Ubaid-related-related? The "black-on-buff" Ceramic Traditions of Highland Southwest Iran

Abstract

Most discussions of the Ubaid cultural horizon have paid relatively little attention to the black-on-buff painted ceramic traditions that prevailed in many regions of highland Iran during the fifth millennium b.c. Here we partially redress this oversight by discussing the black-on-buff painted ceramics of this period from highland southwest Iran, in modern-day Fars province. These are typically referred to as Bakun ceramics and attributed to the Bakun period, with the name being derived from the site of Tall-i Bakun A in the Marv Dasht area of the Kur River Basin where such pottery was first recorded in the late 1920s (Herzfeld 1929; Schmidt 1937, 1939; Langsdorff and McCown 1942). By definition and common usage, "Bakun" is a multivalent term, functioning in different instances as a geographical, chronological, and/or cultural signifier. Archaeologically, the Bakun period is defined largely by the presence of distinctive black-on-buff painted ceramic vessels that often have elaborate geometric and figural decoration. However, fundamental questions exist about the extent of the Bakun ceramic horizon in time and space, and its relationship to actual human behavior in fifth-millennium b.c. Fars.