Khuzestan has one of the most detailed and well documented archaeological sequences in the Near East, thanks to years of excavation and survey by many researchers. This work has led to some understanding of political, economic, and social life in southwestern Iran from the time of the early villages to that of the early states and the historic empires. Over the millennia, agriculture and pastoralism formed the economic basis of the region. But ecological and economic relationships were by no means static, for the people of southwestern Iran transformed their environment even as they built their civilizations. Paleoethnobotany has the potential to offer unique insights into the agricultural and pastoral economies of ancient Khuzestan, and can provide a case study of the long-term interrelationships between environmental, economic and social conditions.