Archaeometallurgy of southeast of Iran during bronze age: evidence from Tappeh Graziani, Sistan

Mining, extraction of metal and manufacturing of metal artifacts as one of the industries and arts invented by humans have always been of interest to researchers. Iran's plateau has played an important role in this industry in different periods and is still playing an important role in this industry. Archaeological research conducted in the southeast of Iran, such as Tape Yahya, Tel Iblis, Shahr-i sokhta, shows that in this region, the production of metal objects and its trade to other regions has been flourishing since the 4th millennium BCE. It seems that in the third millennium BCE, Hirmand's civilization zone, cantered around Shahr-i Sokhta, was the centre of production of all kinds of copper and bronze artefacts, and numerous industrial sites were identified during archaeological surveys. Tappe Graziani, as one of the important sites, was excavated by the author for three seasons to teach the archaeology students of Zabul University and to know the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the region in the Bronze Age and the evidence of industrial production was obtained there. In this article, an attempt is made to analyse the archaeometallurgical methods of the southeast of Iran based on the findings obtained from the excavation of this site. According to the above purpose, the questions of this article are: what is the role of Tappeh Graziani in the metallurgical industry of the Bronze Age? and at what level (industrial, semi-industrial or domestic) was metallurgy done in this site? During the excavation, various metal objects and metal slags were obtained, since metal slags are generally obtained in production workshops and due to their nature, they are not tradable, therefore metal slags obtained from this site can be considered evidence of metal production. It seems that the extraction of metal took place in another area and the production of metal objects was done in Graziani