Pastoral adaptations span a variety of organizational states ranging
from self-sufficient, mixed-subsistence agropastoralists to economic
specialists dependent on trade with agriculturalists for subsistence.
A preliminary study of ethnographically documented
pastoralist cases demonstrates robust relationships between environmental
variables relevant to plant biomass, herd structure, mobility,
labor organization, and subsistence dependence. Three organizational
states of pastoral adaptations are distinguished by
subsistence dependence on food acquired through trade, the geographic
scale of mobility, and habitat variables. The archaeological
sequence at Nabta Playa, a Neolithic site in the western desert of
Egypt with early evidence for the presence of domesticated cattle, is
used to illustrate the utility of this research for archaeologists concerned
with the origins and evolution of pastoral adaptations. |