The Chalcolithic in Iran: from villages to centres

The frame

The Met's timeline for Iran dates the Chalcolithic about 5000-3500 BCE. According to its overview, "by the end of the fifth millennium B.C., several settlements had grown considerably", and Susa is founded at this time. In the key events, under about 4200 BCE, Susa is founded on a broad fertile plain, surrounded by numerous agricultural villages, centred on a large mud-brick platform, and becomes the regional focus of what is now central Khuzestan. The site follows this timeline for Iran, which is also the frame of the neighbouring periods. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

UNESCO writes that Susa developed as an important centre "as early as the late 5th millennium BCE", and counts 27 layers of superimposed urban settlements in a continuous succession until the 13th century CE. Susa therefore runs on through the later periods as well; it is placed here for its beginning only, and its later phases belong to later pages. On the other side of the boundary, at about 3500 BCE, the same timeline begins both the Early Bronze Age and the phase Susa II (about 3500-3100 BCE); its entry on ceramics, cylinder seals and sculpture at Chogha Mish and Susa that are "virtually identical" to those of southern Mesopotamia is dated about 3400-3100 BCE, and so belongs to the next page. Sources 2, 1.

On this site

Two articles are placed in this period. "Susa: an early centre of the late fifth millennium BCE" sets the timeline's account of the beginning, a mud-brick platform, graves beside it and painted vessels, against UNESCO's wording of a centre "presumably with religious importance". "Tall-e Bakun A: a late prehistoric community before the state in Fars" concerns a site near Persepolis that its source calls "late prehistoric" and places "long before" the urban centres of the second half of the fourth millennium BCE, with no date of its own; its placement on this page rests on that description, not on a date. No documented museum object is placed in this period yet.