Comparative vital statistics along the pastoral nomadism-sedentarism continuum

Vital statistics on pastoral nomadic and sedentarizing nomadic societies are by-and-large non-existent. Such information is highly important for both academic and policy-making reasons as pastoral nomadism as a mode of life is disappearing. This paper attempts to gather and present as much information as possible on crude birth and death rates and natural increase rates for various pastoral nomadic societies in different African and Middle Eastern countries. The information is arranged by a subdivision into nomads, seminomads, and sedentarized nomads. A summarization of this information suggests a possible pattern by which birth rates rise, death rates fall (but may rise in certain circumstances), and natural increase rates rise along the nomadism-sedentarism continuum. Such a possible pattern has several policy implications for governments assessing the needs of a nomadic society undergoing a process of change in its socio-ecological relationships.This article was written while the author was a visiting scholar at the Department of Geography at the University of California. The author wishes to thank Nga and Allen Scott and Melanine M. Patton, as well as two anonymous referees, for their assistance and suggestions for this paper.     

Acacia trees on the cultural landscapes of the Red Sea Hills

This paper examines interactions between five pastoral nomadic culture groups of the Egyptian and Sudanese Red Sea Hills and the acacia trees Acacia tortilis (Forssk.) Hayne subsp. tortilis and subsp. raddiana growing in their arid environments. A. tortilis is described as a keystone species both ecologically and culturally: the trees play such critical roles in ecosystems and social groups that their removal would greatly impact both systems. Interviews in the field with the Semitic, Arabic-speaking Ma‘aza and Ababda, and the Cushitic, Beja, Bidhaawyeet-speaking Bishaari, Amar Ar and Hadandawa nomads probed the cultural and ecological contexts of acacias in pastoral nomadism, revealing deep insight into traditional ecological knowledge and traditional perceptions and uses of the trees. The paper describes how this knowledge guides pastoral decision-making, with acacias as a particularly critical component of the pastoral livelihood in both normal and stressful circumstances. A. tortilis is the most important reliable vegetation resource for nomads while also providing fuel and other useful products, ecosystem services for people and animals, and increased biodiversity by providing diverse microhabitats and resources for other species. We describe aspects of kinship, territorial organization, spiritual beliefs and tribal law underlying the significance of trees on the cultural landscape. We discuss environmental and economic challenges to human/tree relationships and to pastoral livelihoods. We challenge views of nomads as agents of ecological destruction, and propose maintenance and restoration of traditional pastoralism as viable alternatives in dryland development.     

Agriculturalists and pastoralists: Bronze Age economy of the Murghab alluvial fan,southern Central Asia

Archaeological investigations of pastoral economies often emphasize exchange relations with agricultural populations, though for Bronze Age Eurasia the notion of a ubiquitous ‘pastoral realm’ has masked various forms of mixed subsistence economies. In Central Asia, there are few attempts to specifically identify the domestic crops utilized by mobile pastoralists or what they may suggest about the role of agriculture in mobile pastoral production or subsistence strategies. This study reports the macrobotanical remains from two Late/Final Bronze Age (ca. 1950–1300 bc) mobile pastoralist habitation sites in the Murghab alluvial fan region of southern Turkmenistan. We compare our results with published macrobotanical data from contemporary agricultural settlements in the Murghab region, as well as with other sites in broader prehistoric Eurasia. We find that mobile pastoralists in the Murghab utilized some of the same domestic crops as their sedentary neighbors. While the data presented here do not preclude the possibility that mobile pastoralists may have practiced some low-investment cultivation (particularly of millet), we hypothesize an economic model that places mobile pastoralists in direct contact with nearby sedentary farming communities through exchange for pre-processed grains. These results highlight one of the possible strategies of mobile pastoral subsistence in Central Asia, and are a further step toward identifying the various degrees of agricultural involvement in the conceptually outdated pastoral realm of Eurasia.     

Y-chromosome lineages trace diffusion of people and languages in southwestern Asia

The origins and dispersal of farming and pastoral nomadism in southwestern Asia are complex, and there is controversy about whether they were associated with cultural transmission or demic diffusion. In addition, the spread of these technological innovations has been associated with the dispersal of Dravidian and Indo-Iranian languages in southwestern Asia. Here we present genetic evidence for the occurrence of two major population movements, supporting a model of demic diffusion of early farmers from southwestern Iran-and of pastoral nomads from western and central Asia-into India, associated with Dravidian and Indo-European-language dispersals, respectively.     

Interstitial but Resilient: Nomadic Shepherds in Piedmont (Northwest Italy) Amidst Spatial and Social Marginalization

Mobility, nomadic pastoralists’ main adaptive strategy, has been compromised by agricultural expansion and rangeland fragmentation, among other factors, in many pastoral contexts. Among nomads’ coping strategies, is re-shaping mobility in shrinking grazing grounds. Through semi-structured interviews, we examine adaptation and resilience to the effects of increasingly intensive land use and marginalization focusing on Alpine nomadic pastoralists in Piedmont, Northwest Italy. Our results show that Alpine nomads access a wide variety of grazing grounds through a web of social relations with multiple stakeholders, acting in the interstices of mainstream society and navigating marginal contexts: geographically, they use fallow, abandoned, and post-harvest plots; economically and socially, they interact with other marginal groups (e.g., migrants) and are stigmatized by diverse sectors of society. This use of interstitial spaces is in itself a form of adaptation that is taking place in diverse geographical contexts as nomads reconfigure their mobility and social relations to access the scattered pieces of land left unused by industrial, agricultural, and conservation land uses.     

International borders and range ecology: The case of Bedouin transborder grazing

Recent research suggests that, under unconstrained human circumstances, pastoral nomads within arid environments have at their disposal means of evading ecological stress that could impel them to cause damage to their grazing and land resources. The Israeli-Egyptian border has imposed a severe constraint upon the range management strategy of the Bedouin whose traditional territory it bisects. The border forced them to exert an increased pressure upon local resources. Considerable damage was thus caused to the perennial vegetation cover (both macrophytes and microphytes) and to the structure of sand dunes on the Egyptian side of the border, with opposite effects on the Israeli side to which the Bedouin had no access. This case study adds a further dimension to the discussion of range management by pastoral nomads in arid and semi-arid areas.     

From Band To Tribe On The Plains11

Abstract

Cultural ecologists, such as Steward and Shirnkin, hold that the core features of a culture, namely socio-political systems, are closely related to subsistence activities and economic arrangements which, in turn, are influenced but not ecessarily determined by the natural habitat of the group. A study of the Plains adaptations of the Piegan, Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Cree, and Plains Shoshone throw some doubt on this the sis. The Piegan (and other Blackfoot tribes), Plains Shoshone, and Kiowa share common forms of political organization with other Plains tribes but the Comanche and Plains Cree represent atypical cases in. this regard. The first three tribes developed pan-tribal sodalities while the latter two did not do so. The presence or absence of these pan-tribal sodalities conditioned the extent to which tribal integration occurred in these groups. The subsistence activities of these tribes alone do not account for the weak or strong development of pan-tribal structures. Factors in the total environment of each tribe, or niche, account for these differences. These differences in political organization cannot be attributed solely to differences in subsistence activities nor economic arrangements as they are influenced by the specific natural habitat of each tribe.     

Response of tree-ring width to climate warming and selective logging in larch forests of the Mongolian Altai

Aims The Mongolian Altai is an old settlement area, which is populated by pastoral nomads since 2000–3000 years. Forests in this region (at ca. 2300 m a.s.l.) are highly fragmented and border on steppe and alpine grasslands, which are used for mobile livestock husbandry. The climate in Central Asia is warming to levels clearly above the global average, which affects the vegetation. Furthermore, the transition from planned to market economy and the decollectivization of livestock 20 years ago has strongly changed land use practices in Mongolia, especially resulting in an increase in recent logging activities. We were interested in the question how climate warming and selective logging influence the annual stem growth and the stand structure.Methods The impact of climate and land use by the pastoral nomads on the annual stem increment of more than 1800 trees of Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) was analyzed. Different groups of trees with divergent growth trends depending on the social position and stand history were identified by non-metric multidimensional scaling and analysis of similarities. Long-term trends in the annual stem increment were analyzed by establishing separate regional growth curves for trees of different age classes.Important findings Instrumental climate data substantiate an increase of temperature by 2.1°C since 1940 at constant precipitation. Trees benefit from the increased temperatures. Climate–response analysis revealed that radial stem increment was promoted by the temperature in early summer, but also high precipitation in spring and in the year before tree-ring formation. Forest dynamics is also strongly influenced by anthropogenic activities. In addition to the natural forest dynamics, logging resulted in divergent growth trends within given age classes and habitats (forest interior and forest edge); overall, 22 groups of trees with different characteristics in the annual radial stem increment were identified. A tree-ring series-based reconstruction of logging intensity since 1935 suggests that moderate selective logging occurred throughout the study period. However, selective logging was strongly intensified after 1990 as the result of the breakdown of the Communist regime in Mongolia and the transition from centrally planned to market economy. Because tree stump densities showed that the ratio of felled to live trees was 2:1 in the interior or even 0.9:1 at the edges of the forests and most logging occurred during the past 20 years, it must be concluded that the forests of the Mongolian Altai are presently exploited far beyond the level of sustainability. A close correlation of the ratio of felled to live trees with the density of summer camps of pastoral nomads in the vicinity suggests that trees are primarily felled by the local population.     

Who are the Kuchi? Nomad self-identities in Afghanistan

'Kuchi', an Afghan Persian word meaning 'those who go on migrations', is the common generic term, used by both Afghans and foreigners, for the nomads of Afghanistan, as it has been for many decades. Most if not all the nomads, and indeed many long-settled former nomads, now acknowledge this name, yet in the 1960s and 1970s few of those so labelled used the term for themselves. This article examines the usage of both 'Kuchi' and 'nomad', and locates them in the wider contexts of ethnic labelling practices in Afghanistan, anthropological debates about pastoral nomadism, and government-nomad relations in both Afghanistan and neighbouring Iran.  

Résumé

« Kuchi >>, un mot farsi d'Afghanistan désignant « ceux qui migrent >>, est le nom générique donné depuis des dizaines d'années par les Afghans, aussi bien que par les étrangers, aux nomades d'Afghanistan. Alors qu'aujourd'hui, la plupart de ces nomades, sinon tous, ainsi d'ailleurs que beaucoup d'anciens nomades sédentarisés depuis longtemps, se réclament de ce nom, ils étaient peu nombreux à se désigner ainsi dans les années 1960 et 1970. L'auteur examine ici l'usage des mots « Kuchi >> et « nomades >> et les resitue dans le contexte plus large des pratiques de dénomination ethniques en Afghanistan, des débats anthropologiques sur le nomadisme pastoral et des relations entre gouvernement et nomades en Afghanistan et dans l'Iran voisin.     

Steppe Generosity: Kinship,social reputations,and perceived need drive generous giving in a non-anonymous allocation game among Mongolian pastoral nomads

This study explores generosity among Mongolian pastoral nomads using a recipient identity-conditioned heuristic (RICH) allocation game in which study participants could allocate experimental funds among themselves and non-anonymous individuals in their local community. Allocation games were conducted with a sample of forty-six male and female pastoral household heads in Tosontsengel, Mongolia. Results indicate there were positive relationships between players' social reputations for being hardworking, skilled pastoralists, and generous and the amount of money they received from others. Players also gave more money to kin than non-kin. The results also indicate that players' allocation decisions were driven primarily by kinship and players' assessment of others' relative need.     

军都山古代人群运动模式及生活方式的时序性变化

古代畜牧生计人群的生活方式、对畜牧业依赖程度及与相邻定居人群的关系表现多样。军都山墓地是东周时期以畜牧业为重要生计方式的玉皇庙文化代表性遗址,在其延续的近三百年时间里文化遗存发生了一些明确变化,暗示其生活模式的可能改变。本文通过该遗址出土人骨体质状况的表现对军都山古人群运动和生活方式的时序性变化进行探讨。106根股骨骨干中部断面生物力学参数被用来分析其下肢功能状况及流动性,2487枚牙齿的龋病发生情况用于了解其植物性食物摄入的变化趋势。结果表明,与放牧生活密切相关的流动性在男性随时代明显减弱,但一直显著高于同性别农业定居人群;女性的流动性则变化不大,与定居农业人群相当。龋齿发病在男性随时代显著增高,女性则变化不明显且维持在相对较高水平,表明男性饮食中粮食类占比随时代有增加的趋势。结合文化遗存的发展变化推断,虽然畜牧业一直是军都山古代人类最重要的生计模式,但其流动性和龋病的变化表明畜牧业在其生业模式重要性随时代有所下降;伴随其的是农业在其经济生活中的比重开始增加,可能是受周边定居农业文化影响的结果。     

Differential mortality in Turkana agriculturalists and pastoralists

Nomadic pastoral populations appear to have much lower rates of growth than the otherwise very high growth rates now characteristic of populations in developing nations. Because dramatic declines in infant mortality have been a primary contributor to increased population growth rates in these countries, it has been assumed that nomadic pastoral populations are still characterized by high levels of mortality in the first few years of life. Few studies, however, have been undertaken to estimate demographic parameters for nomadic pastoral populations, and even fewer of a comparative nature have been undertaken to document the impact of subsistence strategy on demographic processes. This study compares indirect childhood mortality estimates for Turkana nomadic pastoralists with childhood mortality in a settled agricultural group within the same population and finds that pastoralists have substantially higher levels of mortality. Based on the childhood mortality estimates, model life tables are selected for pastoral and agricultural groups from which values for mean life expectancy and infant mortality are estimated and compared. Recent improvements in primary health care for the settled agricultural group are ruled out as being an important cause of their lower mortality levels, and some aspects of life-style associated with subsistence strategy are discussed as likely determinants of the mortality differences.     

Staging Social Structures: Ritual and Social Organisation in an Egalitarian Society. The Pastoral Pokot of Northern Kenya

The pastoral Pokot of northern Kenya represent their society as highly structured by descent and age grading. Descent groups (clans, lineages) and age grades (age sets, generation sets) are depicted as bounded but related units within a complex hierarchical and coherent system, the essence of Pokot society which is staged and visualised in major rituals. This study shows that they are not important in Pokot economic exchange. The formal analysis of livestock exchange networks centred upon individuals shows that emic representations do not match actual exchange behaviour. Complementing the well-established structuralist representation of pastoral social systems, this paper investigates the agency aspect, which has been largely unexplored. It furthermore documents how social exchange is contained in the various institutions of descent and age grading. Contextualising the case historically it is shown that the pastoral Pokot developed from a fragmented clan-based agro-pastoral society in which descent was the main ordering principle for land tenure and conflict management into a more comprehensive social entity with clearly definable borders to the outside, dense internal exchange networks and strong representations of the corporateness of subgroups. The rapid adoption of mobile livestock husbandry was accompanied by the rise of widespread exchange networks and social interaction with a much wider group of unrelated actors marking the foundations of a pastoral society.     

华北民族融合进程中人群生存方式及对健康的影响——以北京延庆西屯村墓地为例

探讨农耕民族与游牧民族之间的相互交融和融合,对揭示中华民族的形成和发展过程极具重要意义。目前,历史文献与人群体质特征的研究,为了解华北地区东周以后人群的混合和交流提供了丰富的线索,但在民族交融过程中生存方式的转变及其对人群健康的影响尚缺乏细致地研究。为此,本文以北京延庆西屯村墓地汉魏时期的人骨为对象,对其开展C、N稳定同位素分析,并紧密结合体质人类学研究成果及历史文献,揭示自汉至北朝期间先民生存方式的变迁及对人群健康状况的影响。研究表明,先民食物中包含大量的C₄类,反映了粟黍农作物种植业在先民生存方式中占有重要地位;自汉至北朝,先民的δ ¹³C值明显升高,可能与民族融合进程中统治阶级对农业经济的重视和多项利农措施的实施密切相关;而北朝时期人群死亡高峰的推后及女性平均身高的增高,则可能与农业经济的发展改善人群的营养健康相关。本文通过对人骨稳定同位素的分析与人骨体质特征的有机结合,为揭示我国民族间融合进程中人群生存方式的变迁及健康状况提供了新的研究视角。     

Urinary diseases and ethnobotany among pastoral nomads in the Middle East

This article is derived from a broad, twenty-year study of ethnobotany and folk medicine among pastoral nomads in the Middle East which took place from 1984 to 2004. The article presents examples of different treatments of diseases and disorders of the urinary tract carried out by healer herbalists. The preparation of remedies includes boiling infusions, extraction of dry or fresh leaves, flowers, seeds or whole plants. Some of these plants were used both as food and as medicine, by ingesting different parts of the plants, such as leaves, flowers, fruits, and so on, either while soft, cooked or dried. Data were collected by using unstructured interviews and by observation. These plants were identified by healers, patients, and university botanists. This paper identified eighty-five plant species, which belong to thirty-six families. The most representative families are: Asteraceae (8), Brassicaceae (6), Poaceae (6), Umbelliferae (6).     

Spatial and Social Boundaries and the Paradox of Pastoral Land Tenure: A Case Study from Postsocialist Mongolia

Mobile pastoralists are subject to potentially conflicting needs for secure resource tenure and socially and spatially flexible patterns of resource use. This paradox of pastoral land tenure poses problems for the application of common property theory to the management of pastoral commons. The vagueness, permeability, and overlap of boundaries around pastoral resources and user groups complicate the implementation of formal tenure regimes designed to address insecure pastoral tenures and unsustainable land use patterns. A case-study from postsocialist Mongolia is used to illustrate the problem of spatial and social boundaries for managing pastoral commons. Three solutions to the paradox are evaluated: tenure formalization, rangeland comanagement, and regulation of herders' seasonal movements. An approach that develops and tests institutions to coordinate pastoral movements is recommended over formal tenure for pasturelands, which should be approached with caution in Mongolia.     

On Systematic Position of Baolia Kung et G. L. Chu in Chenopodiaceae

Baolia Kung et G. L. Chu was established on the basis of B. bracteata Kung et G. L. Chu described in 1978 from Diebu County on the border between Gansu and Sichuan provinces. It is placed in the tribe Chenopodieae in 《Flora Reipulicae Popularis Sincae》, but considering its flowers with a bract and 2 bracteoles it is betwter transferred to the tribe Polvcenmeae. So far the tribe Polycnemeae contains 4 genera in total, i.e. Nitrophila S. Wats. with 4 species, distributed in Southwestern US, Mexico and Argentina, Hemichroa R. Br. with 3 species all in Australia, Polycnemum Dumort. with 4 species in Europe, Mediterranean, Middle Asia to Siberia, Baolia Kung et G. L. Chu with 1 species, occurring in central China with a very limited area.     

Subsistence patterns as regulators of vital events. The case study: Seasonality of marriages and conceptions in historical times in Central-Southern Apennines (Abruzzo region)

The study of biological microdifferentiation of human populations is usefully integrated by the analysis of the biodemographic parameters that provide information on the ecological context in which a population developed specific subsistence models. Seasonality of marriages and births are good parameters of the different “traditional' lifestyles, since they both are influenced by cultural traditions, demographic characteristics, socio-economic conditions, environmental factors, working activities and loads, the latter possibly resulting in a limiting factor of the fertility's physiological functions. An indirect way to estimate such limiting factor in historical societies is by relating seasonality of both vital events to natality rates. The present research investigated seasonality of 19,867 records of Marriages and 59,360 records of Baptisms as well as natality rates in several communities of the Provinces of Teramo and L'Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy) in the 19^th century. Results show stable patterns of seasonality of both marriages and baptisms. Marriages display one model of seasonality typical of agricultural societies, with several sub-models, and a second developed by pastoral groups. The correlation between seasonality of marriages and that of conceptions is high in pastoral communities, and negative in agricultural groups. Gross natality rates average35×1000 in agricultural societies and27×1000 in pastoral groups thus suggesting that pastoralism acted as a regulator of reproduction.     

Reconsidering the Role of Absentee Herd Owners: A View from Mongolia

Since the privatization of livestock in 1992, rates of absentee ownership of livestock have increased sharply in Mongolia. Unlike other documented instances of absentee herding in pastoral societies, absentee herd ownership has few detrimental ecological or social impacts in Mongolia. Rather, the relationship between absentee herd owners and herders may be viewed as a revitalized institution, with links to customary patterns of urban-rural exchange, emerging to meet the needs of both herders and town-dwellers during the transition from a socialist planned economy to a free market economy. Absentee herding in Mongolia differs from absentee and contract herding accounts from Africa and the Middle East in its continuing emphasis on subsistence rather than speculative investment and accumulation. Other important distinctions include: (1) absentee owners and herders are usually kin or friends; (2) herders tend their own private herds in addition to absenteeowned animals;(3)few ethnic, caste, or class differences existbetween herders and absentee herd owners; and (4) herders from all wealth strata tend absentee-owned animals. Policies to restrict or regulate absentee livestock ownership must be carefully considered in the Mongolian context, making clear distinctions between informal, mutually beneficial subsistence-driven arrangements among kin and friends, and more formal investment-driven contracts between businesses or investors and herders.