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The presence of horses in archaeological sites across North America is often noted in research as an indicator of European contact. Fewer studies, however, have considered how Indigenous peoples incorporated horses as an intrinsic aspect of their lives. Research that considers Indigenous peoples’ relationships with horses typically focuses on Southern Plains groups and does not feature Northern Plains communities as a central aspect. Looking specifically at one Northern Great Plains Indigenous people, this paper analyzes how Blackfoot lifeways were altered as a result of the protohistoric (seventeenth to eighteenth century) reintroduction of the horse. Blackfoot lives were transformed as their relationship with the land evolved, economic systems reformed, and trade, religion, and war became centered around the horse. Almost all Blackfoot people would have felt the effects of the horse’s introduction, however not necessarily equally as these changes caused a shift in hierarchy. These impacts and changes on lifeways are evidenced by European historical accounts, Indigenous oral histories, and the archaeological record. Examining the relationship that the Blackfoot formed with horses demonstrates the significant influence that animals can have over people’s lives. Horses’ introduction to Blackfoot peoples proved to cause significant changes in the ways many conducted their lives, such as through the establishment of nomadic pastoralism and trade routes centered around the horse. This paper additionally calls for further research into the continued relationship between the Blackfoot peoples and the horse.

Kin relations have a strong theoretical and empirical basis for explaining cooperative behavior. Nevertheless, there is growing recognition that context—the cooperative environment of an individual—also shapes the willingness of individuals to cooperate. For nomadic pastoralists in Norway, cooperation among both kin and non-kin is an essential predictor for success. The northern parts of the country are characterized by a history of herder-herder competition exacerbating between-herder conflict, lack of trust, and subsequent coordination problems. In contrast, because of a history of herder-farmer competition, southern Norway is characterized by high levels of between-herder coordination and trust. This comparative study investigates the relative importance of “cooperative context” and kinship in structuring cooperative behavior using an experimental gift game. The main findings from this study were that in the South, a high level of cooperation around an individual pushes gifts to be distributed evenly among other herders. Nevertheless, kinship matters, since close kin give and receive larger gifts. In contrast, kinship seems to be the main factor affecting gift distribution in the North. Herders in the North are also concerned with distributing gifts equally, albeit limiting them to close kin: the level of intragroup cooperation drives gifts to be distributed evenly among other closely related herders. The observed regional contrasts in cooperative decisions fit with the different historical levels of conflict and trust in the two regions: whereas herders in the South are affected by both cooperative context and kinship, kinship seems to be the main determinant of cooperation in the North.

The Sami siida has been described as an organizational institution tailored to meet the dynamic demands of reindeer herding. Historically, it has been characterized as a relatively small group base...

There has been a great increase in archaeological research in Mongolia since 2000. Increasingly precise chronologies, regional studies, and the growth of development-driven archaeology are transforming our knowledge of this key region of northeastern Asia. This review summarizes recent work and provides a narrative of the prehistoric and medieval cultural sequences as presently understood. I focus on long-standing key topics: early human habitation, the adoption of food-producing economies, Bronze Age social transformations, and the emergence of central places and large polities. I argue that, on the one hand, Mongolia has unique data and new examples to offer the archaeological community and, on the other, that the prehistory of Mongolia and the steppe are not so different from the rest of the world in its history of research and key questions. This review provides general overviews covering the Upper Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic or Neolithic, and Bronze Age to the Xiongnu period; specific data related to each period provide jumping-off points for comparative analysis and further examination.

Questions surrounding the emergence of highly mobile nomadic pastoralism and the origins of the associated Scythian material culture have a long history in Eurasian steppe archaeology, but advances in knowledge have been hindered by a lack of data. Here we present new findings on the Early Iron Age royal burial mound Tunnug 1 in Tuva. While the site belongs to the same cultural tradition as Arzhan 1, the conceptual roots of the funerary ritual architecture can be traced to precursors in the Mongun Taiga culture and the Mongolian deer stone khirigsuur complex. The clay architecture uncovered at Tunnug 1 does not find any regional comparisons and possibly hints towards a western Central Asian contribution to the formation of the earliest Scythian horizon. Our research demonstrates the value of a multi-disciplinary approach to documenting monumental earthen architecture, including technical approaches (satellite imagery, aerial photographs, 3D models, digital elevation models, geophysics, and radiocarbon dating) with an analysis of construction material and associated finds.

This article explores the impacts of environmental crises on pastoral nomads in Ottoman Kurdistan/Armenia in the late nineteenth-century. It demonstrates that the climatic fluctuations characterizing these environmental crises were synchronized with global climatic oscillations, specifically the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Recurrent episodes of severe drought and cold dramatically affected these groups, who were unable to withstand extreme changes in temperature and precipitation. Back-to-back drought episodes created a shortage of water, dried up pastures and damaged forage, while severe cold resulted in high rates of premature death among herd animals. These climatic events thus had devastating economic and social consequences.

Objectives The Sahel belt is occupied by populations who use two types of subsistence strategy, nomadic pastoralism and sedentary farming, and who belong to three linguistic families, Niger-Congo, Nilo-Saharan, and Afro-Asiatic. Little is known, however, about the origins of these two populations and their mutual genetic relationships. Materials and methods We have built a large dataset of mitochondrial DNA sequences and Y chromosomal STR haplotypes of pastoralists and farmers belonging to all three linguistic phyla in the western, central, and eastern parts of the Sahel. We calculated pairwise genetic, geographic, and linguistic distances between populations and analyzed the effects of geography, language, and subsistence on population genetic structure. Results We found that subsistence mode significantly contributed to the generally low population structure in the Sahel and that language affiliation plays a more important role for pastoralists than for farmers. We also demonstrated that geographic isolation significantly influenced the population structure of sedentary farmers but not of nomadic pastoralists. Finally, we found haplotypes shared between the Fulani and Arabic-speaking Baggara, supporting the theory of Baggarization, which explains the recent adaptation of Arabic-speaking nomads in the Sahel region through contact with autochthonous sub-Saharan populations. Conclusions Based on various genetic and archaeological evidence pertaining to the Sahel, we suggest that the idea of a bidirectional Sahelian corridor is valid, but that pastoralists made a more important contribution to its population structure. It is also possible that agropastoralists diverged into farmers and pastoralists in the early stages of formation of the Sahelian gene pool.

Fading fast all over the world, nomadic people have faced biases concerning their lifestyles and their symbiosis with rangelands. The nomadic grazing, which is helpful to biodiversity, not detrimental, in rangeland commons is perceived and advocated by deep ecologists, conservation administrators and policy makers as a threat to conservation of ecosystems. Consequently, both nomadic pastoralists and rangeland ecosystems have suffered a grim fate. On the contrary, the subsistence pastoralism is an established sustainable strategy of livelihood and ecosystem conservation in the rangelands. Unfortunately, some of the most nutritive foods and other sustainable products of nomadic pastoralists have not desirably been priced in modern markets. With the demonstrated cases exhibiting the nomadic pastoralists, such as Hutsul shepherd communities of Ukraine, as most sustainable societies on planet Earth, there is urgent need for restructuring the popular paradigm and State policies on rangeland commons. In isolation of nomadic people, the rangelands cannot truly be conserved or protected. To begin with, the resilience of nomadic pastoralists to the changing environments and their (unique) rangeland management can first be pondered. Accordingly, the policy and legal frameworks of States need to be reoriented and revised. Досліджено, що кочове населення, яке швидко зникає в усьому світі, стикалося з упередженнями стосовно способу життя та симбіозу з пасовищами. Зазначено, що кочовий випас є корисним для біорізноманіття, але сприймається і відстоюється екологами, керівниками у сфері охорони довкілля та політиками як загроза збереженню екосистем. З іншого боку, натуральне скотарство є усталеною стійкою стратегією існування та збереження екосистем на пасовищах. Виявлено, що ціни на окремі найбільш поживні продукти харчування та іншу усталену продукцію кочових скотарів на сучасних ринках низькі. Наведено випадки позиціонування кочових скотарів, зокрема гуцульських вівчарських громад України, як найбільш стійких суспільств на планеті Земля і визначено нагальну потребу реструктуризації популярної парадигми та державної політики щодо пасовищ. Наголошено на неможливості збереження чи захисту пасовищ ізольовано від кочових скотарів. Обґрунтовано, що стійкість корінних скотарських спільнот до мінливого середовища – екологічного, економічного та політичного – має великий потенціал для захисту та збереження ландшафтів пасовищ або пейзажів прибережної зони. Акцентовано увагу на важливості міжнародних та національних основ політики для екології та економіки пасовищ, зміна парадигми та рамок якої сприятиме захисту пасовищ і скотарських громад. У цьому напрямі найбільш плідною визначено міжнародну правову базу, що може координувати національне законодавство і політику у сфері охорони та управління пасовищами. Починати доцільно зі стійкості кочових скотарів до мінливого середовища та їх унікального управління пасовищами, що потребує переорієнтації та перегляду політики і правових рамок держав.

Objectives This article explores the scale and seasonal patterns of mobility at the complex settlement site of Qizqala during the Middle Bronze Age (2400-1,500 BCE). By integrating human bone, teeth, and environmental samples this research tests the hypothesis of the persistent importance of community-wide seasonal pastoral transhumance during the early formation of complex settlement systems of the South Caucasus. Methods This research applies stable oxygen and radiogenic strontium isotope analyses on incremental samples of human tooth enamel, bulk tooth enamel, and bone to resolve mobility patterns. Sequential and bulk sampling techniques elucidate seasonal and residential mobility behaviors. Extensive environmental isotope samples of plant and water were collected through regional survey and establish local and regional isotopic baselines, which are compared to human isotope analysis results. Results Qizqala individuals exhibit low isotopic variability compared to regional contemporaries. 87 Sr/86 Sr ratios from human remains indicate seasonal and residential isotopic variability within the baseline ranges of local landscapes. δ18 O values display erratic patterns, but correspond to seasonal variability with fluctuations between highland and lowland altitudinal zone baseline values. Conclusions Results suggest that isotopic analysis of multiple elements and sequential enamel samples offers finer resolution on the complexities of human mobility strategies and elucidate the daily lives of often overlooked mobile populations. Higher resolution of individual mobility reveals shared routine behaviors that underscore the importance of diverse social collaborations in forming complex polities in the South Caucasus.

This thesis is a study of discourses of contemporary Bedouin identity and political economy in central Jordan. Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork, it follows the experiences of young, mostly male, interlocutors living in small villages around the town of Madaba, from two largely settled but still discursively Bedouin ���ash�����ir (socio-political categories normally glossed in English as ���tribes���); the Bani Sakhr and the Bani Hamida. I explore the ways in which these interlocutors imagine and anticipate their futures, considering the dilemmas they face in seeking meaningful social reproduction, and their entanglement with various modes of everyday politics, in order to understand how and why political forms and identity categories are adapted and reproduced, especially in the context of new rural protest movements. This provides a new approach to wider processes of nation-building, identity-formation, and state encompassment of marginal areas, in the face of mass forced migration, structural adjustment, the rise of new social forums (on- and off-line), and widespread protests. It considers questions of land settlement, sovereignty and the politics of everyday life in a rural region from which the protest movement dubbed Jordan's 'Arab Spring' emerged among supposedly traditionalist and loyalist Bedouin. I examine the historical context behind the current social, political and economic position of my interlocutors via histories of land settlement, sedenterisation initiatives, and changing political institutions through Ottoman rule and the British Mandate, examining various processes of frontier governmentality that sought to pacify and settle, but also define and repurpose Bedouin as a conceptual category. Making an intervention in the long-standing anthropological debate around the nature and analytical usage of tribalism and the role of colonial effect in its construction in the region, I consider ���asha�����r as political modalities existing in a relationship of co-(re)production with the nation-state, within a political and moral economy of hospitality, protection and encompassment, which has also come to be used to symbolise the nation of Jordan itself. In the face of postcolonial critiques and challenges over representation and Orientalism, anthropologists have rightly called for greater reflexivity and attention to positionality. Yet, more problematically, they have largely withdrawn from examinations of non-state political forms and non-national identity categories. Concepts of Bedouin and tribe, aside from their contested and critiqued construction, continue to have conceptual and political power in Jordan and elsewhere, and anthropology is at risk of leaving them to development practitioners and policy-makers. Anthropologists might formerly have explained the social setting I study as one generated by agnatic kinship and segmentary lineage. I instead reconsider ���ash�����ir as historically contingent political responses centred on certain limited projects of representational sovereignty., Cambridge Trust, Fitzwilliam College, Trinity College, CBRL.

Kazakhstan covers a vast territory, and it has always been a land of nomadic pastoralism, where domesticated horses and sheep were moved by nomadic people across the steppe. Previous reports suggest that sheep breeds from Kazakhstan have an intermediate genetic composition between Asian and European breeds; however, this data appears to be limited. Therefore, we studied the genetic diversity of ancient domestic sheep from two Late Bronze Age settlements, Toksanbai and Kent, located in the Pre-Caspian region of Kazakhstan and central Kazakhstan, respectively. We have applied ZooMS analysis for taxonomic identification of small ruminant remains to select ancient specimens of domestic sheep (Ovis aries). To assign sheep mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups, the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the control region were analyzed by real-time PCR and direct sequencing. Identical distribution of mtDNA haplogroups A (8/14; 57%), B (5/14; 36%), and C (1/14; 7%) was observed in the specimens from Toksanbai (n = 14) and Kent (n = 14). Ovine haplogroup A was predominant in both settlements. Both archeological sites had similar patterns of haplogroup distribution, indicating early sheep introduction into the region. These results are important to gain a better understanding of sheep migrations in the Eurasian steppe and highlight the importance of genomic analysis of earlier local lineages., Haplotyping; aDNA; Mitochondrial DNA; ZooMS; Bronze age; Kazakhstan; Sheep; Ovis aries.

Despite depleting the resources in their environments, some species and societies are capable of sustainable habitat expansion by alternating between a low-growth migratory lifestyle and high-growth but destructive behavior. Examples include nomadic pastoralism and shifting cultivation, practiced by humans for millennia. Although specific models have been developed for species or societies which practice periodic migration and habitat depletion, theoretical insight into such phenomena as a whole is lacking. Prior work has shown that a population in a single habitat can survive by alternating between a resource-independent but negative-growth ‘nomadic’ strategy and a destructive but high-growth ‘colonial’ strategy. By explicitly modeling the spatial dynamics of these strategies as they migrate across multiple habitats, we now demonstrate that a population can not only survive, but also sustainably colonize an arbitrarily large network of habitats by alternating between the two strategies. This is possible under a wide range of conditions, as long as the resource level at which a colonial population switches to nomadism is sufficiently high, and the number of neighbors of each habitat in the network is reasonably small. Our theoretical model thus explains the apparent paradox of how two life strategies that individually lead to extinction can nonetheless be combined through spatiotemporal alternation to enable sustained territorial expansion—a finding which synthesizes the theoretical frameworks of Parrondo’s paradox with the exploration–exploitation dilemma.

The dynamic relationship between horses and nomadic peoples has a long history of study within pastoralist research worldwide. In the Plains of North America, however, the story of the horse is not often considered within these discussions. This article focuses on the story of the Blackfoot people in order to move beyond description of observed impacts of the horse and toward a discussion of what these impacts mean in terms of culture change, continuity, and Indigenous resistance. Recognizing Blackfoot horse culture as a true mode of pastoralism acknowledges the complexity of Indigenous responses to Euroamerican contact while also expanding our understanding of the global development of pastoralism as a lifeway.

The aim of this article is to examine the needs of nomadic-pastoral land users with respect to EIA theory, methods and effectiveness based on literature review by applying Retief (2010)’s framework. The article intends to identify these needs and analyse whether EIA addresses them sufficiently and appropriately. Retief (2010)’s framework defines theory, methods (quality) and effectiveness as three main interrelated themes of environmental assessment. Our review was guided by these three themes and moreover, using nomadic pastoralism as a test case, we attempted to expand this broad framework into a four-step approach that can be used to systematically examine EIA literature. The approach first adopts the Retief (2010)’s framework and secondly, identifies issues of nomadic-pastoral land use which matter the most with respect to Retief (2010)’s themes. The next step selected 156 articles for literature review considering the issues identified previously and the fourth step examined the selected articles using a concept-centric review and a content analysis. Nomadic-pastoral land users need EIA theory to incorporate irrational logic and complex and unpredictable socio-ecological features of nomadic-pastoral land use. Decisions made based on the rational decision-making model in EIA cannot sufficiently incorporate the needs of nomadic-pastoral land use due to uncertainties associated with rational decision-making and different power, values and interests of stakeholders in pasture land resources. Furthermore, the needs of nomadic-pastoral land users with respect to EIA methods are related to impact pathways and dynamic character of land use. EIA methods systematically address impact pathways. However, the current EIA methods primarily focus on static land use, and do not address sufficiently and appropriately dynamic nature of land use. For nomadic-pastoral land users, maintaining land quality in nomadic pastoralism and participation in EIA are the most important issues with respect to effectiveness of EIA. However, empirical data are needed to examine whether these needs are addressed in EIA. Nevertheless, the current frameworks for evaluation of effectiveness of EIA are sufficient for assessment of EIA's capacity for addressing the needs of nomadic-pastoral land users. Further studies should aim at incorporating the nature of socio-ecological interaction and dynamics into EIA theories and developing suitable models on herding mobility and strategy for impact prediction in EIA.

Drawing on long-term ethnographic research, this chapter will document the ways in which climate change impacts on social, political, and economic landscapes in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In the western Himalayas, altitude places limits on the possibilities for farming. With agriculture alone insufficient to secure household reproduction, many families from the Gaddi tribal community pursue livelihood strategies which combine small-scale agriculture with nomadic pastoralism. However, there are limits to adaptability – dependence on grazing resources and rain-fed irrigation together with heightened exposure to extreme weather events have left many Gaddi households acutely vulnerable to climate change. Unable to rely on the customary combination of agriculture and pastoralism, Gaddis are increasingly forced into new forms of labour. Building roads or working on hydro-projects is precarious, uncertain, and dangerous and, again, depends on leaving village homes to travel to remote mountain valleys and desolate Himalayan passes. In rural Himachal Pradesh, the impacts of climate change are differentiated by class, caste, and ethnicity – those insulated by wealth may opt to move out of agriculture. Meanwhile, Gaddi families – their long-standing agro-pastoralism occupying an increasingly precarious niche – are forced down new and precarious routes into an increasingly uncertain future.

The Sahel/Savannah belt of Africa is a contact zone between two subsistence systems (nomadic pastoralism and sedentary farming) and of two groups of populations, namely Eurasians penetrating from northern Africa southwards and sub-Saharan Africans migrating northwards. Because pastoralism is characterized by a high degree of mobility, it leaves few significant archaeological traces. Demographic history seen through the lens of population genetic studies complements our historical and archaeological knowledge in this African region. In this review, we highlight recent advances in our understanding of demographic history in the Sahel/Savannah belt as revealed by genetic studies. We show the impact of food-producing subsistence strategies on population structure and the somewhat different migration patterns in the western and eastern part of the region. Genomic studies show that the gene pool of various groups of Sahelians consists in a complex mosaic of several ancestries. We also touch upon various signals of genetic adaptations such as lactase persistence, taste sensitivity and malaria resistance, all of which have different distribution patterns among Sahelian populations. Overall, genetic studies contribute to gain a deeper understanding about the demographic and adaptive history of human populations in this specific African region and beyond.

Fascioliasis is a freshwater snail-borne zoonotic helminth disease caused by two species of trematodes: Fasciola hepatica of almost worldwide distribution and the more pathogenic F. gigantica restricted to parts of Asia and most of Africa. Of high pathological impact in ruminants, it underlies large livestock husbandry losses. Fascioliasis is moreover of high public health importance and accordingly included within the main neglected tropical diseases by WHO. Additionally, this is an emerging disease due to influences of climate and global changes. In Africa, F. gigantica is distributed throughout almost the whole continent except in the north-western Maghreb countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia where only F. hepatica is present. The present study concerns the DNA multimarker characterization of the first finding of F. gigantica in sheep in Algeria by the complete sequences of rDNA ITS-1 and ITS-2 and mtDNA cox1 and nad1 genes. Sequence comparisons and network analyses show sequence identities and similarities suggesting a south-north trans-Saharan geographical origin, with introduction from Ghana, through the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso and Mali into Algeria. This way perfectly fits with nomadic pastoralism according to interconnecting intranational and transborder herd transhumance routes traditionally followed in this western part of Africa from very long ago. The risk for further spread throughout the three north-western Maghreb countries is multidisciplinarily analysed, mainly considering the present extensive motorization of the intranational transhumance system in Algeria, the lymnaeid snail vector species present throughout the north-western Maghreb, the increasing demand for animal products in the growing cities of northern Algeria and the continued human infection reports. Control measures should assure making anti-fasciolid drugs available and affordable for herders from the beginning and along their transhumant routes and include diffusion and rules within the regional regulatory framework about the need for herd treatments.

The people who inhabit the vast Tibetan Plateau are mainly Tibetan groups, speakers of various Tibetan languages in the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and followers of Tibetan Buddhism. The composition of these groups, however, is varied and complex. In the western part of the Tibetan Plateau, there is considerable intermixing with Aryans; Hindu and Islamic influences are strong, and people practice transhumance between altitudes of 3000 and 4000 m, as well as trading over a wide area. In the central part of the plateau, the main practice is nomadic pastoralism, with year-round movement around grasslands at altitudes of over 4000 m. In the eastern part are Tibetan groups of diverse ethnic origins, all of whom rely heavily on livestock for subsistence. I conducted field surveys of milk processing systems in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China as a case study of the central Tibetan Plateau; in Sichuan Province as a case study of the eastern part of the plateau; and in Jammu and Kashmir, northern India, as a case study of the western part. This chapter describes in detail the milk processing systems in each part of the Tibetan Plateau, their change and development over time, and the cultural filters of adoption and change. Finally, the Tibetan Plateau is compared with its neighboring regions to bring into relief the characteristics of Tibetan milk culture.

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.

A mobile group of stockbreeders who in the 4th millennium BC inhabited the steppes of northern Caspian Sea was apparently forced to undertake far-distance migrations in search of better pastures by the environmental crises of the 2nd millennium BC. These migrations had tremendously significant historical implications and brought about several innovations. With the expansion of nomadic pastoralism, new form of human-animal interaction in virtue of particular physical and behavioral characteristics and capabilities of livestock was developed and began to lay the basis for economic, social and class systems as well as art style of the respective communities. Given the nomadic character of their life, there still remain several questions about the culture of the Eurasian nomadic warrior groups, and the present work, building on case studies, attempts to examine the impacts of the environment and fauna diversity on and the role of animals in the subsistence system and the art as well as the social systems and classes of these groups.

The Tarvagatai Nuruu National Park, situated in the northern Khangai Mountains in central Mongolia, is dominated by a forest-steppe ecosystem. An extreme continental and semi-arid climate is characteristic for forest-steppe ecosystems in Central Asia and their vegetation is very sensitive to climatic changes and human impacts by pastoralism and tree-logging. In the selected study area, nowadays human impact is exceptionally low, and it has potentially also been in the past. The focus of this paper was to reconstruct vegetation variability, climate dynamics, intensity of human impact and fire dynamics by applying a broad multi-proxy approach on a lacustrine sediment core from a small closed lake in the study area. The analyses include reconstructions of pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, and charcoal distribution as well as XRF-scanning. Overall, the radiocarbon-dated lacustrine sediment core reveals stable, long-term environmental conditions since the early Holocene (9570 cal yr BP). Palynological results indicate that vegetation varies on a comparably low level. We assume that nomadic pastoralism played a tangential role on the vegetation changes in the study area. Higher values of coprophilous fungi between 9570 and 8350 cal yr BP suggest the highest wildlife activity during the early Holocene. Hence, our multi-proxy data reveal a surprisingly stable vegetation composition and only slight climatic changes in north-central Mongolia for the entire Holocene. An initial moist and warm period from 9570 to 4180 cal yr BP was followed by a period of slightly drier and potentially cooler conditions from 4180 until 430 cal yr BP. The latest period from 430 cal yr BP to present was moist and warm. Fires were in general relatively rare except from a strong phase of fire activity between 3550 and 2960 cal yr BP.

This article examines the extent to which the adoption of the horse created a transition in modes of production from hunting and gathering to nomadic pastoralism by tracing the horse's impact on Blackfoot settlement patterns and landscape use during the Precontact and Postcontact periods on the Northwestern Plains. While changes in hunting techniques, raiding frequencies, and certain social implications such as status and wealth differentiation have been studied from an ethnohistoric perspective, less work has been done to trace the subtle changes to patterns of landscape use that may have directly resulted from the adoption of horse husbandry by the Blackfoot people. This study applies Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology to broadly distributed Precontact- and Contact-period archaeological sites of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana to reveal the role of horse husbandry on landscape use in the Northwestern Plains. This research expands on previous ethnohistorical work, while also contributing a new, material dimension to the dynamics of this transition at various spatial scales.

During the period of the adoption and spread of nomadic pastoralism in the eastern Eurasian steppe early pastoralists were developing animal husbandry as well as forming the social networks and political systems that went along with the new needs of a food production economy. The building and modification of diverse types of stone monuments and the long-term development of monumental landscapes constituted costly signals that communicated information about the size and organization of communities and the depth and strength of the connections of their elite lineages with the increasingly far-reaching social networks of this period. This information-rich monument building was a hallmark of this period and a critical tool, a critical tool in the success of early pastoralist adaptation. A costly signalling model of monument building offers explanations for re-entry into graves of this period, the reproduction of distinctive types and styles and monuments and an underlying framework for the political l...

Summary To improve estimates of C. burnetii epidemiology in Kenya, a survey was undertaken in small ruminants in Baringo County, where acute cases of Q fever in humans had been reported in 2014. From 140 household herds selected, 508 (60.5%) goats and 332 (39.5%) sheep were included and an indirect ELISA assay for C. burnetii IgG antibodies performed. In addition, epidemiological information at both herd and animal level was collected. Generalized mixed-effects multivariable logistic model using herd as the random effect was used to determine variables correlated to the outcome. Overall seroprevalence was 20.5% (95% CI: 17.8%, 23.3%). Goats had 26.0% (95% CI: 22.2%, 30.0%) compared to sheep 12.2% (95% CI: 8.7%, 16.0%). Nomadic pastoralism, goats and older animals (>1 year) were associated with greater risk of C. burnetii seropositivity (P = ≤0.05). Heterogeneity in C. burnetii seropositivity was observed across the sublocations (P = 0.028). Evidence of C. burnetii exposure in small ruminants revealed poses a potential risk of exposure to the people living in close proximity to the animals. We recommended integrated animal–human surveillance and socio-economic studies for C. burnetii, to aid our understanding of the risk of transmission between the animals and humans, and in the design of prevention and control strategies for the disease in the region.

Bones of domestic sheep dated to the early first millennium AD are described from the Dâures massif in the Namib Desert. The remains confirm earlier investigations which inferred the acquisition of livestock from indirect evidence in the rock art, suggesting a fundamental shift in ritual practice at this time. Dating of the sheep remains is in broad agreement with the dating of other finds in the same area and in southern Africa as a whole. The presence of suspected sheep bone artefacts, possibly used for ritual purposes, draws attention to the importance of livestock as more than a component of diet in the changing economy of hunter-gatherer society.

Cardio-metabolic disease is a leading cause of death worldwide, with high prevalence in western, industrialized societies relative to developing nations and subsistence-level populations. This stark difference has been attributed to the dietary and lifestyle changes associated with industrialization, but current work has relied on health comparisons between separate, genetically distinct populations to draw conclusions. To more robustly determine how lifestyle impacts health, we collected interview and health biomarker data from a single population undergoing a rapid lifestyle transition. Specifically, we sampled Turkana individuals who practice subsistence-level, nomadic pastoralism (the traditional, ancestral way of life for this group), as well as individuals who no longer practice pastoralism and engage either minimally or strongly with the market economy. Comparisons across this lifestyle gradient revealed clear, non-linear effects of industrialization: only individuals with highly urban, market-integrated lifestyles experience increases in BMI, body fat, blood pressure, and other biomarkers of cardio-metabolic health. These health differences are partially mediated by increased consumption of refined carbohydrates, and more strongly by fine-scale measures of urbanicity. Finally, because many Turkana are transitioning between rural and urban areas within their lifetime, we were able to show that being born in an urban area is associated with worse adult metabolic health, independent of adult lifestyle. Together, these analyses provide comprehensive insight into the timing, magnitude, and causes of health declines in urban, industrialized groups – an area of critical study given the massive public health burden of cardio-metabolic disease and the rate at which developing nations are experiencing lifestyle transitions.SIGNIFICANCEThe “mismatch” between evolved human physiology and western, industrialized lifestyles is thought to explain to the current epidemic of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, this hypothesis has been difficult to test in real time. To do so, we studied a traditional pastoralist group—the Turkana—that is currently transitioning from their ancestral way of life to an urban, industrialized lifestyle. We found that Turkana who move to cities exhibit poor cardio-metabolic health, partially because of a shift toward “western diets” high in carbohydrates. We also show that early life urbanicity independently predicts adult health, such that life-long city dwellers will experience the greatest CVD risk. Our work thus uncovers the timing, magnitude, and evolutionary causes of a major health gradient.

This chapter addresses the problem of subsistence change from nomadic pastoralism to sedentary agriculture as a consequence of drought and its subsequent effects on the social, economic, and political structures of Somali populations living in northeastern Kenya. The severe drought affecting the Sahelian region of Africa during the past decade has revealed the vulnerability of pastoralists to extreme ecological pressure and has made evident the lack of scientific understanding of human adaptation to marginal environments. The drought occurring in northern Kenya is an eastern extension of the phenomenon experienced by several million Sahelians in the early 1970s. The severe drought and accompanying loss of livestock were particularly onerous owing to the scarcity of economic alternatives that could absorb famine refugees. In reviewing Somali settlement in Kenya one must note that, although the new settlers were refugees from famine, they were not geographically displaced.

Nomadic pastoralism and transhumance are ancient human adaptations to the movements of large herbivores, which themselves migrate to follow favorable environmental conditions. Free-ranging livestock production has been criticized as less water efficient than factory farming and crop production. This fails to take into account both the additional ecosystem services made possible by rainfall over rangelands, and the ability of free-ranging animals to track water availability across environmental gradients. By analogy to transhumance, we propose a model of "transhumant rewilding," or species reintroduction with managed herding of wild ungulates for the ecological restoration and sustainability of food production in (silvo)pastoral systems. We consider preliminary evidence for the feasibility of this model with a case study from central Chile in which guanacos (Lama guanicoe) could be used to help restore a silvopastoral savanna ("espinal") via browsing and endozoochory. First, we present preliminary data on guanaco foraging in espinal. Second, we use a GIS analysis to identify least-cost paths between areas of high and low espinal condition in central Chile and assess the feasibility of using them as migratory pathways. Finally, we consider the relative ecosystem service advantages and costs of the transhumant rewilding scenario compared to other restoration and agricultural development scenarios for central Chile. We conclude that transhumant rewilding has the potential to be a useful model for rewilding-inspired land management in cultural landscapes and can contribute to food security and sustainable agricultural production.

This paper examines data on joint disease among archaeological populations of several sites within northern China and Mongolia to test hypotheses about cultural uniformity among pastoralists and potential changes in the levels and types of activities during the Bronze Age to early Iron Age transition from mixed economies to mounted pastoralism. Despite continuing debate on the etiology of osteoarthritis, there is general consensus that joint use is an important contributor to joint disease. The vertebrae and major limb joints (shoulder, elbow, wrist/hand, hip, knee, and ankle/foot) of adult samples from these two periods were analyzed for prevalence and patterns of joint disease with respect to sex, age, time period, and location. There were only two joint regions with a significant difference between males and females: at the elbow, where males had a higher prevalence, and at the hip, where it was higher among females. The findings indicated a positive relationship between age and osteoarthritis, and that the spine was one of the most affected areas, along with the elbow and knee. Between the two time periods, while not at the level of significance, there was a pattern of higher prevalence of osteoarthritis in the vertebrae and upper limb joints among the Iron Age sample, while the Bronze Age sample had higher rates within the lower limb joints. These findings suggest different mechanical stresses between the two periods, perhaps associated with changes from mobility by foot in the Bronze Age to increased mounted mobility during the Iron Age, including mounted warfare. However, when comparing the individual sites within the two periods and within geographic regions, there was no distinct pattern, as there was much variation within both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age sites, as well as within regions. These varied results among sites and regions suggest that were was no uniform pastoral way of life or movement that imprinted clear patterns of osteoarthritis among pastoral samples. Instead, these data suggest that varied activities, movements, and perhaps mixed economic practices and workload among the sexes may have been characteristic among the “pastoral” groups of the Inner Asian steppe.

This article investigates how, with increasing land pressure during Russian settlement in Kazakh steppes in the late nineteenth century, clan institutions affected the transition from nomadic pastoralism to settled agriculture. Using a novel dataset constructed from Russian colonial expedition materials matched with clan genealogies, we find that, controlling for geographic factors, clan identity strongly influenced the duration of transhumance period, the organization of production, and the acquisition of new agricultural tools. Information transmission within clans, external economies of scale in nomadic pastoralism, and clan-specific values and norms underlie the results.

The estimated 50 million nomadic pastoralists in Africa are among the most “hard-to-reach” populations for health-service delivery. While data are limited, some studies have identified these communities as potential disease reservoirs relevant to neglected tropical disease programs, particularly those slated for elimination and eradication. Although previous literature has emphasized the role of these populations’ mobility, the full range of factors influencing health service utilization has not been examined systematically. We systematically reviewed empirical literature on health services uptake among African nomadic pastoralists from seven online journal databases. Papers meeting inclusion criteria were reviewed using STROBE- and PRISMA-derived guidelines. Study characteristics were summarized quantitatively, and 10 key themes were identified through inductive qualitative coding. One-hundred two papers published between 1974–2019 presenting data from 16 African countries met our inclusion criteria. Among the indicators of study-reporting quality, limitations (37%) and data analysis were most frequently omitted (18%). We identified supply- and demand-side influences on health services uptake that related to geographic access (79%); service quality (90%); disease-specific knowledge and awareness of health services (59%); patient costs (35%); contextual tailoring of interventions (75%); social structure and gender (50%); subjects’ beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes (43%); political will (14%); social, political, and armed conflict (30%); and community agency (10%). A range of context-specific factors beyond distance to facilities or population mobility affects health service uptake. Approaches tailored to the nomadic pastoralist lifeway, e.g., that integrated human and veterinary health service delivery (a.k.a., “One Health”) and initiatives that engaged communities in program design to address social structures were especially promising. Better causal theorization, transdisciplinary and participatory research methods, clearer operational definitions and improved measurement of nomadic pastoralism, and key factors influencing uptake, will improve our understanding of how to increase accessibility, acceptability, quality and equity of health services to nomadic pastoralist populations., Author summary There are approximately 50 million nomadic pastoralists in Africa for whom there is little data on healthcare access and utilization. This data scarcity presents a challenge to prevent, treat and control neglected tropical diseases and design the health service delivery mechanisms through which these objectives can be met. Examining a range of studies conducted over a 45-year period, we identified supply- and demand-side influences on health services uptake in ten thematic areas. These included physical proximity to, and quality of, health services; monetary and opportunity costs of accessing care; and societal and gender norms governing power dynamics within nomadic pastoralist groups as well as those between them and health care providers. The knowledge, attitudes and practices of health care providers and health seekers also played a role in utilization, as did hegemonic factors including “political will” and varying degrees of social conflict. NTD research topics included guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, rabies, soil-transmitted helminths, tuberculosis (bovine and human), cholera, and rift valley fever. Studies pertaining to community-directed initiatives and “One Health” approaches offered promising solutions to increase service uptake. We recommend ways to strengthen future research on this subject to improve health service delivery to, and uptake among, nomadic pastoralist populations.

Agrarian societies reduced risk during pan-Asian cooling events by investing in pastoralism and developing long-distance trade., Ancient farmers experienced climate change at the local level through variations in the yields of their staple crops. However, archaeologists have had difficulty in determining where, when, and how changes in climate affected ancient farmers. We model how several key transitions in temperature affected the productivity of six grain crops across Eurasia. Cooling events between 3750 and 3000 cal. BP lead humans in parts of the Tibetan Plateau and in Central Asia to diversify their crops. A second event at 2000 cal. BP leads farmers in central China to also diversify their cropping systems and to develop systems that allowed transport of grains from southern to northern China. In other areas where crop returns fared even worse, humans reduced their risk by increasing investment in nomadic pastoralism and developing long-distance networks of trade. By translating changes in climatic variables into factors that mattered to ancient farmers, we situate the adaptive strategies they developed to deal with variance in crop returns in the context of environmental and climatic changes.

In attending to the diachronic dimension of change, this chapter explores the historical literature on nomadic pastoralists of eastern Tibet in order to establish an understanding of their previous relationships. What becomes clear is that the literature complicates a simple or single idea of Tibetan nomadic pastoralism. Focusing on Tibetan nomadic pastoralists’ relationships with each other and with outsiders, an assumedly egalitarian system is disrupted by the presence of hierarchical relationships with local kings and aristocrats. Moreover, civil wars and wars with distant empires entangled nomadic pastoralists in larger political strategies as they contributed to military skirmishes. Even within pastoralist communities, the system of relationships was punctuated by inequalities of rank, wealth, and access to good pastures. Feuds and raids led to movement for physical and strategic needs, marking these communities with dynamism and fluidity. Finally, historic trade and exchange with others contributed to the continuation of a pastoral way of life. The complexities and dynamism of these previous relationships set an understanding from which contemporary adaptations and transformations may be analyzed.

Given the complexity and dynamism of nomadic pastoralism in eastern Tibet, this chapter suggests that contemporary changes unfolding among nomadic pastoralists of eastern Tibet are more clearly understood through an additional examination of shifts in relationships. The effects of implemented and observed changes are analyzed according to different kinds of change, namely adaptations as ways in which relationships remain similar in kind although varying by degree and transformations as ways in which relationships alter into other kinds of relationship. Ethnographic evidence is provided through the lens of one community of nomadic pastoralists in Kham with respect to their interactions with yaks, other pastoralists, and territorial deities. Additionally, a boarding school for children of nomadic pastoralists constructed in this community highlights how relationships are dependent on broader influences and other sets of relationships. This interconnected framework presents change as highly varied, requiring an expanded vocabulary of orders and kinds of change to reflect the complex and dynamic realities of nomadic pastoralism in eastern Tibet.

This introduction brings together literature on pastoralism and socio-environmental change and examines these in the context of eastern Tibet. The literature on pastoralism presents it mainly as a mode of production and a way of life. Eschewing any presentation of pastoralism as an ideal-type that exists in “pure” form, or that is defined in opposition to agriculture, the portrayal in this book emphasizes how pastoralists have to interact with others, including agriculturalists and traders in order to maintain their ecological niche; how mobility is environmentally determined as well as a choice; and how nomadic pastoralism is not a static system but rather a dynamic strategy appropriate to the environmental and political contexts in which it is practiced. The selected literature on socio-environmental change highlights a theory of change that presents the concept, first, as unhinged from a foundation of substance and fixity, and second, as sufficiently complex to be articulated as orders and kinds of change. This literature draws mainly from Bateson’s (A sacred unity: further steps to an ecology of mind, New York, pp. 283–289, 1991) thinking on orders of change, but also from Dwyer and Minnegal (The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16(3), 626–645, 2010; Minnegal and Dwyer, Ethnology, 38(1), 59–80, 1999) in their theorization of social change as analytically divided between kinds of change: namely, products and processes. Together, a framework of change is offered that is appropriate to the complexity and dynamism of pastoral systems in eastern Tibet.

Understanding the causes and consequences of land use and land cover change in drylands is crucial for global sustainability. Inner Mongolia consists of arid and semiarid ecosystems of global importance. Our main goal was twofold: to review the patterns and drivers of land use and land cover change in Inner Mongolia, and to discuss ecological impacts and strategies for promoting landscape and regional sustainability. We took an interdisciplinary and retrospective approach, based on historical records and remote sensing data. Inner Mongolia has evolved from an ocean to a forested region and then to a dryland area in the past millions of years. As a cradle of Chinese civilization, Inner Mongolia has experienced a series of land transitions from localized primitive agriculture that occurred in prehistoric times to broad-scale nomadic pastoralism that lasted for a few 1000 years, and to sedentary pastoralism with increasing agriculture and urbanization since the 1960s. The general land use pattern has long been shaped by the interactions between nomadic pastoralism and agrarian culture. The major drivers of land use and land cover change include: climate, demography, socioeconomic structures, institutional changes, and technological innovations. The landscapes of Inner Mongolia have evolved historically through several phases, and the profound and unsustainable landscape transformations during the past 50 years have been driven primarily by land use policies. Strategies based on landscape sustainability science are needed to curb ecosystem degradation and promote sustainability in the region.

BACKGROUND A prolonged hepatitis E outbreak occurred between 2009 and 2012 among a semi-nomadic pastoralist population in the Karamoja region of Uganda. As data on the public health problems of nomadic pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa is limited, we sought to characterize the epidemiology and challenges to control of hepatitis E in such a setting. METHODS A retrospective case-series investigation was undertaken. Surveillance line-lists of suspected hepatitis E cases maintained during the outbreak were analyzed. Standardized interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with key informants involved in outbreak control activities. RESULTS Between August 2009 and September 2012, 987 hepatitis E cases with individual case-based data were identified. Of 22 total deaths, almost half occurred during the first 4 months of the outbreak. Infection attack rates were higher among males and young adults. The average time between onset of jaundice and presentation was approximately 1 week. Challenges to control were related to persistent consumption of untreated water, poor sanitation infrastructure, remote geography, nomadic movement and civil insecurity. CONCLUSIONS The hepatitis E outbreak in Karamoja highlights the emergence of sanitation and hygiene-related disease among semi-nomadic pastoralist populations. Improving sanitation and safe water access and extending health education programs to remote pastoralist communities is crucial to prevent such diseases from becoming endemic.

Socio-economic changes threaten nomadic pastoralism across the world, changing traditional grazing patterns. Such land-use changes will co-occur with climate change, and while both are potentially important determinants of future ecosystem functioning, interactions between them remain poorly understood. We investigated the effects of grazing by large herbivores and climate manipulation using open-top chambers (OTCs) on flower number and flowering species richness in mountain steppe of northern Mongolia. In this region, sedentary pastoralism is replacing nomadic pastoralism, and temperature is predicted to increase. Grazing and OTCs interacted to affect forb flowering richness, which was reduced following grazing removal, and reduced by OTCs in grazed plots only. This interaction was directly linked to the soil moisture and temperature environments created by the experimental treatments: most species flowered when both soil moisture and temperature levels were high (i.e. in grazed plots without OTCs), while fewer species flowered when either temperature, or moisture, or both, were low. Removal of grazing increased the average number of graminoid flowers produced at peak flowering in Year 1, but otherwise grazing removal and OTCs did not affect community-level flower composition. Of four abundant graminoid species examined individually, three showed increased flower number with grazing removal, while one showed the reverse. Four abundant forb species showed no significant response to either treatment. Our results highlight how climate change effects on mountain steppe could be contingent on land-use, and that studies designed to understand ecosystem response to climate change should incorporate co-occurring drivers of change, such as altered grazing regimes.

Transhumance is a typical form of subsistence in the livestock industry that involves the climatic difference between lowlands and highlands. There are several types of transhumance but its most important factor is the natural difference in climate and vegetation between lowlands and mountain regions. In this paper, we will discuss the connection between mountains and human activities through transhumance (kuch in Kyrgyz), the use of natural resources, and age-based livestock naming differences in the Alai Valley, located in the northern part of the Pamir in Central Asia. In 1920, the region called Kyrgyz was integrated into the Soviet Union. Before the Soviet era, Kyrgyz people had maintained a purely nomadic lifestyle, travelling from one pasture to another in groups. The integration into the Soviet regime caused a rapid transformation in this region from nomadic pastoralism to livestock farming. The transition period that Central Asia went through after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union diverged greatly from the initial optimism that surrounded it. Livestock farming became a matter of individual enterprise, or fermer. Today, the eastern part of the Alai valley is characterized by two types of transhumance: horizontal and ascending. In contrast with the conditions of the Soviet era, the region is now independent, so pastoralists will unavoidable need to gain autonomy in the new market economy.

The socioeconomics and the ecological impact of nomadic pastoralism were analyzed using interviews with 87 herder families and secondary information in the western Khangai, Mongolia. The pastoralists had an income above the national average for rural areas in Mongolia. Most herders continued traditional seasonal migration patterns, which involved ca. 10 moves per year over a total distance of ca. 100 km between summer and winter grazing grounds. As elsewhere in Mongolia, the number of goats owned by herders has greatly increased and cashmere has become the main source of cash income. Total livestock numbers rose considerably after decollectivization of the livestock sector in 1992, but in recent years have periodically been reduced by harsh winters, often combined with drought. Due to the high economic risk of these periodic livestock losses, many herders invest in better education for their children to enable them to migrate to the cities.

The land question in many African countries has geographical, political, economic, social and demographic nuances. These factors colour land and resource rights for pastoral and forest-dwelling communities. Land tenure--the nature and manner in which rights to and interests in various categories of land are created or determined, allocated and enjoyed--is pivotal to land as property, especially for resource-dependent communities for whom land and livestock comprise their only property and source of livelihood. The introduction of a modern tenure system through colonialism, continued by post-independence government policy and legislation, has made the rights of pastoralists and forest dwelling communities insecure. Pastoralism, a livestock-based land use that has flourished in arid and semi-arid lands, requires a supportive tenure system for both land and related resources. Tenure reform for the most part has come with subtle delegitimation of pastoralism, especially nomadic pastoralism, as boundaries and fixity are the norm. Pastoralism depends on flexible and negotiated cross-boundary access to land and resources, which has not been provided for in many land-reform processes. The boundaries demarcating different parcels of land have over time cut off pastoralists' access to vital water resources and pasture in individually and publicly owned land. It is therefore not surprising that the rights of pastoralists are a recurrent theme in policy discourses in East Africa. The rights of pastoralist communities to land have become very tenuous over time as land-holding and land-use patterns have changed. National law and policy have emphasized agrarian reform, even in areas more suited to pastoralism, with pastoral communities encouraged to settle and change their way of life. However, despite the efforts of governments to alter the lives of pastoralists and make them settle in one place, pastoralism as a land use has persisted. The failure of policy and law to recognize and provide for pastoralists' strategies of production has made the people living in arid and semi-arid lands of eastern Africa very vulnerable. Pertinent issues for these people include tenure security, political marginalization, citizenship for some groups whose existence is not recognized in national discourses, livelihood security, conflict and degradation of ecosystems. The relegation of pastoralism to a back seat has also impacted negatively on their governance systems regarding the allocation and use of land and related resources (Lenaola 1998: 253). These systems have been systematically replaced by state legal and social-ordering structures. Where these structures lack the force of the norms they seek to replace, the result is resource degradation and increased vulnerability for pastoralists. Indeed, the transfer of authority over common resources from the realm of communal rules to the individual or the state may lead to over-exploitation due to the sweeping aside of more widely accepted traditional structures that regulate use. Another factor that has affected pastoralists is climate change, which has resulted in reduced pasture and water. Pastoralists' ecosystems are threatened by desertification resulting from global climate change and conversion to agricultural land-uses. Within a context where national policies have put great emphasis on agriculture and neglected pastoralism, the contribution of grasslands and pastoral ecosystems to economies as habitats for wildlife and biodiversity is relegated to the back seat (AU and UNECA 2009). The pastoral communities' mistrust of government, rooted in both neglect and unpleasant encounters, has contributed to these communities' continuing with outmoded stock-management and environmental practices when governments have enacted laws and policies regarding sustainable natural resources at the national level. Not surprisingly, the quest for tenure security for pastoral communities has become a running theme in processes of national land-policy formulation in the region. …

Donald Joe Bedunah, a member of the editorial board of Nomadic Peoples, Professor of Range Resource Management at the University of Montana, USA, and a rangeland ecologist who worked for many years with nomadic communities throughout Central Asia, died suddenly on 28 January 2012 at his home in Lolo, Montana. He was 59. His wife, Mo Gary, and his son, Andrew, were with him when he died. Don Bedunah's career as a rangeland scientist began in 1981 as an Assistant Professor at the University of Montana, Missoula. Don's research interests related to rangeland ecosystems were broad, like the grassland and steppe environments he enjoyed working in. He authored or co-authored over forty-five scientific papers about rangelands in the western United States and Central Asia, was the editor or co-editor of a number of scientific books and publications, including Rangelands of Central Asia: Transformations, Issues and Future Challenges, and an editor of the Journal of Range Management. Don was an important contributor to the journal, Nomadic Peoples, co-authoring a paper about Kazak nomads in Western China in 2005, co-editing, with Carol Kerven, Volume 12, Number :2 in 2008, and was a reviewer of manuscripts submitted to Nomadic Peoples for publication. Don had agreed to review a manuscript for Nomadic Peoples only a week before his untimely death. He was also on the Editorial Board of the journal Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice. His passing will be greatly missed among those who work on range resource management and nomadic pastoralism in the United States and Central Asia. I first met Don in September 1981 as a graduate student in a class he was teaching on rangeland inventory and analysis. Being the same age and with many similar interests, we quickly established a close friendship. Although Don had never worked overseas before, he was very interested in stories I told him about my time in Himalayan and Tibetan plateau rangelands and working with Tibetan-speaking nomads. This undoubtedly made the defence of my Masters thesis much easier! In 1991, Don quickly jumped at the opportunity to accompany me on a research project in the Wild Yak Valley in the Kunlun Mountains on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Camping out at an elevation of 4,000 m for two months in the remote Tibetan wilderness and cooking over a yak-dung fire is not everyone's cup of tea, but Don was in his element. He greatly enjoyed being outdoors, and the Tibetan Plateau was new territory for him. Riding tough little Mongolia horses on wild yak trails across steep scree slopes was not for the fainthearted, but Don quickly adapted to the exigencies of exploring the wilds of northern Tibet. With an observant, rangeland ecologist's eye, he saw patterns to the vegetation on the landscape and, as we rode along, we talked about why certain plants were found where they were and why wild yaks and Tibetan gazelle were seen in certain habitats and not others. We had what could probably be termed intellectual discussions about the Tibetan rangeland ecosystem. Don's easy-going nature also allowed him to make friends quickly with our Chinese colleagues and the Kazak nomad, Mohan, who was our guide. I believe it was this seminal trip twenty years ago to Tibet that really instilled in Don an interest in Central Asian rangelands and nomads. In 1992, I got Don his first assignment on a pastoral development project in Mongolia. I had been asked to go to Mongolia as a consultant on a livestock project formulation mission for the Asian Development Bank, but I was unable to commit myself for the required two month's of fieldwork. Eager to see Mongolia, I managed to convince the consulting finn that they should hire both Don and me. We would overlap for an initial two weeks, I would brief Don on what consulting work was all about, and then he would continue with the mission after I left. Being a good rangeland scientist does not necessarily make you a good consultant on livestock development projects, but Don was successfully able to make the transition. …

The Altay Steppes are part of the vast Eurasian grasslands where nomadic peoples have lived for thousands of years. Mobile pastoral production is still practised in these steppes. In recent years, however, dramatic changes have occurred in the rangeland society and production system. These have mainly resulted from modernization policies at both state and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region level. Mobile pastoral production is shrinking and herders are switching between subsistence farming and other livelihood alternatives, at times managing to follow specialized livestock production strategies involving seasonal livestock migrations along transhumance routes. This paper uses original ethnographic data in the form of two case studies to describe this flux in a southern Altay Steppe community. Its Kazakh and Altay Uranghay Mongol herders alternate between sedentary subsistence farming and nomadic pastoralism. The paper looks first at the ways people negotiate these swings between different lifestyles and livelihood options. Second, it considers the environmental changes that result from this uncertainty, and particularly the changing patterns of grassland management in the area. Special attention is given to discussion of the complex impact of the national and regional development strategies and of the ways in which those strategies affect the economic and cultural responses of the local community. Study findings suggest a correlation between cultural fragmentation, which undermines grassland management institutions, and grassland fragmentation and pasture degradation. Keywords: nomadism, sedentarism, grassland, Altay Steppes, Xinjiang Introduction Xinjiang has historically been home to numerous Asian nomadic ethnic groups. The Saka, Huns, Rouran, Dingling, Turks, Uyghurs and later Mongols lived in its grasslands. In modern times, nomadic groups such as the Kazakh, Mongols, Kirghiz, Tajik and a small number of Uyghurs have continued to practise nomadic pastoralism in the region. As a result nomadic society's economy and culture remain an important part of the social fabric in contemporary Xinjiang. From the 1950s to the early 1980s, nomadic pastoralism remained the major form of subsistence for these various ethnic groups. During the People's Commune period (1958-1984), the pastures were collectively owned within the commune. Nomads were organized into Production Brigades under a commune and tended collectively owned herds on a family basis in exchange for daily necessities. During those years nomads would drive their herds from the winter camp (or 'winter home' located in a valley or basin) to the spring pastures for lambing. When the lambing was completed they would move to the hill pastures and then onto the alpine summer pasture. After spending two or three months on these high mountain pastures, they would return down the same route to the autumn pastures before first snowfall. In many areas the spring and autumn pastures were the same grassland. Herders would sell marketable animals in the autumn pasture and then travel to their winter pasture in late October or early November. Here they over-wintered for five months before departing again in mid-March of the following spring. This yearly cycle has been maintained since ancient times. The nomads' herds normally consisted of five species: sheep, goats, horses, cattle and camels. Sheep/goats and cattle were the most important sources of income and food (e.g. dairy products, which are indispensable to the nomadic diet). The horses were for riding, and the camels provided the main means for transporting yurts and other belongings. However, the Kazakh and Kirghiz considered horsemeat a choice food and so would slaughter one or two horses and dry their meat for food. Conversely, Mongols and Tajik seldom slaughtered or ate horses. All the nomadic peoples consumed horse and camel milk, and regarded it as a great delicacy (XAHG 2004). …

We have analyzed Y-chromosomal variation in populations from Transoxiana, a historical region covering the southwestern part of Central Asia. We studied 780 samples from 10 regional populations of Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, Dungans, and Karakalpaks using 35 SNP and 17 STR markers. Analysis of haplogroup frequencies using multidimensional scaling and principal component plots, supported by an analysis of molecular variance, showed that the geographic landscape of Transoxiana, despite its distinctiveness and diversity (deserts, fertile river basins, foothills and plains) had no strong influence on the genetic landscape. The main factor structuring the gene pool was the mode of subsistence: settled agriculture or nomadic pastoralism. Investigation of STR-based clusters of haplotypes and their ages revealed that cultural and demic expansions of Transoxiana were not closely connected with each other. The Arab cultural expansion introduced Islam to the region but did not leave a significant mark on the pool of paternal lineages. The Mongol expansion, in contrast, had enormous demic success, but did not impact cultural elements like language and religion. The genealogy of Muslim missionaries within the settled agricultural communities of Transoxiana was based on spiritual succession passed from teacher to disciple. However, among Transoxianan nomads, spiritual and biological succession became merged.

Pastoralism is one of the dominant economies of the Sahel and is by far the main economy on the fringes of the Sahara, a zone that has recently become very unstable. It is estimated that about 50 million people rely on pastoralism for their only or a main part of their livelihood in Sub-Saharan Africa; about half of them are located in the Sahel and the Saharan fringes, and of these about 70 percent are poor. The insecurity and instability in these areas directly lead to increased poverty of already poor pastoralists by interfering with their mobility. Competition over natural resources, especially land, has become an issue of major concern and cause of conflict between the Sahel’s pastoral and farming populations. Over the last several decades, the World Bank’s activities to develop this region have included improving the livelihoods of pastoralists. The World Bank’s global center on conflict, security, and development (CCSD) was launched in 2011 to strengthen the Bank and other partner’s work on fragile and conflict-affected situations by providing technical support to country teams on strategy, programming design, and operations that are sensitive to fragility, conflict, and violence. This note seeks to offer guidance to international, national, and local decision makers on the drivers of conflict and instability that are most related to pastoral communities, as well as possible measures to reduce violence and enhance stability in the Sahel. This note attempts to bring together two dimensions related to development: pastoral livelihoods resilience and conflict analysis. This note attempts to articulate important questions on the relations between pastoral development and stability and to identify any knowledge gaps for further exploration. The note begins with a background section on both the current state of pastoralism and the state of insecurity in the Sahel. The three sections focus on the factors that can drive pastoralists into conflict and violence or alternatively can bring them to play the role of agents of stability. Finally, the report provides recommendations to national and international policy makers for follow-up actions related to pastoralism and stabilization in the Sahel.

This chapter provides an overview of global pastoralism, including the definition, forms, structures, origin, development, distribution, value, and future of pastoralism. Pastoralism can be defined as mobile livestock herding in the dimension of either production or livelihood. Nomadic and transhumant rearing of domesticated animals are generally two essential forms of pastoralism, with pastoral farming/enclosed ranching as the third form of pastoralism in the broad meaning. A clan is generally the basis of pastoral organization, which is responsible for the control of the optimum territory and management of the livestock species herded in every corner of the world. Most of the burden of pastoral activities is borne by women, and empowering women remains a challenge in most of the pastoral regions across the world. Although the emergence of pastoralism was a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, primitive hunting has been commonly accepted as the primary source. The origin of pastoralism can be dated to 6000 B.P. in the Andes of South America, and even as early as 9000 B.P. in Northeast Africa. A multiple-center origination is more probable than a single-center origination for explaining the spread of pastoralism worldwide. Currently, extensive pastoralism occurs on about 25 % of Earth’s land area, mostly in the developing world, from the drylands of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to the highlands of Asia and Latin America. Globally, pastoralism is critically important in supporting huge human populations, providing tremendous ecological services, maintaining long-standing civilizations, and making significant contributions to subsistence economy in some of the world’s poorest regions. However, the practices of pastoralism have been overwhelmed by agricultural expansion, industrial development, and sedentary livestock farming in recent decades. Pastoral societies across the world will have more unpleasant fates with the stress of global change in the future.

Technological advances are making genetic data collection and analysis feasible on a scale unimaginable only a few years ago. Early genetic research using mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome provided important insights for macroscale modeling of regional and continent-wide population movements, but the capacity to study the entire genome now opens an era of finer-grained, mesoscale studies of regional and local population histories that are more compatible with the scale of archaeological analysis. The utility of integrating both types of data is illustrated by a case study from Oceania, where genetic studies were used to evaluate two models for the geographic origins of the populations that colonized Polynesia beginning ca. 3000 bp, bringing with them the distinctive Lapita cultural assemblage. A second case study considers the application of genetic studies to an understanding of Fulbe history, especially that of the pastoral Fulbe. Both archaeological and genetic data are underdeveloped for the key Fulbe homeland regions of Mauritania and Senegal, but recent research in the Middle Senegal Valley permits some conjectures on the history of Fulbe nomadic pastoralism. The article concludes with suggestions for a multidisciplinary research agenda to expand and upgrade the quality of relevant archaeological data, incorporate biodistance studies of human skeletal material, and improve and expand genetic sampling using more historically sensitive collection protocols.

The Zhunge’er (Junggar) Basin in northern Xinjiang was a key crossroads in antiquity for the dispersal of ideas and technological innovations from the Eurasian steppe into the heartland of central ...