Nomadic Economy Research Articles

Climatic Optimum as a Factor of the Economic Crisis of Steppe Nomads in the 4th Century AD

Introduction. Archaeological sites of the 4th century AD absent on most of the area of the Late Sarmatian culture. This may be both due to the difficulties of their identification and absence of chronological indicators and due to migrations of nomads from the steppe zone. Perhaps unfavorable climatic conditions for nomadic cattle breeding affected the decrease in the number of nomadic population in the 4th century AD. Methods and materials. The paleosoil data allow reconstructing the ecological situation in dry and desert steppes in the first centuries AD. The initial stage of the Late Sarmatian era (the late 2nd – the early 3rd centuries AD) was marked by arid conditions with cold winters with little snow, which were favorable for cattle breeding in the steppe zone. In the late 3rd century and at the turn of the 3rd – 4th centuries, the processes of humidization began – an increase in climate humidity, which favorably affected the ecological situation in the steppe: high grass, area watering. Such situation provided successful livestock grazing in summer. However, in winter, an increase in humidity led to heavy snowfalls and snowstorms, an increase in snow cover, frequent winter thaws, rain, fog, that were replaced by periods of cooling. At this time, grass icing and ice crust formation occured. Analysis. In those conditions, the number of days, when cattle grazing was impossible, increased. As a consequence, there was weakening and disease of the livestock, until the complete loss of the herd. This was followed by the decrease of population. Results. The humidization processes primarily affected the Southern Urals and in the final of the 3rd century reached the Volga-Don steppes. This could be the reason for the outflow of the Late Sarmatian population from the Southern Urals to the Volga regions. In the 4th century AD, the steppes from the Urals to the Lower Don were practically depopulated. The beginning of the humid period, which was unfavorable for the nomadic economy, had a positive effect on settled agricultural societies. The Early Alanian culture of the Central Caucasus demonstrates the dynamics of active development throughout the Late Sarmatian period, including in the 4th c. AD. The duration of this humid period is difficult to estimate, however, in the Hun Epoch, steppes remained almost uninhabited, as evidenced by the small number of sites of this time.

The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan by Sarah Cameron

Reviewed by: The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan by Sarah Cameron Aminat Chokobaeva (bio) Sarah Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2018). 277 pp., ills. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-3043-6. Compared to the Ukrainian famine, or Holodomor as it has become colloquially and academically known, the famine of 1930–1933 in Soviet Kazakhstan has attracted only modest scholarly attention since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sarah Cameron's book is a significant and timely contribution to the historiography of Soviet Central Asia and the debates about the nature of Soviet modernization and nation-building in the national peripheries. Clearly structured and written in a highly accessible style, the book follows the unfolding of one of the worst famines in human history. Cameron opens the book with an overview of the nomadic economy before and during the agricultural colonization of the Kazakh Steppe, focusing particularly on the environmental conditions of the steppe and the ways in which nomads adapted to its arid climate. Cameron observes that the rapid increase in the human and livestock population of the steppe caused by the mass resettlement of Russian peasants led to the exhaustion of soil and water sources, putting considerable pressure on the resources available to Kazakhs. As greater stretches of land were transferred to new colonists, nomads began migrating shorter distances and grew more dependent on grain grown by the peasants. At the same time, the number of animals that individual nomadic groups could pasture dwindled. By 1907, the average nutrition levels of nearly half of the Kazakh population of the steppe fell below the norm. The combined turmoil of civil conflict and drought that enveloped the region between 1916 and 1920 foreshadowed the collectivization famine; although forced grain requisitions were the primary reason for the famine of 1917–1920, its scale and lethality were magnified by the drought. Chapter 2 details the first Soviet efforts to build socialism in the steppe by promoting the development of the modern Kazakh nation and implementing land reforms that transferred agricultural land from Cossacks and settlers to Kazakhs to encourage nomads to take up settled farming. The failure of these reforms, which resulted in a dramatic drop in grain production, exposed the tensions between the Soviet nationality policy and Soviet agricultural policy. Furthermore, it convinced Moscow that nomadism and the clan structure of Kazakh society were to blame for the reluctance of Kazakhs to abandon [End Page 299] their nomadic lifestyle. The closure of the New Economic Policy and the demand for grain to finance rapid industrialization in the second half of the 1920s spelled the end of expert thinking that saw nomadism as making the best possible use of the steppe resources. The beginning of "Little October" in Kazakhstan, examined in chapter 3, signaled an assault on the traditional Kazakh society. The authorities confiscated the wealthy Kazakh elites, in the process impoverishing their poor kin who depended on kinship networks for survival and protection. To mobilize support for unpopular policies and to shake loose the established and customary loyalties, the authorities recruited local Kazakhs to implement the campaign. The drought that struck northern Kazakhstan in 1928 further compounded the effects of dekulakization in the republic. The first signs of impending famine became apparent already in 1928 as Kazakhs were forced to give up their livestock or slaughter their animals to avoid confiscation, but as Cameron explains in chapter 4, Moscow prioritized grain production at the expense of pastoralism. Collectivization appeared to be the perfect solution to the issue of falling rates of grain collection as it would allow both settling the nomads and expanding the sown area by freeing up additional lands. The freed land would in turn be cultivated by agricultural settlers from European Russia. In practice, collectivization had disastrous implications for the nomadic economy; in addition to losing their livestock to collective farms, which were woefully underfunded and underprovided for–of the planned 318 million rubles only 12 million was allocated for collectivization–nomads were required to shoulder both meat and grain procurement quotas. As more Kazakhs slaughtered or sold their animals...

Climate extremes and the Eastern Turkic Empire in Central Asia

This article analyzes the effect of climate extremes on the historical processes that took place (AD 536, 581, 601, 626, and 679) in the Eastern Turkic Empire (ETE) (AD 534–745) in Central Asia. Climate extremes are sharp, strong, and sometimes protracted periods of cooling and drought that are related to volcanic eruptions that result in negative effects on the economy of a nomadic society, thus bringing famine and disease. In fact, many of these natural catastrophes were accompanied by plague pandemics among the Eastern Turks and the Chinese living in the north. The Turkic Empire can be split into several chronological periods during which significant events that changed the course of history of the nomadic state took place: AD 534–545—the rise of the Turkic Empire; AD 581–583—the division of the Turkic Empire into the Western and the Eastern Empires; AD 601–603—the rise of Qimin Qaghan; AD 627–630—the Eastern Turks are conquered by the Tang Dynasty; AD 679–687—the second rise of the Eastern Turkic Empire. The research shows that there is a connection between important historical events and climate extremes in the history of the Turkic Empire. This relationship makes it possible to present the thesis that climate did have an impact on the historical processes in the east of Central Asia, especially on the territories with a nomadic economy.

Environmental Conditionality of the Kalmyk Nomadic Economy

The development of the Kalmyk farming in the late 19th – early 20th centuries is analyzed in the present article. Special attention is paid to the problem of effective management in arid climate and marketization of the region. The article considers the indicators of Kalmyk nomadic farming development, estimates stocking level in the period under review and establishes the impact of market conditions on nomadic farming development. The article employs a wide range of sources and literature. The results demonstrate that the Kalmyk cattle-breeders ran their farms efficiently in arid climate taking market fluctuations into account. That was the indication of sufficient economic efficiency and ecological suitability of that type of economic management in the late 19th – early 20th centuries.

Judicial Intervention in Selected Colonial Boundary Disputes in South West Nigeria: Surveying the Provenance and Effects of Procedural Errors

Boundary disputes form an integral part of regular disputes commonly found across the world. There is no doubt that such disputes have occurred in both pre-colonial and colonial Nigerian societies, and more generally in both agrarian and nomadic economies around the African continent where land has been central to culture, political and family survival. Arguably, when these conflicts took place in pre-colonial polities of South-West Nigeria, they were settled. However, when the British colonial administration attempted to adjudicate in this kind of disagreement, they committed a number of procedural errors. This essay examines selected cases adjudicated by the colonial administrators who doubled as judicial officers during the colonial period with specific focus on these procedural issues. In some cases protocols were respected; but there were also cases where the procedures were relaxed in the interest of British colonial economy. It is argued here that where the procedures were followed, there was a fair resolution; whereas when procedures were relaxed, issues still remain unresolved very many years after.

Bears and humans, a Neanderthal tale. Reconstructing uncommon behaviors from zooarchaeological evidence in southern Europe

Cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), brown bear (Ursus arctos), and Neanderthals were potential competitors for environmental resources (shelters and food) in Europe. In order to reinforce this view and contribute to the ongoing debate on late Neanderthal behavior, we present evidence from zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses of bear bone remains discovered at Rio Secco Cave and Fumane Cave in northeast Italy, an extended geographic area north of the Adriatic Sea. The remains from both caves come from layers dated to 49-42 ky cal. BP, and suggest close interactions between humans and bears, with data not only limited to the association of Mousterian lithic artifacts with numerous bear remains, but also the detection of clearly preserved traces of human modification such as cut and percussion marks, which enable a reconstruction of the main steps of fur recovery and the butchering process. Examples of Neanderthal bear exploitation are extremely sporadic in Europe, and Grotta Rio Secco and Grotta Fumane can be considered rare cases of remain accumulations generated by the human predation of bears of varied age classes during or near the end of hibernation. All of this evidence suggests that bears had a strategic role in the nomadic economy of Neanderthal hunting groups.

Kindler, Robert Stalins Nomaden. Herrschaft und Hunger in Kasachstan (review)

REVIEWS 575 of ‘Uzbekness’ as a lived category, for which archival documents, here little explored, remain peerlessly the most valuable sources available. Nevertheless, Khalid has here produced a fine work, which will doubtless generate as much discussion as his previous one. London Thomas Welsford Kindler, Robert. Stalins Nomaden. Herrschaft und Hunger in Kasachstan. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg, 2016. 381 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Glossary. List of Sources. Index. €28.00 (paperback). KazakhstanpresentsonethegreatproblemsofSoviethistory.Dekulakization and collectivization were disastrous everywhere in the Soviet Union, but nowhere was the disaster as great as in Kazakhstan, where it was crowned by the sedentarization of the nomadic population. Something like a third of the population was lost to famine, disease and emigration. Horses, sheep, goats and cattle, the mainstays of the traditional nomadic economy, suffered even worse: they declined by 80 to 90 per cent between 1928 and 1934. In spite of these horrors, after 1945 Kazakhstan became one of the most quiescent and loyal of Soviet republics. In the 1980s there was no upsurge of Kazakh nationalism (compare with Ukraine, after Kazakhstan the most seriously damaged by collectivization); moreover, the Kazakh leaders actively tried to hold the Soviet Union together in 1991 as it disintegrated. How is one to explain this paradox? Kindler’s book takes us a long way towards an answer. The process need not have been so destructive: by 1925 some 65 per cent of Kazakhs were already ‘semi-nomadic’, that is, they remained on one territory most of the year, moving their flocks only a few miles in the summer. The Soviet Kazakhleadersproducedtheirowneconomicplanforthegradualdevelopment of this pattern to improve meat production for the entire country. In Moscow, however, the Soviet leaders (like the eighteenth-century North American settlers) regarded nomadic pastures as ‘unused’ or ‘unproductive’; they wanted to use them to develop grain production. They started as in other republics by imposing very heavy taxes on ‘beys’, equivalent to ‘kulaks’ elsewhere. Then they proceeded to full-scale collectivization, accompanied by sedentarization — which, if systematically carried out, should not have been terminally destructive, since so many Kazakhs were already only semi-nomadic. The real problem was the violence and lack of serious planning with which the policy was enforced. To deliver the required amount of grain, nomads had to sell their animals, which were then requisitioned by the new collective ranches and farms. No provision was made for their fodder, transport or care: many of them were left outside in the harsh winter, fell ill and infected others. SEER, 95, 3, JULY 2017 576 One result of the pressure from Moscow was actually to increase the power of Kazakh tribes. In upheavals people tend to seek protection in traditional forms of social solidarity. That meant that the effects of the Kazakh disaster were unequally distributed: stronger tribes would corner scarce resources for themselves, leaving weaker ones to suffer. The process was thus not by any means simply a matter of Russians v Kazakhs: in the implementation of the policy, Kazakhs themselves took a decisive role. The result in 1929–31 was civil war over much of the territory of Kazakhstan. For Communists this was not necessarily unwelcome: they believed that intensified conflict would lead to faster modernization. Besides, in the use of force they had the stronger weapons. Indigenous rebels were numerous but poorly armed; Kazakh rebels might succeed in taking villages and small towns for a week or two, but in the end the army or OGPU would force them out. In 1932 agriculture failed completely, and the emigration grew into a flood, whichtheauthoritieshadnowayofcontrolling,partlybecausecommunications between party and Soviet offices broke down. People simply ignored the authorities in their drive to survive in their own way. Whole towns and regions lost all or nearly all their inhabitants. Famine did not lead immediately to atomization of society, as some theorists have stated: people tried to stick together as long as they could, to members of the same tribe or as nuclear families. But once disaster became total, even these rudimentary communities would fall apart and each individual would seek his/her own salvation. For the defeated and desperate there remained only emigration, if possible with their flocks, into China. However, the Soviet authorities...

Ancient Turks and Climate Disasters in Central Asia (534–679 AD)

This paper is the first to analyse the effect climate disasters (AD 536, 581, 626, 679) had on the historical processes in the east of Central Asia in the Early Middle Ages. Climate disasters are abrupt, severe, and sometimes protracted periods of cooling and drought that produce a negative effect on the economy of a nomadic society, the reason for this being large explosive volcanic eruptions. Cooling and drought brought famine to the nomads and caused illnesses. In addition to that, all the natural catastrophes were accompanied by plague pandemics among the eastern Turks. The Turkic Empire can be split into several chronological periods characterised by significant events that changed the course of history of the nomadic state, namely, AD 534–545 — the rise of the Turkic Empire; AD 581–583 — the division of the Turkic Empire into the Western and the Eastern Empires; AD 627–630 — the Eastern Turks are conquered by China; AD 679–687 — the second rise of the Eastern Turkic Empire. The research carried out shows that there is a certain connection between the important historical events and climate disasters in the history of the Turkic Empire (AD 534–745), this factor making it possible for the author to come forth with the proposition that the climatic factor did have an effect on the historical processes in the east of Central Asia, especially on the territories that had a nomadic economy.

The Archaeology of Pastoral Nomadism

Pastoral nomadism encompasses an array of specialized knowledge concerned with the daily rhythms and long-term tempos of caring for herd animals in order to extract subsistence livelihoods. It also embodies the relational lives of herders and the diverse ways in which herd animals structure the social and symbolic worlds of mobile pastoralists. This article reviews the latest research on ancient pastoral nomadic communities that is emerging in many parts of the world. We emphasize the importance of revolutionary advances in archaeological methods and biomolecular approaches that have made visible mobile pastoralist behaviors and decision-making processes previously concealed in the archaeological record. Archaeologists are gradually producing the high-resolution, multiscalar data sets required to link together the individual, community, and regional interactions that, over time, structured pastoral nomadic economies, social and ritual lives, and political organization.

Socialist Promises, Ethnography and the Building of a Kyrgyz Soviet Nation

Abstract This article attempts to answer the question of how an ethnographic survey transformed into a political question at the heart of the young Soviet Kirghizia. The debate centered on whether a class could be made out of the manaps, the tribal chieftains, utterly suspect in Soviet eyes. The article argues that by clothing the Soviet assault on the Central Asian traditional nomadic societies in the developmentalist Marxist rhetoric, the authorities justified the elimination of a social group – manaps – that they held accountable for the backwardness and unproductiveness of the nomadic economy. Thus, the “proper” categorization of manaps had deep consequences for the theoretical and ideological legitimacy of the Soviet project of socialist construction in the national periphery.

Acker oder Weide? Die Zivilisation der Steppe und die Administration der Nomaden

The article is about the interactions between the Russian Empire and the nomadic tribes in the steppes of Central Asia. Nomadic economies and culture were urged by the Russian colonial administration to change to the sedentary lifestyle of an agrarian society. The aim was to introduce the advantages of agrarian economies through agrarian schooling. This experiment failed however, and the permanent settlement of the Steppes was only successful after the education of Russian settlers. The article follows the implementation of the school models through the debate on sedentarisation.

Acker oder Weide? Die Zivilisation der Steppe und die Administration der Nomaden

The article is about the interactions between the Russian Empire and the nomadic tribes in the steppes of Central Asia. Nomadic economies and culture were urged by the Russian colonial administration to change to the sedentary lifestyle of an agrarian society. The aim was to introduce the advantages of agrarian economies through agrarian schooling. This experiment failed however, and the permanent settlement of the Steppes was only successful after the education of Russian settlers. The article follows the implementation of the school models through the debate on sedentarisation.

The Transformation of Pastoralism in Buryatia: The Aginsky Steppe Example

AbstractThis article deals with the structure of the pastoral economy of East Trans–Baikalian Buryats (Aginsky region). The herd structure used to include the five basic species of domestic animals of Eurasia: sheep, cattle, horses and, more rarely, goats and camels. A horse was of the utmost economic and status significance. However, the quantity of sheep and goats was larger. The pastoral groups owned the land and the nomads migrated with their herds along their traditional seasonal routes. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the influence of the Russian economy on the Buryat nomadic economy began to increase. In the USSR, these processes were more intensive. A complete sedenterisation of Buryat society took place. Agriculture was developed and nearly one-quarter of the pastures were used as arable lands. The pastoral economy changed from subsistence to one that was guided by the market. Since wool and meat were valuable commodities new breeds of sheep were raised, and the number of sheep increased greatly thereby giving rise to degradation of pastures. The ecological crisis did not develop on a large scale only because political (collapse of the USSR) and economic crises were ahead of it. As a result, the cattle-breeding and livestock economies of the Aginsky Buryats have fallen into decay. At present, although a crisis situation has been held back, progress is not observed.

The Kazakness of sedentarization: Promoting progress as tradition in response to the land problem

There is little doubt that the Russian colonization of the Kazak steppe had a tremendous impact on the Kazak society during the 19th century. Russian administrators replaced the traditional leaders of the community while muzhik settlements restricted grazing lands and disrupted the nomadic economy. The very survival of the Kazak people seemed in question by the early 20th century. The most immediate threat to Kazak society was the land question, which became the principle issue of debate among those who claimed the mantle of Kazak leadership. Those engaged in this discussion were forced to struggle with the very notion of what it meant to be Kazak. Participating in this discourse was a new elite, the Kazak intelligentsia, who came to advocate the radical position that the Kazak community should change from a nomadic society to a sedentary one. They defended this position by articulating that the true nature of Kazak society was based on progress, with sedentarization being the next step in that progress. Their goal was to save their remaining pasture from further Russian settlement. To do so the Kazak intelligentsia had to posit themselves as the true leaders of the Kazak community while declaring the traditional leaders of the Kazaks, who advocated nomadism, to be the enemies of the Kazak nation. The Kazak intelligentsia based their claim of leadership on the concept of a Kazak nation. A nation that they argued was once great but since had fallen into decline because of the greed of the few—the khans, sultans, ulema and now the aqsaquls and biis. The intelligentsia’s view of these traditional leaders was that they had kept the nation divided and backward in order to serve their own whims. In order to return the Kazaks to their rightful place as a leading nation, the Kazak intelligentsia advocated modernizing Kazak society through education and sedentarization. They believed modernization would not only aid the Kazaks economically, but more importantly it was essential for the preservation of their homeland—the fundamental component of a nation. Paradoxically, this new modern elite posited themselves as leaders of the Kazak community, while at the

Finding Ways to Make a Living: Employment among the Negev Bedouin

Introduction The Bedouin in Israel are people of multiple marginalities, both by an inclination derived from nomadic social and political structure, and by their positioning vis-a-vis the competing Jewish and Palestinian nationalities. This, in turn, is reflected in their marginal economic position. In the 1940s, some 75,000 Bedouin inhabited the Negev (Marx 1967). When the region became pan of Israel in 1948, most of them became refugees in the neighbouring Arab countries. The Israeli army moved most of the remaining 11,000 Bedouin to a reservation the size of a fraction of the territory formerly utilised by them. The reservation was ruled by a military administration, which strictly controlled movements of Bedouin by a system of permits. Expropriation of land by the State, territorial displacement and restriction on movement eradicated the nomadic and semi-nomadic economy. With no assistance programmes offered by the State, most men were forced into short-term wage labour in the expanding Israeli economy of the 1960s. The gradual changes in the Bedouin's mode of livelihood helped the State argue for the necessity of settling them. The policy of sedentarisation it pursued was heavily dependent on the desire to control both the land and the population. By the 1960s, most Bedouin had abandoned herding and settled in numerous spontaneous settlements, shantytowns, constructed of corrugated iron and wooden planks. These encampments mushroomed all over the desert with daunting speed. The State claimed that they obstructed a rational use of land resources and strategic planning for the development of nature reserves, agriculture and military bases. Beginning in the 1970s, the government undertook a concerted initiative to settle the Bedouin. At present, there are seven urban conglomerates in the Negev, ranging in size from villages to towns. At first the State pursued a policy of concentrating the population in a few large settlements, which would minimise the use of land while at the same time providing better facilities to their inhabitants. The Bedouin, in turn, expressed preference for smaller centres, each occupied by a group of patrilineal kin. Their resistance to move to large towns eventually led to a change in the government's policy: settlements created since the 1980s look more like villages than urban centres. The process of settlement radically altered the Bedouin's conditions of existence. They gradually became absorbed into a complex modern economy. Yet, Bedouin localities have a higher unemployment rate and lower income per household than their Jewish counterparts, and a significant percentage of the Bedouin population lives at or below poverty level. All these reflect the growing socio-economic polarisation along ethnic lines in the Negev. To a degree, the economic situation of the Bedouin is strongly affected by the state of the national and regional economy. As an underdeveloped region, the Negev is vulnerable to fluctuations in the national economy. It fared exceptionally well at the beginning of 1990s with the help of government grants issued to assist in the absorption of the massive influx of immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Many of the immigrants were directed to this southern thinly populated region to reduce congestion in the already overcrowded central Israel. A law for Encouraging Investments intensified the construction boom that ensued. It generated economic growth, contracts and jobs. As government aid was primarily geared towards physical, rather than human, capital and the immigrant population was poorly educated and economically weak, it did not support sustainable growth. The economic slowdown in the national economy, which appeared in the mid-1990s, struck hardest in the economically underdeveloped regions, increasing the gap between the national average unemployment rate and that in the Negev to four per cent. The severe unemployment in the Negev drew national attention. …

The microlithic in China

In the 1930s as a result of discoveries of wedge-shaped (Gobi) cores at Shabarakh-usu in Mongolia, at Chikuochingtse in Xinjiang, and in the Campus site in Alaska, Nelson (1937) and Teilhard de Chardin (1939) put forward a hypothesis that culture contact might have existed between Asia and North America in ancient times. Since that time, many microlithic sites have been discovered in the vast area of East Asia and northwestern North America. Many archaeologists have engaged in a host of research projects, but the problems of where and how microlithic cultures originated are yet unsolved. In the 1940s and 195Os, microlithic assemblages were regarded as characteristic of one sort of Neolithic culture. The general idea in China and abroad was that microlithic technology had originated in the Lake Baikal area in Siberia. Some Chinese scholars regarded it as representative of cultures with a nomadic economy in grassland and desert areas, for it extended southward to the Great Wall area and stopped there, blocked by the influence of the Painted-Pottery Culture in the Yellow River Valley, and then expanded westward to Xinjiang (Pei 1954). Japanese scholars held differing opinions as to the origin of microlithic industries. Some regarded them as indigenous while others took them to be intrusive from the mainland. All these early hypotheses about microlithic industries were constrained by the limited archaeological evidence. With the excavation in recent decades of some important Upper Paleolithic sites in China, especially in North China, this problem is being illuminated by new finds. A microlith is a unique kind of stone artifact. Microcores have various shapes, such as wedge-shaped, conical, and cylindrical, and these shapes may reflect various different kinds of technology. The microlithic technique is one of the most advanced attainments in lithic technology. Microblades were generally mounted in bone or wood to form knives, saws, daggers, arrowheads, and so on. All uses of microblades, however, have not been determined fully, as many microblades were too small and

Herds and Households among Pashtun Pastoral Nomads: Limits of Growth

This article deals mainly with herd management and household budget among Pashtun nomadic pastoralists in western Afghanistan. Other aspects, such as shepherd contracts, labor organization, and economic relations with the nonpastoral world, are described briefly. The ecological data relevant to this article have been published elsewhere (Casimir et al. 1980). We will not attempt to construct a model ofthe nomadic economy, nor even of western or Central Asian nomads, but our data may be typical for those small-stock husbanders in the Arid Belt who do not suffer severely from the direct impact of modernization and of national integration and who are not seriously threatened by an expanding sedentary society. Apart from a few serious and successful attempts towards generalizing models of pastoral economy (e.g., Dahl and Hjort 1976), and despite all we know today about pastoral nomads, broad generalizations still evade us. One might even ask whether the term, pastoral nomadism, denotes a frame for meaningful generalization at all (cf. Salzman 1980). From the ethnographic material on pastoral nomads published recently it seems by far easier to falsify former theories and generaliza? tions than to establish new ones. For example, it is no longer valid to assume that there is no individual ownership of pastures (Barfield 1978; Tapper 1979; Beck 1980). Dyson-Hudson (1972:21) over ten years ago called for adequate data on pastoral nomads relating to specific situations. This lacuna has since been filled to a great extent, yet some sectors of the economy of pastoral peoples are still not adequately studied and economic variations between nomadic groups of different areas ofthe world are far from being sufficiently understood. This paper is meant as a small contribution to a more encompassing understanding of nomadism and tries to supplement recent literature on pastoral economy. In recent years the opinion that the traditional economy of pastoral nomads need not necessarily lead to a degradation of arid environments but that pastoralists are rather to be considered as part of the ecosystem in equilibrium has gained ground (Biro 1977; Casimir et al. 1980; Konszacki 1978; Swift 1977;

Nomadism in the Modern World

AbstractA Soviet specialist on the economic geography of Afghanistan and the arid zone examines contemporary processes characteristic of nomadism: the changing relationships between nomadic and settled populations and the pressures that induce nomads to adopt a settled mode of life. The gradual transformation of the nomadic economy is viewed as historically inevitable, but the problems involved in the settling process vary in different regions and depend to a large extent on the physical and economic setting of the region.

Mongolia: The Economy in 1968

Research Article| January 01 1969 Mongolia: The Economy in 1968 James McMillan James McMillan Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Far Eastern Survey (1940) 9 (1): 23–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/2642091 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation James McMillan; Mongolia: The Economy in 1968. Far Eastern Survey 3 January 1940; 9 (1): 23–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2642091 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Creating a commercial dairying industry in a nomadic pastoral economy

(1968). Creating a commercial dairying industry in a nomadic pastoral economy. Australian Geographer: Vol. 10, No. 5, pp. 392-401.