The Seasonal Mobility of Prehistoric Gazelle Herds in the Azraq Basin,Jordan: Modelling Alternative Strategies Using Stable Isotopes

The hunting of Gazella subgutturosa was a dominant practice for Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic hunter–gatherers in the east Jordan steppe. The seasonal mobility of this taxon in the Levant is poorly understood, especially for early prehistory when herd movements would have influenced hunter-gatherer use of the steppes. This paper proposes four patterns of seasonal herd mobility for G. subgutturosa centred on Jordan’s Azraq Basin. The four patterns are modelled using oxygen, carbon and strontium stable isotopes. Seasonal environmental signatures of each are understood through carbon and strontium isotopic variation in sixty modern plant specimens collected from twelve selected locations in north Jordan, published data on oxygen isotopes in local precipitation, and the adaptive behaviour of G. subgutturosa. The integrated isotopic datasets provide clear discriminatory markers for each proposed mobility pattern. Results will be applied in future to isotopic data from archaeological gazelle teeth from the Azraq Basin.     

Reviews

The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Beatrice Forbes Manz, Cambridge, 1989, xi + 227 pp., including notes, maps, bibliography, index.

The Arts of Persia, ed. R. W. Ferrier, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989, 334 pp, $60.00.

Silent Boundaries: Cultural Constraints on Sickness and Diagnosis of Iranians in Israel, Karen L. Pliskin, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987, 283 pp., bibliography, index.

Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, Misagh Parsa, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989, xiii + 348 pp., cloth $40.00, paperback $15.00.

Persian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Marie Lukens Swietochowski and Sussan Babaie, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989, 87 pp.

The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran, Said Amir Arjomand, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 210 pp., appendixes, notes, glossary, bibliography, and index to p. 283, hardback $21.95.

Iran: From Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy, Mohammed Amjad, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989, 179 pp., including glossary, bibliography, index, cloth $35.00.

Cry for My Revolution, Iran, Manoucher Parvin, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1987, pp. 383, $14.94.

Her Eyes, Bozorg Alavi, trans. John O'Kane, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989, 222 pp.

Iranian Short Story Authors: A Bio‐bibliographic Survey, John Green, Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1989, viii + 250 pp., $29.95.

Asrar al‐tawhid fi maqamat al‐shaykh Abi Sa'id, Mohammad b. Monavvar, ed. Mohammad Reza Shafi'i Kadkani, 2 vols., Tehran: Agah, 1366 S./1987.

Colloquial Persian, Leila Moshiri, The Colloquial Series, London: Routledge, 1988, 222 pp., £6.95.

Land Reform and Social Change in Iran, Afsaneh Najmabadi, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1987, 246 pp.

Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. M. Nazif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield, Research Series No. 57, Institute of International Studies, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1984.

Musaddiq's Memoirs: The End of the British Empire in Iran, Muhammad Musaddiq, ed. Homa Katouzian, London: Jebhe, 1988, lxxxvii + 340 pp., appendixes 46 pp., index 7 pp., cloth $50, paperback $30.

The Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette, Taghi Modarressi, New York: Doubleday, 1989, 279 pp., $18.95.

Buying Security: Iran Under The Monarchy, Ann Tibbits Schulz, Boulder, San Francisco & London: Westview Press, 1989, xi + 192 pp.

Shi'ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality, ed., annot., and with an introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988, xviii + 401 pp., cloth $73.50, paper $24.50.

Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, ed., annot., and with an introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989, xxxiii + 460 pp., cloth $73.50, paper $24.50.     

The Southwest Michigan Historic Landscape Project: Exploring Class, Gender, and Ethnicity from the Ground Up

The Southwest Michigan Historic Landscape Project was initiated in 1994 to examine how the cultural landscapes and associated material culture of the region became transformed since the pioneer settlement of the early 19th century (ca. 1830s). Thus far we have used various methods to investigate four sites in Allegan, Calhoun, and Jackson counties at varying levels of intensity. From these initial efforts we have begun to compile comparative information on the built environment. Here we present the theory and methods used in the project and discuss how class, gender, and ethnic identities are expressed in the material record of the region.     

Risk and the Sacred: Environment,Media and Public Opinion in Bali

This exploration of controversies over environmental regulation in the Indonesian province of Bali traces the relationship between the media, environmental attitudes and Balinese identity, focusing on the religious dimension of that identity and the ways in which this has become bound up with conceptions of environmental imbalance and a popular critique of capitalist development on the island. The fusion of cultural and environmental metaphors of ‘erosion’ and ‘preservation’ in public discourse is striking in the Balinese case, since sites of great spiritual significance are also attractive to investors for their aesthetic appeal and heritage value (Verschuuren et al. 2010). From the earliest emergence of environmental conflict on the island, the emotive power of cultural identity became intimately connected with environmental politics. This article traces several of the pervasive and interconnected dichotomies ‐ sacred and profane, cultural value and economic interest, environmental preservation and use (exploitation), certainty and uncertainty (risk) ‐ that characterise debates surrounding environmental regulation and development on the island.