A Thousand-Year Tradition: Understanding Neolithic Zagros Pastoral Resilience Through Obsidian Consumption Practices (A Case Study in Revisiting Royal Ontario Museum’s Legacy Archaeological Collections from Tepe Sarab, Kermanshah)

Abstract

Can we use long-term, diachronic obsidian consumption patterns to theorize about pastoral mobility and the resilience of seasonal pastoral populations in times of environmental hardship? My project aims to answer this question with a case study on the Central Zagros and legacy obsidian collections from the region at the Royal Ontario Museum. This involves looking at the obsidian artifacts from the seasonal pastoral site of Tepe Sarab, during the Neolithic Period (7000-6000 BC). This thesis suggests that despite environmental hardship, the Neolithic seasonal pastoral nomads of the Central Zagros remained consistent in their obsidian consumption patterns, suggesting resilience in their mobility and subsistence.