Longue Durée Water Histories and Geospatial Technologies: Case Studies from Iran and Iraq

Harvard Archaeology Program Seminar Series Spring 2018 Schedule

Mehrnoush Soroush, Harvard University

Water sustains life. The topic of water management has been tied to anthropological discourse on sociopolitical complexity by the striking fact that early civilizations appeared in arid and semi-arid environments. Archaeological research has contributed to this topic, primarily through research on incipient irrigation and well-preserved landscapes of empires and states. This talk will take the discussion in a different direction: How we can investigate continuity, gradual transformations, and long-term processes in water history archaeologically? Specifically, what possibilities do advances in geospatial technologies offer for looking into landscapes of ancient irrigation from a long-term perspective. This topic will be presented through a study of ancient canal systems at the city of Shushtar in southwestern Iran, and through a new project on qanat (subterranean water systems) landscapes at the city of Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.