On Pastoralism
by Jason GodeskyIn Ishmael, Daniel Quinn presents a fascinating exegesis on the Creation story in Genesis, but he presents it as a “Leaver” story of how “Taker” civilization came to be. Quinn supposes that the ancient Hebrew pastoralists were “Leavers.” In fact, pastoralists occupy a very interesting space at the edges of civilization. Typically classified as “barbarians” and once thought of as a “mid-point” in every culture’s linear rise to the perfection represented by the Victorian-era English gentleman, pastoralism is largely an epiphenomenon of agriculture, a mode of subsistence that is created by agriculture and largely dependent on agriculture.
Pastoralism is found only in Eurasia and Africa. It always centers on large, herbivorous herd animals, and for good reason. Not just any animal can be domesticated. Large mammals tend to be the only ones that are worthwhile, in terms of EROEI. Herbivores exist at a lower trophic level than carnivores; that makes them more efficient. Herd animals generally have leaders; rather than breaking every individual in the herd, a human needs only to break the leader, and thus control the entire herd through him. Pastoralism is, in all cases, centered on grass-eating, large, herd mammals. Pastoralists follow their herds, whether nomadic or transhumant, living in marginal areas. The “Patterns of Subsistence” page on pastoralism admirably explains pastoralism’s superior adaptation to these areas compared to agriculture:
Pastoralism is most often an adaptation to semi-arid open country in which farming can not be easily sustained without importing irrigation water from great distances. Pastoralism is usually the optimal subsistence pattern in these areas because it allows considerable independence from any particular local environment. When there is a drought, pastoralists disperse their herds or move them to new areas. Farmers rarely have these options. They suffer crop failure and starvation in the same situation. A pastoral subsistence pattern reduces the risk when there is an irregular climatic pattern. This is especially true of nomadic pastoralism.
In some ways, pastoralists resemble foragers. For instance, animals are typically slaughtered to feed the whole community, building the same kind of networks of reciprocity that foragers rely on. Some have theorized that pastoralism developed directly from foraging, but aside from the anomolous Saami, this theory has been largely discounted. The anthropological consensus has moved more towards the idea that pastoralism is the fringe created by agriculture. Domestication of both plants and animals arose as a single process, whereby humans began to create a virtual mini-ecosystem dedicated solely to their own needs. Once a field was harvested, what remained could feed domesticated animals. Their droppings fertilized the ground, and helped to counteract the soil degradation caused by their monocropping. The two complemented each other. In fact, domesticating wild animals is almost impossible without a sedentary base and a localized staple food source.
With the innovation of irrigation and more specialization in labor, the only areas left over were the marginal, semi-arid, open country where little could grow but basic grasses; too rocky or infertile for crops, but perfect for domesticated animals. Specialists developed to look after the animals. As Dr. Eric Smith put in his lecture notes on pastoralism:
Virtually no examples in ethnographic record of pastoralist societies that don’t depend directly or indirectly (via trade) on agricultural products. …
Current consensus is that in most cases pastoralists probably arose from “marginalized surplus population” of agriculturalists who for one reason or another lost their land base or abandoned farming, and turned to full-time herding.
In fact, ethnographers have often observed this process occurring in many areas, where poorer farming strata lose crops in bad year and switch to nomadism, while successful herders often cash in herds to buy land & become settled farmers (though the dynamic can sometimes go the other way: farmers who do well may choose to switch to pastoralism).
We see this in all of our examples of pastoralist societies. The Bantu began their push into southern Africa, wiping out the Khoisan-speaking foragers in their way, after Malay-speaking Madagascarans introduced agriculture from south-east Asia. Where they had the chance, they settled and built a civilization: Great Zimbabwe. Otherwise, they continued moving with their herds. Along the way, they continued to trade with far-away agriculturalists, whether from southern Asia, or the Middle East.
Asiatic horse pastoralists invaded Europe twice. First, the migrations of the Huns pushed the Germanic tribes right into the Roman Empire; second, nearly a thousand years later, the Mongols invaded. The Mongols existed along the periphery of the Chinese empire, trading with agriculturalists for their survival, even after the Great Wall was built to keep them out. It was through trade that the Mongols recieved iron from China, an invention that revolutionized their culture. Throughout their history, the Huns and Mongols both made much of their living from raiding agricultural peoples. The Huns were likely a coalition of various ethnic groups, all united by their marginal lives and pastoral backgrounds on the Steppes. Interestingly, this is a theme that emerges again and again amongst pastoralist cultures: the Hebrews have been traced back to Egyptian references to the ‘Apiru, which appear to be a coalition of various pastoralists pushed into the margins of agricultural society; even the Plains Indians, who were not pastoralists so much as equestrian foragers, were created as an ethnic coalition of the refugees of those tribes shattered by European contact, whether by violence or disease, and re-united around two European imports, horses and guns.
In fact, the only significant exception to this rule are the Saami, the reindeer-herders of northern Eurasia and Siberia. Here is the only example we have where pastoralism seems not to have come out of agriculture, but out of foraging. The Saami use reindeer almost exclusively for meat, but the Dukha of northern Mongolia milk and ride their reindeer the same way other Mongolians do with their horses. But, as Dr. Smith points out in the same lecture notes linked above:
Main exception to these rules seems to be reindeer herders of No. Eurasia, especially Siberia, where agriculture was absent until very recent (industrial) times; but here it seems that sedentary fishing communities predate reindeer herding, and herders historically depended on trade with these peoples; in addition, reindeer are only slightly domesticated (interbreed freely with wild caribou)
According to Jack Weatherford’s Savages & Civilization, civilization’s advances and innovations are primarily the result of contact with other cultures–especially pastoralists. That contact is not always peaceful–in fact, it rarely is–but without it, Weatherford argues, civilization ossifies. It is the contact with other cultures without that gives civilization the spark to continue innovating and “progressing.” One might conclude from Weatherford’s argument that cultural homogeneity, while the ultimate goal of civilization, is also a sure-fire way to end civilization, making civilization’s own trajectory suicidal in yet another dimension.
In my past articles, I have not spent much time lingering on the question of pastoralism. I hope now you can see why. Pastoralism is an epiphenomenon of agriculture. It cannot come into being without agriculture, nor can it exist apart from agriculture. The one exception we have to this are the reindeer-herders of northern Eurasia, who traded the usual relationship with agricultrualists for the same relationship with sedentary communities of fishermen–the kind of localized, high-yield foraging we’ve previously discussed with the Kwakiutl and certain Paleolithic archaeological sites. Neither can pastoralism, once begun, exist very long without some kind of direct or indirect relationship with the more complex society that spawned it. Pastoralism is the result of a complex society; it is one of the fringes that complexity can create, a way of life created and lived by those that complexity deems “marginal.”
HEy –
I’m right with you, right up to the end….
Understanding that domestication was generally a function of agriculture so pastoralism probably could not establish itself without agriculture (with the exception noted), WHY is it that, once established, pastoralists need agriculturalists?
It seems that a nomadic, pastoral group would be ideally suited to foraging for fruits/vegeis/roots/etc to supplement their primary food source (meat), and that seems fully consistant with an ‘ideal’ paleo type diet, so what is the negative?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 1:34 PM
Do we have a good understanding about how the dogs were domesticated?
Comment by _Gi — 13 March 2006 @ 1:44 PM
Hey –
Jason can probably answer this better, but from my understanding, our relationship with dogs was more of a symbiotic relationship, originally. No different than any other two species that find mutual benefits.
O’ course, then we started breeding them, and all sorts of other non-symbiotic-like behaviors…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 2:02 PM
I would disagree that the Saami are that much of an exception to your thesis. They took up reindeer herding in response to encroachment into their territory by Norse and Russian agriculturalists some time around the Viking era. True they did not come from an agricultural background themselves, but they were trading with the Norse and had been for some centuries and had become dependent on them to some degree for iron tools, cloth, and other trade goods.
I see the Saami as another group living on the margins of agricultural civilization using pastoralism to eek out a living in those margins. The only difference is that they didn’t live as agriculturalists first. I wouldn’t be surprised though if the original pastoralists in other regions were also displaced hunter gathers who chose that as the lesser of evils in dealing with an encroaching civilization who usurped their best land.
Comment by Steve D. — 13 March 2006 @ 2:29 PM
Well written, Jason. But I can’t see how you conclude that simply because it’s never been observed, it could never happen. I’m not trying to start a debate on the possibility or impossibility of pastoralists post-civ, because once again, it comes down to me asking you to disprove a negative, which is impossible. But some thoughts on your post:
1. True, few to no pastoralists have been found not along some civilized trade route, or in contact with some civilization, but since the way of life itself grew up in the shadow of civilization, what can you expect?
2. I can see no future society functioning entirely without some form of foraging, and this goes for horticulturalists and pastoralists as surely as I think it goes for cities. If a pastoralist group functions both as foragers and as pastoralists, where’s the problem?
I’m mainly just trying to keep open to all the options and various im/possibilities. A well prepared mind open to infinite possibilities is the greatest tool.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 13 March 2006 @ 2:44 PM
For the reason noted above:
Pastoralism does not appear to ever be self-sufficient. It requires constant trade with more complex societies to remain alive. It is dependent on complex societies.
Dogs are an exception to the rule on domestication. Dogs basically “domesticated” themselves. Humans and dogs formed a symbiotic relationship, whereby packs of dogs and tribes of humans would live in close relation to one another. The dogs helped with hunting, and recieved some of the meat in return.
Don’t you think pastoralists would like to be independent, if they could? My thinking is if they never managed to do it, there’s probably a very good reason for it.
I’m not sure those are compatible. Pastoralists have to follow where their herds do best; foragers have to follow where humans do best. We need different resources, so those are often mutually exclusive forces.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 2:50 PM
Fascinating read along these lines: Harry Thurston’s “Secret of the Sands,” about the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt. Basic thesis is that pastoralism arose as a food banking system amid the shrinking of the Dakhleh Oasis (back when the Sahara was all Sahel-type), which allowed the previous intensive hunter-gatherers reliant on the oasis to maintain their population density as the oasis slowly shrank–rather than rely on the oasis as a watering hole for wild game, they could rotate herds of semi-domesticated game (to include Giraffes!) through the oasis, but also use the less resource-rich surrounding desert as pasture land.
I can’t honestly remember how Thurston related the rise in pastoralism to the relatively contemporaneous rise of agriculture in the Nile region, but I seem to recall that this transition took place before the rise of agriculture, as a unique adaptation to this shrinking oasis environment–this may be another case of “the exception that proves the rule.”
Comment by Jeff Vail — 13 March 2006 @ 3:05 PM
Interesting … I seem to recall agriculture in the Nile Valley for quite some time before the first evidence of domesticated animals, though.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 3:09 PM
Hey –
You avoided the question.
I do not disagree with you in the slightest about the historical tendancies of pastoralists.
I’m asking ‘what do they NEED from agriculturalists?’ Not what have they often taken (seeing as how food is a cultural construct), or what complications have arisen (ala Big Men, chiefdoms’ etc).
What, if anything, drives a pastorist group to be large enough to need complexity, and what, if anything, do pastoralists NEED that they can not provide for themselves.
Domestic animals CAN survive off of rough, arid land with the most marginal of resources… but they certainly don’t NEED that environment. Besides, if these are animals that we once hunted, our territories MUST intersect quite frequently
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 3:10 PM
“One might conclude from Weatherford’s argument that cultural homogeneity, while the ultimate goal of civilization, is also a sure-fire way to end civilization, making civilization’s own trajectory suicidal in yet another dimension.”
This is an interesting comment - can you expand on it a bit for me? Do you come to this conclusion because without other cultures to move us to progress/innovate we will stagnate, or is it because we will lose the knowledge of other cultures once we have cultural homogeneity?
Comment by Peter D — 13 March 2006 @ 3:34 PM
Typically, pastoralists have had a hard time fulfilling their entire diet, since they need some amount of vegetables. Optimal land for large, grass-eating herbivores is always going to be semi-arid lands that are, generally, difficult to forage in. The lands that are better for foraging are the ones that are worse for the herds. Cows and people have a lot of mutually exclusive needs.
Pastoralists tend not to have sufficient materials for their clothing and shelter; I believe they mostly trade for those. Vegetable matter for weaving runs into the same problem, and they probably don’t kill enough of their animals to generate sufficient leather for all their needs.
So … basically everything. Pastoralism has never been self-sufficient, and it doesn’t look like it could ever be self-sufficient, because in most cases, you can either look after your herds, or you can look after yourself, but not both.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 3:36 PM
It becomes one of the Thirty Theses in the published version.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 3:36 PM
Hey –
Sorry, Jason, I’m just not seeing the connections.
Herding is pretty low EROEI, aside from butchering season (if they would even use such a thing — butchering ‘as needed’ would be more logical) a couple of adults could manage the herds each day… so what is the rest of the band doing?
I mean… insufficient materials for clothes and shelter? But H-G have more than enough of both, easily? That seems like some kind of disconnect.
Don’t kill enough animals for their leather needs? But H-G have plenty? I’m just not seeing it.
I get the feeling that we (we meaning ‘generic modern humans’) are basing these ‘enough/not enough’ conundrums by looking at H-G in thier natural environment and by thier own standards but then looking at pastoralists through the agricultural lens…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 4:25 PM
Pastoralism is pretty intensive. Ever try herding sheep? Those things go everywhere. You can only butcher one of your animals every once in a while, so you don’t have very large groups. Pretty much everybody helps take care of the animals, and that takes up most of their time.
That leaves little time to spend learning the secrets of the area you’re inhabiting, and we’re talking about areas where how to survive isn’t immediately obvious for humans, like a forest. Herd animals don’t do well in forests; they do well in grasslands. If you can’t stray far from your herds, and your herds need grassland, that doesn’t leave you much time or opportunity to find other sources of materials and food.
Hunter-gatherers can bring down an animal every day, because they’re not dependent only on the animal population they control–they hunt many different species. Not so with pastoralists; so they have much less in the way of meat and materials. This isn’t a matter of different lenses; pastoralists always trade with other societies because they do not produce enough to live on their own.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 4:34 PM
Janene, I believe that farmers are the ones that tend to prefer environments similar to the ones needed by domesticated animals. After all, they both eat voracious quantities of grass. Forests on the other hand tend to be better suited for foragers, and not well suited for farming. The reasons that forests are not usually first choice for farming include the fact that tree roots are really annoying to get out (I can attest to this from personal experience); the nutrients in the soil tend to not favor grasses, all be in the trees, generally few, or very deep in the soil (not all forests have any of these traits, and few have all); these areas tend (not a rule, granted) to have a lot of run off (the trees are nessesary to hold the nutrients in the soil). When Europeans first settled Maryland they almost all died from the difficulty farming land that was 90% tree root, poor for the crops they brought with them, and then the top soil started going away. The way they eventually survived was turning the forest into grassland.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 13 March 2006 @ 4:47 PM
What is the dividing line between a foraging band that follows a herd and pastoralists?
Comment by JimFive — 13 March 2006 @ 5:32 PM
Domestication.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 5:39 PM
Pastoralists as a rule have to learn to hunt animals that foragers can just scare away. Pastoralists have to be able to kill large numbers of big predators. They gain little from this hunt aside from security of their herds. So, they have to do more dangerous hunting than foragers for less gain.
Still, pastoralist societies get to utilize muscle power of their herds to carry a lot of stuff.
Not everybody herds sheep. The mongols were living almost exclusively off the horse.
Comment by _Gi — 13 March 2006 @ 6:04 PM
“Don’t you think pastoralists would like to be independent, if they could? My thinking is if they never managed to do it, there’s probably a very good reason for it.”
One possible answer to this is, “Because by the time they developed, they were surrounded by civilization and couldn’t get away if they tried, because civilization was everywhere.”
Saying, for example, that the Bedouins have heavy contact with civilization does not prove that they rely on it, merely that by the time we could study them, they were absolutely enmeshed in it. We can never prove one way or the other that their way of life is incapable of surviving without civilization.
We could rather suggest that they never got the chance, so we don’t (and can’t) know. Instead of declaring pastoralism an open and shut case, it would be wise to leave the door open a crack.
As an aside, I see a lot of stuff going on in the primitivist community these days, and very especially here on Anthropik, that talks about why X is absolutely impossible or why Z is absolutely impossible. This thoughtform decreases what can be known and understood by the world by closing doors instead of opening them. It strikes me as an extremist form of wishful thinking.
I would suggest that there’s a lot interesting thoughts that are going unthought about possible futures. One way to tap into these is by taking some random scenario, and instead of trying to figure out what’s wrong with it and why it’s an impossibility, trying to figure out why it could happen, how it might happen.
This is, of course, far beyond the scope of Anthropik, and I would never suggest you change the thrust of your work (I love it here!). However, I think you would be well served by avoiding trying to prove impossibilities - it’s just not possible!
Jason, your work is staggering; ending any one of your pieces by stating that options are always limitless, and that the discussion is eternally open serves only to make your work even more expansive. Leaving the door closed to other possibilities, however, risks rendering all of your work meaningless.
In the end, only time will tell what happens and what is possible.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 13 March 2006 @ 6:13 PM
Thanks, Chuck.
The possibilities are limitless–which is precisely why I think it’s useless to try to enumerate them. That’s why I dwelll so much on what’s not possible: the most important part is to define the range in which those limitless options can be found.
I understand what you mean in terms of inspiring people with possibilities, rather than “dwelling on the negative.” But that’s beyond the scope of my non-fiction. That’s why we’re busy toiling away behind the scenes on a fairly expansive fiction project that does exactly that. I think fiction is probably the only way we could ever do justice to that goal of inspiring people with what’s possible. Here on Anthropik, we’re pursuing a more academic course, and that means defining the range of what’s possible, rather than trying to enumerate all of the infinite possibilities in that range.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 6:26 PM
Pastoralism does not generate enough food or other necessary materials to be self-sufficient, because you need to keep the rate at which you kill and eat your animals below the rate at which they reproduce.
Pastoralism is incompatible with foraging, unless the pastoralists are willing to sacrifice full domestication, as with the Saami, at which point the line between pastoralists and foragers becomes blurred, since the herds may not be actively “cared for,” and it may simply become a group of foragers that follow just one herd of animals. Note that the Saami forego riding, milking, and other activities that normally define pastoralism.
In all other cases, pastoralists are dependent on agriculture, whether by trade or raiding. Without supplemental resources, pastoralists cannot survive. Since agriculture will not exist, neither will full pastoralism as we know it.
At best, you’ll have semi-pastoralists like the Saami. Whether or not the strategy they follow with reindeer is applicable to horses, cattle, or any other species is yet to be seen. It may well not be.
Many domesticates rewild fairly quickly. A pig, for example, grows thick hair, a mane, and large tusks within weeks. It is an open question whether or not domesticates will be available, or whether a collapse interruption will be sufficient for them to rewild, requiring domestication all over again (which requires agriculture, which won’t be possible).
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 6:40 PM
Hey –
I’ll shut up if you want me too — we can file this under ‘ongoing dispute’
but in the meantime….
When was the last time that YOU tried herding a sheep? Huh? huh huh?
Let’s consider cows, for a moment, simply because I know more about them. Cows tend to mostly stay together, so ‘herding’ primarily is a matter of rounding up an occasional stray. Now, its different if you’re talking about a cattle drive… but that is an agricultural endeavor and so, at least LESS relevant.
Likewise, cows — not a whole lot of predators around that one need be concerned with.
What do you mean, you can only butcher an animl every so often, so you have small groups… small groups of people or of animals? In the ‘Old West’ we had groups of a dozen cowboys herding thousands of head of cattle. Big benefit to having horses, obviously — and dogs as well. But how long do you think a longhorn would feed a dozen hard working men? And how much trouble would it be to butcher on weekly? (ie trouble to the herd)
So now we are saying that humans are only able to survive well in the forest? That’s new. I thought we could pretty well thrive anywhere? And, really, most environments are a mix… and any sort of nomadic activity would automatically introduce new environments… but I get the feeling you are implying that is a problem, too… that pastoralists would be unable to truly LEARN thier environment because it would always be changing. Again, that’s bunk. We’re talking about seasonal migrations through a relatively standard set of mini-ecologies… and much of the plant/animal life would be prevalent throughout multiples of those mini-ecologies…
I’m sorry I’m being snarky, but I’m really getting the feeling that you really want to be able to dismiss pastoralists. I just don’t think that the arguments you are presenting are of your ‘normal-exceptional quality’ and that’s kinda pissing me off
Janene
PS You know, maybe part of what is getting under my skin is the characterization of pastoralism NEEDING to follow in the agricultural paradigm. We need to guard them morning noon and night or we might LOSE one. And we need to ‘kill LOTS of predators, to keep them at bay’, and we need to be constantly worried about where our next meal comes from…
So long as this is the mindset, you’re probably right to give pastoralism a thumbs down. But its another one of those cases where I don’t think these attitudes and cultural adaptions are necessary to the food strategy. I think there could be a whole host of symbiotic-like relationships that could be possible without introducing a material/ideological rift…
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 6:42 PM
Big benefit. Without those, most pastoralists tend herds in the dozens, at best. Let’s take a typical pastoralist family of about a dozen (pastoralists have more children, because it’s in their economic interests–children can help take care of the animals at a very early age). They’d probably go through a cow in a month, at best. Are a dozen cows having a new calf, on average, more than once a month?
No–that’s just where the resources are most obvious. To survive in the grasslands, that can be quite easy–if you have the time to learn the grasslands. Not much time left to do that if you’re spending your whole day tending to the cattle.
No time to learn any of them if you’re spending 12 hours a day guarding the cattle.
Ah, but if you do abandon that approach, then you start to lose control over your herd. They become semi-domesticated. You become like the Saami. That puts us back into that fuzzy borderline region I mentioned.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 7:13 PM
Hey –
Yeah, I read you *last* post, right after I submitted… and I think that is exactly what I am thinking about. Not can we do X,Y, and Z that have traditionally defined pastoralism… but rather, can pastoralism contribute to the body of possible models to draw from (and more importantly, LEARN from)
Once last snark… I see you ignored ALL of the bits about cattle. I wa’ren’t talkin’ ’bout no dozen cattle
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 7:28 PM
That was the first thing I responded to in my last comment. They had thousands of cattle because they had dogs and horses. That makes a big effect. There was a battle in Late Antiquity where a dozen Gallic cavalry defeated 2,000 Saxon infantry. Horses really change the dynamic wherever they’re introduced.
Take a look at some of the cultures that’ve herded cattle without horses, like the Maasai. There, we’re talking about herds in the dozens. That’s the difference that horses make. Without horses, you won’t have thousands of cattle–you’ll have dozens.
In terms of models to learn from, absolutely, pastoralists are fine. I’m just putting pastoralism in its proper historical frame, and suggesting that it probably will not survive collapse (unless we’re talking about something along the lines of the Saami).
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 7:33 PM
Hey –
But why would future pastoralists NOT have horses?
Really, the only way I can picture getting there from here (I’m REALLY talking about people making that conscious choice just as I might choose permaculture/hunting and you have chosen foraging primarily). If someone wanted to do that, what would be the intermediate steps? Invest in Land(or rent!), horses, dogs and large herd domesticates. Then its just a hop-skip-jump to nomadic neo-herding.
Again, it all comes back to a paradigm change, as well. I can see various possible (even if not probable) variations on these themes. Canadian geese. They are freking EVERYWHERE, but nowhere more than semi-industrial heated retention ponds. So what can we do with that? What adaptations might be used to ‘take over’ on e of those ponds that has become a nesting ground, add perma-culture, even some RE resorces to help boost the water temperature, and voila: instant garden hunting grounds…
Stupid example, maybe… or maybe not
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 7:52 PM
Even in that situation, if you’re not being totalitarian about it, the cattle are going to rewild to some degree. You’re going to wind up herding semi-domesticates, like the Saami.
(Though I do like the idea of Huns thundering across the Kansan plain…)
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 8:24 PM
Jason, the horse herders are very prominent in the history of Eurasian continent. The mongol invaders who managed to gather an army 100000 strong in 13th century used primarily horse as their herd animal.
Horses are still around.
Comment by _Gi — 13 March 2006 @ 8:34 PM
Uhhh … yeah, I know. I talked about them in the article, remember?
Soooo … what?
The Eurasian horse pastoralists also depended on agricultural societies to survive.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 8:45 PM
But they wouldn’t care if it was an agricultural or a horticultural settlement they’ve just raided.
Comment by _Gi — 13 March 2006 @ 9:01 PM
Yes they do. Agricultural settlements are much easier to raid. The EROEI is higher. Horticultural societies tend to be more integrated, making them harder to raid, with less material to take from the raid. EROEI is lower on both ends. Maybe too low for it to work at all.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 March 2006 @ 10:04 PM
Going to need more than 12 cowboys to guard that large herd of cows. Us foragers will be taking advantage of the stragglers! And your going to need a large fertile territory to sustain a large herd. And man, how does one move your herd should the mother-of-all droughts take over a 1000 square miles of your territory? And even if one could move, who’s territory might you infringe?
This has me wondering what will the farmland midwest rewild too? Forests or grassland?
Comment by Rick Larson — 13 March 2006 @ 11:27 PM
-”yuh huh”
-”nuh uh”
Comment by WackyMorningDJ — 13 March 2006 @ 11:36 PM
Hey –
Huh, I replied earlier, but apparently I didn’t. Oh well.
That’s exactly what I’m after… why spend time and energy doing anything that nature is quite willing and able to do without any effort from me
Well, I got a couple answers for ya on that Rick… first off, I don’t know why you think that my tribe would be willing to let you encroach on OUR territory (the possessive of ‘use’ not ownership) without repercussion. But if you did manage to pull it off, so be it.
Droughts don’t happne in a moment. As things start to get dry, animals move towards water. Otherwise, how would ANY wild animal survive climactic aberration? This is no different.
But yes, of course, there would need to be a lot of land to keep a herd of thousands happy and healthy. And no, I wasn’t really planning on it. In the ‘real world’ if someone were to try doing this, I would think you might see a population of sixty with a herd of, what, maybe 500-1000 animals? Maybe even that is way off, I don;t know THAT much about cattle herding…
BTW, Jason, did you say that a cow would provide enough meat for a family of six (including 4 children) for only a month? That’d be something like 6lbs of meat a day per person. Yikes! With preservation, you should, probably be able to feed a single person for a year for each cow butchered. Probably a little less, but still…
Janene
Comment by Janene — 13 March 2006 @ 11:46 PM
Ok, Janene obviously hasn’t seen me eat.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 13 March 2006 @ 11:55 PM
Hey –
I’ve seen you eat… but that doesn’t change the fact that 1 pound of red meat is QUITE sufficient for my entire family for 1 meal.
Imagine it… 24 quarter pounders with cheese every day….
minus the cheese and bun, of course
Janene
Comment by Janene — 14 March 2006 @ 12:06 AM
“Are a dozen cows having a new calf, on average, more than once a month?” Answer - Yes. Cows have one calf per year. If you figure one cow will feed the family for a month. That means the family would need a herd of approximately 29 cattle - the dozen bearing cows, two bulls (in case something happens to one) and four replacement heifers that have not yet been bred, plus 11 calves. This is the dozens [plural] that you state the family can handle. Also, those pesky carnivores you have them killing off, well, there’s supplemental meat, furs, etc.
“To survive in the grasslands, that can be quite easy–if you have the time to learn the grasslands.” I live in the grasslands currently and that is the environment I’m learning. So I have a base of knowledge to work from and wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel so to speak while working my tushie off with a herd. Pastoralism wouldn’t take so much of my day that I wouldn’t have time to bend down and try a nibble of an unfamiliar plant to see if it’s safe and perhaps even edible. I can already identify several dozen edible plants to supplement my diet while I’m learning the rest. I believe that on other pages you’ve cited statistics that pastoralists work about 6-8 hours a day, not the 12 you’re now claiming or perhaps I came across that statistic elsewhere.
You seem to be under the impression that tending a herd of livestock takes a great deal of time and energy. While it is true that the herder has to remain with the animals pretty much constantly, they have plenty of time for other pursuits, like finding plant foods for themselves or spinning or even weaving. Many shepherds weave on a backstrap loom while keeping an eye on their flocks.
“They had thousands of cattle because they had dogs and horses.” Why wouldn’t neopastoralists have dogs and horses? And why on earth would they need thousands of cattle if they’re not selling them?
How does the herd rewilding to a certain extent make one not a pastoralist?
I’m personally inclined toward sheep as they provide three main products (meat, milk and wool) in addition to other minor products; bone, horn, pelts. A lamb at slaughter weight (approximately 5-7 months) is at least 70 pounds, even subtracting the weight of the pelt and bones, that ought to feed a group of half a dozen for a week. Even the least prolific breeds of sheep average more than 150% most are far closer to 200% or even higher. That means 1.5 to 2+ lambs per ewe per year. Seems to me that a flock of 50 sheep ought to be able to feed a group of half dozen people and a few dogs quite handily, as well as providing plenty of fiber for clothing and shelter. Two people with two dogs ought to be able to guard the flock quite well. There is little need to drive the sheep if you’re following seasonal pastures. That would leave four people to forage, process hides, spin and weave, heck a couple of them could go off on a hunt with a dog for a few days even.
I find your premis that pastoralism is necessarily an adjunct to agriculture and thus unsustainable to be one of your weakest assertions, even after reading your discussion with Janene on the topic.
Comment by ChandraShakti — 14 March 2006 @ 1:04 AM
“The possibilities are limitless–which is precisely why I think it’s useless to try to enumerate them. That’s why I dwelll so much on what’s not possible: the most important part is to define the range in which those limitless options can be found.”
You’re completely missing my point, which I’ll restate a bit more bluntly. To blatantly steal a phrase, even the very wise cannot see all ends. Are you claiming that you have some special knowledge that is so deep and infallible that you can make broad, sweeping declarations about the future without the possibility of error? That’s what I’m percieving here. It’s an attitude that pervades your otherwise ingenious writing.
Not only do I reject your premise that pastoralism is absolutely impossible without agriculture to rely on (since it simply cannot be proven), but I declare this subject, and all like it, to be open and unknown. Even if something has never been accomplished before, it cannot be proven that this thing is impossible, or even unlikely. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 14 March 2006 @ 9:57 AM
Most likely, desert. At best, semi-arid grassland.
No–this is the second time you took issue with one of my conclusions in this thread without reading it! I said a family of a dozen or more. Twice that. As I pointed out above, pastoralism favors more children–to tend the herds. All those populations in Africa that have explosive birth rates, a lot of them are pastoralists. Pastoralism rewards having lots and lots of kids.
I meant around a dozen. In cultures without horses, only the most wealty pastoralists have that much cattle.
I said foragers work 6-8 hours a day, in the desert, according to estimates that are really liberal with their definition of “work.” Not pastoralists. There’s a big, big difference.
There’s a lot that goes into keeping horses. Would it all be there, still? We’re talking about a form of pastoralism like the Saami, with only semi-domestication. Semi-domesticated animals typically don’t let you ride them. Notice the Saami don’t ride their reindeer.
Pastoralists typically rely on their animals not only for meat, but for milk and transportation. Semi-domesticated animals, like the Saami’s reindeer, won’t let you milk them, and won’t let you use them for transport. As a result, the Saami are quite the outlier among pastoralists. They lack many of the traits that usually define pastoralism, because their herds are only partially domesticated.
No semi-domesticated sheep is going to let you shear it.
Jeez, is anyone even reading my responses?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 March 2006 @ 10:18 AM
It can seem like that if you don’t think about it critically, I can see that. The possibilities are endless, but not everything is possible.
An example: my father is a mechanical engineer. One of the biggest things he deals with is pressure per square inch, and materials that can withstand that. Stone, even hard stone, takes a LOT less than metal. If you don’t have metal, a huge range of possibilities gets closed down. If you don’t have an energy source like fossil fuels, your ability to get metals–as well as quite a few other things–shuts down.
Then there are problems of scale, which are usually the most significant problems of all. While it’s logically true that just because something’s never been done before doesn’t mean it’s impossible, practically, that’s pretty much exactly what it means. The things that haven’t been tried are the things that run into significant problems of scale or other major issues. Maybe with more energy we could overcome them–like flight, we overcame it by applying more energy. But that’s usually the only way. If we’re talking about less energy (and we are), then it comes down to being inventive within a smaller range, rather than being monotonous in a wide range.
Defining what that range is, is important. We have people in this very thread who are set on trying pastoralism. When it fails, they’ll most likely die, never understanding why their herds dwindled and why their strategy didn’t work. When the question of surviving a post-apocalyptic world came up on Ask MetaFilter, most people suggested farming, and preserving scientific knowledge, in order to rebuild.
In short, of the tiny percentage of the population that will survive the collapse itself, 99% will die off soon after pursuing such suicidal strategies, because they don’t understand what the range of possibilities are.
While I get ready myself, I’m trying to help as many people as possible to understand the choice that lies ahead of them. This is part of that choice. It has nothing to do with prescience or infallibility. It’s just basic critical thinking skills, and understanding that while specifics may be impossible to predict, abstractions are pretty easy.
That’s a severe lack of critical thinking there, Chuck. No one’s ever tried to farm without using plants, but I can tell you it won’t work, because it’s a contradiction. Pastoralism, like any other subsistence strategy, has certain traits. It has a given EROEI, a given birth rate, and certain dependencies which are intrinsic to the strategy itself. In order to escape them, you need to stop being a pastoralist. Kind of like if someone tells you he’s a Jesuit, it implies that he’s Catholic–if someone tells you he’s a pastoralist, that implies a lot of things about his lifestyle, logically. If those things are incompatible with the ecology we can expect in the next century, then that means that pastoralism will not be available as a viable option.
Throwing our hands up and saying, “Anything’s possible!” is not helpful. Applying a little bit of critical thinking and trying to pin down the range of possibilities will save people’s lives.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 March 2006 @ 10:34 AM
“Throwing our hands up and saying, “Anything’s possible!” is not helpful.”
Never said that, although I understand how it could easily be misread from what I wrote. I’m stating quite plainly that you’re not qualified to pronounce what is and is not impossible (at least not without an acknowledgement of possible error).
“Applying a little bit of critical thinking and trying to pin down the range of possibilities will save people’s lives.”
Accepting your writing as being the capital t Truth (which is what that phrase was about) will definitely save lives - if your writing is indeed the Truth. By declaring yourself correct with no room for error or possibilities, you show the presumption that you do believe yourself to hold the Truth(tm). If you are wrong, you are only limiting options people may have. This could lead to far more severe consequences than death.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 14 March 2006 @ 11:00 AM
Hey –
Jeez… I’m sorry Jason. I did READ what you wrote… but I didn’t go back and look at it when I wrote that comment. Somehow it got all skewed in my brain.
But then I have to ask… if we are talking about a dozen or more people, WHY are they so busy that they cannot forage? I mean, when we (or I in my la-la land :-)) were talking about a single family with two adults and four kids ranging from probably toddler to teenager, then I could see where keeping the animals would take most of thier time.
But, when you double that, what is everyone doing?
And although you did not say otherwise, I think it is important to clarify: although pastoralist certainly have a greated incentive to have more children than H-G, it is also true that they would be equally restricted to one child under 4 or five for the same reasons as H-G: mom can only carry one child at a time and they need to be mobile.
Moving forward… forget historical precedent and lets look at future models for just a second…
Is there any reason that future-neo-pastoralists would be unable to establish a tribal group of, say, thirty individuals, with a (for example) cattle herd of 100 animals, and a small (5-6) herd of horses?
Under the numbers suggested above, that is thirty animals slaughtered per year, which should be comfortably balanced against the birth rate in the herd. Likewise, young horses could be used as a supplemental met source — seeing as how more than one stallion in a herd is usually a difficult thing.
From that point, you end up with partially rewilded cattle, with fully domesticated horses and dogs. On any given day you have four or five people minding the herd, and you have 20 other adults and children doing whatever they are doing. ‘Minding’ the herd generally implies ‘hanging out and watching, with an occasional energy expenditure to drive an errant animal back to the main group’. In time, if the balance of animals and people is really good, perhaps this would even become irrelevant… let the predators take wandering animals… then maybe in a few generations we’ll have a breed with less tendancy to wander…
Anyway… I think the thing that is bugging me about all of this is that I REALLY feel like pastoralism is a grey area. Like horticulture, it MAY be true that any ‘pastoral-like’ adaptation inevitably will lead to ‘totalitarian’ practices, increased populations etc. And it is VERY important to understand the history of herding and its relationship with agricultural society. Perhaps there are factors that we are overlooking here that make it less viable than I have so far observed.
However, I don’t think this a case where you can honestly use the ‘its never happened before’ argument… because we don’t really know that that is true. We know that all of the examples we can point to have complex relationships with agriculturalists — except for one exception… But which is the chicken and which is the egg?
I think there is value in the suggestion that domestic animals are a product of agriculture… so the question becomes one that HAS never happened before: What happens to pastoral adaptations when agriculture ceases to exist? The domestic animals exist, the knowledge of how to work with them exists. The symbiotic relationships are understood (ie horses and dogs for keeping cattle, etc). When agriculture is gone and complexity levels drop, how does this affect pastoralism, how does it affect horticulture, how does it affect, well, everything?
Janene
Comment by Janene — 14 March 2006 @ 11:02 AM
I’m not expecting anyone to accept my conclusions uncritically. I’m not positing it as “the Truth.” You note that I don’t make pronouncements; I write theses. I make a statement, and then I back it up. I try to sway people with the evidence. Obviously, I think my opinion is correct. Don’t you think your opinion is correct? That’s why debate is healthy. It’s not a matter of declaring unvarnished truth. I’ve never said that. I’m proposing an argument about why I think that pastoralism will not be viable after the collapse. It has nothing to do with prescience or infallibility. It has to do with critical thinking. If you disagree, then by all means do so! Provide a counter-argument. Otherwise, it’s just wishy-washy, “anything’s possible” nonsense.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 March 2006 @ 11:07 AM
I just wanted to comment on a couple of things:
I dislike the word ‘absolutely’ in there as you can’t absolutely prove that the earth will spin around and reveal the sun tomorrow so I’m ignoring that word.
You most certainly can gather a preponderance of the evidence about pastoralism’s dependence on agriculture. Look at various pastoral lifestyles and determine what they are getting from agriculturalists and determine whether they have the time and resources to get those things via foraging.
Re: Cow Calculus
The 29 cattle number as calculated ignored the tidbit that you want to eat full grown cows to maximize return. So in addition to the 12 calves this year you need to have last years 12 animals hanging around waiting for the slaughter bringing the number up to 41.
Re: Horses and neopastoralism
If you are going to use horses and dogs to compensate for the traditional problems of pastoralism then you must also maintain (to some extent) a herd of horses and a pack of dogs. Turning your 41 cattle and 12 people into 41 cattle 18 horses 12 dogs and 12 people does not make your life easier. Note that the 18 horses includes only those horses that you have captured and broken for use, not the wild herd that you are using as your source of animals.
JimFive
Comment by JimFive — 14 March 2006 @ 11:18 AM
Take a look at the labor involved with modern pastoralists in Africa who tend herds of cattle. They spend most of their time tending to the animals. It’s such an intensive activity that they need all those kids to do it.
I don’t know why that is, or the specifics, or how Americans can see thousands of cattle with just a few handlers, but I’m suspecting it has a lot to do with energy in various forms: domesticated horses, plastics and other technology, etc. Thing is, I don’t need to know the details, because this is an abstraction. We can look at a group like the Maasai, and see what kind of EREOEI pastoralism requires on the homemade technological level.
If they have fully domesticated animals, those can be used for transport, including carrying children.
You lose me at the very beginning. My basic assumption is that the future will be much like the past. Call it cultural uniformitarianism, if you will. We’ll be operating under the same laws of physics, the same marginal return curves, etc. My assumption is that there’s probably precious little that we haven’t tried, and the things we haven’t done are probably just impractical.
Is there any reason