Hossein Habibi

Studies on Mesopotamia, the Central Zagros and Southwestern Iran have shown an increase of archaeological sites number in the Sasanian time. Abdanan region, at a strategic situation between these three cultural zones, is a part of a trans-regional system that according to the results of high density archaeological surveys, shows a whole with uniform characteristics. In the present research, by using the Arc GIS programme on the basis of landscape archaeology perspective, impacts of various environmental-cultural variables on the patterns of archaeological sites spatial distribution are studied. Accordingly, it is specified that beside the predominant dendritic distributional model of the central plain and mountainous parts of Abdanan, the Sasanian sites in the eastern part of the region represent a distinctive clustery pattern. This is an outcome of the compound economy and dimorphic society of the under-study region in the Sasanian time which besides the predominant culture with its main base in the vast settlements of the central plain, has been hosted a sub-culture with pastoral nomadic subsistence strategy at its eastern part. According to the insight of the complicated adaptive systems (CAS) model, Abdanan in the Sasanian period was a part of a trans-regional system ‘at the edge of chaos’ which with high levels of population and pressure on land resources, was at a high level of information processing and the border between stability and chaos. Confronting the external disturbance, this system experienced loosing of correlation among its high levels and with change – or collapse? turned into the transitional phase of post-Sasanian times characterised by population and fiscal decline.