Ethnoarchaeology of Behavior Settings: Towards Understanding of Territory in Semi-Sedentary of the Early Holocene (A Model-Based Qualitative Research with Case Study)

The phenomenon of “spatial boundary”– among the main components of spatial property– has held an essential role in creating, consolidating, protecting, and identification of sustainable human-constructed environments and semi-sedentary behavior settings, from the early Holocene until now. Features and their determinant material culture are as the data, and the data are constrained in archaeology yet recognizable from the structural aspect. Ethnography, environmental psychology, and architecture suggest the diversity and various exposed and concealed arenas of this phenomenon in the traditional behavior settings. Theme of how the recognition, interpretation of the parameters, and the triple aspects of territory have been in prehistoric behavior settings is inadequately addressed. Due to the limited sources of archaeological literature according to different variables, the previous studies have only partially investigated the concept of assert. Recognition and understanding of the concept of territory is feasible in the light of analogy between the archaeological data and the findings of the behavior traditional settings in the framework of ethnoarchaeology and its practice-oriented reasoning. Middle East is among the pioneering regions in such investigations. Article is a qualitative research relying on archaeological and ethnography samples, it relies on description, analysis, and interpretation from the viewpoint of methodology, and it is an ethnoarchaeological study based on reasoning’s general comparative and structural analogies in terms of method. It is investigated based on observations, interviews, and documentary analysis in dynamic and static contexts. Study results indicate that the parameters and aspects of territory have been present in both archaeological and systemic contexts, and they are perceptible and interpretable through the middle range theory. It would be helpful in both objective and subjective viewpoints for the capability of archeological interpretation of how the different social and spatial human-constructed environments are accessible.
Keywords: Ethnoarchaeology, Territory and Territoriality, Behavior Setting, Semi-Sedentary, Archaeological Interpretation.
 
Introduction
The territory is among the pivotal components of presenting behavior patterns in the given spatial dimensions of the lifestyles. Evidences exist in the first early temporary or seasonal behavior settings of semi-sedentary and in the traditional lifestyles of the Middle East. Some of the similar features and components, such as territory and territoriality, are perceptible due to the permanence and continuity, and through the middle range theory and analogy reasoning in the light of ethnoarchaeology. Quantitative-qualitative flaw of the archeological data (subject) compared to the evident abundance and observation of the targeted exposed and concealed marking of territory in the architecture of the traditional setting of semi-sedentism necessitates the comprehensiveness (source) of the ethnographic sample in analogy-based investigations. Ethnoarchaeological studies of the Middle East are amenable in three categories the reflections on the behavior of traditional settings, handicrafts research, and experimental and laboratory investigations. Vast spectrum of concepts, including territory, are less addressed from different viewpoints. Answer the question of how the territory parameters have been in the prehistoric period, it is necessary to recognize them from the lens of behavior traditional settings to make analogies for archeological interpretations. Purpose of this paper is to utilize general comparative and structural analogies reasoning in the qualitative research of ethnoarchaeology to understand and interpret territory in the behavior settings of Nemrik 9 and Mʼlefaat compared with the behavior traditional settings of Malle-ye Tangelia. Necessity of this study lies under the perception of territory and its impact on creating space, the arrangement of evident or concealed and permanent or temporary phenomena, how to have access, and how are human-environmental interactions in the archaeological and systemic contexts of semi-sedentary. Territory and territoriality and their components and arenas” bear an identical meaning in the source and the subject. It be only used in the interpretation of similar archaeological contexts. To the special attention paid to the purpose of the research and a targeted selection of the example, the selection method is typical case sampling to achieve representativeness or comparability. They are investigated based on observation, interviews, and documentary analysis of dynamic and static contexts. Results of this research suggested that the components and aspects of the territory phenomenon have been present in both archaeological and systemic contexts, and they are perceptible with a middle-range theory.
 
Article text
From the point of view of archaeology, the early artificial environments were established within the framework of semi-sedentism behavior settings alongside creating a territory as a mechanism for targeted marking of ownership, identification, and security. Territory falls into various categories based on different variables. Primary territory is exclusively owned by a given person, group, or institution. Public territory is a public space accessible to all. Secondary territory is the space between the two primary and public territories, which has a private side for some, and public side for others. Different types of territory are conceivable and understandable in the early behavior settings and its traditional types are observed in the Middle East and Iran. Primary arena of the territory is divided into three types based on structural features: primary territory, including the house and it’s inside phenomena; the secondary area, which is the external-surrounding arena of the primary territory, and the public territory includes the public open space. The middle arena of the territory is explainable in three ways considering the behavioral-functional parameters that consist of practicable behaviors in the primary, secondary, and public arenas. Final arena of the territory can be identified based on the perceptive components in all three types of territory. That is, each of the behavioral patterns that could be provided in the appearance of the structural features hold semantic and yet different aspects. 
 
Conclusion
Results of this research show that the territory and territoriality phenomenon in the archeological context of semi-sedentism of late Pleistocene and early Holocene is recoverable in terms of the structural feature, and perceiving its apparent and concealed, permanent and temporary, private and social, and functional and conceptual dimensions and types is feasible in the systemic context as a result of the middle range theory through ethnoarchaeological in the behavior traditional setting. Perception of arenas and parameters of the territory in both dynamic and static contexts indicates its role in the manner of human-environment interactions, spatial centralization, and individual-social identification in the behavior settings of early and traditional semi-sedentism. Methodology of the present research is like an applied model and enjoys a high capability in ethnoarchaeology of Iran and other regions of the Middle. Other significant results of this research is the facilitation of a more accurate perception and interpretation of the territory and territoriality concept according to the figures and tables to perceive and interpret the behavioral and semantic patterns from different angles and dimensions in the early and traditional behavioral settings. Finding emphasizes approvability and transferability of the results in the range of comprehensives and objectives, in addition to their contribution to the systematic deduction from the source and the subject of the research to answer the research questions in the field of naturalistic generalizability.