Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1978)
THE BATTALION MONDAY. OCTOBER 23. 1078 Page 3 rcheologist in nomad's land Prof studies ancient Iranians By DOUG GRAHAM Battalion Staff A Rice University archaeologist las decided that the best way to fig- ire out how people lived in the past to put yourself in their shoes — in ie present. That has turned out to be ardu- is, though, since the people he is tudying were ancient nomads who lived near the Turkish border of in in the Middle East. Dr. Frank Hole has worked with ie Lurs tribe, one of a group of soples that migrate each year from ie hot and dry Deh Luran Plains to learby mountains in Iran. Hole lived with the tribe about '0 years total in several visits dat ing from 1959, when he was a iduate student. He did this, he said, to help him ssearch people who lived in the ea almost 8,000 years ago. There were two reasons behind lis, he said. One was to help him 1am about the nomadic way of life, 'ie other was to help him find an- tient nomadic sites. By learning where nomads :amped and why, Hole said he mid make educated guesses about issible locations for ancient nomad imps. And learning how the nomads ived would help him interpret re ins left at the campsites. The Lurs are nomads who live in mis and migrate seasonally be- luse of climate differences be- yeen the plains and the mountains, lole, who is chairman of the an- iropology department at Rice, said lat it does not rain during the Dr. Frank Hole summer and temperatures reach 120-130 degrees on the Deh Luran plains. Conversely, winter is harsh in the mountains. The Lurs migrate to escape the climactic extremes and live off of foraged food such as acorns, hunt, or use their livestock. Hole learned that the Lurs’ way of life changed very little over the years. He used the standardized layouts they used in their tents as an example. After unearthing an an cient campsite, one of his Lurs workers was able to judge, from one excavated section, where a fire place, and ash pit were located. Those spots were not unearthed until after the prediction, so Hole said that was evidence the nomads’ tent layouts remained the same for thousands of years. urniture unused in GSA storage United Press International WASHINGTON — Each year, more than $36 million in new furni ture pours into Washington’s federal office buildings from a crumbl ing, leaky Maryland warehouse filled with soot-covered cartons of unwanted furnishings. The Middle River facility near Baltimore, Md., is larger than a football field. It is run by the General Services Administration, the mammoth housekeeping agency which is now under investigation for kickback and bribery scandals. The GSA operates 17 such furniture warehouses around the coun try. They sell an estimated $123 million in furniture to the govern ment every year. What was wrong with the old furniture and how the government can consume so many desks, chairs, tables, bookshelves, lamps and other furnishings year after year is a mystery to the GSA officials who stock and deliver the supplies for the $5 billion procurement agency. You would think there is enough now to give every bureaucrat in the world a desk, but it never ends,” said James Cook, a GSA regional official. An official of the White House Office of Management and Budget suggested the reason it never ends is that “offices are often refur nished when agencies move to new quarters, are reorganized, or just when a new administration comes in.” UPFs tour indicated much of the Maryland facility’s $8 million to $11 million inventory consisted of dust-covered cartons of unused furniture GSA cannot unload. Officials said the unused cartons, identified by a circled “X,” have been there three years or more. 4< , , Shipments come in here every day. Cook said. We ve had as many as 60 rail cars waiting to be unloaded in a single day. just plain *r hamk 1 ** EL61E ! WHfcKC HAVE You ©ecu THe LA6T ©txtosUttfc THCY MAVE So MA*rr AT THfcJoiaNnvi . I JLOSrr THC WAdU 1 x €»ERUouc»LY UioUr Lc YsUKWAa*. BUT Wit Cfc>HAVe EMoUOa , pRYEK^ THAT e*k*ILE*IT HAVE T© WATT. lvl/1 . lnW - -rte kmm ‘SrioZ PROCTER & GAMBLE Paper Products Plant at Cape Girardeau, Missouri will be recruiting for ENGINEERS interested in careers in MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT November 6 visit the Placement Office to sign up for interviews. In the same fashion the ar chaeologist was able to interpret another site which consisted of layers of ash and dirt, without any evidence of buildings. The ash layers were a mystery until Hole later observed tribesmen taking ad vantage of river reeds to make tem porary huts. This was understandable, Hole said, since the animal-skin tents were ofter flea-infested. When the nomads decamped, they burned their reed huts to the ground, which accounted for both the ash layers and the lack of structural remains. Living with the Lurs helped Hole unravel another mystery. At several places archeologists had encounter ed what seemed to be foundations of houses. The problem. Hole said, was that there was none of the pot tery fragments or other relics us ually found in ruins. He was told that the “houses” were built as memorials for tribal leaders who died without heirs. That practice explained why no de bris was there, Hole said. The offshoot of all the research was that Hole gathered evidence supporting a new theory that nomadic foraging and animal herd ing preceeded cultivation of plants. Hole said this evidence con tradicted his earlier opinion that the nomadic way of life was not old and that nomads used very little equip ment. He referred to amount of time the nomads spent packing camp, and the haphazard way they went about it. “Whoever came up with nomads slipping away in the dark is wrong,” he said. Hole also said he learned a lot about nomad life. “Nomads don’t sleep,” he said, “They stay up most of the night talk ing and get maybe two hours of sleep.” Inclement weather would leave the tent invaded by animals trying to get inside the tent. That also cut sleep short. “A goat would come in and step on your head,” he explained. Despite their ancient way, the lives of the Lurs is changing. One example, he said, is that the lowest members of society are be coming the richest. They have no thing to lose by abandoning tradi tion and indulging in a little modern free enterprise. Hole said they can buy pickup trucks to haul goods to stores and make extra money. But the traditional hereditary leaders must continue giving gifts and shar ing with tribe members to maintain their status, he said. Come over to our house International House of Pancakes Have you thought about having phor -^•i never had phones before? already have one or _ extensions, there a. ^ be one or two more places you -'■‘n think of wntre a phone would really come in iv -/ Imagine the convenience of having a phone in the laundry room, the work room, the family or the garage. Just think of it — no more " < -her part of the house to answer Afferent phone ~ - '-ome of v v ~' , &'^ erv "’ c 0 cP o*' 0, t.o ^ •tyles m ^ see them for youi -^lf at u » The GTE Phone Mart. I see your phone company. Culpepper Plaza