. We provide in a first section information on the ancient climate and topography in the Bam region, as these are key elements to understanding settlement pattern during the Neolithic period. We present in a second section selected results from our excavation at Tell-e Atashi. This site is the only Neolithic site that has been excavated in the southern Lut Desert area and as such our single reference point for the chronology of this period in this area. We then present our survey results in a third section. Lastly, we discuss this new data with consideration of the above-mentioned broader questions relating to the emergence of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent. Certainly, answering these questions would require incorporation of more data than that presented here. Yet, this fieldwork already allows us to offer new insights into this topic.

Topography and climate

The city of Bam is located in the southern margins of the Lut Desert, in a plain east of the Jebal Barez Mountains (Fig. 2). Seasonal torrents running from the mountains have brought clastic materials into the lowland area, creating alluvial fans which have formed an accumulation of ca. 10-15 km wide and up to 500 m thick deposits (Fouache et al. 2013: 564). The average altitude in the lowlands decreases from west to east, from ca. 1250 m at Darzin, 1000-1100 m around Bam, to 750 m in Darestan east of Bam. The city sits at the confluence of two seasonal rivers, the Posht-e Rud and the Chelekhoneh, a river system that then continues further east. The Bam region is today one of the most unhospitable places on earth. 5 It has a desert climate with extremely high surface temperatures, a very low humidity rate, and strong winds (Adle, 2006: 35; Fouache et al. 2013: 563-564 6 ). However, about 10,000 years ago, southeastern Iran had a humid monsoonal climate with heavy summer precipitation. By around 8000 years ago, the monsoon intensity started to decline and finally retreated from southeastern Iran ca. 6000 years ago. As generally observed in the Middle East, climate became more arid with phases of extreme droughts such as around 4200 years ago [START_REF] Fouache | Les régions de Bam et de Sabzevar (Iran) : une évolution dans l'implantation des sites archéologiques et dans la gestion des ressources en eau compatible avec l'hypothèse d'une aridification croissante du climat entre 2500-1900 BC[END_REF]; see [START_REF] Petrie | The Iranian Plateau and the Indus River Basin[END_REF].

Despite an increasing arid climate, access to water in the Bam region has been facilitated by a northsouth scarp visible in the southeastern periphery of Bam, west of Baravat. This scarp is believed to have formed ca. 10,000 years ago as a result of the seismic fault that runs through the city (Fouache et al. 2013: 563 fig. 3). Water from rainfalls and melting snow is caught by the mountains in the western part of the region. It then runs eastward into large and thick, permeable alluvial fans and is collected by the scarp, which, being less permeable, acts as an underground dam [START_REF] Anseri | Geological Characteristics of Bam Region with Special Reference to Qanat Systems Development and Effects of the December 26, 2003 Earthquake[END_REF]. The scarp also has modified water flow east of Bam. Originally, the Posht-e Rud divided into two riverbeds east of Bam: one going east to Darestan and one going southeast toward the Narmashir Basin. The scarp is thought to have prevented surface water from running into the southern riverbed, most water now running through the northern riverbed. Further east, in Darestan, this water has had to pass over a zone where bedrock outcrops (Fouache et al. 2013: 564-566;Fig. 3). This configuration is reminiscent of what Nials et al. (2011: 736-737) define as a "reach boundary" created by "[r]esistant bedrock or sediments in or immediately adjacent to the stream channel…[They] typically alter the velocity of underflow, and result in a water table rise upstream from the boundary…[T]he unconfined floodplains above and below bedrock-related boundaries tend to be wider. If [steep-sided gullies] are not present…floodwaters…spread over a large area, thus reducing water depth and velocity during floods…increasing duration of floodwater residence and infiltration." Various resources are available, including water, arable land, and a rich and diverse ecosystem. This observation is certainly worth keeping in mind considering that the Neolithic settlement we have observed in the Bam region clusters within the braided plain of Darestan, precisely east of what we believe is a reach boundary. Altitude 5 decreases from that point eastward and increases again with the mountains located just east of this settlement, creating a depression within which the sites are located.

Summary of three excavation-seasons at Tell-e Atashi

Tell-e Atashi (site DA250) is located in the eastern part of the Neolithic settlement in Darestan. It is a ca. 5.4 ha mound, surrounded by a ca. 6.6 ha "scatter site," a flat expanse of archaeological materials (Garazhian and Shakooie, 2013: 274;Fig. 3;Fig. 4: 1-3;Fig. 5). In 2008, one of us (O.G.) opened a testtrench in the southwestern portion of the mound. This test-trench studied the uppermost occupation deposits of the site, consisting of mudbrick architectural levels radiocarbon dated to between the latesixth and mid-fifth millennia cal. BCE [START_REF] Garazhian | Stratigraphic Excavation at Tal-e Atashi, Darestan, Bam: Living Floors of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic Site, Southeastern Iran[END_REF]. In 2017 and 2018, two of us (O.G. and B.M.) opened additional test-trenches (TT1-7) to evaluate the nature of the archaeological deposits in other locations of the site. We also opened a 33 x 2 m stratigraphic trench (Excavation 1) to reach its oldest deposits and get a complete view of its stratigraphy. We reached the virgin soil at about nine meters deep relative to the surface of the 2008 test-trench, and new radiocarbon dates from Excavation 1 confirmed those from the 2008 field-season, as they cluster within the late-sixth millennium cal. BCE.7 Additionally, we opened a planimetric, ca. 165 m 2 excavation (Excavation 2) to get a better sense than in Excavation 1 of how the communities at Tell-e Atashi built and organized their habitat. We studied well-preserved living spaces, which yielded an abundant material assemblage. Although we have no radiocarbon dates from Excavation 2, the architecture and objects were recovered from this excavation are very similar to those from Excavation 1, making it likely that they date to sometime between the mid-sixth and mid-fifth millennia cal. BCE.

The radiocarbon dates from Tell-e Atashi make this site generally contemporary with Neolithic Tepe Yahya Period VII (ca. 5600-4600 cal. BCE) and slightly later than Tepe Gaz Tavila (ca. 5800-5400 cal. BCE) (Prickett, 1986a: 410 Tab. 3.1;416-429, 544-545, 576-579;see Beale, 1986a). The mudbricks we found at Tell-e Atashi are "thumb-impressed." They are similar to those from Neolithic-Chalcolithic Tepe Yahya Periods VII-VB as well as Tal-i Iblis Period I, Tepe Sialk Period II, and Mehrgarh Period I (see Evett, 1967: 219, 222;Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 283, 304 Pl. 7 lower, 306;Beale, 1986c;Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1986b: 248-249;Jarrige, 2008: 140 fig. 6). The rest of the material culture from Tell-e Atashi (including lithics; bone objects; stone beads, vessels, perforated discs; and grinding stones) has general parallels at Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Iran and Pakistan. We found no pottery, which is unusual considering the radiocarbon dates of the deposits we excavated, but we collected numerous unfired clay objects including figurines, cones, pawns, balls, and miniature dishes. Although several of these categories of clay objects have equivalents at other sites in Iran, including in Kerman and Fars (e.g., Tepe Yahya: Beale, 1986d: 190-199 69 8 ), their abundance at Tell-e Atashi is noteworthy. As for the subsistence economy, it typically includes domesticated wheat and barley as well as wild grasses (gramineae, wild rye, bromes, oats), wild pulses (astragalus, fabaceae), and oil seeds (flax). 9 4 Surface survey in the Bam region

Methodology and limitations

We surveyed by foot and car, aided with prior study of satellite images on Google Earth and of available published data (e.g., [START_REF] Adle | Qanats of Bam: an Archaeological Perspective. Irrigation System in Bam, its Birth and Evolution from the Prehistoric Period up to Modern Times[END_REF][START_REF] Garazhian | Darestan: a group of Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in south-eastern Iran[END_REF]. We recorded the sites locations using a GPS smartphone application named "Field GPS." This application allows for a fast and easy capture of large series of GPS coordinates with horizontal and vertical accuracies of 5 m and 3 m, respectively. We collected a sample of diagnostic surface materials at each site, mostly lithics and ceramic fragments, which permitted us to date the occupation(s) present at these sites. We calculated the sites areas based on the surface distribution of archaeological materials and features and using numerous GPS coordinates recorded at close, regular intervals. This data was then processed through Google Earth and ArcMap. Although we recorded many GPS coordinates, the sites areas indicated in the present article (Table 1) should be considered approximations for three reasons. One is that the GPS coordinates we used to calculate these areas bear a margin of error. The second one is that some of these sites may contain archaeological deposits that are now buried below current ground surface, which we obviously could not detect and measure from just their surfaces. The third reason is that almost half of the Neolithic sites we recorded also yielded more recent material. Therefore, the areas we measured at these sites likely also include surfaces corresponding to more recent occupations, and not only Neolithic deposits.

Our strategy for recording, classifying and dating the sites has largely followed the methodology developed by M. Prickett in the Daulatabad Plain (Prickett, 1986a;1986b; see below) and used the ceramic chrono-typology established in that region as well as at Tepe Yahya and Tal-i Iblis (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky, 1986a;[START_REF] Caldwell | Investigations at Tal-i Iblis[END_REF]. Before describing our survey results, we need to address one limitation that concerns a ceramic criterion we used to date the sites. At sites with pottery, vegetaltempered pottery, a typical marker of the Neolithic period in Iran (e.g., Weeks, 2013b), served as our primary criterion to distinguish pottery Neolithic sites from more recent sites. Yet, at Tepe Yahya, vegetal-tempered vessels continued to be made during the following Chalcolithic period, Periods VI-V, alongside new, mineral-tempered ceramics (Beale, 1986b: 39-47, fig. 4.1). In the Bam region, the oldest Chalcolithic sites we identified are precisely characterized by Yahya V-related mineral-tempered ceramics. The sites we have defined in this area as pottery Neolithic sites are sites where we recorded vegetal-tempered material only, as well as sites with mostly vegetal-tempered material and rare mineral-tempered sherds. Eight sites with vegetal-tempered pottery yielded mineral-tempered ceramics clearly connected to Yahya V. Thus, considering the above-mentioned observation made at Tepe Yahya, it is possible that these sites date to the Chalcolithic period only. Conversely, some sites we have defined as Chalcolithic may also enclose Neolithic deposits that we could not identify from just their surfaces.

Site locations, numbers and characteristics

Between 2016 and 2017, we surveyed: in and around Bam; west of this city along the Posht-e Rud from Bam to Abaregh; east of Bam in Darestan up to Allahabad; along the scarp west of Baravat; and ca. 30-35 km southwest of Bam along the Jebal Barez [START_REF] Mutin | Iranian-French Archaeological Mission in Bam, Kerman: Summary of Field-seasons 2016-2017[END_REF]; Fig. 2). We started from areas where archaeological sites had been identified before (see [START_REF] Adle | Qanats of Bam: an Archaeological Perspective. Irrigation System in Bam, its Birth and Evolution from the Prehistoric Period up to Modern Times[END_REF]. We recorded sites dating to between the Paleolithic and Islamic periods, including 64 Neolithic sites all in Darestan. Except for site DAK110, which is next to the above-mentioned outcropping of bedrock, these Neolithic sites are all concentrated within a ca. 6.15 by 7 km (43.05 km 2 ) area further east (Fig. 5). We have identified no other Neolithic site in any of the other areas we surveyed. It is nonetheless important to note that Adle reported Neolithic lithics inside the Bam citadel (Arg-e Bam) in the city as well as west of this citadel between Bam and Darzin (Adle, 2006: 38-41). It certainly is possible that Neolithic communities settled in these locations as well as between Bam and Darestan. We are keeping this possibility open for the latter area, as we have not systematically surveyed it. On the other hand, our intensive survey between Bam and Darzin did not yield any convincing Neolithic evidence. If Neolithic sites existed in this area, they clearly were not as substantial and numerous as those in Darestan (see [START_REF] Mutin | Iranian-French Archaeological Mission in Bam, Kerman: Summary of Field-seasons 2016-2017[END_REF].

In Darestan, we recorded 39 Neolithic sites with pottery and 25 aceramic Neolithic sites. Compared to a previous report [START_REF] Mutin | Iranian-French Archaeological Mission in Bam, Kerman: Summary of Field-seasons 2016-2017[END_REF], we have consolidated here sites that, after closer examination, seem to be part of a single site and discarded sites with little or no clear Neolithic diagnostics. These 64 sites divide into 23 "mounded sites" (Fig. 4: 1-5) and 41 "scatter sites" (Fig. 4: 6-7). "A mounded site is an accumulation of silt and occupation debris raised above the surrounding ground surface. A scatter site is a ground surface accumulation of sherds [and other types of artifacts] lacking both mounding and architectural debris. It can be either a site-related scatter site contiguous to a mounded site or an independent scatter site not associated with other archaeological materials" (Prickett, 1986b: 216). An issue with the mounded sites we recorded is that it is not always clear whether they consist of an actual accumulation of silt and occupation debris, or a superficial occupation layer on top of a natural hilltop. As for the scatter sites, they are generally well-materialized by stones visible from a distance, although some yielded very small amounts of artifacts (Fig. 4: 6-7). These stones include a few grinding stones and hammerstones and mostly consist of unworked, natural stones that may have served as building material and as raw material for tool production. These sites are most likely partly deflated occupation sites. However, even considering the erosion factor, they were more transient than the mounded sites.

These 64 sites in Darestan cover ca. 61 ha (61,0834 m 2 ), excluding Tell-e Atashi, the largest of the Neolithic sites in this area (site DA250). With Tell-e Atashi (ca. 12 ha including both its mounded and scatter parts), this occupation area is ca. 73 ha. However, since almost half of these sites (30) also yielded more recent material (mineral-tempered ceramics at 27 sites, including Yahya V-related diagnostics; Islamic remains at one site; and more recent ceramics at two sites), the areas we measured at these sites likely also incorporate surfaces relating to more recent occupations. When discarding these 30 multi-period sites from our calculation, we get ca. 36 ha. Out of the remaining 34 sites with Neolithic material only, just six sites are larger than 2.5 ha (DA230A-G, DA248, DA250, DA177, DA196, DA211A-C), including Tell-e Atashi (ca. 12 ha) and site DA196 (ca. 4.6 ha), the largest sites. Seven sites are mounded sites, all less than 1 ha save for Tell-e Atashi's mounded part (ca. 5.4 ha). As for the scatter sites, 20 are less than 0.5 ha, six are between ca. 0.7-2.5 ha, one is ca. 3 ha, one is ca. 4.6 ha (site DA196), and Tell-e Atashi's scatter site is ca. 6.6 ha. For the sake of calculation, still considering these 34 sites only, the mounded sites represent ca. 7.9 ha (including Tell-e Atashi's mounded part), and the scatter sites represent ca. 28 ha (or ca. 21.4 ha without Tell-e Atashi's scatter site). 10The Neolithic settlement in Darestan thus emerges as a substantial one and probably among the largest Neolithic regional settlements reported so far in southeastern Iran, if not Iran. Furthermore, it remains possible that additional Neolithic sites are buried under the alluvial plain, a factor that might explain an apparent absence of archaeological remains between DAK110 and the other Neolithic sites. In comparison, in the Daulatabad Plain, Prickett (1986b: 223-224) recorded 19.68 ha of mounded sites within a 20 km 2 area for the 1,200 years-period corresponding to Yahya VII. This includes Tepe Gaz Tavila (ca. 9.9 ha consisting of four mounds), two sites nearby (ca. 1.67 ha), and seven other mounds, in addition to a few other sites that may date to the Neolithic period too. Interestingly, although less Neolithic sites and a smaller Neolithic occupation area were recorded in the Daulatabad Plain, the Neolithic landscape in both this region and Darestan appear to be characterized by a single large site associated with smaller sites.

An important parameter that we have no good control on is the absolute and relative chronology of these sites in Darestan. Over the course of the Neolithic period, some sites were probably abandoned while new ones were settled, some older ones may have been reoccupied, and so on. Yet, the only chronological information we have on this period is that the aceramic deposits we excavated at Tell-e Atashi date to between the late-sixth and mid-fifth millennia cal. BCE, while we have no solid grasp onto the evolution of the material culture. Consequently, we presently cannot delineate the potential multiple shifts in settlement pattern that most likely occurred in Neolithic Darestan. One pattern however clearly emerges from the distribution map on Fig. 5: the 39 Neolithic sites where we recorded vegetal-tempered pottery are distributed all over this Neolithic settlement, whereas the 25 aceramic sites are concentrated within its southern half. Furthermore, only two of the sites with pottery within this southern cluster (DA242, DA247) are sites with Neolithic material only. The rest of the pottery Neolithic sites (eight sites) in this cluster also yielded more recent ceramics. Therefore, for the reason explained above, the vegetal-tempered fragments from these sites, and these sites themselves, may be more recent. This would tentatively make this southern cluster virtually entirely aceramic Neolithic. Additionally, the mounded sites with Neolithic material only consist of just six sites within the southeastern part of the Neolithic settlement. All are aceramic except for site DA247. Similarly, 18 of the 21 scatter sites we recorded in the southern cluster are aceramic. This apparent spatial dichotomy possibly reflects a shift in settlement pattern between two chronological phases: one with pottery and one without. Certainly, it is possible that pottery was present and completely disappeared from the surfaces of the sites we recorded as aceramic, or that the activities conducted at these sites did not require pottery. Yet, these scenarios may explain dearth of pottery at some of, but not all, these aceramic sites. Indeed, our extensive excavations at Tell-e Atashi have clearly shown that this site is aceramic, and there is no reason not to believe that this was not the case at other sites in Darestan. The reasons for this apparent shift now need be explored. A possibility is that it followed the shifting availability of water over time. This hypothesis will need to be tested in the future with consideration of geomorphological data. Ideally, it certainly would be best to also get more accurate chronological data from these sites through excavation.

Lithic assemblage

We collected 1388 lithics from 58 of these Neolithic sites (excluding Tell-e Atashi), with quantities ranging from two to 75 records per site. By and large, this survey assemblage is homogeneous as far as the raw material, technology and typology of the tools are concerned. The raw material mostly consists of locally available brown to grey chert as well as small quantities of andesite and red and black chert. Technologically, the assemblage is characterized by the pressure technique in core reduction (Fig. 6: 1), which is typical of the Neolithic period (e.g., Kozlowski, 1994). This technique is evidenced by elements such as crested blades (Fig. 6: 11-12), core tablets (Fig. 6: 14), and standardized blade/lets with parallel ridges (Fig. 6: 1,3,5). Preliminary comparative analysis between the lithic assemblage from aceramic Tell-e Atashi and that of pottery site DA226 has shown that few unidirectional bladelet cores were present at the former whereas more elaborate bullet cores were recorded at the latter [START_REF] Jayez | Techno-typological Analysis of Neolithic Chipped Stone Industry in Southeast of Iran and Pakistan based on Lithic Industry of Tell-e Atashi[END_REF]. 11Most tools are made on blade/let. The tools include backed (Fig. 6: 6-7), naturally backed, notcheddenticulated (Fig. 6: 16) and mostly retouched and used pieces (Fig. 6: 1, 4-5). Scrapers (Fig. 6: 18), geometrics (Fig. 6: 10), borers (Fig. 6: 17) and burins are recorded in smaller amounts. The technology and tool typology identified in the survey lithic collection are consistent with other Neolithic assemblages found in Iran and Pakistan. Pressure technique and tools such as backed pieces and geometrics are recorded at Tepe Gaz Tavila and Tepe Yahya in Kerman; Mehrgarh and Kili Ghul Mohammed in Pakistan; and in Neolithic Fars, although the sites in Fars are older [START_REF] Jayez | Techno-typological Analysis of Neolithic Chipped Stone Industry in Southeast of Iran and Pakistan based on Lithic Industry of Tell-e Atashi[END_REF][START_REF] Nishiaki | The development of Neolithic lithic industries in Fars, Southwest Iran[END_REF].

Ceramic assemblage

The Neolithic pottery we recorded at 39 sites is typically vegetal-tempered, and its color varies from buff to red (Fig. 7). It mostly includes deep bowls or beakers (Fig. 789), although we found other forms such as larger vessels (Fig. 7: 10-11), a small necked-jar with a S-profile (Fig. 7: 1), a small bowl (Fig. 7: 2), carinated wall fragments (Fig. 7: 13-15), and a wall fragment with a ledge (Fig. 7: 3). The bases we collected are flat or concave (Fig. 7: 16-20), and one is flat and has a ledge (Fig. 7: 12). This vegetaltempered pottery is conforming to the generic label "Soft-Ware Horizon," a label that defines the earliest pottery vessels recorded in Iran and Pakistan. Vessels with a similar type of fabric were found in Tepe Yahya Neolithic-Chalcolithic Periods VII-V (Chaff-tempered Coarse Ware) as well as at Tal-i Iblis (Lalehzar Coarse Ware). These ceramics have parallels in Fars, including mid-late sixth/early-fifth millennia cal. BCE Shamsabad ware from Tall-i Bakun [START_REF] Dyson | Problems in the relative chronology of Iran, 6000-2000 BC[END_REF]Chase et al. 1967: 32, 149-151;Beale, 1986b: 39-47, 86 ;Vandiver, 1987;C. Jarrige et al. 1995: 422-423, 437 fig. 9.7, 514, 539 fig. 11.14b, 540 fig. 11.15b;Weeks, 2013b: 57-66). Chaff-tempered Coarse Ware from Tepe Yahya includes flat-and concave-bottomed vessels as well as a few rim profiles comparable to those from Darestan (Beale, 1986b: 41 fig. 4.2 a, f;42 fig. 4.4 b, c). However, our surface collection lacks the typical handles from Yahya VII (Beale, 1986b: 41 fig. 4.2 n, p-w) and the type of carinated jar characteristic of Yahya VI-V (Beale, 1986b: 44 fig. 4.4 i;45 fig. 4.5) and Tal-i Iblis (Evett, 1967: 206 fig. 1 no. 1;[START_REF] Caldwell | Exploration of Excavation Area B[END_REF] 285 fig. 7). Additionally, we have observed no parallels at Tepe Yahya for the above-mentioned necked-jar with a S-profile and base with a ledge (Beale, 1986b: 39-47). One necked-jar from Tal-i Iblis (Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 284 fig. 6 no. 1) is however reminiscent of the former. Lastly, the carinated fragments we found have profiles different from the vegetal-tempered carinated vessels from Tepe Yahya and Tal-i Iblis.

Other categories of artifacts

The other finds we collected include vessels, perforated objects (Fig. 8: 12), one axe or celt (Fig. 8: 13), one cone (Fig. 8: 9), and one bead (Fig. 8: 6) in stone; two beads (Fig. 8: 1-2) and one pendant (Fig. 8: 3) in lapis lazuli; one turquoise bead (Fig. 8: 4); one carnelian bead (Fig. 8: 5); one cone (Fig. 8: 10), one bead (Fig. 8: 7), and one pendant (Fig. 8: 8) in clay; a ceramic disc (Fig. 8: 11); one pin (Fig. 8: 14) and one fragment in copper. We also found hammerstones and grinding stones. Part of this survey assemblage has equivalents at Tell-e Atashi, and most of these categories of artifacts have general parallels at many Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Iran, including Tepe Yahya and Tal-i Iblis.

Stone vessels are ubiquitous in the Middle East and are not specifically characteristic of these periods. Stone axes or celts are recorded at Tal-i Iblis and Tepe Yahya Period V, although the latter examples are not illustrated and the single illustrated example from the former site does not resemble our specimen from site DA152 (Evett, 1967: 213;Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 280, 290 fig. 10 no. 1;Beale, 1986d: 187). We also are lacking parallels in Kerman for the perforated stone objects from Darestan.

Lapis lazuli beads are recorded in Yahya VB-VA, carnelian beads in Yahya VIA-V, and turquoise beads in Yahya VIIC-VA (Beale, 1986d: 167-171). No lapis lazuli is mentioned at Tal-i Iblis, whereas turquoise and carnelian beads are recorded at this site from contexts relating to Yahya V (Chase et al. 1967: 159 Tab. V, 160 Tab. VI, 161 Tab. VII, 165, 166 fig. 34 no. 2, 167 fig. 35 no. 10, 168 fig. 36 no. 6, 185 fig. 37 no. 5;Evett, 1967: 204 Tab. 1, 216 fig. 7 nos. 8-9, 217, 221 Pl. 2, 244-245 Tab. 15;Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 302 fig. 15 nos. 3-4;Caldwell, 1967: 406-407). As far as the bead shapes are concerned, we observed in Darestan eight types that are recorded at Neolithic and Chalcolithic Tepe Yahya (Beale, 1986d: 167-168, 172-173 Tab. 7.2). Three clay beads from Tal-i Iblis resemble the above-mentioned single clay bead from site DA231 (Chase et al. 1967: 168 fig. 36 nos. 3, 15;Evett, 1967: 218 fig. 8 no. 10). The shape of one turquoise bead from Tal-i Iblis resembles those of our lapis lazuli bead from site DA106 and turquoise bead from site DA123 (Chase et al. 1967: 166 fig. 34 no. 2). The above-mentioned lapis lazuli pendant from site DA171 has no parallel, although one cruciform, bone or ivory object from Tal-i Iblis is somewhat reminiscent of it (Chase et al. 1967: 168 fig. 36 no. 11). Lastly, we have found no clear parallel for the clay pendant from site DA231, at least not in Kerman.

The clay cone from site DA109 (and the stone example from site DA171) has parallels in Yahya VII-V and at Tal-i Iblis (Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 302 fig. 15 no. 8;Beale, 1986d: 192 fig. 7.18 h, i, 197) as well as outside of Kerman including in Fars and Susiana (Weeks et al. 2006: 64-65, 438 fig. 3.189 TN-113, TN-163). While they are interpreted as counting devices at Tepe Yahya (Beale, 1986d: 197), they are elsewhere sometimes considered lip-or ear-plugs and termed "labrets." The clay disc from site DA123 is made out of mineral-tempered pottery, which essentially appeared during the Chalcolithic period. Such artifact is frequently recorded in southeastern Iran, including at Tal-i Iblis (see Chase et al. 1967: 155;165;199 Tab. XIV;Evett, 1967: 218 fig. 8 no. 9).

Lastly, regarding the copper items from Darestan, one should recall that native copper has been used in Iran since the Neolithic period. Copper objects are recorded at Tepe Yahya in contexts dating to the sixth and fifth millennia cal. BCE (Yahya VII-V) and in fifth millennium cal. BCE deposits at Tal-i Iblis, where the earliest evidence for extractive copper metallurgy was identified (e.g., Caldwell and Sarraf, 1967: 286 fig. 8 no. 4, 300 fig. 14 nos. 3-5, 302 fig. 15 nos. 5, 7, 10;[START_REF] Heskel | Metallurgical Technology[END_REF]Weeks, 2013a: 278).

Discussion and concluding remarks

Many Neolithic sites lie within the southern Lut Desert area, in the lowlands of Darestan east of the Jebal Barez. We believe that climate at that time and the specific topographic conditions of this area encouraged settlement, for they facilitated access to water, arable lands, and various vegetal and animal resources. Such configuration is referred to as "geological opportunism," whereby early farming communities exploited areas that were periodically inundated and where water and fertile silt could be easily captured and diverted [START_REF] Petrie | The topographic and environmental context of the earliest village sites in western South Asia[END_REF]: 1056-1058). One should add that the location of these Neolithic sites on alluvial fans is consistent with the pattern observed at early farming villages in the Daulatabad Plain and Pakistani Balochistan (see [START_REF] Petrie | The topographic and environmental context of the earliest village sites in western South Asia[END_REF]. These similarities in subsistence strategies across the Neolithic landscape of southeastern Iran and Pakistan are important to keep in mind for understanding "both the dispersal of wheat, barley, sheep, goat and cattle-based agro-pastoralism and also the interactive relationships between populations" (Petrie andThomas, 2012: 1064). An additional, more preliminary observation that needs be remembered is that both in the Daulatabad Plain and Darestan the Neolithic regional area appears to be dominated by a single major site.

Another important characteristic of Neolithic Darestan is that many of its sites yielded no pottery. Certainly, lack of pottery in survey assemblage may be an effect of site preservation and the way surface material is collected. It may also be explained by the fact that the activities that were carried out at the aceramic sites did not call for pottery. Yet, there is no doubt that Tell-e Atashi enclosed aceramic dwellings, and it seems unlikely that at least part of the 24 additional aceramic Neolithic sites we recorded in Darestan were not used by aceramic communities. This characteristic has implications and merits discussion at different geographic scales. Locally, since these aceramic sites are mostly clustered within the southern half of the Neolithic settlement area, we hypothesize that a shift in settlement pattern occurred between one chronological phase characterized by aceramic sites and one phase characterized by sites with pottery. We cannot definitely tell which phase came first, and at this point of our regional analysis, it certainly is appropriate to keep all possibilities open. One possibility could be that pottery was produced for some time in Darestan and then stopped being made. A reason for this could be that wood (or another type of fuel) suitable for pottery firing became at some point increasingly difficult to obtain and was saved for other activities. 12 However, current evidence tends to point to the opposite scenario in which aceramic sites are older than pottery sites. First, comparative analysis of the lithic assemblages from aceramic Tell-e Atashi and pottery site DA226 has revealed that more elaborate bullet cores are present at the latter site, tentatively implying that this site is more recent. Second, vegetal-tempered pottery of the same general type as the one we collected at the pottery Neolithic sites in Darestan is known to have been produced also during part of the following Chalcolithic period in southeastern Iran. This suggests more continuity than a break between the pottery Neolithic sites and Chalcolithic sites in Darestan. Third, the fact that we recorded many Chalcolithic sites with large quantities of pottery and with evidence for pottery production at some of them [START_REF] Mutin | Iranian-French Archaeological Mission in Bam, Kerman: Summary of Field-seasons 2016-2017[END_REF] argues against the hypothesis that an increasing lack of fuel led to the end of pottery production in this region. Thus, we are currently more inclined to believe that pottery began being made in Darestan after a phase during which no pottery was produced. Considering this scenario, the radiocarbon dates from aceramic Tell-e Atashi suggest that pottery did not occur in this region before the fifth millennium cal. BCE, at a time corresponding to the late Neolithic and even the Chalcolithic periods elsewhere. The earliest pottery vessels observed in Darestan are then generally conform to those recorded west of the Jebal Barez, including in Tepe Yahya Neolithic and Chalcolithic occupations.

Absence of pottery is unusual at sixth and fifth millennia cal. BCE sites in Iran. As noted above, pottery is known in Fars since the seventh and sixth millennia cal. BCE, and the aceramic deposits identified at Tepe Rahmatabad in this province date to ca. 7000 cal. BCE. In Kerman, deposits with pottery dating to the seventh millennium cal. BCE were recently excavated at Tepe Gav Koshi, while the pottery Neolithic settlements of Tepe Gaz Tavila and Tepe Yahya Period VII are respectively closer in time to and contemporary with Tell-e Atashi. Yet, in contrast to the regions west of the Jebal Barez, no pottery appears to have been produced for some time during the Neolithic period in the southern Lut Desert region, at a time not coincident with the early Neolithic sites in central Zagros and the Fertile Crescent but much later. This characteristic suggests that southeastern Iran's Neolithic population included communities who not only did not engage part of their activities in pottery production but potentially did not store, cook, and eat the same ways as their western neighbors. We are currently not able to explain this situation, but we may note that it is quite unexpected considering that these communities were not isolated. Indeed, in view of the relatively short distances between Neolithic Darestan and the rest of the known Neolithic sites in southeastern Iran, 13 we believe that the similarities we have observed between the material cultures from both sides of the Jebal Barez (mudbricks with thumbimpressions, lithic industry, and other types of objects) are not coincidental but reflect connections between western and eastern Kerman. It remains unclear whether these relationships result from interactions or dispersals, although the facts that we have found no previous local settlement in Darestan out of which its Neolithic settlement could have emerged, and that western Kerman includes older Neolithic settlements, do not contradict the latter hypothesis. Regardless, in addition to these parallels with western Kerman, the carnelian, turquoise and lapis lazuli ornaments we found in Darestan show that this region was part of interregional and long-distance exchange networks. While a possibility remains that turquoise and carnelian came from sources in southeastern Iran, there is no doubt that lapis lazuli originally came from northeastern Afghanistan (Prickett, 1986a: 381-399).

Absence of pottery appears less unusual when considering more distant areas to the east in Pakistan. In this regard, Darestan recalls Mehrgarh aceramic Neolithic Period I, with which Tell-e Atashi also shares similar clay figurines and thumb-impressed mudbricks (Mutin and Garazhian, in preparation). We noted above that this period is thought to date to the eighth/seventh millennia cal. BCE (see Jarrige et al. 2013: 148, 151-154), although most available radiocarbon dates (C. Jarrige et al. 1995: 555-556) are more recent. Certainly, potential samples contamination and calibration issues need be kept in mind. Yet, we have to admit that these dates from Mehrgarh are generally consistent with those from Tell-e Atashi. Lack of pottery is also observed in southwestern Pakistan (Kech-Makran) in the late fifth millennium cal. BCE as well as in the coastal regions of the northeastern Arabian Peninsula until the fourth millennium cal. BCE. The present new data from the southern Lut Desert region makes it increasingly rational to think that a late aceramic Neolithic horizon existed in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands (see Mutin, 2012: 176-177). It also makes it increasingly reasonable to hypothesize that Mehrgarh Period I was part of this horizon, and not an isolated, older, aceramic Neolithic site. Such scenario is consistent with the models that view the emergence of agriculture in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands as the result of late, demic or cultural diffusion. It has yet to be solidly proven with incorporation of more comparative analyses of more aspects of the archaeological and environmental records in these regions than presented in this article. Hopefully, the results reported here have at least served to address the necessity of reevaluating Mehrgarh's chronology together with available data from southern Iran, and taken us one step forward toward greater comprehension of the emergence of agriculture east of the Fertile Crescent. Tsuneki, A., Zeidi, M., Ohnuma, K., 2007. Proto-Neolithic Caves in the Bolaghi Valley, South Iran. Iran 45, pp. 1-22. Vandiver, P.B., 1987. Sequential Slab Construction;A Conservative Southwest Asiatic Ceramic Tradition, ca. 7000-3000

  Figure 1: Map of the southeastern Iranian Plateau with location of the main archaeological sites and places mentioned in the text. Basemap created on ArcMap (ESRI).

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: Map of the Bam-Narmashir region with location of the main places and features mentioned in the text. Basemap: ©GoogleEarth.

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3: Up: View of outcropping bedrock (indicated by the arrows) near site DAK110 (Fig. 5) in Darestan; Down: West-East elevation profile (with vertical exaggeration) of Darestan, generated on Google Earth, with location of the outcropping bedrock near site DAK110 and Tell-e Atashi. ©Bam Archaeological Mission (up), ©GoogleEarth (down).

Figure 4 : 20 Figure 5 :

 4205 Figure 4: Views of Neolithic sites in Darestan. 1-3: Tell-e Atashi with location of excavation areas and test-trenches in 1; 4: Site DA239; 5: Site DA135A; 6: Site DA123; 7: Site DA206. ©Bam Archaeological Mission.

Figure 6 :

 6 Figure 6: Lithic industry from Neolithic sites surveyed in Darestan. 1: used blade; 2: retouched blade; 3: proximal end of notched blade; 4: retouched blade; 5: used blade; 6: double backed bladelet; 7: backed blade; 8-9: backed bladelet; 10: trapezoid; 11-12: crested blade; 13: flake with bladelet removals; 14: core tablet; 15: unidirectional bladelet core; 16: notched flake; 17: drill; 18: side scraper. ©Bam Archaeological Mission.

  ; Tol-e Nurabad: Weeks et al. 2006: 438 fig. 3.189 TN-113, TN-163, TN-226, TN-268; Tappeh Mianroud: Ebrahimi et al. 2016: 47 fig. 19), as well as at Mehrgarh (Jarrige et al. 2013: 267 fig.

Project director. Harvard University, Department of Anthropology; CNRS-UMR 7041 ArScAn, Archéologie de l'Asie centrale. Corresponding author: benmutin@gmail.com.

Project director. University of Neyshabur.

Lithic analysis. University of Mazandaran.

Tell-e Atashi was inscribed on the List of the Historical Monuments of Iran (no. 3343) in 2001 per the effort of N.A. Soleimani.

Beta 500073: 6160 +/-30 BP, 5214-5022 cal. BC (95.4%); Beta 500074: 6240 +/-30 BP, 5306-5204 cal. BC (74.7%), 5167-5076 cal. BC (20.7%).

Several of the figurines we found are very similar to those from Neolithic Mehrgarh (C.Jarrige, 2008).

Preliminary analysis by Z. Shirazi (Archaeobotanical Laboratory at Shahr-i Sokhta). The faunal remains await analysis.

Even considering all the Neolithic sites including sites containing more recent materials, Tell-e Atashi remains the largest, and both mounded and scatter sites mostly remain of much smaller size relative to this site: 37 sites are ca.

It is important to note that site DA226 is one of the eight sites in the above-mentioned southern cluster that yielded vegetal-tempered pottery as well as ceramics relating to more recent periods. Therefore, for the reason explained above, the vegetal-tempered fragments at this site and this site may be more recent.

On this note, Prickett argued that the fact that the rooms of Neolithic Tepe Yahya are smaller than those found less than 50 km apart at Tepe Gaz Tavila may simply "reflect difficulty in obtaining adequate beams and roof support posts [near the former site] to span larger areas"(Prickett, 1986a: 574). This hypothesis reminds us that resource availability and lack thereof considerably affects the material record, even within spatially and culturally close regions and sites.

For instance, Tepe Yahya is only ca. 200 km southwest of Tell-e Atashi.

Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research, the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, the Kerman Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, the Arg-e Bam World Heritage Base Camp, and CNRS-UMR 7041 ArScAn -Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité. We also appreciate Robert Hunt, who put us into the right direction by introducing to us the concept of reach boundary. We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments which have contributed to make this article better than its first version.


Benjamin Mutin
email: benmutin@gmail.com

Omran Garazhian
email: garazhian@gmail.com.garazhian@neyshabour.ac.ir.

Keywords: Neolithic, Southeastern Iran, Bam, Tell-e Atashi, Archaeological Survey, Excavation

In this article we present objectives and results of the first two field-seasons in 2016 and 2017 of the Bam Archaeological Mission (BAM), a new Iranian-French field research project in the Bam-Narmashir region, Kerman. The main object of this research project is to reconstruct the ancient settlement in this area with an emphasis on its oldest occupation periods between the Paleolithic and Iron Age. It aims to understand how this settlement evolved, to evaluate the influence of climate and environmental changes on this evolution, and to determine its relationship to the archaeological cultures defined in Iran and Pakistan. As such, this research project also more broadly seeks to contribute to the general study of ancient southeastern Iran and to the reconstruction of the major demic and cultural dynamics-the dispersal of peoples, cultures, and technologies-that occurred in this area and across Middle-and South Asia during pre-and proto-history. In 2016 and 2017, we surveyed the region and recorded about 250 sites mostly dating to between the Paleolithic and Iron Age periods. One of the most significant results from this survey is the discovery of two impressive settlements, one dating to the Neolithic period and one to the fourth millennium BC, probably among the highest concentrations of sites dating to these periods reported so far on the southeastern Iranian Plateau. In 2017, we also resumed excavation at the Neolithic site of Tell-e Atashi. We opened test-trenches that have helped us understand its stratigraphy and general organization, as well as the nature of deposits present in various locations at this site. With new radiocarbon dates, we got confirmation that at least a large part of its occupation levels date to between the second half of the sixth and the middle of the fifth millennia BC. This excavation season was also instrumental in the preparation of more extensive excavations that were conducted in 2018. The aggregate of this work produced new data which have confirmed the unique nature of Tell-e Atashi and its significance for the understanding of the Neolithic period in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands.

Introduction

This article summarizes the main objectives and results of the first two field-seasons in 2016 and 2017 of the new Iranian-French archaeological mission in the Bam-Narmashir region. This region is located in the southern margin of the Lut Desert, Kerman (Figures 12). This mission, Bam Archaeological Mission (BAM), seeks to reconstruct the ancient settlement in this area with an emphasis on its oldest occupation periods between the Paleolithic and Iron Age. It aims to understand how this settlement evolved, to evaluate the influence of climate and environmental changes on this evolution, and to determine its relationship to the archaeological cultures defined in Iran and Pakistan. As such, this research project also more broadly seeks to contribute to the general study of ancient southeastern Iran and to the reconstruction of the major demic and cultural dynamics-the dispersal of peoples, cultures, and technologies-that occurred in this area and across Middle-and South Asia during pre-and protohistory. The creation of this mission was encouraged by the late Dr. C. Adle who tirelessly made considerable effort to record and protect the cultural heritage of the Bam-Narmashir region in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake that struck this region in December 2003. We are infinitely grateful to him for his constant support while we were setting this field research project between 2014 and 2015. His passing in 2015, just one year before our first field-season began, unfortunately did not let him see the outcomes of these efforts. It is important to recall that prior to our first field-season in 2016, Adle and other colleagues, including one of us (O.G.) as well as M. Atayi, L. Fazel, M. Judaki, N.A. Soleimani, and Sh. Zare, had conducted archaeological surface surveys and excavations in the Bam-Narmashir region (see [START_REF] Adle | Qanats of Bam: an archaeological perspective. Irrigation system in Bam, its birth and evolution from the prehistoric period up to modern times[END_REF]. This fieldwork currently continues with a focus on the early historical and Islamic periods as part of a program of protection and conservation of the UNESCO World Heritage property "Bam and its Cultural Landscape", nominated to the World Heritage List soon after the December 2003 earthquake (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1208). Bam city is famous for its Islamic citadel and fortified town, the Arg-e Bam, which was a major hub along the trade routes of the so-called Silk Roads between the 7 th and 11 th centuries AD. Vestiges of the Islamic period are not limited to the Arg-e Bam, but also include many additional monuments and expanses of archaeological materials outside of Bam city. The Bam-Narmashir region is also rich of vestiges dating to previous occupation periods. We should mention here the archaeological remains dating to the Chalcolithic period (and possibly to the Neolithic period) reported by Adle in the Arg-e Bam area and west of Bam city (Adle 2006: 39-41), the fourth millennium BC graveyard of Khaje Askar rescued by N.A. Soleimani and his colleagues in the western periphery of Bam city [START_REF] Soleimani | Khaje Askar: a 4 th -millennium BC cemetery in Bam, south-eastern Iran[END_REF], and Tell-e Atashi, large Neolithic site investigated by one of us (O.G.), situated ca. 30 km as the crow flies east of the Arg-e Bam in an area called Darestan (Adle 2006: 38-39;[START_REF] Garazhian | Darestan: a group of Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in south-eastern Iran[END_REF][START_REF] Garazhian | Tell-e Atashi (Bam, southeastern Iran) and the Neolithic of the eastern Near East[END_REF].

Our first two field-seasons had two main objectives, different in scope: 1) To survey the Bam-Narmashir region to evaluate and get an initial reconstruction of its ancient settlement; 2) To renew fieldwork at Tell-e Atashi. Our survey was mostly conducted during the first field-season in 2016 while additional sectors were explored in 2017. Fieldwork at Tell-e Atashi began in 2017.

Geographic settings

Figure 2: View of the study area: Bam city and its region in the Bam-Narmashir counties.

Bam city and the Bam-Narmashir region are located in the eastern part of the Kerman province, close to the Sistan-va-Baluchestan province, in the southwestern periphery of the Southern Lut Desert (Dashte Lut). Bam city is between two mountain ranges, both NW-SE oriented: the Kapudi Mounts in the north, with hilltops higher than 2,400 m, and the Jebal Barez in the south, which almost reaches 4,000 m in altitude (Figure 2). The average altitude in the plain located in-between these mountain ranges decreases from west to east; it is ca. 1,250 m at Darzin and ca. 750 m in Darestan. Bam city is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Posht-e Rud coming from the northwest and the Chelekhoneh from the southwest. This drainage system then continues further east and northeast through Darestan down to the Southern Lut Desert. As noted above this region is located in an active seismic zone. Bam city lies directly above the active seismic Bam fault. A well-known geological feature related to this fault is a NS ca. 15-20 m high scarp located in the eastern periphery of the city and west of Baravat. The Bam-Narmashir region is characterized by a desert climate with rainfalls averaging 72 mm/year and an annual average temperature of 21.7°C. Although rain is rare, rainfalls amount to more than 300 mm/year along the southeastern slope of the Jebal Barez. They provide the plain with water and make it possible, with irrigation systems, for palm tree groves to grow (Fouache et al. 2013: 563-564).

Archaeological Survey of the Bam-Narmashir Region: Field-Seasons 2016-2017

In 2016, our survey focused on two areas located west and east of Bam city, along the Post-e Rud: 1) Area 1, located west of Bam city between Bam and Darzin, an area called "Bidârzin" by C. Adle and where he reported sites dating to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (2006: 39-40); 2) Area 2, in Darestan, east of Bam, an area where the Neolithic site of Tell-e Atashi is located (Figures 34). We systematically surveyed these two areas by foot, aided with prior study of satellite imagery, recording and documenting the archaeological sites we identified and collecting a selection of diagnostic artefacts (mostly stone tools and ceramic fragments) from their surfaces. We also explored additional sectors inside and in the immediate periphery of Bam city, although we had little hope to find any substantial remains in these sectors, since any ancient occupations that may have existed there are today covered and most probably completely disappeared through the cumulative effects of urban expansion and palm tree plantation. In 2017, we briefly visited and recorded a few sites along the Posht-e Rud between Darzin and Abaregh, sites on the fault scarp located west of Baravat, south of Bam city, and sites along the western piedmont of the Jebal Barez, ca. 30-35 km southwest of the Arg-e Bam (Figure 3). In total, we recorded about 250 sites with remains mostly dating to between the Paleolithic and the Iron Age periods. The most numerous sites are those with surface material dating to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, ca. 80 sites in both cases. These Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites are the focus of the present, brief presentation of our results. We provide here preliminary estimates of site numbers; exact figures will be presented when the study of the totality of the surface material we collected is completed. As explained below, the lithic assemblage from this survey is the topic of an ongoing PhD dissertation, while issues remain as to the characterization of certain ceramic styles. The Neolithic sites are all located in Darestan (Area 2), east of Bam city. Adle reported one lithic flake from inside the Arg-e Bam and additional lithics from Area 1 west of Bam city. However, although it remains possible that the Neolithic settlement in the Bam-Narmashir region extended as far west as the Arg-e Bam and Area 1, our systematic survey in Area 1 recorded no clear material relating to this period.

The stone tools Adle reported may date to the Chalcolithic period or to a more recent period, and, in any case, there are in this area no Neolithic remains as clear and abundant as those we observed in Darestan. There, the Neolithic settlement is represented by numerous and various types of sites including flat expanses of archaeological material (Figure 5) and mounded sites with Tell-e Atashi being the largest of them (see below). As far as surface material is concerned, we have recorded sites with a distinctive type of vegetal-tempered pottery (Figure 6) as well as sites with no pottery. The latter sites represent slightly less than half of the total. Despite this difference, we have observed similar categories of lithics including blades at both types of sites, although this observation, made in the field, should be considered preliminary, since the lithic assemblage from our survey is currently being thoroughly analyzed by M. Shakooie as part of her doctoral research (University of Mazandaran). It is also important to recall that vegetal-tempered pottery, a primary criterion for identifying pottery Neolithic sites, is not a ceramic product found only during the Neolithic period. Excavation at Tepe Yahya, ca. 170 km southwest of the Arg-e Bam, has shown that vegetal-tempered vessels, which appear in the Neolithic period at this site, continued to be produced during the following Chalcolithic period (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 39-47, 40 fig. 4.1). The sites we have defined as pottery Neolithic sites are sites where we recorded vegetal-tempered material only and where we did not identify a single mineral-tempered, painted or plain ceramic fragment of the styles typical of the Chalcolithic or later periods. While the possibility remains that we mistakenly assigned to the Neolithic period Chalcolithic sites where all mineral-tempered had disappeared from their surfaces, reciprocally, the sites we defined as Chalcolithic may also include sites with Neolithic deposits that we could not identify from just their surfaces. The chronology of the totality of this Neolithic settlement remains elusive, although we should mention, as a preliminary observation, that we have observed a relative consistency in the material remains collected at these sites. The series of radiocarbon dates currently available from the aceramic site of Tell-e Atashi points to a dating of between the late sixth and mid-fifth millennia BC (ca. 5300-4600 cal. BC). At Tepe Yahya, the Neolithic period (Period VII), which yielded pottery, is dated to ca. 5600-4600 cal. BC (Prickett 1986a: 413 Tab. 3.2; 4900-3900 uncal. BC: Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 11), but considerably older dates are reported from the pottery Neolithic site of Tepe Govkashi, excavated by N.A. Soleimani near Jiroft. Chalcolithic sites were recorded in both Areas 1 and 2 as well as west of Area 1 near Abaregh. They divide between: 1) Sites with diagnostic ceramic material relating to Tepe Yahya Periods VB-VA and Tal-i Iblis Periods I-II, namely Black-on-Buff ware and Black-on-Red ware; 2) Sites with Aliabad warerelated ceramics connected to Tal-i Iblis Period IV, or more broadly to Iblis Periods III to V. As such the Chalcolithic sites in the Bam-Narmashir region are culturally linked to the typical archaeological cultures of Kerman during the Chalcolithic period. Both types of assemblages are abundantly recorded in this province such as at Tepe Yahya (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky1986), Tal-i Iblis [START_REF] Caldwell | Investigations at Tal-i Iblis[END_REF][START_REF] Caldwell | Pottery and Cultural History on the Iranian Plateau[END_REF], in the Daulatabad Plain (Prickett 1986a(Prickett , 1986b)), and in the western periphery of the Lut Desert (Caldwell 1967: 36, 154-158, 188;Caldwell 1968: 179). A major issue that prevents us from providing a more precise dating of these sites is also, and most importantly, that the chronology of these periods, of ancient southeastern Iran in general, is not well established; few sites have been excavated and few radiocarbon dates are currently available. Additionally, the cultural assemblage that makes transition between the end of the Aliabad period and the early Bronze Age, around the late fourth and early third millennia BC, is not well-known. It is important to recall this issue, since it remains possible that among the sites we define as Aliabad-related are sites that in reality date to this transitional period. Hopefully, current fieldwork conducted by N. Eskandari at Varamin, which precisely focuses on this aspect, will help solve this issue. Thus, the quantity of Aliabad-related sites we recorded might be slightly exaggerated, because it is simply not always possible, based on surface material, to distinguish between sites relating to Iblis III, IV, or V, especially when this material is limited and fragmentary. However, we collected enough clear diagnostics to tell that the Aliabad-related settlement in the Bam-Narmashir was considerable. Lastly, we should admit that the archaeological deposits and materials recorded at Tepe Yahya, Tal-i Iblis, Tepe Dehno, Mahtoutabad, and in the Bam region, as well as at sites in the Bampur Valley and in Kech-Makran, were not necessarily all strictly contemporaneous. The geographic expanses defined on the southeastern Iranian Plateau by the distribution of the Chalcolithic ceramics may partly reflect gradual dispersals of peoples with their traditions and objects, or may reflect connections that happened between some of these sites and regions at some points in time and not necessarily continuously throughout the time these ceramic styles were produced (see [START_REF] Mutin | New discoveries in the Bampur Valley (south-eastern Iran) and their implications for the understanding of settlement pattern in the Indo-Iranian borderlands during the Chalcolithic Period[END_REF][START_REF] Sarhaddi-Dadian | New Data on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods in the South-Eastern Greater Periphery of the Jazmurian Basin: Archaeological Survey along the Sarbaz Valley and in Adjacent Areas in Iranian Baluchestan[END_REF]. Yahya V-related sites in the Bam-Narmashir region are considerably less numerous than the abovementioned Neolithic sites as well as the Aliabad-related sites. Less than ten Yahya V-related sites are indeed recorded in total (Figure 7). Among the most evident diagnostics of this period collected in this region are buff and red ceramics bearing typical chevron motifs (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 74-75 figs. 4.33-4.34). One should mention that additional sites may also have been occupied during this period, but their surface material is not diagnostic enough to confirm this hypothesis. In any case, even if we were to include these sites in the Yahya V-related settlement of the Bam-Narmashir region, our first impression is that, compared to the Neolithic period, this region (at a minimum the sectors we surveyed) became depopulated sometime after the middle of the fifth millennium BC. Certainly, however, this observation should be supported by a better control of the Neolithic settlement's chronology, of its duration in particular, and we cannot exclude the possibility that we have not identified major clusters of sites dating to this period that may be located outside of the areas we surveyed. Also, it is interesting to note that, in contrast to the Neolithic period, which is clearly identified only in Area 2, there is clear evidence of an occupation in Area 1 beginning with Yahya V-related period. In contrast to the Yahya V-related settlement, sites relating to the fourth millennium BC Aliabad period are much more numerous; they consist of more than 70 sites recorded in total in Areas 1 and 2. Despite the reservations mentioned above as to the reality of this number, the quantity of sites in the Bam-Narmashir region with clear Aliabad-related diagnostics, including typical polychrome and conical ceramics (Figure 8), is high, suggesting an increase in occupation compared to the Yahya V-related period. Furthermore, this settlement includes clusters of sites extending over hundreds of meters,4 imposing mounded sites, and sites with remains of pottery kilns (Figure 9). One should also mention the graves relating to the same period rescued at Khaje Askar [START_REF] Soleimani | Khaje Askar: a 4 th -millennium BC cemetery in Bam, south-eastern Iran[END_REF]. Taken as a whole, this evidence seems to contrast with the following observations made on the Iblis IV/V period in the Daulatabad Plain further west (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 267): "Settlements continue in the Daulatabad basin immediately after [Yahya] VA, but there is a substantial decline in numbers of sites and total area occupied" and "It would appear clear…that following this break there is some social fragmentation, as communities live in smaller aggregates on sites that are more ephemeral. It is possible that Iblis IV/V represents a period of development of, or reversion to, a more nomadic lifestyle…" Following this period, the number of third millennium BC Bronze Age sites we recorded is more in the range of that of the Yahya V-related settlement. It is possible that the Bam-Narmashir region once again became depopulated. However, before seeking explanations for this decline, one should consider the possibility that the Bronze Age settlement is mostly not located in the areas we surveyed. It is indeed important to remember that we have observed a shift in sites location between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods; we noted above that there is no Neolithic settlement west of Bam city, in Area 1, while settlement in this area seems to begin during the Yahya V-related period and then considerably increases during the Aliabad-related period. It is reasonable to believe that an additional shift may have occurred with the Bronze Age period, particularly considering the fact that most of the Bronze Age sites we recorded in Area 2 are located within the western limit of this area and that we have not thoroughly explored the lands situated just west of it. Furthermore, additional sectors of the Bam-Narmashir region remain to be surveyed. The question as to whether a settlement crisis happened in this region at the time the Halil Rud Civilization developed in the Halil Rud Basin (e.g. [START_REF] Madjidzadeh | Excavations at Konar Sandal in the Region of Jiroft in the Halil Basin: First Preliminary Report[END_REF], just west of the Jebal Barez, is certainly worthy of further investigation.

Two last observations on the results from our survey deserve mention. First, one should emphasize that the Neolithic and Aliabad-related settlements emerge from this survey as probably among the highest concentrations of sites dating to these periods reported so far on the southeastern Iranian Plateau. We mentioned above the observations made on the Iblis IV/V period in the Daulatabad Plain and we should also note here that M.E. Prickett recorded 24 Neolithic sites in that area (Prickett 1986a: 544-579), which is more than three times less than in Darestan. Second, as a general rule, it seems that new sites were settled at each new period. In other words, sites with more than one occupation period are rare and we have not identified a site like Tepe Yahya where settlements of multiple periods accumulated at the same location. Tell-e Atashi is the largest Neolithic site recorded in Darestan, and its shape, which consists of a mounded ring encircling a lower, flat area in its center, also has no parallel in this region (Figures 4,(10)(11). In 2008, one of us (O.G.) conducted a systematic surface survey at this site and opened one testtrench in its southwestern part, where its uppermost archaeological deposits appeared to be located (Figure 10). This trench yielded successive mudbrick architectural levels radiocarbon dated to between the late sixth and the mid-fifth millennia BC. A surprising aspect that emerged from this fieldwork is the complete absence of pottery at Tell-e Atashi, both on its surface and inside the deposits excavated in the test-trench [START_REF] Garazhian | Darestan: a group of Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in south-eastern Iran[END_REF][START_REF] Garazhian | Tell-e Atashi (Bam, southeastern Iran) and the Neolithic of the eastern Near East[END_REF]. This indeed is not conforming to what is usually observed at sixth and fifth millennia BC sites in Iran (e.g. Tepe Yahya: Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986; see for instance Neolithic sites in Matthews and Fazeli Nashli 2013). The substantial Neolithic settlement recorded in Darestan has sparked a specific interest in the study of this period, as has the fact that very little data is known at present as to the development of farming life in southeastern Iran and that virtually none is recorded in the areas between Tell-e Atashi and the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan, ca. 870 km to the east (C. [START_REF] Jarrige | Mehrgarh[END_REF][START_REF] Jarrige | Mehrgarh: Neolithic Period Seasons 1997-2000[END_REF].

Renewed Fieldwork at Tell-e Atashi: Field-Season 2017

How does this settlement connect to this site in Pakistan and to the Neolithic sites in southeastern Iran and further west in Fars? By investigating this site again, we hoped to gain new information about the processes involved in this major food "revolution" on the southeastern Iranian Plateau. Set as it is between the Fertile Crescent and India, our fieldwork is ideally located not only to investigate the emergence of the earliest farming communities in eastern Iran but also to comprehend how and when this critical development took form across Middle Asia into South Asia. Tell-e Atashi appears to be the largest Neolithic site in Darestan and the only one that, before we resumed excavation at this site, we had pieces of information about the chronology, type of occupation, and material culture. In 2017, we decided to resume fieldwork at this site with four main objectives: 1) To get a comprehensive view of its stratigraphy; 2) To determine the nature of the deposits in the flat area located in the center of the site; 3) To determine whether the Neolithic occupation extends outside of the mounded peripheral archaeological deposits; 4) To locate areas for future, extensive excavation. To answer these questions, we opened: 1) A new stratigraphic trench aligned with the 2008 trench several meters further south of it, where we thought we would have more chance to reach the oldest levels of the site; 2) Three testtrenches in and near the center of the site (TT1, TT2, and TT7); 3) Three additional ones in the eastern periphery of the site, outside of its mounded deposits (TT3, TT4, and TT5); 4) A slightly larger testtrench in the northwestern portion of the site (TT6), where we had identified from the surface vestiges of well-preserved architecture. The placement of these test-trenches was also determined based on the results from a previous geomagnetic survey of the site that was conducted by K. Mohammadkhani in 2011. The stratigraphic trench is 8 x 2 m. In its upper part, close to the surface, we exposed quadrangular mudbrick structures similar to those brought to light in 2008 (Figure 12C). In its lower part, at its southern end, we reached the virgin soil at about nine meters relative to the surface at the top of the site, and, on top of this soil, the earliest archaeological deposits in this area (Figure 12A-B). Two charcoal samples from this trench are radiocarbon dated to the late sixth millennium BC, which is consistent with the dates from the 2008 test-trench. 5 TT1 and TT2 in the center of the site have shown that this area was mostly filled with natural deposits. Both test-trenches indeed exposed a thick layer of white, compact clayey deposit that appears to have resulted from slow water deposition. We excavated this layer for over more than one meter and observed no change. Certainly, however, this result should be confirmed through deeper excavation, which would help us understand if, or as it appears, why the successive communities at this site organized their habitat around this circular central space. TT3 and TT4, outside of the mounded part of the site in its northeastern periphery, revealed no archaeological deposits comparable to those found in the stratigraphic trench or in TT6 (see below). The stratigraphy in these trenches consists of a series of natural deposits alternating between layers of compact, clayey soil and loose, sandy soil. We excavated these deposits for over more than one meter until we reached a ca. 20-30 cm thick archaeological layer. This layer contains ashes, charcoals, and archaeological artifacts, but we recorded no architecture nor specific feature. Below it, the deposits we found are a natural compact, clayey deposit on top of a pure layer of sand. In TT4, we found the imprints of (a) hoofed animal(s) inside one of the clayey layers. Approximately 75 m north of the stratigraphic trench, in TT6, we excavated the portion of a very well-preserved mudbrick building complex (Figure 13), in which a child burial was placed after the area was abandoned (Figure 14). This child was three to six months old at the time of their death and was wearing two bracelets made of bone beads, one at each of their wrists, as well as an additional one attached to their left leg. Two stone beads were also recorded in this burial as well as traces of ochre. The DNA of this individual is currently being analyzed.

The material culture from the trenches we opened in 2017 includes lithics, stone vessels, beads and perforated discs, as well as clay objects including balls, cones, and figurines (Figure 15). Some of these objects have parallels at Tepe Yahya and Tal-i Iblis, and the mudbricks used in the architecture at Telle Atashi, typically with "thumb impressions", also compare to those excavated at these sites (see Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 119 fig 6.10;136 fig. 6.19;Caldwell 1967: 219, 222, 304 Pl. 7 lower photograph). At Tepe Yahya, this type of brick continues into Period V but is no longer observed in Yahya VA (Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 248-249 Tab. 10.1). These mudbricks as well as additional objects from Tell-e Atashi show that the Neolithic settlement in Darestan was somehow connected to the pottery Neolithic communities located west of the Jebal Barez. Yet, it is interesting to note that, in contrast to these sites, the community settled at Tell-e Atashi and, as it appears, at other sites in Darestan, did not produce any ceramics.

Conclusion

Our survey has revealed that, in addition to having a rich history during the Islamic period, the Bam-Narmashir region has an enormous cultural heritage that dates back to the Paleolithic period and includes, in particular, substantial settlements during the Neolithic period and the fourth millennium BC late Chalcolithic period. One of our objectives of the next field-seasons is to continue our survey program in this region. It also will be important to compare the settlement dynamics we begin to understand in this area, such as those noted above concerning the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, with those observed in other regions of the southeastern Iranian Plateau. By looking at how they resemble, how they differ, we hope to get a better comprehension of the broader interregional dynamics that occurred in this area and of how these were determined or influenced by climate and environmental changes. Why, for instance, does the Bam-Narmashir region seem to see an increasing number of sites during the fourth millennium BC, while at the same time the Daulatabad Plain becomes depopulated?

The test-trenches we opened in 2017 at Tell-e Atashi proved to be extremely productive, as they have helped us understand its stratigraphy and general organization, as well as the nature of deposits present in various locations at this site. With new radiocarbon dates, we have confirmation that at least a large part of its occupation levels date to between the second half of the sixth and the middle of the fifth millennia BC. The 2017 test-trenches were also instrumental in the preparation of 2018 fieldwork. For instance, the fact that we identified in 2017 a portion of a well-preserved building complex in TT6 led us to open in 2018 an extensive excavation in this area. In this excavation, Excavation 2 (Figure 10), we studied many rooms with well-preserved walls, floors, accesses, and fireplaces connected to chimneys, and we collected large amounts of objects including many items in unbaked clay. We were also able to collect many zooarchaeological and botanical samples as well as samples for radiocarbon dating. The aggregate of this work in addition to the results from the stratigraphic trench, which was also extended in 2018 (Excavation 1), have provided substantial new information about Tell-e Atashi. This site emerges as an atypical late aceramic settlement with an original material culture with no pottery and yet connections to pottery Neolithic sites located further west in southeastern Iran. These results are very promising, and it is now evident that not only the study of this site will help us understand the Neolithic settlement in the Bam-Narmashir region, but also, more broadly, it will cast new light onto the various configurations at play during the "food revolution" in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands.

Figure captions

Figure 1 :

 1 Figure 1: Map of the southeastern Iranian Plateau with location of the Arg-e Bam and Tell-e Atashi in the Bam-Narmashir region and of the main archaeological sites mentioned in the text.

Figure 3 :

 3 Figure 3: View of the study area in the Bam-Narmashir region, with location of the areas surveyed in 2016 and 2017 (green dots and white rectangles).

Figure 4 :

 4 Figure 4: View of survey Area 2 (Darestan), east of Bam city, with location of the archaeological sites recorded by the BAM survey (green dots) and Tell-e Atashi (red rectangle).

Figure 5 :

 5 Figure 5: Neolithic site in the Bam-Narmashir region (Darestan) (© BAM).

Figure 6 :

 6 Figure 6: Neolithic vegetal-tempered ceramics from the Bam-Narmashir region (© BAM).

  [START_REF] Eskandari | Excavations at the Prehistoric Sites of Tepe Dehno and Tepe East Dehno, Shahdad, South-eastern Iran[END_REF], as well as in the Bampur Valley in Sistan-va-Baluchestan province and as far as Kech-Makran in southwestern Pakistan as far as Aliabad-related material is concerned[START_REF] Mutin | Ceramic Traditions and Interactions on the Southeastern Iranian Plateau during the fourth Millennium BC[END_REF][START_REF] Mutin | New discoveries in the Bampur Valley (south-eastern Iran) and their implications for the understanding of settlement pattern in the Indo-Iranian borderlands during the Chalcolithic Period[END_REF][START_REF] Sarhaddi-Dadian | New Data on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods in the South-Eastern Greater Periphery of the Jazmurian Basin: Archaeological Survey along the Sarbaz Valley and in Adjacent Areas in Iranian Baluchestan[END_REF]. In a general fashion, Yahya VB-VA and Iblis I-II periods date to between the mid-fifth and the early fourth millennia BC, while Iblis IV, or III to V, periods follow them in the general chronological sequence of southeastern Iran with a terminus ante quem in the second half or at the end of the fourth millennium BC. 1 Three radiocarbon dates available from sites we surveyed in the Bam-Narmashir region are consistent with the later part of this chronological range. All three dates are between ca. 3650-3350 cal. BC and from sites with Aliabadrelated material. One is from a sample collected by Adle from the surface of a site in Area 1, 2 and the two other ones are from samples collected from a test-trench at a site in Area 2. 3 It nonetheless remains difficult to specify the dating of all the Chalcolithic sites we recorded in the Bam-Narmashir region on the basis of surface collection, since stylistic continuity is observed between the assemblages of Periods VB-VA at Tepe Yahya(Beale and Lamberg-Karlovsky 1986: 40 fig. 4.1) and between those of Periods I-II and Periods III-IV-V at Tal-i Iblis

Figure 7 :

 7 Figure 7:Yahya V-related site near Abaregh, Bam region (© BAM).

Figure 8 :

 8 Figure 8: Aliabad-related ceramics from the Bam-Narmashir region (© BAM).

Figure 9 :

 9 Figure 9: Pottery kiln on an Aliabad-related site in the Bam-Narmashir region (Darestan) (© BAM).

Figure 10 :

 10 Figure 10: Tell-e Atashi (© Google Earth). Location of 2008 and 2017 trenches (in black) and 2018 excavations (in red).

Figure 11 :

 11 Figure 11: Central area at Tell-e Atashi (© BAM).

Figure 12 :

 12 Figure 12: Stratigraphic trench at Tell-e Atashi: A) view from the south with the 2008 test trench in background; B) view of the deep sounding in the southern part of the trench; C) view of the trench and mud-brick structures close to the surface in foreground, from the north (© BAM).

Figure 13 :

 13 Figure 13: Tell-e Atashi, mud-brick building in Test-Trench 6 (© BAM, 3D model created by O. Nasrabadi).

Figure 14 :

 14 Figure 14: Tell-e Atashi, child burial in Test-Trench 6 (© BAM).

Figure 15 :

 15 Figure 15: Tell-e Atashi, selection of clay objects: balls (upper row), cones (middle row) and figurines (lower row) (© BAM).

Figure 16 :

 16 Figure 16: Map of the southeastern Iranian Plateau with location of the Arg-e Bam and Tell-e Atashi in the Bam-Narmashir region and of the main archaeological sites mentioned in the text.

Figure 17 :

 17 Figure 17: View of the study area: Bam city and its region in the Bam-Narmashir counties.

Figure 18 :

 18 Figure 18: View of the study area in the Bam-Narmashir region, with location of the areas surveyed in 2016 and 2017 (green dots and white rectangles).

Figure 19 :

 19 Figure 19: View of survey Area 2 (Darestan), east of Bam city, with location of the archaeological sites recorded by the BAM survey (green dots) and Tell-e Atashi (red rectangle).

Figure 20 :

 20 Figure 20: Neolithic site in the Bam-Narmashir region (Darestan) (© BAM).

Figure 21 :

 21 Figure 21: Neolithic vegetal-tempered ceramics from the Bam-Narmashir region (© BAM).

Figure 22 :

 22 Figure 22:Yahya V-related site near Abaregh, Bam region (© BAM).

Figure 23 :

 23 Figure 23: Aliabad-related ceramics from the Bam-Narmashir region (© BAM).

Figure 24 :

 24 Figure 24: Pottery kiln on an Aliabad-related site in the Bam-Narmashir region (Darestan) (© BAM).

Figure 25 :

 25 Figure 25: Tell-e Atashi (© Google Earth). Location of 2008 and 2017 trenches (in black) and 2018 excavations (in red).

Figure 26 :

 26 Figure 26: Central area at Tell-e Atashi (© BAM).

Figure 27 :

 27 Figure 27: Stratigraphic trench at Tell-e Atashi: A) view from the south with the 2008 test trench in background; B) view of the deep sounding in the southern part of the trench; C) view of the trench and mud-brick structures close to the surface in foreground, from the north (© BAM).

Figure 28 :

 28 Figure 28: Tell-e Atashi, mud-brick building in Test-Trench 6 (© BAM, 3D model created by O. Nasrabadi).

Figure 29 :

 29 Figure 29: Tell-e Atashi, child burial in Test-Trench 6 (© BAM).

Figure 30 :

 30 Figure 30: Tell-e Atashi, selection of clay objects: balls (upper row), cones (middle row) and figurines (lower row) (© BAM).

The Aliabad-related settlement in Area 1 extends over more than

km.

Beta 500073:

+/-30 BP, 5214-5022 cal. BC (95.4%); Beta 500074: 6240 +/-30 BP, 5306-5204 cal. BC (74.7%), 5167-5076 cal. BC (20.7%).

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research and its director Dr. H. Choubak and now Dr. R. Shirazi, as well as the Iranian Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization and its director Dr. S.M. Beheshti and now Dr. B. Omrani. In Bam, our research has been facilitated by the Arg-e Bam World Heritage Base Camp and its director A. Ebrahimi and now Eng. M. Movahedi, Bam county governor R. Ashk and now M. Shahriyarpur, Bam city mayor M. Poshtiban, and Narmashir county governor M. Moshki, as well as the Bam Cultural Heritage NGO and its deputy M. Tohidi. We also would like to thank M. Salehi and S. Naseri, representatives of the Kerman Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organization (KCHHTO). In France, the Bam Archaeological Mission is part of the research program of the CNRS team Archaeology of Central Asia (UMR 7041 ArScAn -Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité), directed by Dr. C. Debaine-Francfort. The mission is funded by a grant for archaeological mission from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du Développement International and now Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires Étrangères).