حسین حبیبی

Of the important purposes of Archaeology, is study of the interaction circumstances between communities each other and with ecosystem which living in, following up the cultural processes in the various eras in highlands with more than 2000 m. elevation from sea level, is a considerable subject field that ignored in the Archaeology of Iran. In the present research with utilization of environmental approach and using the Arc GIS program, on the basis of examining the geographical factors with respect to the settlement pattern of Sasanian era, we came to study that why and how Sasanian settlements in the Farsan county, as a region with such intermontane valleys and plain, formed and goes on, and determined that the most important factors in this process were accessibility to water and adequate pasture. Hereof locating in the close area with enough pasture for pastoral nomad communities, settling in the area with potentiality for irrigation agriculture for the settled people, and availability of communicating roads for both of these groups has a considerable role in the formation of settlement pattern of Sasanian Farsan. In the continuation of the process that have been started in the Elymaean period, settlement pattern of this region in the Sasanian period, on the influence of the developed system of socio-politically control and probably state investment, which scheduled under Sasanian centralized power, shaped. So in this approach, the connection between settlement pattern of sites and roads, as well as this point that the sites are not necessarily next to the riverbeds, make sense. In the Sasanian Period as precedent eras, habitation in mountain slopes and on the mounds beside the plain keeps on, these sites aside, we apparently saw that concentration of settlements moved in the central plain. In this Period, the size of sites is greater than precedent eras, which these are signs of population growth in this region in the Sasanian period. It seems likely that the growing of population in the Sasanian period is the consequence of vast exploitation of resources with habitation in the central plain and accessibility of more resources, utilization of strategic situation of Farsan region and communication roads, which nomads knows for a long time. Interaction between this region and other cultural zones, i.e. Khuzestan and Fars in the Sasanian period reflected in the archaeological data, e.g. form and decoration of pottery types. This similarity in the material culture matched with migration route of Bakhtiyari tribes.