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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online) Khuzestan Province (Arabistan) Iran's history as a nation of people speaking an Indo-European language did not begin until the middle of the second millennium BC. Before then Iran was occupied by peoples with a variety of cultures. There are numerous artifacts attesting to settled agriculture; permanent sun-dried brick dwellings and pottery making from the sixth millennium BC. The most advanced area technologically was ancient Susiana, present day Khuzestan Province. By the fourth millennium the inhabitants of Susiana, the Elamites, were using semipictographic writing, probably learned from the highly advanced civilization of Sumer in Mesopotamia to the west ... According to Mesopotamian texts the eastern part of their land was occupied by a people called the Elamites. Indigenous to the country and speaking an agglutinative non-Semitic language still not well understood to this day, the Plain of Susiana or Khuzestan was the center of a loosely organized federation of states which stretched north into Lurestan, south to Fars and as far as Bushehr on the Gulf. Important Elamite Cities such as Awan or Simash are still to be located. Other important Elamite sites however have been excavated such as Choga Zanbil, Haft Tepe and Susa on the Khuzestan plain ... |
