Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pastoralism and its cultural intersections link people and herd animals in close synergy. Around the globe today, millions of households continue to practice aspects of pastoralism, and the archaeological record is rich with evidence of pastoralists having substantial impact on the environment, political dynamics, dietary intake, ritual behaviors, and belief systems. While archaeological interest in ancient pastoralists has received increased attention over the past two decades, analyses seem to remain divided along the lines of specific methodologies or topical branches of archaeological inquiry. This session has two goals: (1) to reposition pastoralism as a foundation for critical anthropological theory, and (2) to encourage the blending of methodological approaches to the study of ancient pastoralist societies and how contemporary pastoralists fit into these new reflections. We invite participants who investigate pastoralism in any region of the world from a variety of theoretical perspectives (multispecies, political ecology, social network, and others) and archaeological methodologies (such as zooarchaeology, spatial analysis, material culture analysis, iconography, and biomolecular analyses). We hope to create a new dialogue between researchers working in diverse regions in order to find common threads that animal-human relationships entangle.

Other Keywords
Pastoralism • Zooarchaeology • Bronze Age • Neolithic • Archaeometry & Materials Analysis: Residue Analysis • Subsistence and Foodways • Paleoethnobotany • Milk • Isotopes • Proteomics

Geographic Keywords
Republic of Turkey (Country) • Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Country) • Republic of Iraq (Country) • Islamic Republic of Iran (Country) • State of Israel (Country) • Lebanese Republic (Country) • Syrian Arab Republic (Country) • West Bank (Country) • Republic of Cyprus (Country) • Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Camelid Pastoralism in the Wari Empire and Its Political Implications (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Weronika Tomczyk.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The South American camelids had tremendous importance for basic subsistence, social life, and religion in all prehispanic Andean societies, but implications of herding domesticated llamas and alpacas for broader political systems have received less academic attention. This study uses the camelid remains as a proxy to study pastoral traditions...

  • Material Wealth and Herding Power: A Pastoralist Perspective on Divine Lordship from Pashash, Peru (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kendra Leishman. Kara Ren. Aleksa Alaica. Milton Luján Dávila. George Lau.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fluctuating political allegiances during the Early Intermediate period (200 BCE–600 CE) were coopted by competing leaders throughout the central Peruvian highlands and more broadly in the south-central Andes. The relationships and conflicts that resulted from socioeconomic negotiations among local networks; alongside the vacuum of power left...

  • Modes of Labor Organization and Variations of Pastoral Economies across East Asia during the Second Millennium BCE (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Xinyi Liu.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There has been considerable recent momentum in documenting pastoral communities in the past who engaged with multi-resource subsistence strategies, including both husbandry and cultivation. This paper explores the potential conceptual conflict between cultivation and pastoral activities in the context of labour budget and surplus accumulation....

  • Neolithic Pastoralist Practices at Masis Blur, Armenia’s Ararat Valley (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Anneke Janzen. Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Neolithic settlements appeared across the Southern Caucasus in the early sixth millennium BCE. Ongoing excavations, along with zooarchaeological and isotopic research, are clarifying how these communities used the landscape and managed livestock in the context of mixed farming. In this paper we present new zooarchaeological data from recent...

  • Paleoproteomic Perspectives on the Subsistence Decisions of Later Stone Age Herders in Namaqualand, South Africa (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Courtneay Hopper. Camilla Speller.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic-bound protein characterization, or paleoproteomics, can provide vital insight into the species-specific dietary decisions preserved in the pottery of past populations. This insight is particularly relevant for understanding the subsistence choices of Later Stone Age (LSA) herders living in the Namaqualand coastal desert of South...

  • Pastoralist Spacetimes and Political Life in the Past: Exploring the Value of Living and Dead Animals Archaeologically (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Hannah Chazin.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Anthropological approaches to value assert that creating and contesting value is at the heart of politics. Herd animals offer a complex window into this basic theoretical insight—they are simultaneously producers of and objects of value and their value cannot be easily reduced to the categories of economic or symbolic value. Analyzing...

  • Rethinking Caprines-As-Capital: Pastoralism and the Low-Power States of Early Mesopotamia (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Grossman. Tate Paulette.

    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...

  • Using Proteomics to Identify Ancient Pastoralism (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shevan Wilkin.

    This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Biomolecular analyses (proteins, stable isotopes, lipids, and DNA) have been integral in identifying the economic roles of domesticated animals in archaeological contexts. Materials such as human remains, dental calculus, ceramic matrices, and archaeological residues can provide valuable information on which animals were used for primary and...