Abstract
This chapter explores the analytical utility in differentiating the practical impacts of mobility from historical processes of migration. Based on an archaeological examination of Holocene mobile pastoralists, the argument is made that mobility is a logistical and social strategy that need not result in cumulative “migratory” shifts of population. Nevertheless, mobility patterns are frequently diverse through time, which can in many cases lead to shifts in population, especially under environmental pressure or cases of resource restriction and isolation. It is in this sense that the ecology of mobility of Eurasian pastoralists holds utility in comparison and juxtaposition with Pleistocene populations who moved into North America.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abramzon, S. M. (1971). Kirgizy i ikh etnogeneticheskie i istoriko kul’turnye sviazi. Leningrad, Russia: Nauka.
Anthony, D. W. (2007). The horse, the wheel, and language: How Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Barth, F. (1966). Models of social organization. London: Royal Anthropological Institute.
Doumani, P. (2014) Bronze Age Potters in Regional Context: Long-term development of ceramic technology in the eastern Eurasian steppe zone. Doctoral Thesis, Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis.
Frachetti, M. D. (2004). Bronze Age pastoral landscapes of Eurasia and the nature of social interaction in the mountain steppe zone of Eastern Kazakhstan. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania.
Frachetti, M. D. (2008a). Pastoralist landscapes and social interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Frachetti, M. D. (2008b). Variability and dynamic landscape of mobile pastoralism in ethnography and prehistory. In H. Barnard & W. Wendrich (Eds.), The archaeology of mobility: Old world and new world Nomadism (pp. 366–396). Los Angeles: University of California.
Frachetti, M. D. (2011). Migration concepts in central Eurasian archaeology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 40, 195–212.
Frachetti, M., & Benecke, N. (2009). From sheep to (some) horses: 4500 years of herd structure at the pastoralist settlement of Begash (south-eastern Kazakhstan). Antiquity, 83(322), 1023.
Frachetti, M. D., Benecke, N., Mar’yashev, A. N., & Doumani, P. N. (2010). Eurasian pastoralists and their shifting regional interactions at the steppe margin: Settlement history at Mukri, Kazakhstan. World Archaeology, 42, 622–646.
Frachetti, M. D., & Mar’yashev, A. N. (2007). Long-term occupation and seasonal settlement of eastern Eurasian pastoralists at Begash, Kazakhstan. Journal of Field Archaeology, 32(3), 221–242.
Frachetti, M., & Rouse, L. (2012). Central Asia, the steppe, and the near east, 2500–1500 BC. In D. T. Potts (Ed.), A companion to the archaeology of the ancient near east (pp. 687–705). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
Graf, K. E. (2010). Hunter-gatherer dispersals in the mammoth-steppe: Technological provisioning and land-Use in the Enisei River Valley, South-Central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 37(1), 210–233.
Ingold, T. (Ed.). (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. London: Routledge.
Khazanov, A. M. (1994). Nomads and the outside world. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Rowley-Conwy, P., & Layton, R. (2011). Foraging and farming as niche construction: Stable and unstable adaptations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B: Biological Sciences, 366(1566), 849–862.
Spengler, R., Frachetti, M., Doumani, P., et al. (2014). Early agriculture and crop transmission among Bronze Age mobile pastoralists of Central Eurasia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 281(1783), 20133382.
Zvelebil, M. (1986). Hunters in transition: Mesolithic societies of temperate Eurasia and their transition to farming. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire], NY: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Frachetti, M.D. (2015). Nomadic Mobility, Migration, and Environmental Pressure in Eurasian Prehistory. In: Frachetti, M., Spengler III, R. (eds) Mobility and Ancient Society in Asia and the Americas. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15138-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15138-0_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15137-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15138-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)