Pastoralism (Other Keyword)
101-125 (134 Records)
Interpreting the Australian rural landscape is presently an uncommon skill. While developing an archaeological test for historical and geographical locational models, the author, a consultant archaeologist based in Canberra, discovered a string of deserted villages in the eastern Riverina. This paper summarises the historical material about two of the villages to indicate the scope of data that may be overlooked by other disciplines but rediscovered by archaeologically guided research. The...
Peopling the Landscape: The Pollen Record and Nomadic Pastoralism in Iron Age Ireland (2018)
The people of the Irish Iron Age are often referred to as ‘invisible’ due to their seeming absence from the archaeological record. Ceramics, so often associated with domestic activities, are not a part of the Iron Age material culture. Burials and domestic settlements dating to the Iron Age exist, but they are the exception to the generally sparse archaeological record. In the absence of sufficient material culture and settlement patterns, other means of studying the people of the Iron Age must...
Peripatetic kingship, pilgrimage and pastoralism: Re-evaluating the politics of movement in the Ancient Near East (2017)
Pilgrimage is a popular phenomenon, one which involves people traveling to and gathering at specific places during specific times, usually as part of a shared religious tradition. In the Ancient Near East, religious travel existed alongside other forms of mobility with important political and social consequences, like peripatetic kingship—in which there is no one fixed court—a characteristic of the Urartian (ca. 800-600 BC), Achaemenid (ca. 550-330 BC), and Seleucid (ca. 300-100 BC) empires, or...
Persistence in Pastoralist Practices During the Uruk Period at Tepe Farukhabad (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Uruk period (4100 - 3100 BCE) was a transformative time in Southwest Asia, marked by the precursors of writing, the rise of urbanization, and an intensification in cross-cultural interactions. Subsistence strategies were shifting as well, as hunting declined relative to herding and animals such as sheep and goats became favored for both their primary...
The Political Ecology of Camelid Pastoralism by Wari and Tiwanaku Colonists in the Moquegua Valley, Peru (2017)
The Moquegua Valley in southern Peru was the locale where the rival early imperial states of Wari and Tiwanaku established provincial colonial centers. Both Wari and Tiwanaku colonists concentrated their settlements in the low to mid-sierra elevations of the valley, elevations that are not modern zones of camelid husbandry. The political ecology of imperial settlement at this elevation fostered the development of local systems of camelid pastoralism that were significant economic components for...
The Potential for Using Long Bone Measurements to Determine Breed of Gallus gallus domesticus and its Implications for the Archaeological Record (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Poultry remains are often found in archaeological excavations and while the species can usually be identified, there has been little research on breed identification or purpose (egg production vs. meat production). This research aims to determine if differences exist between the long bone measurements of modern chicken breeds which can be useful for the...
Presence of the Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Complex (MTBC) in ancient skeletal samples from Ukraine (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research aims to investigate biocultural interactions by studying ancient disease among the Tripolye, a Neolithic group dating to 4,900-2,900 calBC, and one of the first agricultural populations in Eastern Europe. The Tripolye lived at higher population densities and had closer contact with bovines than the hunter-gatherers that came before...
Proteomics of Symbolic Objects (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Proteomic analysis applied to ancient materials presents a novel method for investigations into past human-animal-plant interactions and can shed light on both the taxonomy and tissues of recovered proteins from archaeological residues. We analysed 85 samples from residues from symbolic objects from South Africa, Kenya, and Malawi, highlighting...
Quilcapampa and Points of Convergence in Middle Horizon Arequipa: Faunal Evidence for Extensive Interregional Interaction (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wari and the Far Peruvian South Coast: Final Results of Excavations in Quilcapampa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Quilcapampa was an important point of convergence for communities from around the southern Andean region with these people and/or their material culture suggesting extensive interregional interaction. The zooarchaeological work conducted on the vertebrate remains from Quilcapampa will be presented in this...
A Re-examination of the Animal Bone Remains from Rojdi, a Sorath Harappan Site in Northwest India (2018)
The later 3rd and early 2nd millennium site of Rojdi in Gujarat, India was excavated under the direction of the Professor Gregory Possehl d over eight field seasons between 1982 and 1995. Rojdi is an agricultural village with substantial stone architecture, most of which dates to the early second millennium (1900-1700 BCE). Significant progress has been made in our understanding of the Sorath Harappan culture, including detailed ceramic studies, analyses of archaeobotanical materials, and...
Reassessing Plants and Pastoralist Foodways in Ancient Eastern Africa: A Preliminary Report on New Excavations at Luxmanda, Tanzania (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scholars increasingly emphasize that pastoralist foodways centered on livestock systems—being variable and flexible—are especially responsive to climate stress and other drivers of food insecurity. We ask something ostensibly simple but as yet poorly understood in eastern Africa: How, and why, have pastoralist foodways...
Reconstructing Multiregional Pastoral Strategies in the South-Central Andes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient Andean pastoralism involved variable herding strategies, including short-term movements within the same ecozone, long-distance caravans for trade, and seasonal mobility across various altitudes. These multiregional pastoral practices are often difficult to differentiate in the archaeological record, yet they are central for understanding the...
Refining Ecological Contexts of Animal Herding: Implications for Culture Process (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Global Perspectives on Human Population Dynamics, Innovation, and Ecosystem Change" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous research that derived expectations from hunter-gatherer macroecology demonstrates that the combination of effective temperature zones and setting near coastlines or very large interior lakes display distinct patterns of resource intensification. These patterns allow researchers to predict the...
Rethinking Caprines-As-Capital: Pastoralism and the Low-Power States of Early Mesopotamia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In ancient Mesopotamia, animal husbandry was intimately bound up with the process of state making. The twin institutional powers of palace and temple managed enormous herds of sheep and goats. But were these animals mere wealth-on-the-hoof, staple goods supporting a classic system of staple finance? Or were they something else, operating...
Riego de bofedales y formas de construcción de un paisaje pastoril de origen prehispánico, Andes centro sur (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Water Management in the Andes: Past, Present, and Future" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Distintos factores han llevado a conceptualizar el altiplano como un espacio hostil y deshumanizado, y el pastoreo de camélidos como una forma única de subsistencia en este ambiente “extremo”. Desde esta óptica, se ha promovido que los pastores andinos aprovechan los pastos que crecen aquí naturalmente sin intervenir en su...
Ritual Sites as Anchors in a Dynamic Landscape: The Social and Economic Importance of Monumental Cemeteries Built by Eastern Africa’s Earliest Herders (2018)
In eastern Africa, herding was the earliest form of food production, supplanting fishing-hunting-gathering around Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) ca. 5000-4000 BP. Fueled by the dramatic recession of Lake Turkana 5300-3900 BP, which made fishing less predictable and exposed vast plains of rich pasture near the lake, early herding probably involved both in-migration of pastoralists and adoption of livestock by local fishers. As herding took hold a mortuary tradition developed, with megalithic...
Scales of Mobility: Oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) isotopic insights into Xiongnu herding practice (2015)
Herding strategies involving the regular movement of domesticates to new pastures is a critical feature of pastoralist subsistence strategies. However, the utility of strontium isotope analysis as a proxy for mobility becomes complicated in regions where geological substrates are either homogenous over a wide area or are heterogeneous over small distances. Taking advantage of the geographic sensitivity of carbon and oxygen isotopes to precipitation levels, altitude, and latitude, we explore...
Settlement Persistence in Northwestern Mongolia: Archaeological and Paleoenvironmental Insights from the Long-Term Occupation Site ZK513 (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Mongolian Bronze Age (2500–700 BCE) was a period of greater social interaction and important transformations (e.g., the adoption of domestic livestock herding and intensification to widespread mobile, mounted pastoralism) that prompted social inequality and the formation of the first nomadic states. What is known...
Substantial intensity of millet agriculture during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Kazakhstan is revealed in δ13C and δ18O time series of incrementally sampled livestock teeth (2017)
This paper presents carbon and oxygen isotopic values incrementally sampled from mandibular molars of domesticated livestock from pastoralists sites in eastern, central, and northern Kazakhstan with Bronze and Iron Age occupations. The intra-tooth patterning of δ13C and δ18O values are used to characterize millet consumption from foddering and grazing on stubble in harvested fields. Results indicate that some animals were seasonally consuming large proportions of C4 plants as early as 2400 cal...
The Tabular Scraper Trade: Complexities of a Prehistoric Pastoral Trade System (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Originally modelled as a down-the-line exchange system from the desert to the settled zone, analyses of previously unpublished materials synthesized with newer materials indicate that the flint tabular scraper production and distribution system was a complex mixture of local desert consumption and long distance trade of objects that changed in function, role,...
Taskscapes of Reindeer Herding: Changes in the Land-Use Dynamics and Campsite Organization of the Sámi Pastoralists of Northern Fennoscandia c. 700–1800 AD (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Empirical Approaches to Mobile Pastoralist Households" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domestication of reindeer commenced amongst the Sámi of northern Fennoscandia in the 8th century AD, and was accompanied by significant cultural changes. This presentation focuses on diachronic changes in the land-use, inter- and intra-site settlement patterns and human-environmental relations. I focus especially on two pivotal...
Tiwanaku Pastoralism, Highland Bofedales, and Grasslands in Far Southern Peru: Creating a Strontium Baseline and Isoscape to Understand Cultural Connections (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Culture Contact and Diversity in Southern Peru" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Camelid pastoralism was an economic mainstay of the Tiwanaku Empire (~AD 600-1000). Communities of colonists in Moquegua, Peru were connected to their Tiwanaku capital near Lake Titicaca through an informal trade route traversing the altiplano. One component of Tiwanaku hegemony involved the movement of goods via llama caravans...
Toward a Multispecies Perspective on Human-Animal Networks in Early Urban Societies of Upper Mesopotamia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Decades before anthropologists advocated for multispecies anthropology and ethnography, Richard Redding was charting a new path for a multispecies approach to anthropological archaeology. His research reveals an implicit awareness of the complexity of human-animal relationships that is a hallmark of...
Tracking Changes in Mongolian Herding Activity and Settlement Patterns in Response to Climatic Events (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mongolian hunter-gatherers underwent a widespread transition to pastoralism during the Late Bronze Age (3.4-2.3 ka). As early herders left little material trace, not much is known about their population distribution or land use patterns, especially in climatic context. Late Bronze Age pastoralists would have been vulnerable to summer droughts and extreme...
Understanding Reindeer Riding in the Archaeological Record of Northeast Asia through Ethnoarchaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Exploring Long-Term Pastoral Dynamics: Methods, Theories, Stories" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Although the innovation of reindeer transport transformed societies across Northeast Asia, tracing the prehistory of reindeer domestication and riding has proven particularly challenging. Recent cross-species archaeozoological research has built an expanded paleopathological toolkit, but to date there are few mechanisms...