Hossein Habibi

Farsan County comprises topographically a valley system leading to a central plain with an elevation of just over 2000 m asl. Located in the heart of the Chaharmahal va Bakhtiyari Province to the south of the Central Zagros region, this archaeologically poorly known highland has historically been a main center for the Bakhtiyari nomads. However, recent archaeological fieldwork examined the spatial distribution patterns and morphology of sites from Middle Palaeolithic times to Late Antiquity and well beyond. Accordingly, sherd/flint-scattered sites in the piedmonts mainly provided evidence for the built environment of prehistoric Farsan. While the pastoralists of the region sustained the traditional economic strategies and settlement pattern, the cultural landscape of the plain changed in historical times. Appearing in Hellenistic sources, the Elymaeans of the region founded an important state in late Seleucid-Parthian times, dominating trade roads leading from the Zagros highlands and Iranian Plateau to the Susian and Babylonian lowlands and the Persian Gulf. Holding strategic roads, the population of Farsan increased in this era. The more noticeable development happened in the Sasanian period when the interregional administrative center of the canton of Rāwar-kust-ī-rōdbār was founded, and the spatial concentration of the sites shifted toward the central plain.