Nomadic Migration Research Articles

Eurasian pastoralists and their shifting regional interactions at the steppe margin: settlement history at Mukri, Kazakhstan

Recent excavations at the prehistoric and historic encampment at Mukri, in the foothills of the Dzhungar Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan, challenge the view that it was a small, isolated pastoralist camp situated in an ecologically marginal territory. When viewed as a strategically situated node within a dynamic ecology of pastoralist activity, the site's archaeology reveals shifting patterns of land use and networks of interaction that contributed to socio-political change and material diffusion over millennia. This article draws on the granular archaeological evidence of continuity and change at Mukri to understand how pastoralist societies, in local contexts, resonated broader trends in the documentary history of Inner Eurasia. We highlight the effectiveness of pastoralists' strategies in order to reconsider common paradigms of extensive nomadic migrations and episodic conquest as appropriate explanatory models for Eurasian pastoralists throughout antiquity.

Holocene climatic change and the nomadic Anthropocene in Eastern Tibet: palynological and geomorphological results from the Nianbaoyeze Mountains

Our study provides detailed information on the Lateglacial landscape and vegetation development of Tibet. Based on a suite of geomorphological and palynological proxy data from the Nianbaoyeze Shan on the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau (33°N/101°E, 3300–4500 m asl.), we reconstruct the current state as a function of climate history and the longevity of human influence. Study results constrain several major phases of aeolian sedimentation between 50–15 ka and various glacier advances during the Late Pleistocene, the Holocene and the Little Ice Age. Increased aeolian deposition was primarily associated with periods of more extensive glacial ice extent. Fluvial and alluvial sediment pulses document an increase of erosion starting at 3926 ± 79 cal yr B.P., coinciding with cooling (Neoglacial) and a growing anthropo-zoogenic influence. Evidence for periglacial mass movements indicate that the late Holocene cooling started at around 2000 cal yr B.P., demonstrating increased surface activity under the combined effects of human influence and climate deterioration. The onset of peat growth generally depended on local conditions that include relief, meso-climate and in more recent times also on soil compaction due to animal trampling. We distinguish three initiation periods of peat growth: 12,700–10,400 cal yr B.P. for flat basins inside last glacial terminal moraines; 7000–5000 cal yr B.P. for the main valley floors; and 3000–1000 cal yr B.P. for the higher terrace surfaces. The Holocene vegetation history started with an open landscape dominated by pioneer shrubs along braided rivers (<10,600–9800 cal yr B.P.), followed by the spreading of conifers ( Picea, Juniperus, Abies) and Betula-trees accompanied by a successive closing of the vegetation cover by Poaceae, Cyperaceae and herbs (9800–8300 cal yr B.P.). First signs of nomadic presence appear as early as 7200 cal yr B.P., when temperatures were up to 2 °C warmer than today. Forest remained very patchy with strong local contrasts. During the following cooling phase (5900–2750 cal yr B.P.) the natural vegetation was transformed by nomadic grazing to Bistorta-rich Kobresia pygmaea-pastures. Modern nomadic migration routes were established at least 2200 years ago. Overgrazing and trampling led to the shrinking of Bistorta and the spreading of annual weeds. Short-lived cold events (8000, 6200, 3500 cal yr B.P.) impacted on the vegetation only temporarily. As the transformation of the natural Poaceae-rich vegetation into Kobresia-pastures modified the influence of the Tibetan Plateau (“hot plate”) on the monsoon system, our data even point to an early start of a nomadic (!) Anthropocene nearly 6000 years ago. Against the background of a very long grazing history, modern Tibet must be seen as a cultural landscape.

Migration differential evolution ensemble and its application in predicting RNA secondary structure

A comparative study of optimization and nomadic migration shows that there are similarities between the two processes.Migration strategy was proposed by the simulation of nomadic migration,and the capability of overcoming local extremum was improved.At the same time,the algorithm with ensemble technique sufficiently exerted the advantages of different differential evolution and carried out harmonious evolution,and the global search capability of the algorithm was enhanced.Finally,the new algorithm has been used to predict RNA secondary structure;the experiments show that the algorithm is effective.

‘It Takes Two Hands to Clap’: How Gaddi Shepherds in the Indian Himalayas Negotiate Access to Grazing

This article examines the effects of state intervention on the workings of informal institutions that coordinate the communal use and management of natural resources. Specifically it focuses on the case of the nomadic Gaddi shepherds and official attempts to regulate their access to grazing pastures in the Indian Himalayas. It is often predicted that the increased presence of the modern state critically undermines locally appropriate and community‐based resource management arrangements. Drawing on the work of Pauline Peters and Francis Cleaver, I identify key instances of socially embedded ‘common’ management institutions and explain the evolution of these arrangements through dynamic interactions between individuals, communities and the agents of the state. Through describing the ‘living space’ of Gaddi shepherds across the annual cycle of nomadic migration with their flocks I explore the ways in which they have been able to creatively reinterpret external interventions, and suggest how contemporary arrangements for accessing pasture at different moments of the annual cycle involve complex combinations of the formal and the informal, the ‘traditional’ and the ‘modern’.

Human-Animal Relations in Pastoralism

Humans and Reindeer on the Move, this special issue of Nomadic Peoples, carries a challenging intent of purpose. It aims to give a state-of-the-art. comparative perspective of reindeer management spread around the circumpolar rim. Reindeer-related livelihoods encompass the topic in such diverse and multiple ways that movement becomes not only the overarching 'glue' of this special issue; it also invites us, together with the authors, to contribute theoretically to our understanding of the move. The title 'Humans and Reindeer on the Move' stands therefore for a theoretical framework in several dimensions. Movement of humans and reindeer is understood by the authors of this volume in multiple ways including the literal sense, namely migrations of pastoral nomads with reindeer, but also as the constant move between engaging with wild and domestic reindeer. Movement is also the transition from a Soviet planned economy to a market-oriented one, which finds expression in the movement of goods and gifts within various spheres of exchange. Finally, we can attempt to clarify the importance and essence of movement in pastoralists' minds, as compared with categories of mobility created by non-pastoralists. All these multiple facets are covered by the contributors to this volume, while we focus in this introduction on the move between what we will call symbiotic domestication in human-reindeer relations, and rationalisation leading to full resource use at the cost of intimate human-animal relations. The contributions, all thoroughly grounded in fieldwork data. were carefully chosen to provide such a broad regional distribution. However. more than this. our reason for focus on reindeer-based economies and livelihoods was precisely to highlight important variables of significance in the study of pastoralism in general. We maintain that the human-reindeer relationship, or rather its various changeable relationships, pinpoint determinants of principle in the development and practice of all forms of pastoralism (and other human-animal-based partnerships or modes of exploitation). These principles might not be apparent through the study of reindeer systems of livelihood alone, but they certainly shine forth prominently there, because of the unique spread over wild, feral, and domestic conditions of the species Rangifer tarandus, and the many associations these different populations have with humans--it might well be that some of these Rangifer populations are exploited as objects of the hunt and others of domestic herding by the same people at the same time (see, for example, Ventsel, this volume). The reindeer-human connection thus brings together a remarkable laboratory for the study of key determinants in many of the most important human-animal interrelations, and, to our way thinking, explodes common analytical typologies. Dovetailing with the above theoretical aspiration for this special issue is the intent to provide a much-needed update into circumpolar reindeer affairs. With the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, especially, the multitude of reindeer-based livelihoods and cultures has become open to anthropological study like never before. Increasingly over the last decades, northern 'reindeer peoples' have mobilised themselves according to all manner of nationally variable criteria of indigeneity and international protective conventions. Of further significance is the dramatic rise of encroachment of wild reindeer in Eurasia and caribou in North America on domestic reindeer operations that led to significant decreases in the populations of the latter, again challenging reindeer herders' capacity to respond flexibly to rapidly changing natural and social environments. Therefore, several of the contributions in this volume (Ventsel, Gray, Finstad et al., Anderson) deal with the clash and sometimes the integration of reindeer hunting and herding. Besides occasioning the demand for empirical update, all of these concrete historical developments provide, through their variation, the basis for the theoretical speculations presented here. …

From Italy to East London

Received: 11 August 2005 Revised: 27 September 2005 Accepted: 29 September 2005 ‘Antonio! I’ve discovered a new Vietnamese restaurant, you have to try it, it’s excellent!’ this kind of conversation has been very common over the years I spent side by side with Claudio at the LSE. We moved to London at almost the same time and we both had to find out how to settle in the city. Our daily conversations while having breakfast at the student bar at the LSE or having lunch at the Senior Dining Room, centred on the basic problems we both encountered when we first moved to London: what are the best areas to live? (we both agree: East London); is it worth buying a flat or not?; where are the most interesting places for shopping? and the nicest delicatessens?; what is the best bakery for bread? (according to Claudio it was in Angel, North London!) and the best one for chocolate cake? (in Clerkenwell!, here we both agreed!). Every time we found something interesting, we immediately exchanged our new discoveries. All my friends have been to a very nice Turkish restaurant in East London, known as ‘Claudio’s Turkish restaurant’, because I first went there with Claudio. These conversations were common even during Claudio’s illness. Every time I went to visit him at the hospital in Milan, he was asking if I had discovered some new restaurant, shop or bar in London and, if I had, he wanted to know all about it. My map of London is a shared frame that has been built through these daily conversations we had during the years. This mind-set, Claudio’s never fulfilled curiosity for the surrounding world, has also been the main driver of his research. He was never satisfied by one theory, or approach. He always searched for new and different ways to contribute to the debates in the field. He asked his students to contribute with challenging ideas that swerve from the standing assumptions. This (re)search for new ideas, new ways of understanding technology and its use, I consider to be the richest lesson he has left us. Researchers might disagree on Claudio’s main contributions to the field: we have people that associate Claudio Ciborra with his seminal analysis of transaction costs economics and information systems; for others Claudio’s work is the one of hospitality and groupware; for others it is the inspiring research he has led on the theme of information infrastructures; most recently it is his use of phenomenology in the study of information systems. However, the development of ideas such as ‘mediating technologies’, ‘tinkering’, ‘hospitality’, ‘care’, ‘gestell’, ‘improvisation’, ‘drift’, ‘duality of risk’, are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the contributions Claudio has made. The proliferation of these ideas is in fact not a schizophrenic nomadic migration in the mind of a very clever intellectual. In his talks, papers, and as a leading figure in the Department of Information Systems at the LSE, Claudio has provided a very clear, linear message to his colleagues and his students. He always advised: ‘never stop at the first bar if you want to test the best wine’. His journey is not a detour from the mainland of the information system discipline, but rather a constant search for a better and richer way to develop the same discipline providing a better understanding of the complex nature of technology in the contemporary business and social world. Claudio’s research was driven by a curiosity for exploring new European Journal of Information Systems (2005) 14, 465–466 & 2005 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved 0960-085X/05 $30.00

Changpa Nomadic Pastoralists: Differing Responses to Change in Ladakh, North-West India

This brief report presents some findings of a study conducted among the nomadic pastoral Changpa in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh. The research forms the basis of a doctoral dissertation in human geography, focusing on the rural to urban migration of nomads in Ladakh. The study uses the theoretical literature on human migration to examine the sedentarisation process that has gained momentum in the latter decades of the Twentieth Century. The sedentarisation of nomadic pastoralists in Ladakh is taking place amidst a global trend toward settlement (Barfield 1993; Blench 2001). Despite a few exceptions, where pastoralism either continues to thrive or is being revitalised by market reforms, many nomadic pastoral communities are facing an unprecedented rate of change, as they are increasingly drawn into national economies.

Contemporary Dimensions of Migration among Historically Migrant Nigerians

The article places the migration of Fulani pastoral nomads to south-western Nigeria in historical context. Their transhumant pastoralism has had the potential for violence with their Yoruba host communities, but in recent times their movements have avoided the violence which their economic activites might have generated. The absence of proper documentation of this migration raises the problem of examining the historical events or movements of "outsiders" because of their "foreignness." Yet, discussion of current migration and refugee issues would be incomplete if the role and the conditions of the historically migrant Fulani were ignored. A consideration of how conflicts have been resolved or avoided demonstrates that the relationships between nomads and their Yoruba hosts may have some in sights into the interaction between refugee populations and their hosts.

Contemporary Dimensions of Migration among Historically Migrant Nigerians: Fulani Pastoralists in Southwestern Nigeria

The article places the migration of Fulani pastoral nomads to south-western Nigeria in historical context. Their transhumant pastoralism has had the potential for violence with their Yoruba host communities, but in recent times their movements have avoided the violence which their economic activites might have generated. The absence of proper documentation of this migration raises the problem of examining the historical events or movements of outsiders because of their foreignness. Yet, discussion of current migration and refugee issues would be incomplete if the role and the conditions of the historically migrant Fulani were ignored. A consideration of how conflicts have been resolved or avoided demonstrates that the relationships between nomads and their Yoruba hosts may have some insights into the interaction between refugee populations and their hosts.

Changing Resource Management Strategies and Their Environmental Impacts in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco

This paper discusses the social, economic, and ecological changes in terms of sustainable development in the mountain areas of North Africa. In many mountain ranges in Morocco, such as the Rif, the High Atlas, and the Anti Atlas, centuries old sedentary communities depended on terracing, cultivation of steep slopes, and intensive animal breeding. However, until the 1950s the northwestern section of the Middle Atlas was inhabited by semi-nomadic groups who depended on the summer pastures and in winter migrated to the surrounding lowlands in search of pasture and arable land. The paper recalls the cultural determinants behind these indigenous resource-use practices that no longer exist. During the last 35 years the pastoral nomadic migrations have disappeared; the people have settled permanently in the highlands for the first time and are engaged in a new pattern of agropastoral activities. The paper seeks explanation for the radical change in the perception and use of mountain resources. The detrimental impacts of these change processes endanger the viability of the natural resource base.

Cattle Movement and Its Ecological Implications in the Middle Niger Valley Area of Nigeria

Nomadic migration of cattle in the middle Niger valley is an age-old traditional method of raising cattle by pastoralism. However, this method of free-grazing of animals has been observed to affect some of the ecological balances of the savanna ecobiome. These ecological effects include denudation of the soil through excessive and repeated trampling by cattle on permanent routes, destruction of vegetational structure through uncontrolled burning and tree-lopping by pastorallists, dissemination of animal diseases due to long-distance trekking and unrestricted movement of cattle, and other social problems such as conflict with farmers when animals infiltrate into arable farmlands.With increasing use of the limited land-resources for other human activities, the need to create grazing reserves and provide infrastructures to reduce the widespread movement of cattle is recommended. This will improve the productivity of cattle and check any unfavourable ecological repercussions resulting from their unrestricted movement.

The Western World and the Far East: Conflicting Relationships

The aim of this essay is to describe the nature of the relationships between two worlds, the Roman-Hellenistic and the Oriental; and speaking more precisely of the traditional and geographic division of mankind, we may say, Europe and the Far East. The relations go back to the age of the great nomadic migrations through the vast sea of the steppes, stretching from Mongolia through Central Asia to Asia Minor and the Black Sea.

Studies of Semi-Nomadism in North Africa

Cd LASSIFICATIONS are basic in our teaching of geography. They are more or less logical simplifications to facilitate our understanding of the range and diversity of physical and human phenomena, and among the more common classifications to appear in our textbooks are those of rocks, strata, landforms, streams, climates, soils, vegetation, races, cultures, settlements, economies, and modes of life. Some classifications are spatial, some are divisions of time and some are both, but none are comprehensive. Thus, only a few elements may be used in a classification of climates, only a few factors of pedogenesis in a classification of soils, and in a classification of towns it is almost impossible to consider all the relevant features or factors in their evolution. Similarly, the migrations of pastoral nomads have been classified according to distances covered, periodicity, duration of departure, location, and type of livestock, as well as by combinations of these aspects. Which is the most satisfactory? Obviously classifications are intrinsically arbitrary. It is evident, moreover, that classifications of mankind are inevitably less satisfactory than those of factors in the physical environment because man is so dynamic. His mobility, adaptability, reasoning, and procreative powers have meant constant changes in his numbers, distribution, and social, economic, and political activities; and consequently human classifications, distributional or historical, have none of the apparent rigidity of those of the environment. Sometimes, therefore, it is not fully realized that a division of primitive economies into a few broad types, such as hunting and collecting, pastoral nomadism, and sedentary cultivation, masks many intermediate stages. Many modes of life do not fall into any of these categories because they involve varied activities. Some reflect a transition between two types, although one should be beware of the idea of a hierarchy of economic evolution, each step being necessary to all groups.