Multiresource Pastoralism, Dynamic Foodways, and Ancient Statecraft in Mongolia (original) (raw)
Related papers
Pastoral Mobility and Pastureland Possession in Mongolia
The Mongolian Ecosystem Network, 2012
The question of complex socio-political organization among pastoral nomadic groups has long posed a theoretical challenge for anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists alike. The problems arise from a disciplinary tendency to view pastoralists within a narrow economic and ecological framework but, in addition to this, the basic conception of 'complexity' has itself proven problematic. The definitions of complexity built originally upon systems theory and political economy place emphasis on organizational criteria derived primarily from sedentary societies with class stratification, intensive subsistence economies, and centralized administration. In this paper we argue that these classic definitions of complexity have not provided a good fit for analyzing the kinds of political organizations constructed by pastoral nomads of the Eurasian steppe zone. For that reason, we explore new ways of conceptualizing complex organization based on processes of integration, scale, and mobility. This approach offers a better explanation for material patterns documented across two neighboring valleys in northern Mongolia and provides substantial insight to the sub-regional polities preceding the rise of the Xiongnu state during the late first millennium BCE.
It is now well recognized that mobile herding subsistence patterns do not preclude the development of complex social organization, but debate continues over whether the development of such societies depends upon and requires interaction with already existing agricultural statelevel societies. This is known as the 'dependency' hypothesis. In the Mongolian case this debate centers on the Iron Age Xiongnu (ca. 209 BCE to 93 CE) and whether this polity of mobile herders resulted from indigenous political processes or from the influence of or interaction with sedentary agricultural neighbors to their south.
Economic activities conducted at household and extended family levels are important contributors to the emergence and development of social organization and political complexity at regional scales. While agro-pastoral production is often dismissed as hopelessly fixated on subsistence and fundamentally incapable of contributing to the regional economies of statelevel societies, research strongly suggests that agro-pastoralists activities carried out at the level of residence group are capable of consistently producing products in excess of subsistence needs, and articulate readily with and participate in regional economic systems 1 . In the pastoralist context of Inner Asia, where domestic animal herding has provided the subsistence backbone of nomadic societies for millennia, pastoral systems likely played an important role in the evolution of steppe political structures. This paper explores the productive potential of different animal husbandry practices, examines the ways in which the various herd management strategies that shape pastoral systems can be documented archaeologically, and discusses the potential articulations of these systems with broader economic strategies during the Xiongnu period.
Early Political Complexity and Community Organization on the Mongolian Steppe
The Eurasian steppe is a land of sharp contrasts and frequent environmental change that can take place unexpectedly. The variability of the steppe zone fosters a romanticized perception of “nomadic” peoples who make this place home. For many, nomads are "stoic" figures that are the product of a long life lived in isolation, always moving as the natural environment dictates. This popular sentiment is in large part due to a historical understanding of the nomad as a peripheral entity that seems to exist outside the sociopolitical process. The flaws in these generalizations minimize the indigenous political process and neglect how local and regional levels of sociopolitical process intersect large-scale forms of sociopolitical organization. With these discrepancies in mind, the current research raises the question: what does community-scale political development look like in its earliest stages among steppe nomads? To address this question, this research explores the “bottom-up” processes at play in the local acceptance, configuration, and enactment of political changes that led to the first regional scale polity of Mongolia–the Xiongnu. Working in the Tarvagatai River valley of north central Mongolia, data from the Early Iron Age period will comprise (1) trends in exchange relationships as revealed by neutron activation analysis of ceramics, (2) trends in settlement patterns, and (3) changes in mortuary practices prior to and during the Xiongnu period. This data will be contextualized by previous archaeological research done in the 1990s in the neighboring Egiin Gol Valley. It is the goal of this project to assess external interactions (represented archaeologically at the household/campsite level) as a way to determine if individual households within a community would have been free to maintain external contacts within a larger regional area or whether such contacts were controlled by a local elite. Out of this research will come a better understanding of the potential capacity for political action by households within a community. A clear understanding of the role of smaller forms of political associations will benefit alternative forms and trajectories of sociopolitical complexity. The distinctiveness of the pastoral nomadic lifeway also presents a fascinating case study in the transformation of political systems and holds promising lessons for other parts of the world (including Mesopotamia, East Africa, and the Central Andes).
Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia
Current Anthropology, 2012
In this article I present a new archaeological synthesis concerning the earliest formation of mobile pastoralist economies across central Eurasia. I argue that Eurasian steppe pastoralism developed along distinct local trajectories in the western, central, and (south)eastern steppe, sparking the development of regional networks of interaction in the late fourth and third millennia BC. The "Inner Asian Mountain Corridor" exemplifies the relationship between such incipient regional networks and the process of economic change in the eastern steppe territory. The diverse regional innovations, technologies, and ideologies evident across Eurasia in the mid-third millennium BC are cast as the building blocks of a unique political economy shaped by "nonuniform" institutional alignments among steppe populations throughout the second millennium BC. This theoretical model illustrates how regional channels of interaction between distinct societies positioned Eurasian mobile pastoralists as key players in wide-scale institutional developments among traditionally conceived "core" civilizations while also enabling them to remain strategically independent and small-scale in terms of their own sociopolitical organization. The development of nonuniform institutional complexity among Eurasian pastoralists demonstrates a unique political and economic structure applicable to societies whose variable political and territorial scales are inconsistent with commonly understood evolutionary or corporate sociopolitical typologies such as chiefdoms, states, or empires.
Economic Diversification Supported the Growth of Mongolia’s Nomadic Empires
Scientific Reports, 2020
Populations in Mongolia from the late second millennium B.C.E. through the Mongol Empire are traditionally assumed, by archaeologists and historians, to have maintained a highly specialized horsefacilitated form of mobile pastoralism. Until recently, a dearth of direct evidence for prehistoric human diet and subsistence economies in Mongolia has rendered systematic testing of this view impossible. Here, we present stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements of human bone collagen, and stable carbon isotope analysis of human enamel bioapatite, from 137 well-dated ancient Mongolian individuals spanning the period c. 4400 B.C.E. to 1300 C.E. Our results demonstrate an increase in consumption of C 4 plants beginning at c. 800 B.C.E., almost certainly indicative of millet consumption, an interpretation supported by archaeological evidence. The escalating scale of millet consumption on the eastern Eurasian steppe over time, and an expansion of isotopic niche widths, indicate that historic Mongolian empires were supported by a diversification of economic strategies rather than uniform, specialized pastoralism. Mongolian empires, such as the Xiongnu and Mongols, are some of the most renowned imperial entities in public and academic thought. This is, in part, due to their historical portrayal as highly mobile, predatory horseback polities with a specialized dairy and meat-based economy 1-4 , an image that is perpetuated in cinema, novels, and documentaries alike. While such stereotypes likely arose from the hyperbolized accounts of neighboring adversaries, starting with the Han, who fought against the Xiongnu 5 , they have persisted and now pervade academic evaluations of the economic basis of these ancient peoples. The modern economic focus on pastoralism in rural areas of Mongolia today is frequently viewed as a relic of the past and has been drawn upon to interpret the often-fragmentary archaeological record of this region 6,7 , although ethnoarchaeological approaches often ignore the role of urban markets and motorized transport in modern mobile pastoralism. The view of uniformly specialized pastoral economies has also furthered the scholarly fascination with historical Mongolian populations, resurrecting the long-standing question of whether an empire can meet the costs and challenges of long-term political and economic organization in the absence of grain surpluses 6,7. Empires are, however, inherently complex and, by definition, extend their control over multiple societies, cultures, and economies, as well as heterogeneous landscapes 8-10. Crop surplus has traditionally been viewed as an essential component of stable political entities and complex imperial food production and procurement systems are often oversimplified by historians and archaeologists, leading to their characterization as single-resource systems (such as maize for the pre-Columbian empires of South America). Refined analyses generally reveal diverse and dynamic economies supporting imperial expansions, which draw together a variety of food sources 11 .
PLoS One, 2024
The Xiongnu polity (ca. 200 BC– 150 AD) emerged out of indigenous community-centered socio-political structures to forge a powerful state that commanded the Mongolian steppe and beyond. Underpinned by a highly mobile pastoralist population, accustomed to seasonally rhythmic moves and embedded in an equestrian culture that facilitated rapid transport over long-distances, it remains unclear precisely how the movement of commoners, local aristocrats and regional elites abetted the formation and organization of Xiongnu state structures. Here, we evaluate Xiongnu movement and dietary intake through multi-stable isotopic analyses of tooth enamel from directly dated Xiongnu intermediate elites recovered from the mortuary center of Baga Gazaryn Chuluu–a prominent granite outcrop set in the Gobi Desert. Carbon isotope (δ13C) analysis indicates millet was consumed by some individuals, but whether or not this C4 cultivar contributed to the diets of most elites remains ambiguous in this C3/C4 desert-steppe environment. The effectiveness of oxygen isotopes (δ18O) to establish mobility appears much reduced in steppe environments, where geospatially sensitive information appears disrupted by extraordinary seasonality in meteoric water oxygen isotopes, pronounced oxygen isotopic variation in potential drinking water sources, and culturally mediated drinking practices. Most revealing, strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) indicate circulation of local elites around this central place and beyond, a mobility format that helped leaders cement their own position through political consolidation of spatially dispersed mobile pastoralist communities. The consistent presence at Baga Gazaryn Chuluu of extra-local intermediate elites also points toward the importance of transregional mobility in binding together the Xiongnu polity over the vast distances of the eastern steppe.
Asian Perspectives, 2007
without food there are no people" is a Mongolian proverb, the significance of which the two of us came to understand during the spring of 1993 by way of acquaintance with the herder, Tumen, of Bayankhongor Province. 1 As is common at this time of year, Tumen's sheep and goats were emerging famished from a harsh steppe winter and were dependent on the first spring grasses to replenish their strength. In the next few days, unseasonable and unpredictable snowstorms, called zud, began to blow across the southwestern provinces of Mongolia, icing and destroying the delicate new pasture. Tumen's weakest animals began dying after a day and a half without access to grazing, and by the end of the week most local herders had lost significant portions of their herds and their livelihood. This was only the first of several spring zud episodes that were to sweep through Mongolia during the 1990s and that would eventually lead to large-scale international assistance to the country in 1999 and 2000. Mongol folk sayings tend to reflect the experience of a highly specialized pastoral way of life that is still common on the Mongolian steppe today. Anatoly Khazanov (1994) has argued that groups inhabiting marginal environments and devoting a majority of subsistence effort to mobile and extensive herding are often unable to maintain a balance between available pasture, herd numbers, and human population due to unpredictable variability in the environment. Zud, epizootic diseases, steppe fires, and drought require that a system of pastoral specialization be supplemented and buffered against productive risk, and though evidence suggests that extended families might survive on herd animals alone, diversification strategies are a more plausible-and probably necessary-form of subsistence management. Archaeological studies from Mongolia and Siberia have hypothesized that early steppe economies were most likely based on multiresource nomadism (Salzman 1972: 67) during the second and first millennium B.C., including various forms of livestock herding, agricultural production, hunt
Pastoralism at Scale on the Kazakh Rangelands: From Clans to Workers to Ranchers
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
Eurasia contains the world's largest contiguous rangelands, grazed for millennia by mobile pastoralists' livestock. This paper reviews evidence from one Eurasian country, Kazakhstan, on how nomadic pastoralism developed from some 5,000 years ago to the present. We consider a timespan covering pre-industrial, socialist and capitalist periods, during which pastoral social formations were organized in terms of kinship, collective state farms, and private farms and ranches. The aim is to understand how events over the last 100 years have led to the sequential dissolution and re-formation of the social units necessary to manage livestock across a wide expanse of spatially heterogenous and seasonally variable rangeland ecosystems. It is argued that the social scale of extensive livestock management must be tailored to the geographical scale of biotic and abiotic conditions. The paper starts by pointing out the long duration of mobile pastoralism in the Kazakh rangelands and provid...