Pastoralism (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Chazin.

This paper is the first part of a two-part exploration of the use of taphonomy as an archaeological technique across prehistoric archaeology and the archaeology of the contemporary. Parts I and II are a dialogue, through which both authors have re-approached their own work on taphonomy as an archaeological method and analytic. Part I is an exploration of how approaching taphonomy as history opens up the possibility of exploring the political ramifications of pastoral practices. The...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Meghan Dwan.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rise of urban living, particularly in the Southern Levant, often reflects a shift towards market economies and removed relationships with food– the transition from direct to indirect relationships with herding domesticated livestock. However, questions remain regarding if this transition from “direct” to “indirect” translated to all aspects of food...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jesse Wolfhagen.

This is an abstract from the "The Expanding Bayesian Revolution in Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Profiles of stable oxygen isotopic values (δ18O) from archaeofaunal tooth enamel provide in-depth information about the past environments in which animals lived while their teeth mineralized. Cyclical regression models can fit a specimen’s isotopic profile to a particular sinusoidal curve to estimate aspects of past environments and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Neil Norman. Madeline Gunter. Bruce Larson. Hayden Bassett.

Today, the Afar Region of East Africa is known for barren landscapes and some of the hottest average temperatures in the world. However, archaeological and climatological evidence suggests that over the last 3 million years the region has also exhibited temperate Savanna climes. This paper presents new archaeological data that chronicles the Oldowan through Islamic periods at the eastern edge of the Rift Valley. It begins the project of describing how deep historical processes intersected...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Zhuldyz Tashmanbetova. Paula Doumani Dupuy. Aidyn Zhuniskhanov.

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The tradition of practicing mobile pastoralism in Central Asia’s steppe, forest-steppe, and foothill regions stretches back to at least the Bronze Age period (ca. 3500–800 BC). This preliminary study explores environmental biases and related human choices in livestock management during the period of early emergence and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Rubinson. Katheryn Linduff.

This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in Central Asian Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Pazyryk Culture, situated in the Altai Mountains of Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China, flourished for a relatively short period, fifth–third centuries BCE. A series of burial grounds from the later phase, fourth–mid-third centuries BCE, reveal the remains of three groups of individuals of high, mid, and lower status....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Duo Tian. Jian Ma. Tongyuan Xi. Meng Ren. Xinyi Liu.

This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The region of east Tianshan Mountains, located in east edge of Central Asia, has a diverse natural environment that is suitable for a variety of subsistence. The first millennium BC was a period with fluctuating climate and rapid cultural interactions in this region. This study conducted...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ted L Gragson. Michael R Coughlan.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Every summer since at least AD 1000, hundreds of Basque herders from dozens of villages across the 1500 km2 Soule Valley in the French Western Pyrenees have converged with thousands of sheep on 90 km2 of high mountain rangeland in the parish-community of Larrau. The summer convergence of herders and sheep over the last millennium...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anneke Janzen. Mary Prendergast. Katherine Grillo.

This is an abstract from the "African Archaeology throughout the Holocene" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. East African pastoralists today rely on extensive social networks through which livestock are exchanged to maintain herds. The role of such animal exchange networks among ancient pastoralist communities can be revealed through stable isotope analysis. Pastoral Neolithic sites are broadly distributed across southern Kenya and northern Tanzania....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Wade Campbell.

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Navajo Pastoral Landscape Project is an ongoing study that explores the potential ways that incipient Indigenous pastoralism influenced early Navajo community life circa AD 1750. The recent dung-based identification of potential livestock enclosure features at four...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abigail Stone.

In the Sahel, the Fulani are considered the archetypal cattle herders. Although their spread across West Africa is poorly understood, their arrival had profound effects on local populations. In Mali’s Inland Niger Delta, historical sources and isotopic analysis of archaeological cattle, sheep, and goat teeth from the site of Jenné-jeno and the modern town of Djenné suggest that specialized Fulani pastoralists arrived in the Delta between the 13th and 15th centuries AD. This coincided with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksa Alaica.

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A multispecies approach to archaeology creates the potential for inclusive debate on the value of identity among both human and nonhuman beings. This paper explores the way that camelid life histories where shaped by and influenced sociopolitical relationships among the Late Moche...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Matthew Fuka.

Extensive bioarchaeological research has addressed questions about stress, pathology, and activity in agricultural and semi-agricultural populations throughout the archaeological record, yet comparable studies pertaining to nomadic pastoral and semi-pastoral groups are relatively rare. During the Bronze Age in the Eurasian Steppes, archaeological evidence suggests a transition of lifeways from semi-sedentary agricultural to nomadic pastoralist. Entheseal analyses in bioarchaeology introduce an...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Ventresca Miller.

Ancient animal management strategies have important implications for debates on modern pastoral landscape use in Eurasia. As livestock production intensifies in in semi-arid regions there is a need to identify the diverse set of strategies employed by pastoralists. Sequential carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analysis of teeth from domesticated sheep at Bronze Age sites in Kazakhstan exhibit varied isotopic sequences. Sheep from Kent exhibit an inverse relationship where low δ18O values...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Michael Pearson.

In this paper the author, who is Historian in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, reconstructs the little-known process of station-based woolscouring from documentary and archaeological evidence. It is argued that the relatively Late survival of this form of scouring In western New South Wales resulted primarily from severely limited transport facilities. The considerable variation in scour design, evident in the literature and at Mount Wood, as attributed to individual...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Janz.

During the early and middle Holocene the deserts of Mongolia and northern China were characterized by arid grasslands and numerous lakes and wetlands. Specialized wetland exploitation defined land-use during this period, but more detailed data on subsistence is not clear. The prevalent use of microlithic technology and the lack of architectural structures underscores the presumption that these groups were highly mobile hunter-gatherers, but increasing evidence reveals that pastoralism spread...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Morgan Windle.

This is an abstract from the "Multispecies Frameworks in Archaeological Interpretation: Human-Nonhuman Interactions in the Past, Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rangifer tarandus (reindeer and caribou) are a keystone species that have shaped the complex fabric of mobile hunter-fisher societies in North Asia, not only as herded animals and wild game but as animate persons. In western Siberia and northern Mongolia, descendant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Eklund.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Monument construction has long been associated with the rise of early civilizations and states. Recent trends in anthropological archaeology have also identified the crucial role of monuments in processes of social integration among small, mobile populations. This poster will present results from a detailed geophysical and geochemical study of these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jingchao Chen.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research is the first of its kind to be conducted on Medieval potshards from Mongolia and China (10-14 centuries CE). It analyzes pottery vessels found at garrison sites associated with lines of walls and border demarcation that were constructed by the Liao (916-1125 CE) and Jin (1115-1234 CE) dynasties. It enables us to trace the food remains of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksa Alaica. Luis Manuel Gonzalez La Rosa.

This is an abstract from the "Bridging Time, Space, and Species: Over 20 Years of Archaeological Insights from the Cañoncillo Complex, Jequetepeque Valley, Peru, Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Moche artistic representations are known for their composite images of plants, animals, humans, and supernatural forms. The genesis of this artistic tradition rests in the beliefs about the relations between species, environments, and worlds. Food...

DOCUMENT Citation Only BrieAnna Langlie.

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Around 1100 CE, a century-long drought ushered in an era of political balkanization and prolonged conflict across the highland Andes. During this time, known locally as the Late Intermediate Period (LIP; 1100-1450 CE), people built defensible hilltop settlements and refuges where very little farming is carried out today, particularly in the Colca Valley....

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Anthony. Dorcas Brown.

This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We found our first entry into steppe archaeology in 1989-1992 through a study of microwear caused by bits on horse teeth, which we hoped would identify bitted, and therefore ridden or driven, horses. From then through to the publication of the Samara Valley Project (2016) we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Flora Vilches. Hector Morales.

Towards the end of the 19th Century, the subsistence mode of indigenous Atacameño society transited from an agricultural-pastoral economy to a more diversified capitalist-based one. This transformation resulted from a growing mining industry in the northern region of Chile. While part of the indigenous population migrated to the new productive enclaves, others remained in their territory, especially the herders of the puna. These highlanders, however, also took part of the new capitalist order...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Bryan Hanks. Gideon Shelach-Lavi. William Honeychurch. Chunag Amartuvshin. Marc Berman.

This is an abstract from the "Beyond “Barbarians”: Dimensions of Military Organization at the Bleeding Edge of the Premodern State" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The eastern Eurasian steppe region was a dynamic area of contact between Chinese dynasties and pastoral nomadic communities occupying the steppe ecological zone. Between the tenth and twelfth centuries AD the situation was even more complex as the people of nomadic or seminomadic origins...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elise Dufour. Nicolas Goepfert. Gabriel Prieto. John Verano.

Excavations at the Chimú site of Huanchaquito located in the Moche Valley (northern coast of Peru) leaded to the discovery of an exceptional sacrificial deposit of more than 200 domestic camelid skeletons. This finding adds to the many testimonies of the presence of camelids on the Peruvian coast during the pre-Hispanic era. The abundant presence of animals suggests - but does not bring definitive evidence - that breeding took place locally in an unfavorable arid environment. Measurements of...