Dynamic Interplay In The Iranian Highlands

Call for Papers

“And how shall green life grow from crimson soil?”
—Bahram Beyzaie, Arash

Understanding the cultural trajectories of highland societies requires more than isolated case studies. It calls for an integrated framework that treats the landscape as an archive of human-induced transformation, where settlement patterns, soils, water systems, and archaeological record preserve the imprint of past decision making. This discussion begins with the dynamic interplay between human societies and their environments, an interplay that unfolds not as a linear cause-and-effect, but through multi-layered feedback. The interpretive framework we propose is Landscape Archaeology, an approach that moves beyond the boundaries of individual sites to read networks, interstitial spaces, and the long-term trajectories of human–environment transformations.

From this perspective, anthropogenic landscapes are not a mere label, but a spectrum of archaeological signatures. These signatures reveal both the mechanisms of everyday adaptation and the transformative forces that have rendered landscapes “human-made” over centuries. These intentional and unintended transformations jointly configured the highland landscapes we encounter today.

The Iranian Highlands, with their varied terrain, fragile ecologies, and shifting political boundaries, offer a rich setting to explore how communities navigated environmental uncertainty, resource fluctuations, and social change. We invite contributions to an online conference that places landscape, human–environment interaction, and spatial organization at the center of discussion, with a special welcome to early-career researchers and colleagues based in Iran.

Suggested topics

• Landscape Archaeology and Spatial Analysis: How human activities inscribed meaning and memory into physical space.
• Land Use and Environmental Interaction: Agricultural, pastoral, and mobility practices that produced lasting ecological change.
• Hydraulic Landscapes and Water Management: Irrigation systems, qanats, and other infrastructures that reshaped land and settlement.
• Extraction and Resource Driven Change: Mining, quarrying, and related labor regimes and terrain modification.
• Subsistence Strategies and Daily Life: Archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and socio economic evidence of human responses to stress and opportunity.
• Urban Development and Settlement Hierarchies: The rise and decline of centers, towns, and cities in relation to environmental and socio-economic dynamics.

We particularly welcome innovative methods such as spatial modelling, remote sensing (UAVs, LiDAR, Photogrammetry), GIS‑based network analysis, archaeogeography and open‑data approaches, as well as proxy data (isotopes, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, proteomics) for reconstructing ancient lifeways.

Chronological scope: any period of Iranian archaeological history.
Geographical scope: the broad SPP 2176 definition of the “Iranian Highlands,” including present‑day Iran and adjacent regions such as Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kopet Dag and South Caucasus.

Submission guidelines

• Abstract: ≤ 300 words, in English
• Deadline: 1 October 2025
• Email: ecal.workshop@iranhighlands.com (subject line: Anthropogenic_Landscapes_2025)
• Notification of acceptance: 25 October 2025
• Pre-paper due: 1 December 2025 (for pre-circulation)
• Workshop date: 16–18 December 2025 (online)
• Selected papers will be considered for a peer-reviewed volume with Sidestone Press (2026).

We look forward to your proposals and to an engaging exchange on how human action, deliberate and unintended, has fashioned the landscapes of the Iranian Highlands.