Table of Contents

List of illustrations
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Maps

1 Nomadism: Concepts and archaeological evidence
2 The Coming of the Iranians
3 Iranian nomads in the Achaemenid, Seleucid and Arsacid periods
4 Late Antiquity
5 Fom the Islamic Conquest to the Oghuz infiltration
6 The Mongols and Timurids
7 The Aq Qoyunlu and Safavids
8 From Karim Khan Zand to World War I
9 From World War I to the Present
10 On Nomadism in Iran through Time
Appendix 1. The Position of Nomadism on the Social Evolutionary Ladder

Bibliography
Index

About the Author

D. T. Potts is Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.

Reviews

"Potts has written a sweeping ouvrage on the involvement and influence of nomads, semi-nomads, and tribes in shaping Iran's past and present." --Journal of the American Oriental Society
"Nomadism in Iran stands as a magisterial synthesis of the role of nomadism from Iran's pre-history through the 20th century. Based upon critical and exhaustive reading of material and textual evidence, this path-breaking book challenges our thinking as it clearly narrates and analyzes the fundamental changes in nomadism over the course of that long history." --G. R. Garthwaite, Dartmouth College
"Daniel Potts has produced a masterly history of nomadism in Iran since prehistoric times. His demolition of archaeological orthodoxies is impressive: in particular, he shows that nomadism came to Iran millennia later than supposed, and that reconstructing ancient nomadic societies by extrapolating from recent ethnographic studies is methodologically invalid and highly misleading." --Richard Tapper, SOAS, University of London