Recent archaeological excavations in Iran have contributed fundamentally to our understanding of the economic subsistence patterns in man's earliest communities. Excavations at the sites of Tepe Yahya in Kerman, Ali Kosh in Khuzistan, and Ganj-i-Dareh in Western Azerbaijan, to name but a few within different environmental zones and ecological niches, show that within the area of present-day Iran the cultural and economic transition from an earlier subsistence of hunting and gathering to settled village agricultural communities took place. This transition has been documented in other areas, i. e. Palestine, Anatolia, of Southwestern Asia. The development from a hunting and gathering economy to settled village agricultural productivity, often referred to as the ‘Neolithic Revolution’, was not an historical event (taking place in a moment of time) nor restricted to a single geographical area, but a cultural process which necessitated millennia for its achievement. The important role which Iran played can perhaps best be documented by summarizing the developing economic subsistence patterns in three loosely defined periods of time about 7000, 6000, and 5000 B.C.

A leading force demanding change during the mid-20th century has been the university student. These demands are increasingly being backed by riot and rebellion as students throughout the world intensely challenge ongoing institutions and administrations. Few societies, regardless of geographic position, political system, or stage of economic development, have escaped recent episodes of serious student upheaval. France and Holland, the United States and Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Egypt and Pakistan, Japan and Vietnam, and Turkey and Korea have witnessed shattering outbursts of student activity. The student has become the loudest spokesman for social change and a leading catalyst for political transformation. Political elites everywhere now realize that they can no longer ignore student demands but must devise policies to come to grips with them. The substance of these demands and the consequent elite policy are two key factors that are shaping the direction and progress of nations.

The Turkmen inhabit a portion of the Central Asian steppe extending cast from the Caspian Sea to the Amu Darya, a region divided among three countries--Iran, Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union. The central part of this area is the Kara Kum, or “black sand,” a vast, largely uninhabited desert. The majority of the Turkmen are concentrated in two somewhat more fertile regions bordering the Kara Kum. One area consists of the banks of the Amu Darya; the other is a long strip of plains and low mountains, lying south of the Kara Kum and separating it from the Iranian Plateau (see Map below). The Turkmen number about a million and a half, with approximately a million living in the Soviet Union, and roughly a quarter of a million each in Iran and Afghanistan.