28 On the Importance of Iran in the Study of Prehistoric Copper-base Metallurgy Introduction Current archaeological evidence argues strongly in favour of the commonly held assumption that the origins of metallurgy occurred in Southwest Asia, in particular on the ore-rich Anatolian and Ira- nian Plateau. In assessing the importance of Iran in the study of prehistoric copper-base metallurgy, the discussion to follow will focus on what is distinctive about Iran and the developmental con- texts of its earliest metallurgy. Succinctly put, the importance of ancient Iran lies in the fact that it comprises a 'heartland of metal- lurgy' – i.e., a central region that is technologically vital in its own right as well as a source area for surrounding areas. Iran’s pre-emi- nence in 'prehistoric' metallurgy extends from the Neolithic period in the 7 th millennium BC to the protohistoric Iron Age of the 1 st mil- lennium BC. It is particularly important not to lose sight of the peo- ple who undertook this technological experimentation and of the social, cultural, economic, and geological contexts in which it flou- rished. Settled village agriculturalists in the Neolithic Period of wes- tern Iran – c. 8500-4000 BC (see Voigt & Dyson 1992 for chrono- logy) – recognised a geologically occurring metal, native copper, as a distinct material and collected it initially for decorative pur- poses (see Hole 1987a; b; see also Voigt 1990; Stech 1990 for overviews). The earliest and most famous example is a single native copper bead that comes from the site of Ali Kosh on the Deh Luran Plain where it was deposited c. 6500 BC (Smith 1968; 1969) (Fig. 1). With the advent of the Chalcolithic Period in the 5th millennium, agriculturalists somehow mastered the art of smelting copper from its ores. While the process leading to this mastery is not yet well understood, technological advances in other heat-related crafts (pyrotechnology) may have played a significant role (e.g., Wertime 1973b; Schoop 1995a; 1995b, 33, Fig. 4). What is clear is that in a relatively short time, the Iranian Plateau became a centre of metallurgical innovation and activity defined by various unique contexts that facilitated further technological developments as mil- lennia passed. Contexts of development The Iranian Plateau as 'Technological Oikumenê' In attempting to characterize the overall context and to understand the unique set of circumstances that set the stage for innovative pyrotechnological developments in this particular region of the Old World, we invoke here the concept of an oikumenê as coined by A.L. Kroeber, the eminent 20 th century anthropologist (Kroeber 1946) 1 . For our purposes, an oikumenê is a spatially-defined region in which a particular combination of cultural processes, with a focused technological component, achieved what Kroeber termed, "an interwoven set of happenings and products". The ancient Ira- nian oikumenê was what we might term a well-defined, socio-tech- nic interaction sphere (see Caldwell 1964; see also Clarke's defini- tion of a technocomplex 2 ), which was from the outset of settled village life a 'cultural laboratory' in which a variety of materials and pyrotechnological processes were being 'played' with often to achieve decorative/aesthetic effects (Smith 1976). One cannot ignore the potential for interaction between the various possible pyrotechnologies during the Neolithic/Chalcolithic – e.g., heat tre- atment of flint, the chambered atmospheres of tanours (bread ovens) and pottery kilns, the calcining of lime with ensuing lime plaster production, and the visual transformation of these materi- als from their natural state into their often dramatically different anthropogenic conditions (see Paléorient 2001 26/2 on ancient applications of fire). Metallurgy did not spring sui generis from the minds of Neolithic peoples as either a 'discovery' or an 'invention' based on need or necessity. It was an innovation in the true sen- se of the word, one that evolved over time based in part on the- application of traditional techniques to new materials. There is litt- Vincent C. Pigott