Encyclopedia of Prehistory. Volume 8: South and Southwest Asia

Edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Melvin Ember. — New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2002. — 413 pp. — ISBN: 978-1-4684-715-9.South and Southwest Asia includes the entire area east of the Bay of Bengal, north of the Indian Ocean, east of the Mediterranean, and south of the Caucasus and the Tibetan Plateau. It is a region of generally warm to hot climates, low rainfall (except in southern India, where summer monsoons bring abundant rainfall), and rugged terrain. It is also where plants and animals were first domesticated, and where the first states developed. Indeed, the region is home to two great civilizations, the Harappan in the Indus valley and the Sumerian in southern Mesopotamia. But the region is also home to a great number of other civilizations, from the states of the Ganges plain to the Bronze Age of the Levant.Aceramic Neolithic (Edward Banning).
Akkadian (Harvey Weiss).
Arabian Upper Paleolithic (Peler N. Peregrine).
Central Indian Iron Age (Carla Sinopoli).
Central Indian Chalcolithic (Vasant Shinde and Shweta Sinha Deshpande).
Ceramic Neolithic (Edward Banning).
Chalcolithic (Thomas E. Levy).
Early Arabian Littoral (Peter N. Peregrine).
Early Arabian Pastoral (Juris Zarins).
Early Bronze Age (Jonathan M. Golden).
Early Dynastic Mesopotamia (Peter N. Peregrine).
Early Indus (Jonathan Mark Kenoyer).
Epipaleolithic (Nigel Goring-Morris).
Ganges Neolithic (Bhuvan Vikrama and Umesh Chaltopadhyaya).
Gangetic India (Bhuvan Vikrama and Umesh Chattopadhyaya).
Halafian (Roger Matthews).
Indus Neolithic (Jonathan Mark Kenoyer).
Iranian Bronze Age (John Beierle).
Iranian Chalcolithic (Brian L. Peasnall).
Iranian Iron Age (Peter N. Peregrine).
Iranian Mesolithic (Brian L. Peasnall).
Iranian Neolithic (Brian L. Peasnall).
Jemdet Nasr (Peter N. Peregrine).
Late Arabian Littoral (Peter Magee).
Late Arabian Pastoral (Juris Zarins).
Lare Chalcolithic Mesopotamia (Mitchell S. Rothman).
Mature Indus (Jonathan Mark Kenoyer).
Middle Arabian Littoral (Peter N. Peregrine).
Middle Arabian Pastoral (Juris Zarins).
Middle Bronze Age (Jonathan M. Golden).
Natufian (Nigel Goring-Morris).
South Asian Microlithic (Indrani Chattopadhyaya).
South Asian Upper Paleolithic (Vidula Jayaswal).
South Indian Chalcolithic (Vasant Shinde and Shweta Sinha Deshpande).
South Indian Iron Age (Carla Sinopoli).
Southern Asia Upper Paleolithic (Peter N. Peregrine).
Ubaid (Brian Peasnall).
Vedic (Gregory Possehl and Michael Witzel).