Uniformitarianism: A Comparative Study of the Global Transitional Climatic Area Influences on the Bampur Valley

The aim of this paper is to examine the interactionsbetween people and the natural environment against a background of climatic change. Thefocus of attention is on the Bampur Valley, which is located in the global transitionalclimatic area. During the fourth and third millennium BCE, an important urban society,which was in close economic contacts with the urban societies of the Sistan Basin,Jiroft, Soghan Valley, the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, emerged in this Bampur Valleyalong the river bed of the Bampur River. This Valley, which is located along the mainnatural overland trade routes, not only developed as intermediary for long-distancetrade between east and west but also functioned as an important industrial andeconomical pole in southeast Iran. It is argued that the globaltransitional climate area, which is generally located between tropical and subtropicalareas, has constantly been faced with periodical changes including dry and humid duringworm period. Based on the archaeological and environmental evidence, with reference touniformitarianism theory and with using GIS, it will be attempted to evaluate movement,collapse and interaction between settlements and natural environment in the BampurValley. The disciplines of archaeology and geography have much in common, being concernrespectively with the spatial and temporal dimensions of the human condition.Archaeology deals with those aspects of the human past which are mainly elucidated usingmaterial remains rather than written sources. The prime concern of geography is tounderstand the processes that operate within the natural environment (physicalgeography) and to evaluate the ways in which people interact both with their environmentand with each other (human geography). Evidence discovered from the archaeological andgeographical surveys carried out in the area between 2002 and 2005 by authors testify toenvironmental changes, which caused instability and collapse of the human communities inprehistoric and the present times in the Bampur Valley.'