At the outset, we owe the reader an explanation of why this research has been undertaken and why it is reported in this form. Southwestern Iran, incorporating the plains of Xuzestan and the ranges of the Central Zagros, has been the focus of early plant and animal domestication, of early state and urban developments, and of successive later states and empires. It is clear even to the casual traveler that here lowlands and mountains are bound together by complementary resource disparities.