Technological and Cultural Change Among the Last Hunter-Gatherers of the Maghreb: The Capsian (10,000–6000 B.P.)

This paper focuses on the controversy surrounding the chronological interpretation of two subdivisions of a North African Epipaleolithic culture: Typical Capsian and Upper Capsian. Although originally defined as two evolutionary phases on the basis of stratigraphy, since the development of absolute dating methods they have been considered as contemporaneous. A new approach to the lithic technology of collections from the classic sites of Bortal Fakher, El-Mekta, Relilaï, and Aïn Dokkara allows us to redefine the industry and the traditional chronology. A wide-reaching comparison including major Capsian sites, and based on cultural attribution, chronology, and lithic technology, supports our preliminary results. Around 8000 B.P., a technological change occurred, corresponding with an environmental shift, and calls into question the contemporaneity of Typical and Upper Capsian. The causes, mechanisms, and implications of this technological change are integrated into a broader discussion leading to more questions about the way of life of the makers of the Capsian, their cultural evolution, and their persistence as hunter-gatherers in a Neolithic world.     

Wrestling with the Revolution: The Iron Sheik and the American Cultural Response to the 1979 Iranian Revolution

This paper maps how American popular culture came to terms with the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran through a study of Hussein Khosrow Vaziri. Vaziri, better known by his moniker, “The Iron Sheik,” was active in professional wrestling in the 1980s and remains to this day one of the most well-known Iranians in American cultural memory. Through an analysis of his character and how he has been represented in the popular media, I argue that he was chiefly utilized as a figure through whom Americans could cope with the devastating blow that the Revolution caused to American power. I argue that this reaction continues to this day, albeit focusing not on Iran but on the current political tensions involving the attacks of September 11, 2001.