Bioarchaeological contributions to the reconstruction of past societies on the Mongolian Steppe

Early in the twentieth century, French and British colonial scholars developed rigid, descent-based models of African pastoral societies. These models emphasized stasis partly because the scholars relied on unrepresentative samples of the pastoralists' views of their own societies, and partly because the scholars simply misinterpreted data. By the 1970s anthropologists had radically revised these models, arguing that although pastoralists generally defined themselves in terms of descent, their societies were nevertheless quite dynamic. In their view, descent was an idiom of social discourse; while pastoral societies may have operated according to the idiom in the past, the economic changes brought about by colonialism had ruptured the connection between the ideology and social practice. More recently, historians have begun to argue that pastoral societies were also dynamic before colonialism, and that there was great flexibility in the ways pastoralists reckoned social identities.This essay draws on evidence from the nineteenth-century western Sahara to argue that pastoral societies were dynamic long before the colonial period, and that many Saharans perceived their society in this way. This evidence was neglected by the early colonial scholars and many post-colonial anthropologists in favor of those descriptions that emphasized stasis. Saharan accounts that described social dynamism were often based on the explicitly Islamic model of the Prophet Muhammad and his diverse community of supporters. This model, then and throughout Islamic history, has offered the possibility of social improvement, and therein lies the explanation for why some Saharans interpreted society as static while others saw it as dynamic. Social models that fix groups into specific ranks according to descent serve the interests of those at the higher ranks, while dynamic models serve to legitimize social mobility.

Simple SummaryThe authors present a preliminary analysis of caprine remains from 70 burials at Dunping, a burial site associated with Bronze-Age pastoralists in northwestern China and featured by the interment of skulls and hooves of domestic ungulates in burial contexts. The minimal impact of weathering on the skeletal elements and the attachment of atlases in skulls suggest that the caprines chosen for burial may have been slaughtered on-site, and that the inhumation of the caprine skulls and hooves occurred shortly after their death. It is likely that the remaining carcasses of the caprines were consumed by or distributed among funeral participants. The mortality profiles indicate the presence of caprines across various age stages at the site, with individuals aged 6–12 months accounting for the largest proportion. This pattern differed from those observed in contemporaneous pastoral societies in the regions nearby.The late second and first millennium BC witnessed extensive economic, cultural, and political exchanges between pastoralists and sedentary farming states in East Asia. Decades of archaeological fieldwork across northern China have revealed a large number of burial sites associated with pastoralists during the first millennium BC. These sites were characterized by the inhumation of specific animal parts in burials, predominantly the skulls and hooves of sheep, goats, cattle, and horses. However, the selection preference for these animals and how they were integrated into the mortuary contexts of these pastoral societies remain poorly investigated. Here, we report a preliminary analysis of caprine remains from 70 burials at the site of Dunping in the southern Gansu region of northwestern China, dated to approximately the seventh to fourth centuries BC. Based on an examination of species composition, post-depositional effects, traces of human alteration, skeletal element representation, and age at death, we discussed the selection, slaughtering, and inhumation of caprines concerning the mortuary practices at the site. Comparisons between Dunping and several other contemporaneous burial sites in neighboring regions, specifically in terms of the mortality profiles, further highlight distinct patterns in the selection of caprines for mortuary purposes among pastoral societies. These differences suggest varying degrees of emphasis placed on the economic and social significance attributed to caprines. Our findings provide new insights into the roles that caprines played in both ritual performances and subsistence practices among pastoralists in East Asia during the first millennium BC.

China’s Rangeland Management Policy Debates: What Have We learned?

Agricultural productivity, and its variation in space and time, plays a fundamental role in many theories of human social evolution. However, we often lack systematic information about the productivity of past agricultural systems on a large enough scale in order to be able to test these theories properly. The effect of climate on crop yields has received a great deal of attention resulting in a range of empirical and process-based models, yet the focus has primarily been on current or future conditions. In this paper, we argue for a “bottom-up” approach that estimates productivity, or potential productivity based on information about the agricultural practices and technologies used in past societies. Of key theoretical interest is using this information to estimate the carrying capacity of a given region, independently of estimates of population size. We outline how explicit crop yield models can be combined with high quality historical and archaeological information about past societies, in order to infer the temporal and geographic patterns of change in agricultural productivity and potential. We discuss the kinds of information we need to collect about agricultural techniques and practices in the past, and introduce a new databank initiative we have developed for collating the best available historical and archaeological evidence. A key benefit of our approach lies in making explicit the steps in the process of estimating past productivities and carrying capacities, and in being able to assess the effects of different modelling assumptions. This is undoubtedly an ambitious task, yet promises to provide important insights into fundamental aspects of past societies, and will enable us to test more rigorously key hypotheses about human socio-cultural evolution.

Imprecise data produced by commonly applied osteological age‐at‐death estimations profoundly affect all research on age‐dependent mortality in past societies. With uncertain death estimation (UCD), we propose a novel approach to estimating the mortality structure from imprecise data and present a corresponding R package for simple application. Through repeated random sampling of imprecise age‐at‐death ranges, UCD estimates the mortality structure of a given skeletal sample. We demonstrate the applicability of UCD in a proof‐of‐principle study on two samples with known age at death (Bass‐Mercyhurst Collection and Coimbra Identified Skeletal Collection). Two case studies of German Neolithic skeletal material illustrate UCD's applicability to archeological samples with dissimilar states of preservation. To comparatively quantify the accuracy of UCD, maximum likelihood estimations, Kaplan–Meier survival estimations, and age‐category mortality profiles were calculated for all four study samples. UCD outperforms similar existing procedures while incorporating the uncertainty inherent in osteological data. The proof‐of‐principle study produced significantly more accurate mortality profiles from UCD than from maximum likelihood estimation and Kaplan–Meier survival estimation. Both archeological case studies indicate UCD's ability to provide meaningful new insight into age‐dependent mortality in past societies. UCD allows for comparative studies into age‐dependent mortality in past societies without requiring a large sample of precise age‐at‐death estimations. UCD provides an opportunity for fast and simple analysis of mortality structures on a large dataset without neglecting the information contained in the raw data, thereby facilitating a critical study of patterns in age‐dependent mortality on a large scale.

Quantitative reconstructions of past land use facilitate comparisons between livelihoods in space and time. However, comparison between different types of land use strategies is challenging as land use has a multitude of expressions and intensities. The quantitative method presented here facilitates the exploration and synthetization of uneven archaeological and textual evidence from past societies. The approach quantifies the area required for habitation, agriculture, arboriculture, pasturage, and fuel supply, based on a combination of archaeological, historical, ethnographic and modern evidence from the relevant geographical region. It is designed to stimulate discussion and can be used to test a wide range of hypotheses regarding local and regional economies, ancient trade and redistribution, and the resilience and/or vulnerability of past societies to environmental change. The method also helps identify where our gaps in knowledge are in understanding past human–environment interaction, the ecological footprint of past cultures and their influence on the landscape in a transparent and quantitative manner. The present article focuses especially on the impact of dietary estimates and crop yield estimates, two main elements in calculating land use in past societies due to their uncertainty as well as their significant impact on calculations. By employing archaeological data, including botanical, zoological and isotopic evidence, alongside available textual sources, this method seeks to improve land use and land cover change models by increasing their representativeness and accuracy.

With the Midterm Report of the Cluster of Excellence “ROOTS - Social, Environmental, and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies”, we inform you about the first years of the cluster established in 2019. The Midterm Report was prepared under the special conditions of the last pandemic and thus under extraordinary circumstances, which also applies to the first years of our research. Above all, the report gives you a broad impression of the new and interesting research activities of the cluster, which have developed in many ways in our research space. The joint research on past societies is determined by excavations, laboratory work, archival studies and source interpretations. The diversity of the archives – from soil sediments to human skeletons and from architecture to written evidence – is targeted in our six subclusters. Reconstructing the ROOTS of hazards, diet, knowledge, urbanity, inequality, and conflict and conciliation took us to different areas of the world and very different laboratory depths. The joint research on connectivity started from the basic hypothesis that the degree of connectivity within and between societies, but also between societies and the environment, is crucial for the possibilities to develop resilient and sustainable structures. This is where past societies and environments provide us with a mirror for current and future developments.

This chapter uses the concept of an economic transition point to examine and challenge assumptions about static gender roles in pastoralist societies. The transition from a hunting‐and‐gathering economy to an agro‐pastoralist economy would have forced North Africans to perform tasks related to both economic systems until the pastoralist way of life could be firmly established. The greater need for labor in these transitional societies would have discouraged the formation of strict gender divisions like those seen in today's pastoralist societies. The changing needs of the economy would have necessitated a flexible division of labor. To examine these changing needs, this chapter examines evidence from rock art, archaeological sites, and modern pastoralist ethnography.

The End of the End?<i>Cattle Bring Us to Our Enemies: Turkana Ecology, Politics, and Raiding in a Disequilibrium System</i>. By J. Terrence McCabe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. 301 pp.

Increasing market integration appears to be an unavoidable process for most pastoral societies. Raising substitution rates between direct utilisation of animal products and consumption of cereals exchanged through markets is the most important reason for consistent population growth on rangelands (Helland 2000). To some extent, market exchanges are therefore a determinant of pastoral livelihoods, especially during the dry season when internal food production does not always satisfy households' energy requirements. While offering potential for development, market integration of pastoral economies also presents critical risk factors. Increasing interdependence on regional and global political and economic environments compound pastoral vulnerability to climatic extremes. The Milking Drylands research initiative (1) addresses these issues in one particular area of the world, Somalia. In this paper, mechanisms regulating the marketing of camel milk in north-eastern Somalia (Region of Puntland) are analysed in order to provide relevant insights into a society that continues to experience a lack of central government and institutional capacities. Our preliminary research findings provide some indications that pastoral dairy marketing serves a number of economic as well as social functions, through the exchange of a number of commodities, non-commodity services and information, which aims to satisfy the needs of both pastoral and urban communities. Keywords: Somalia, pastoralism, dairy marketing, drylands, gender. Study Rationale Pastoral communities inhabit areas where constraining soil, rainfall and temperature conditions provide limited effective and sustainable options for land use other than mobile livestock rearing. Food security in these areas is of increasing concern as political and socio-economic changes are reshaping rural livelihoods in many parts of the world. Pastoral societies face more threats to their way of life now than at any previous time, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. These areas are beset by recurrent drought and other severe climatic extremes. Trends of population growth, climate change and globalisation are placing growing pressures upon rangelands and the complex socio-political systems that govern them, and are increasing the vulnerability of pastoral communities. This article introduces the Milking Drylands research initiative, which aims to understand the shifting livelihood patterns of pastoral communities in the Horn of Africa. More specifically, it focuses on Somali pastoralism. Somali pastoralism extensively relies upon mobility, information networks and market integration, and has a high exposure to the processes of globalisation. A comprehensive analysis of pastoral market dynamics in the Somali region holds great potential to contribute towards the sustainable development of drylands. Preliminary research findings and methodological elements are described in the article. Data presented here were collected directly during fieldwork, or gathered from a number of agencies operating in the research area and verified during field missions. This research further aims to provide useful indications of the ways in which pastoral societies could contribute to debates relating to globalisation. Concepts such as mobility, risk management, decentralised authority, insecurity, transnationalism, information systems, public goods, and network society are being increasingly acknowledged in current societal debates. While much is still to be learned about these concepts from pastoral cultures themselves, most policies and investments in pastoral areas still aim to sedentarise and 'domesticate' herders and convert them to the 'civilised' lifestyle of settled farmers and urban inhabitants. Introduction While the demise of pastoral livelihoods has been frequently pointed out, in many areas of the world pastoralism represents the most important livelihood strategy of a growing number of households (Blench 2001; Swift 2004). …

In this article it is argued that conventional agro‐ecological and organizational concepts used in pastoral development are strongly biased towards the formulation and enforcement of norms. This leads development experts to attempts to control pastoralists and their herds. The policies and development interventions based on these assumptions have been largely unsuccessful. As a consequence attention for dryland areas and pastoral development has declined among researchers and development agencies. An important reason for this failure is the fundamental misfit between these normative concepts and the reality of dryland ecosystems and pastoral society. In order to show this, an alternative view on rangeland ecology and pastoral society is presented, supported by a case study of Fulbe pastoral society in dryland Central Mali. The authors argue that approaches to pastoral development must be revised in the direction of the dynamics inherent in the pastoral way of life.

An empirical approach of past and present mobility management in the desert societies of camel breeders in South Eastern Morocco

The present study revolves around the women of three pastoral transhumant societies, Gaddis of Bharmour of Himachal Pradesh, Bhutias of Lachen and Lahung of Sikkim, and Changpa of Changthang of Ladakh.Women are backbone of the economics' structure, as the production system is much dependent on them.The role and status of women vary according to the traditions of cultural group.Transhumant pastoral societies depend for sustenance on livestock herding and use of pasturelands.Due to certain specificities like accessibility, fragility, marginality, diversity or heterogeneity; life in general is tougher for women among transhumant pastoralists.The pastoral production activities implicate the services of both sexes, but women's involvement varies in different culture-ecological conditions.Women play a central role in the pastoralist way of life, providing labour for the various tasks with regard to the livestock, the land and the household.The pastoral societies have been largely seen to be male dominated in which men have economic, social, political and cultural powers special to men.Patriarchy denotes a culture of power relationship that promotes man's supremacy Among Gaddis, the household consists of one elementary family of a man, his wife and their children, with the occasional addition of unmarried, widowed, or divorced relatives who would be otherwise alone in their house or wife and children of married son family.Conventionally fraternal polyandry, primogenitor and monasticism were part of a traditional culture among the Changpas and Bhutias to overcome economic and demographic problems.Regional isolation helped to retain the traditional socio-economic system until the winds of change swept in..In pastoral societies, both men and women share the economic activities but they do not share the burden equally or in the same ways.Pastoral women suffer two kinds of desecrations: those that all pastoralists share regardless of gender, and those that are specific to women.The women in study areas contribute more labour for smooth running of the household than men do.The Gaddi and Bhutia women have been playing a very important role in their economy.In these traditional pastoral communities, the women have an important role to play.Gender principles are central to the organisation of traditional communities.Emphasis on gender, a relational concept provides opportunities for looking at full range of social and cultural institutions, which reproduce gender hierarchies and gender-based inequalities.The cultural interpretation of gender is central to the identity and status of women that entails web of relationships

In pastoral society, the reproduction of livestock is directly related to the survival and prosperity of herders. The key to domestic animal reproduction lies in the cognitive bond between mother livestock and their young. Herdsmen use various tools and techniques to help develop this cognitive bond. These human mediation tools have various characteristics such as ‘restorative’ or ‘destructive’. The lamb bag, a widely used tool in pastoral society, has both ‘restorative’ and ‘destructive’ natures. Based on ethnographic data collected in Inner Mongolia, China, this paper first introduces the production method of lamb bags, then describes their structure, function and the multi-dimensional relationships generated during the application process, and finally discusses the cultural implications of ‘restorative’ and ‘destructive’ human mediation in pastoral culture. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .

Climate variability is a primary characteristic of arid and semi-arid areas where drought occurs frequently. As a disaster, drought is the result of both low precipitation and social factors. If the institutions governing grassland use fail to deal with drought, grassland degradation and herder poverty will result. Based on a case study conducted in Hexigten Banner of eastern Inner Mongolia, we found that drought impacts caused by climate variability were aggravated by resource use conflicts. A series of social and economic changes in pastoral societies, including grassland segmentation, sedentarization, increased buying-in of fodder, decrease in cooperation amongst herders, and industrial development, have made herders more vulnerable to drought. Less fodder production, increased costs, and heavy debt within a disrupted community make a herder's life unsustainable. The paper points out that changes driven by policy makers may aggravate herders' vulnerability and that an alternative approach of adaptation should be developed.