Pastoral States: Toward a Comparative Archaeology of Early Kush

Journal of Archaeological Research, 2019

In this paper, we present a history of pastoralism in the ancient Near East from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. We describe the accretional development of pastoral technologies over eight millennia, including the productive breeding of domestic sheep, goats, and cattle in the early Neolithic and the subsequent domestication of animals used primarily for labor—donkeys, horses, and finally camels—as well as the first appearance of husbandry strategies such as penning, foddering, pastur-ing, young male culling, and dairy production. Despite frequent references in the literature to prehistoric pastoral nomads, pastoralism in Southwest Asia was strongly associated with sedentary communities that practiced intensive plant cultivation and was largely local in nature. There is very little evidence in prehistoric and early historic Southwest Asia to support the notion of a " dimorphic society " characterized by separate and specialized agriculturists and mobile pastoralists. Although mobile herders were present in the steppe regions of Syria by the early second millennium BC, mobile pastoralism was the exception rather than the rule at that time; its " identification " in the archaeological record frequently derives from the application of anachronistic ethnographic analogy. We conclude that pastoralism was a diverse, flexible, and dynamic adaptation in the ancient Near East and call for a reinvigorated and empirically based archaeology of pastoralism in Southwest Asia.

in: Jesse F. & Vogel C. (eds), The Power of Walls - Fortifications in Ancient Northeastern Africa. Proceedings of the International Workshop held at the University of Cologne 4th-7th August 2011, Colloquium Africanum 5; Köln:Heinrich-Barth-Institut 2013: 17 – 31.

Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan 43, 2012

Mitglieder des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts und Studenten der Altertumswissenschaften können die Archäologischen Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan zum Vorzugspreis von 53,20 a zuzüglich Versandkosten abonnieren. Bestellungen sind an die Schriftleitung zu richten. Studenten werden um Vorlage einer Studienbescheinigung gebeten. Die Beendigung des Studiums ist unverzüglich mitzuteilen.

This paper explores the changes in early forms of pastoralism in the West Central Zagros Mountains from village-based herding in the Neolithic period to initial stages in the formation of full-fledged nomadic pastoralism by the Late Chalcolithic period. It has been argued that the initial development of pastoralism in the Central Zagros Mountains should be viewed as an adaptive strategy to a highland environment with limited and dispersed resources in order to supplement a primarily agricultural village-based economy. With expansion of the agricultural regime, the distance to be traveled to pastures by herders became greater, and as a consequence, the organization of labor involved in herding had to be modified to meet the more complex task of moving sizable herds over larger areas. The empirical evidence for the assessment of hypotheses proposed in this paper comes from archaeological fieldwork in the Islamabad Plain in the Zagros Mountains in western Iran, as well as previous archaeological and ethnographic research in the region.

2019

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2014

Survey archaeology can contribute a unique perspective to the history of mobile pastoralism by investigating local pastoral landscapes—the organization of resources and features immediately surrounding a campsite. This paper examines empirical evidence for mobile pastoralists’ modes of inhabiting and transforming the local landscape over the last 600-700 years on the edges of the Upper Tigris River Valley, southeastern Turkey. Multispectral satellite imagery analysis is employed to spatially relate vegetation patterns and archaeological features connected with herding. Statistical analysis of cost distance rasters enables quantitative spatial analysis of feature distribution in the landscape. Three main conclusions about pre-modern mobile pastoralists are drawn: 1) Mobile pastoralists altered their local landscapes in order to shelter humans and animals, collect water, and improve fragmented pastures of variable quality. 2) Pasture and water features were fixed, re-usable investments that encouraged seasonal re-inhabitation. Over time, these features became landscape anchors—geographic foci that structured the spatial organization of local landscapes. 3) The topographical position of domestic and herding features would have resulted in vertical daily movement patterns for humans and animals. The study represents a first step in reconstructing mobile pastoralists’ dwelling spaces and pre-modern land-use strategies on the fringes of Mesopotamia.

Nubian Archaeology in the XXIst Century, 2018

Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1998