Pastoralism (Other Keyword)
51-75 (134 Records)
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Hearth Fatigue: Excavation of a Deeply Stratified Campsite from the Medieval Era in Northern Mongolia (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. Until recently there were only a few examples of deeply stratified habitation sites in Mongolia. During survey, we located an erosional gully with several hearths, an ash lens, and cultural materials. Initial radiocarbon dates indicate that the site was occupied from 1000 to 1400 CE, spanning the pre-Mongol through Yuan...
Herbivore Dung Biomarkers: A Reference Collection for the Archaeology of Pastoral Domestic Spaces in Western and Central Mongolia (2021)
This is an abstract from the "New Directions in Mongolian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lipid biomarkers such as alkanes, fatty acids, and steroids together with their stable carbon and hydrogen isotope ratios are nowadays leading proxies for the identification of past climate variability, human activities, and animal presence in a site. These can be extracted from modern feces, desiccated dung, and soil sediments. When applied to...
Herder land use and nutrient hotspots in southern Kenya: geochemical analysis of anthropogenic soil enrichment. (2017)
Mobile herding societies are often considered to leave behind few traces in the archaeological record, however pastoral settlements may have helped shape the broader landscape. Herders relying on domesticated cattle, sheep and goat arrived in the most productive grasslands of East Africa >3600 calBP years ago. Our collaborative research investigates the legacies of their land-use through geoarchaeological analyses. We present results of analyses of five Pastoral Neolithic era archaeological...
Herding in Shifting Politics: A Preliminary Isotopic Study on Dian Lake Faunal Remains, Southwestern China (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper combines isotope analysis from collagen and hydroxyapatite patterns from the Bronze Age to imperial periods in the humid sub-tropical highlands of southwestern China. We sampled and analyzed 28 faunal bones and 4 teeth from two occupation sites in the Lake Dian basin that are associated with the Dian polity (ca. 700 – 100 BC) and span into the...
Horse Warriors and Warrior Horses (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Survey in the Rio Grande Gorge of New Mexico over the past decade has revealed a robust corpus of Plains Biographic rock art depicting the coups and accomplishments of human warriors. While horses are equally present, most of them are secondary to the narratives depicted and appear as ridden mounts or captured wealth. However, an...
“I Had a Reindeer Called Onni . . .”: Reindeer Stories, Memory, and the Continuation of Reindeer Herding Culture in Northern Fennoscandia (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. In recent years, ethnoarchaeological research combining archaeological evidence and traditional knowledge of reindeer herders has added considerably to our understanding of cultural meanings of various reindeer herding practices traceable through the archaeological record. One important aspect brought forward by...
Identifying Animal Management Practices Using Oxygen Isotopes in Neolithic Croatia (2018)
Transhumance is a typical Mediterranean adaptation for securing adequate forage and water for domesticates by seasonally bringing animals to new pasture. However the antiquity of this adaptation is unclear. We present new oxygen isotope data from the Dalmatian coast, Croatia, to test the hypothesis that Neolithic herds were seasonally transhumant. Incremental sampling of ancient animal teeth produced data that are compared with modern isotope data of water showing altitudinal variation to assess...
Improved Taxonomic Resolution of Eurasian Cervidae Using Collagen Peptide Mass Fingerprinting (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The human-deer relationship extends deep into antiquity, with many members of the Cervidae family long being utilized as raw materials, foodstuff, medicine, as well as ceremonial objects. However, few studies have emphasized species identification within the Cervidae family, largely due to morphological similarities between different Cervid species, and...
The Influence of Pastoral Cultivation Strategies and Novel Cuisines on Newly Introduced Crops in Central Asia during the Bronze and Iron Ages (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When crops are spread into new landscapes, communities, and their associated subsistence practices and culinary preferences, the crops undergo substantial selective pressure. This pressure can come in the form of new environmental constraints, such as a different growing season, or cultural pressure from differences in preferred taste, productivity, or...
Insights from Ground-Penetrating Radar Survey at a Pastoral Neolithic Occupation Site in Northeastern Tanzania (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geophysical and remote surveys are well-established methods for identifying subsurface features and providing insight to site layout and land-use strategies in the archaeological record. In recent years, magnetometry has been successfully used at Pastoral Neolithic (PN, 5000-1200 BP) sites in eastern Africa, allowing for the identification of features and...
Investigating Camelid Herding Strategies in the South-Central Andes Using Stable Isotope Analysis (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pastoral practices shape the responses of herders to environmental and sociopolitical changes. This paper uses stable isotope analysis to examine camelid herding strategies from pastoral settlements in the south-central Andes during a period characterized by climatic and political changes (8th-15th century CE). Samples from archaeological sites in Peru and...
Is the Anthropocene a Beastly Problem? Thoughts on Human-Animal Relationships and Contemporary Narratives of Change (2017)
Pizzly bears and coywolves have been making headlines over the past few years. Offspring of illicit pairings between species of charismatic and aggressive megafauna, these hybrid monsters are presented as signs and portents of a troubled future. This paper explores the relationship between contemporary discourses about unruly and uncanny hybrid species and academic efforts to define and engage with the Anthropocene. It questions the relationships between tacit understandings of the animal as a...
Isotopes and Texts: Animal Management Strategies in Ancient Greece (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Integrating textual sources, a largely qualitative dataset, with archaeological science, a largely quantitative dataset, is no easy task for archaeologists and historians. This paper reflects on the challenges and opportunities of integrating the textual and biochemical evidence for animal management in the ancient...
Kinship and Cattle in Harappan Gujarat (2018)
Pastoralism, the production and management of livestock, was integral to the lifeways practiced by the peoples of the Indus Civilization (2600-1900 BC), South Asia’s first experiment with urban society. The integration of Gujarat (India) into the interregional flows of people, goods, and ideas that knit together the Indus Civilization, for example, is associated with the widespread adoption of pastoralism in a region that was formerly characterized by small-scale horticulturalist-hunting...
Late Bronze Age women of the steppe frontier: a bioarchaeological analysis of multiple sites in northern China (2017)
The late Bronze Age in the Inner Asian steppe was a transitional period, with the adoption of mobile herding, as well as increasing sociopolitical interaction and complexity among groups in this region. Although archaeological studies have indicated that many steppe groups engaged in a variety of subsistence practices, pastoralism in general has been characterized as a rather uniform lifestyle; and nomadic pastoralism in particular has been associated more often with the role of males, i.e., as...
Late Holocene occupations at the Pinnacle Point Shell Midden Complex (2015)
Surveys identified a series of Holocene Later Stone Age shell middens along the westernmost extent of the Pinnacle Point estate near Mossel Bay, Western Cape, South Africa. Excavations during 2006 and 2007 revealed a well-preserved record of human activity ranging from 3000 ± 75 BP to 890 ± 30 BP across six spatially and temporally distinct shell middens. Dubbed Areas 1 - 4 of the Pinnacle Point Shell Midden Complex (PPSMC), each midden presents a picture of human subsistence patterns that...
Late Holocene Pastoralism and Environmental Change in the Puna Highlands of South America: Stable Isotope Analysis of Camelids Bones and Teeth (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this work is to study llama herding in the Puna Highlands of Atacama during the final period of the Late Holocene (700 years BP to present day), focusing on the link between mobility and climate change. South American camelids are the only large mammals that were domesticated in the Americas and llamas have been an important resource for Andean...
Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Agro-Pastoral Diets at Shimao, Northern Shaanxi Province, China: Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analysis of Human and Faunal Remains (2018)
The late Neolithic to early Bronze Age period (ca. 2800 BC–1900 BC) in the Ordos Region, Northern China was a transitional period, that included the adoption of agro-pastoralism, as well as increasing sociopolitical complexity. Subsistence economies were shaped by a variety of strategies that included a mixed agro- pastoral system focused on millet cultivation and herding of caprines and cattle, with limited contributions from hunting and gathering of wild plants. Here in this study we report...
Life on the "Periphery": Pastoralism at Atalla (2017)
Atalla, located in the South Central Andes of Peru in the province of Huancavelica, boasts a monumental temple and expansive, multi-phase domestic areas. Occupation of the site intermittently spans approximately 3000 years, and human presence in the surrounding area likely predates this site. Recent excavations focusing on both the monumental and domestic sectors of the site have yielded faunal remains from nearly all contexts. Here, I present an analysis of the faunal remains and bone tools...
Linkages between Copper and Bronze Technological Styles and Pastoral Movement in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Central Asia (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The socio-economic impact of pastoralism, particularly sheep grazing, is one of the more thoroughly investigated themes in contemporary ethnohistoric and archaeological landscape studies for Central Asia, particularly in relation to practices of vertical and horizontal transhumance. However, the cultural implications of pastoralist practices in relation...
Local and Regional Economics in Northeast China (2015)
Food production and other forms of economic activity manifest at both local and regional scales. In some instances population density within one community may lead to stress at the local scale. The region can, however, mitigate local stresses through regional exchange between small polities. In the same way that household exchange mitigates the risk of a single community, inter-community exchange mitigates risk for many communities regionally. This paper will explore both regional and local...
Local Responses to Global Events: Regionally Distinct Dietary Changes among Eastern African Herders at the Close of the African Humid Period (2018)
Changing human diets in eastern Africa across the end of the African Humid Period (AHP) have been inferred indirectly from cultural and faunal remains at archaeological sites. Stable isotope analysis (SIA, specifically δ13C) can measure diets directly, yet few studies have conducted SIA on human remains from this region. We present 25 new δ13C values from human tooth enamel recovered from archaeological sites around Lake Turkana (northwest Kenya) and on Lukenya Hill and Rigo Cave (southern...
Long-Term Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Sámi Reindeer Husbandry on the Northern Shore of Europe (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. Reindeer hunting, reindeer husbandry, and nomadic pastoralism form a significant part of the history of Sápmi, and the whole northern Fennoscandia from the late Iron Age to modern times. Sápmi, situated on the northern shore of Europe, is the transnational homeland of Sámi people, Europe’s only indigenous group. Recent...
Los camélidos en el Ecuador: Estudio arqueo faunístico y etnográfico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Barbacoan World: Recognizing and Preserving the Unique Indigenous Cultural Developments of the Northern Andes" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. El tema zooarqueológico en el Ecuador sobre los camélidos es muy escaso especialmente en la región, solo algunos sitios reportan dicha especie, especialmente en la Sierra Norte, donde su presencia no es significativa, se presenta como un elemento especial o escaso. Nuestra...