Herding Strategies Research Articles

High-elevation sheep and goat provisioning on the Tibetan Plateau, 3000–2200 BP

High-elevation environments present harsh challenges for the pursuit of agropastoral subsistence strategies and relatively little is known about the mechanisms early communities employed to adapt to such locations successfully. This article presents the sequential carbon and oxygen analysis of archaeological caprine teeth from Bangga (c. 3000–2200 BP), which is approximately 3750masl on the Tibetan Plateau. Made visible through this method, intra-tooth variation in isotopic composition allows insights into herding strategies that possibly included the provisioning of livestock with groundwater and agricultural fodder and summer grazing in saline or marsh environments. Such intensive provisioning differs markedly from lower-elevation agropastoralism.

Early transhumance recorded by the microfossils of sheep coprolites in the Tongtian Cave, China

Being a crucial subsistence strategy for the steppe communities, transhumant pastoralism has played a pivotal role in facilitating early communication of East and West civilizations. However, despite its significance, there remains a paucity of research regarding how and when transhumant pastoralism emerged at the eastern end of the Eurasian Steppe. Situated at the crossroads of East-West exchanges, the Tongtian Cave site has yielded a diverse range of archaeological materials, including sheep bones, sheep coprolites, and the earliest remains of wheat and barley in China. In order to explore the herding strategies employed at the Tongtian Cave, the microfossil contents from site's stratigraphy and the sheep coprolites are investigated in this study. Analytic results reveal the presence of elm tree pollen and probably phytoliths within the coprolites, suggesting that the site once served as a spring pasture. Wheat remains recovered from the same stratum as the coprolites date the transhumant practice at the site as far back as ca. 4300 B.P., establishing the Tongtian Cave as not only the earliest pastoralist site in China but likely also in the eastern Eurasian Steppe. Overall, our studies of the Tongtian Cave materials provide crucial evidence that deepens our understandings of the timing and mechanism of the eastward expansion of transhumant pastoralism across prehistoric Eurasia. The methodological potential of pollen and fungal spore analyses in revealing the seasonality of ancient site use is also explored in this article.

Highland pastoralism in the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes cultural tradition: Stable oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotope analyses of herd mobility at Köhne Shahar in northwestern Iran

Nomadic pastoralism and long-distance transhumance are often invoked as primary explanatory mechanisms for human migrations and regional interactions in the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes cultural tradition of the West Asian highlands. Based on established archaeological proxies of pastoralism, these arguments have rendered homogenous reconstructions of a complex pastoral landscape because of the effect of site formation processes that smooth out diagnostic archaeological signatures of diverse herd mobility strategies. Overcoming this equifinality requires an interdisciplinary approach that can empirically measure animal movements in the past. In this paper we use stable oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotope analyses of incrementally-sampled teeth to investigate sheep, goat, and cattle herding strategies at the Kura-Araxes settlement of Köhne Shahar. Our δ18O analysis reveals that cattle and caprines accessed different water sources, with cattle staying closer to the settlement and the more permanent bodies of water that it provided. Restricted intra-annual ranges in δ13C values also show that nearly all herd animals were managed locally, involving limited transhumance that was supplemented with dry foddering. We contextualise our observations with published zooarchaeological data to call for more nuanced interpretations of Kura-Araxes pastoral landscapes that deemphasise the role of long-distance pastoral mobilities.

High lamb natural mortality versus specialized culling at Bangga on the southern Tibetan Plateau 3000 BP

AbstractPastoralism has a long history on the high‐elevation Tibetan Plateau. However, the specific risks faced by early flocks on the plateau and ways that herders managed their animals have not been well explored. Dated to the third millennium BP, the archeological settlement of Bangga represents an early agro‐pastoral community at 3800 m above sea level (m a.s.l.) and a rare opportunity to examine these issues. Mortality profiles have been a powerful tool for reconstructing livestock herding strategies from archeological sites globally. Here, we used dental eruption and wear to reconstruct sheep mortality profiles from Bangga. To contextualize regional archeological data, we also simulated sheep natural mortality levels using flock culling profiles and die off data for recent Tibetan flocks. Mortality profiles from Bangga revealed that 64.28% (N = 42) of the sheep died within the first year of their life. This profile was consistent with Payne's Anatolian models for specialized management for milk. Simulations revealed that the same profile might be the product of low culling levels and high natural lamb death rates. In this high elevation, high‐risk pastoral setting, specialization was a less probable interpretation than environmentally driven lamb mortality. Evidence for corralling at Bangga pointed to specific ancient disease and nutritional risks associated with periodic confinement and lack of access to pasture. Our findings indicate that high juvenile mortality presented a threat for ancient sheep herders who suffered serious environmental pressures on the Tibetan Plateau. Ethnographically grounded mortality simulations have utility for consideration of equifinality between culling and die off profiles constituting a global challenge in zooarcheological research.

Influence of captivity and selection on limb long bone cross-sectional morphology of reindeer.

The emergence of pastoralism and animal husbandry has been a critical point in the history of human evolution. Beyond profound behavioural changes in domesticated animals compared to wild ones, characterising the morphological changes associated with domestication process remains challenging. Because reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) can be considered to still be in the early phases of the domestication process, the study of modern populations provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of captivity and selective breeding on skeletal changes. In this work, we investigated the morphological changes in long limb bone cross-sections using 137 wild and domestic reindeer individuals bred in free-range, in captivity or used for racing and pulling. The shape and shaft cortical thickness of the six long limb bones (i.e., humerus, radioulna, metacarpal, femur, tibia and metatarsal) were measured using a 2D-geometric morphometrics approach taking into account subspecies, sex, body mass and lifestyle differences. These bones are important to understanding functional morphological changes because they can provide information on feeding and locomotor behaviours, as well as on body propulsion and weight bearing. Apart from the effects of taxonomy, etho-ecology and sex, we have found that captivity and selection induced important variations in the size and body mass of modern reindeer. Our results also showed that patterns of variation in cortical bone thickness of long limb bone cross-sections were strongly impacted by body mass and human-imposed restrictions in roaming. This demonstrates that bone cross-sections can provide information on changes in locomotor, reproductive and feeding behaviours induced by the domestication process. These results are valuable not only for (paleo) biologists studying the impact of captivity and selection in ungulates but also for archaeologists exploring the origins of domestication and early herding strategies.

New evidence of a fish–bird interspecific feeding association between the European seabass and the European shag in the Mediterranean Sea

Although they have received little attention, interspecific feeding associations are a particular predation behavior in which two or more different species temporary feed simultaneously on the same food sources to obtain greater success in predation. These collaborations can be either mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic. One of the best-known examples is the seabird–cetacean associations. Prey herding is the foraging tactic most used in these associations and consists of swimming around and under prey balls to trap them in the water column. Here we reported some new evidence of a fish–bird interspecific feeding association between the European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax (Linnaeus, 1758) and the European shag, Gulosus aristotelis (Linnaeus, 1761). We analyzed this association through the photograph and video documentation provided by “citizen scientists” in the Mediterranean Sea. We collected reliable proofs of this behavior, at least, in three instances from observations made by recreational fishermen in the Kvarner bay (Croatia, North Adriatic Sea). From the photographs and videos made available, we attempted to reconstruct a predation strategy adopted by these associated species to better understand the advantage this provides during hunting. Although it is not yet clear whether this association is an opportunistic behavior of the European seabass or a mutualistic strategy used by both species to improve their catching success, this feeding association seems to increase the chances to defeat prey defense strategies. Notably, some behavioral imitation of hunting strategies may be put in place by seabasses, which often feed in association with dolphins and other birds using similar prey herding strategies.

Multiagent Planning and Control for Swarm Herding in 2-D Obstacle Environments Under Bounded Inputs

This article presents a method for herding a swarm of adversarial agents toward a safe area in a 2-D obstacle environment. The team of defending agents (defenders) aims to block the path of a swarm of risk-averse, adversarial agents (attackers) and guide it to a safe area while navigating in an obstacle-populated environment. To achieve this, a closed formation (StringNet) of defenders is formed around the adversarial swarm. A combination of open-loop, near time-optimal controllers (that result in forming the defenders’ formation), and state-feedback controllers with finite-time convergence guarantees under bounded inputs (that guide the formation around attackers and toward the safe area) synthesize the herding strategy. For demonstration purpose, we consider that the attacking swarm moves under a flocking model, which however is unknown to the defenders. Collision-free trajectory generation for the defenders, as well as their convergence to the desired formations, is proved formally, and simulations are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach. An implementation of the proposed approach on quadrotor vehicles simulated in the Gazebo simulator is also provided.

Investigating early husbandry strategies in the southern Caucasus: intra-tooth sequential carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of Neolithic goats, sheep, and cattle from Göytepe and Hacı Elamxanlı Tepe

The beginning of agriculture marks major changes in food acquisition technology in human history. In the southern Caucasus, agricultural villages emerged around 6000 cal. BC, 2000 to 3000 years later than in the Fertile Crescent despite their geographical closeness to each other. This study aims to provide isotopic evidence indicative of animal herding strategies in the early farming communities in the southern Caucasus. To analyze intra-individual sequential carbon and oxygen isotope variations, we used tooth enamel of five goats, four sheep, and three cattle from the Neolithic settlements, Göytepe and Hacı Elamxanlı Tepe (Azerbaijan). The analyses also included reference samples of modern domestic goat and sheep that are known to have grazed in the vicinity of the sites. As a result, the sequential carbon and oxygen isotope variations of the modern goat and sheep samples showed large amplitude and a synchronous pattern during the whole enamel maturation period. The same pattern was observed in some of the Neolithic goat and sheep samples, suggesting they may have grazed in the vicinity of the lowland site throughout the year. Other Neolithic goat and cattle samples exhibited relatively small amplitudes and inverse cyclical variation patterns. While these patterns may have been caused by multiple factors, such as drinking water and food/fodder, vertical transhumance has also been proposed for the similar isotope patterns. Despite the difficulty in specifying exact causes for the observed isotopic patterns, their diversity within/among the species implies multiple pastoral strategies that may have had adaptive advantages in new agricultural frontiers in the southern Caucasus.

The effect of animal herding practices on the diversity of human stable isotope values in North Central Asia

Human isotopic values from North Central Asia vary not only chronologically, but also spatially, which likely points to the exploitation of different resources for the subsistence. We argue that observed differences in the human isotopic ratios across North Central Asia are directly related to the animal herding strategies, which in turn were influenced by the local environment and landscape features. This paper presents a collation of both new (n = 149) and previously published (n = 585) carbon and nitrogen isotopic values measured on human bone collagen dating from the Bronze Age to Medieval period Northern Central Asia. These data have allowed modeling human dietary variations in different ecotones and chronological periods of North Central Asia. Analysis of isotopic values of various domestic herbivore species demonstrated that horses, cattle, and sheep/goats in North Central Asia tend to exhibit different isotopic signatures. The strong regional variations, particularly evident in δ13C values across North Central Asia from Bronze to Middle Ages tend to reflect the scale of C4 crop consumption by humans. However, they can also be related to the differences in the exploited herding strategies, such as the focus on cattle, horses or caprines husbandry as well as vertical transhumance pastoralism.

Early pastoral mobility and seasonality in Kenya assessed through stable isotope analysis

Eastern African pastoralists today depend on mobility to access seasonally available pastures for their livestock. Here, we evaluate the importance of mobility strategies for maintaining herds during the Pastoral Neolithic era in southern Kenya through stable isotope analysis. We use carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of sequentially sampled modern and archaeological cattle, sheep, and goat tooth enamel to reconstruct seasonal vertical mobility strategies of early pastoralists in the region from 3000 to 1200 years ago. An altitudinal transition from C4 grasses at low elevations to C3 grasses at higher elevations permits tracking vertical mobility in the Kenya Rift Valley. Results from eight Pastoral Neolithic sites from southern Kenya show that cattle, sheep, and goats were almost exclusively herded at low elevations throughout the year. Higher variability in carbon isotopes of caprines compared to cattle suggests that caprines had greater seasonal dietary flexibility. Oxygen isotopes were not consistently useful for identifying seasonal patterns: intra- and interannual variability in tropical precipitation and plant water isotopic composition are confounding factors. Archaeological contexts representing local foragers that adopted pastoralism show herding strategies similar to those from established pastoral sites. These results suggest that lower elevation savannas were productive enough to support pastoralism year-round during the Pastoral Neolithic era.

An empirical net asset value forecasting model based on optimised ANN using elephant herding strategy

Net asset value (NAV) prediction of mutual funds is one of the promising tasks of financial time series data forecasting. It enables the investors to choose the desired mutual fund for investing. Artificial neural network (ANN) is well suited for NAV prediction as the NAV data are nonlinear in nature. This paper proposes the ANN model hybridised with elephant herding optimisation (EHO) algorithm to predict the NAV of different interval days ahead for two of the Indian mutual funds. The prediction performance of ANN-EHO model is compared with ANN, ANN-GA, ANN-PSO and ANN-DE. The results implicate that ANN-EHO model is superior to other four models.

Seasonal selection of key resources by cattle in a mixed savannah-wetland ecosystem increases the potential for conflict with lions

In Africa's pastoral conservation landscapes, apex predators frequently kill livestock. Retaliatory persecution such as poisoning threatens predators, but also non-target biota. Several factors influence conflict severity, including livestock husbandry, overlap in seasonal habitat use, and the degree to which livestock perceive and are able to respond to a landscape of fear. We investigated these factors by GPS-tracking 42 Tswana beef cattle (Bos taurus) from 29 herds in 2017 and six lions (Panthera leo) from different prides (May 2016–Dec. 2017) in the northern Okavango Delta, Botswana, where cattle depredation significantly impacts the livelihoods of rural agro-pastoralists. Cattle exhibited seasonal habitat selection patterns similar to wild ungulates in the region. They preferred woodland habitats, with more digestible grasses, during the wet season. During the dry season, they preferred wetland habitats with reliable forage and water availability. Cattle also preferred areas close to human settlements, but the necessity to forage in wetlands during the dry season exposed them to significant depredation risk, especially >4 km from settlements. Lions killed most cattle in wetlands during the late dry season but the intensity of recent lion presence (previous 14 days) only had a weak negative effect on cattle habitat selection patterns. Cattle used rangelands according to nutritional requirements, irrelevant of the associated predation risk, suggesting that socio-ecologically acceptable conflict solutions cannot rely on the exclusion of livestock from seasonal wetlands. Curbing depredation by lions will best be achieved by a combination of resource- and predation-cognisant seasonal herding strategies with adequate livestock protection. Understanding the ecological constraints that intensify conflict is pertinent to any livestock production landscape with predator presence. It is also a central prerequisite for future land use planning and devolution of legal, controlled resource access rights through policy. Coexistence strategies must account for the strong reliance of people, their livestock, and wildlife on shared key resources. This is particularly important in large trans-frontier conservation areas where the successful merging of biodiversity conservation and rural development is a strategic goal. Omission will foster resentment and resistance to coexistence with apex predators, particularly if livestock productivity and human livelihoods are negatively affected.

An Empirical Net Asset Value Forecasting Model based on Optimized ANN using Elephant Herding Strategy

Net asset value (NAV) prediction of mutual funds is one of the promising tasks of financial time series data forecasting. It enables the investors to choose the desired mutual fund for investing. Artificial neural network (ANN) is well suited for NAV prediction as the NAV data are nonlinear in nature. This paper proposes the ANN model hybridised with elephant herding optimisation (EHO) algorithm to predict the NAV of different interval days ahead for two of the Indian mutual funds. The prediction performance of ANN-EHO model is compared with ANN, ANN-GA, ANN-PSO and ANN-DE. The results implicate that ANN-EHO model is superior to other four models.

Assessing Prehispanic Herding Strategies through Stable Isotope Analysis: A Case Study from the Dry Puna of Argentina

ABSTRACT The main goal of this work is to study the camelid herding and management strategies employed by the human groups that occupied the Dry Puna of Argentina during the late Holocene. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope compositions were measured on bone collagen from domesticated South American camelids (llamas: Lama glama) recovered at two archaeological sites (Huirunpure and Chayal Cave). These results were interpreted using an already published data set of δ 13C and δ 15N values measured on bone collagen from modern herds of llamas managed in a traditional way. Our results showed that even though the archaeological sites of Huirunpure and Chayal Cave are located within different settings – at 4020 and 3700 masl respectively – and present different chronologies – 0–650 and 1300–1500 CE respectively – the llamas from both sites exhibit similar δ 13C and δ 15N values. This pattern was explained considering the characteristics of the vegetation communities that grow in the vicinity of both sites as well as the paleoenvironmental records of the Andean highlands. In sum, this work presents and discusses some preliminary results on the study of prehispanic herding practices in the Dry Puna of Argentina during the first 1500 years of the Common Era through stable isotope analysis.

Restricted pasturing of domesticated cattle at a Late Neolithic settlement in Central Germany

Domestic cattle (Bos taurus) were one of the most important animal resources exploited by farming communities throughout the Neolithic period in Central Europe. However, little is currently known about cattle husbandry practices in use for Late Neolithic communities located in Central Germany. Here, we present new zooarchaeological and isotopic data in order to better understand cattle management strategies used during the late fourth and early third millennia BCE at the Late Neolithic Bernburg settlement of Hundisburg-Olbetal in Central Germany. Strontium isotope values of cattle tooth enamel reveal that these animals were most likely herded on local pastures. The overall range of carbon isotope values of sequentially sampled cattle teeth suggests the ingestion of graze that grew in open C3-environments all year round. Furthermore, the observed temporal offset between maximum carbon and oxygen isotope values most likely reflect a herding strategy where cattle grazed on open pastures in the floodplains during the growing season and were possibly kept near the settlement on stubble fields after harvest. Altogether, these data indicate Late Neolithic cattle management systems at the Bernburg settlement of Hundibsurg-Olbetal were small in scale and likely focused on meat production for household subsistence.

An optimized feature reduction based currency forecasting model exploring the online sequential extreme learning machine and krill herd strategies

For the prediction of exchange rate, this paper proposes a hybrid learning frame work model which is a joint estimation of On-Line Sequential Extreme Learning Machine (OS-ELM) along with optimized feature reduction using Krill Herd (KH). The proposed learning scheme is compared with Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) and Recurrent Back Propagation Neural Network (RBPNN), considering three factors such as; without feature reduction, with statistical based feature reduction using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and with optimized feature reduction techniques such as KH, Bacteria Foraging Optimization (BFO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The models are applied over USD/INR, USD/EURO, YEN/INR and SGD/INR, constructed using technical indicators and statistical measures considering 3, 5, 7, 12 and 15 as window sizes. The results of comparisons of different performance measures in testing phase and MSE in training process demonstrate that the proposed OSELM-KH exchange rate prediction model is potentiality superior compared to others.

Tightly Bunched Herding Improves Cattle Performance in African Savanna Rangeland

Rotational grazing management approaches are regarded as strategies for sustaining rangeland productivity and continue to be applied across many parts of the world. In Africa, livestock farmers implementing rotational grazing often switch from traditional loosely bunched herding (LBH), in which animals within a herd are allowed to spread out naturally when foraging, to tightly bunched herding (TBH) with limited herd spread to increase animal impact on the range. However, there is little scientific information on the actual direct (short-term) effects of this altered herding strategy on livestock productivity. We investigated the direct effects of TBH versus LBH on foraging behavior, nutrition, and performance (weight gain) of cattle in a semiarid savanna rangeland in central Kenya. We conducted the study across two habitat types: a heterogeneous red soil habitat and a relatively homogeneous black cotton soil habitat. Across both habitats, cattle traveled 9–15% less, foraged 10–29% more efficiently, and put on 14–39% more weight when managed with TBH as compared with LBH. These changes occurred despite the fact that stock densities were double to several times higher under TBH, and cattle under this herding regime foraged less selectively, consuming preferred plants less (especially in the black cotton soil habitat) and consuming diets with lower crude protein content (in the red soil habitat). Financial projection showed that the benefit of increased cattle performance under TBH could sufficiently outweigh increased cost of additional labor required to implement this herding strategy. These findings suggest that TBH, as practiced here, can be implemented without livestock production or financial losses. Further, the research demonstrated reduced grazing selectivity under TBH indicates that this herding strategy could potentially be used to reduce grazing pressure on preferred forage plants and maintain herbaceous species diversity without sacrificing cattle performance.

Big Data, Scarce Attention and Decision-Making Quality

Big data technology enables us to access tremendous amounts of information; however, individuals cannot process all available information due to the bounded attention. The impact of this tension upon information seeking and processing behaviors and the resultant decision-making quality is still unclear. By agent-based simulation, we explicitly model the endogenous information choice in a sequential decision-making process, where individuals choose independently how much information and what type of information (shallow information such as the popularity a product, or deep information such as the expected utility of a product) is to be used. It is found that when the information is costly, only a small part of the individuals use deep information and only limited pieces of it, and other individuals simply follow the majority choice. The decrease in the cost of of information cost due to big data can encourage individuals to make use of more information, resulting in a better overall decision quality. However, if the big data only reduces the cost of shallow information but not that of the deep information, the decision quality is diminished because more individuals are induced to adopt the herding strategy.

Domestic animal production and consumption at Tall al-Handaquq South (Jordan) in the Early Bronze III

The Early Bronze Age (EBA) in the Southern Levant saw the emergence of socioeconomic inequality, fortified towns, and craft specialization. Livestock production was key to facilitating these socioeconomic changes, but the precise forms of animal husbandry and the economic contributions of domestic animal herding to EBA economies in the Southern Levant remain underexplored. Here, we investigate faunal remains recovered from Tall al-Handaquq South (THS), a walled Early Bronze III settlement located in the northern Jordan Valley. Zooarchaeological analyses indicate that small-stock (sheep and goat) herding formed the basis of subsistence and surplus production, while cattle husbandry provided much needed labour for intensive cereal production. The high relative abundance of cattle and the preference for goats, which thrive on low quality forage typical for more marginal landscapes beyond the valley floor, over sheep may indicate use of a more extensive herding strategy that kept herds off of agricultural fields while maintaining animal production. Notably, caprine management systems shifted throughout the EB III at THS from strategies emphasizing the optimal production of meat obtained from prime-aged sheep and goats to one focused on the exploitation of older animals, perhaps for fiber production. During this time, however, goats continued to outnumber sheep, possibly reflecting the longterm importance of grain production, which is expected to be reflected in the faunal record by high proportions of goats and cattle. Comparing the data from THS to other sites in the Southern Levant, the data indicate an evolution towards a greater focus on agricultural and livestock commodity production, factors that may have contributed to the abandonment of THS and, perhaps, other walled sites in the region.

Finding the ephemeral: Herding strategies and socio-economic organization in an urban West African context

In this paper, I use zooarchaeological data to investigate the relationship between food production strategies, particularly herding practices, and socioeconomic configurations in the ancient city of Jenné-jeno (occupied ca. 250 BCE to 1400 CE) and in archaeological contexts (ca. 1400–1900 CE) from the modern city of Djenné, both located in Mali's Inland Niger Delta (IND). IND populations are notable for their system of subsistence specialization, wherein self-ascribed ethnic groups identify strongly with specific subsistence regimes. This organization is a successful response to the area's unpredictability and, as such, exerts strong influence on interpretations of many IND archaeological contexts. In particular, scholars have invoked subsistence specialization as a possible underlying explanation for the distinctive social and political organization found at Jenné-jeno, most notably in Rod McIntosh's Pulse Model. Data from osteometric and isotopic (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of domestic herd animals, however, suggest that subsistence regimes were much more diversified at Jenné-jeno and neighboring sites, and that ethnically-linked subsistence specialization may have emerged in this area only as part of a broad social, political, and settlement pattern reorganization coincident with Jenné-jeno's abandonment. I argue that despite facing broadly similar climatic uncertainty over the past two millennia, populations in and around Jenné-jeno adopted shifting social and economic strategies, with new approaches emerging in the face of specific environmental challenges and changing social contexts. This study joins others in showing the extent to which ancient urban centers are the product of their local environmental and sociopolitical settings, rather than conforming to expected models of urban configurations.