Rivers in the making; the definition of “Nahr” as a hybrid watercourse based on geoarchaeological evidence from Southwestern Iran

Water History (2021) 13:235–259 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12685-021-00283-7 Rivers in the making; the definition of “Nahr” as a hybrid watercourse based on geoarchaeological evidence from Southwestern Iran Elnaz Rashidian1,2 Received: 10 August 2020 / Accepted: 8 June 2021 / Published online: 21 June 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 Abstract This paper explores a new perspective to study the settlement dynamics of riverine landscapes by addressing human–environment interaction in the Ancient Near East through integration of remote sensing, new geodata, and developing a definition of a new category of a watercourse. The complex and entangled network of watercourses in the archaeologically crucial region of southwestern Iran, the Greater Susiana, hinders a clear view of the spatial relations between ancient settlements and their respective environments. The watercourses are known to be of either natural (rivers) or anthropogenic (canals) origin. However, many current watercourses do not fit into either category, which causes misinterpretations of the archaeological record. This paper introduces a third category, which consists of a hybrid of the two existing categories and suggests using the term “Nahr” to address such watercourses. The author implements this idea to a case study, Nahr-e Atiq, a watercourse in north Susiana, which passes two prominent sites, Abu Fanduweh and Haft Tappeh. Based on the results of a geoarchaeological investigation(including a survey, eight sediment cores, and several soil profiles, as well as 58 known archaeological sites), several hydro-morphologic elements are presented for identifying Nahrs. These include sedimentation, morphology, and physical characteristics. The most crucial aspect is the biography of a Nahr, as these hybrid watercourses might consist of different sections with different genesis. The author argues that Nahr, as defined here, must be considered an artifact, and studied as such in the landscape archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Keywords Iran · Ancient Near East · Susiana · Geoarchaeology · Ancient watercourses · Nahr-e Atiq * Elnaz Rashidian ; ; 1 University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany 2 University Aix-Marseille, Marseille, France 13 Vol.:(0123456789) 236 E. Rashidian Introduction: Nahr as a hybrid watercourse Watercourses were decisive in the spatial evolution of ancient settlement systems, at least since the early Neolithic. Riverine landscapes were home to prehistoric settlement systems. They provided a suitable geographical setting for the emergence of the first city-states in the Ancient Near East (see Wilkinson (2003) for a description of the prehistoric landscape; see Heyvaert et al. (2010) for a reconstruction of the landscape in lower Susiana; see Lees and Falcon (1952) for geoarchaeological evidence of paleo-landscapes of the area; see Potts (ed.), 2012 for an introduction to different areas and archaeological periods). Therefore, these watercourses must be studied as indispensable actors in the human–environment-network and considered actively in the successive interaction of landscapes and settlements. Watercourses are not static features in the landscape. Their raison d’etre is of utmost importance in their study as geo-factors in an archaeological setting. The genesis of a watercourse greatly affects the dynamics of the settlement system and its evolution. Therefore, the definition of watercourses based on their genesis is essential when concerning them in their surrounding archaeological landscape(s). We know of two types of watercourses based on their genesis: natural watercourses, such as rivers and streams, and anthropogenic watercourses, such as canals and drainages. Yet not all the watercourses fit into these two categories without any doubt. The definitions seem to be incomplete in terms of covering all watercourses that are encountered in the archaeological record. Therefore, this paper has two aims: (i) providing a framework for a better definition of watercourses as environmental factors in the context of ancient settlement systems based on the geoarchaeological evidence; and (ii) implementing this definition in a case study in southwestern Iran for further refining of the concept in the Ancient Near East. Here, the term “Nahr” will be presented to refer to a hybrid watercourse in the context of the Greater Susiana.1 The Greater Susiana is the archaeological term for the area between the Zagros mountains in the northwest and the Persian Gulf in the south, neighboring the south Mesopotamian plains in the west and the Dehloran plains in the north (see Wilkinson (2012) for an outline on the physical landscape of the area). It correlates roughly with the modern province of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran (see Fig. 1 for the study area). The archaeological richness of this region provides a solid framework to work out and test the human–environment-interaction-related hypothesis based on geoarchaeological evidence (see Moghaddam (2012) for an outline of the archaeology of the area). Besides the great rivers such as Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, and Karun, Dez, and Karkheh in Susiana, the region includes several tributaries and smaller rivers, as well as an impressive network of artificial canals of ancient age. These networks of watercourses are very much entangled, to a degree that makes it almost impossible to differentiate specific watercourses and their genesis on the ground. This fact presents a problem in 1 There are similar terms in this regard, which have been excluded due to their established use in the discourse. A few examples follow: Stream is a small and narrow river, waterway is a navigable watercourse, channel is a length of water wider than a strait which connects two larger areas of water, drainage is a canal with the function of removing excess water from the surface of the land, watercourse is any channel of water independent of its genesis, river is a large natural stream of water flowing in a channel towards a body of water with a delta. Therefore, none of these terms are suitable for the aim of this paper (thanks to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting explaining the reasons for choosing the term Nahr and avoiding confusion). 13 Rivers in the making; the definition of “Nahr” as a hybrid… 237 archaeological investigations in this region and deems an evidence-based categorization of watercourses necessary. Recently, the crucial importance of distinguishing between natural rivers and humanmade canals in their archaeological context has been emphasized. Based on his investigation on Mesopotamian landscape archaeology, Jotheri (2018) has identified seven key differences between the two types of watercourses: topographical cross-sections, crevasse splays, marshes, meandering, cut-offs, and oxbow lakes, channel patterns, and stream directions (Jotheri 2018, p. 111). The geomorphological differences that he identified in natural and anthropogenic watercourses ca (...truncated)