Nomads in Archaeology (New Studies in Archaeology)

Nomads in archaeology

NEW STUDIES

IN

ARCHAEOLOGY

Series editors Colin Renfrew, University of Cambridge Jeremy Sabloff, University of Pittsburgh

Other titles in the series include Graham Connah ; Three Thousand Years in Africa Richard Gould, Living Archaeology Ian Hodder and Clive Orton, Spatial Analysis in Archaeology Keith Muckelroy, Maritime Archaeology Stephen Plog, Stylistic Variation in Prehistoric Ceramics Peter Wells, Culture Contact and Culture Change Ian Hodder, Symbols in Action Geoffrey Conrad and Arthur Demarest, Religion and Empire: the Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism Patrick Kirch, Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms Dean Arnold, Ceramic Theory and Cultural Process Graeme Barker, Prehistoric Farming in Europe Daniel Miller, Artefacts as Categories Robin Torrence, Production and Exchange of Stone Tools Rosalind Hunter-Anderson, Prehistoric Adaptation in the American Southwest Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley 7 Re-Constructing Archaeology Bo Graslund, The Birth of Prehistoric Chronology Ian Morris, Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State John Fox, Maya Postclassic State Formation Joseph A. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies Peter Bogucki, Forest Farmers and Stock Herders Alasdair Whittle, Problems in Neolithic Archaeology Olivier de Montmillon, The Archaeology of Political Structure Steven J. Mithen, Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making Robert Chapman, Emerging Complexity: The Later Prehistory of South-east Spain, Iberia and the West Mediterranean

Nomads in archaeology

Roger Cribb Central Land Council, Alice Springs

The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE NEW YORK PORT CHESTER MELBOURNE SYDNEY

PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon 13,28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http ://www. Cambridge. org © Cambridge University Press 1991 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1991 Reprinted 1993 First paperback edition 2004 National Library of Australia cataloguing in publication data Cribb, Roger. 1948Nomads in archaeology. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 0 521 32881 0 hardback 1. Archaeology — Methodology. 2. Nomads. 3. Turkey — Antiquities. 4. Iran—Antiquities. I. Title. (Series: New studies in archaeology). 930.1 A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Cribb, Roger, 1948Nomads in archaeology. (New studies in archaeology) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Nomads — Turkey. 2. Nomads — Iran. 3. Turkey — Antiquities. 4. Iran—Antiquities. I. Title. DR434.075 1990 935 89-25172 ISBN 0 521 32881 0 hardback ISBN 0 521 54579 X paperback

To my son, Thomas Hasan, and the memory of my father Thomas Henry

And so we moved over the earth; sometimes free, sometimes captive, conquering and conquered . . . To Anatolia we came, and before us rose Kayseri Mountain, Ararat, Siiphan, Nemrut, Binboga and Jilo mountains . They have driven us onto the dusty roads, They have cast us up into the snowcapped mountains In every province we abandoned a part of us, In every clime, in every tract of land, Discarded tents, forgotten, left to rot away . . .

(from The Legend of the Thousand Bulls

by Yashar Kemal)

CONTENTS List of illustrations List of tables Preface 1

Introduction

ix xii xiii 1

Research objectives Ethnoarchaeology Geographical scope and environment 2

Origins and definitions Historical evidence Theories of nomadic pastoral origins The time frame Nomadic pastoralism defined Hunter-gatherers and nomads compared

9

3

N o m a d pastoral e c o n o m y Nomadism and the integration of pastoralism and agriculture Factors of production: the pastoral herd The pastoral mode of subsistence

4

Residence, descent and territory 44 Nomad social organization The role of the tribe The tribe as a territorial system Nomadism as a cyclical phenomenon

5

N o m a d s - the invisible culture? Nomadism as an archaeological problem The organization of nomad material culture The role of pottery in nomad material culture Stone artifacts Stratigraphy and architectural remains The issue of 'household impedimenta' Conclusion

65

6

N o m a d architecture and domestic space What is a tent? Types of nomad tents Fixtures Composite dwellings Tents and houses The spatial organization of the tent Indications of wealth and status Towards a typology of dwelling forms Variation in dwelling types over the seasonal cycle Long-term processes influencing dwelling forms

84

7

Ali ; s camp: a n o m a d household campsite 113 The region Past nomad populations A case study Instability and opportunism in southern Anatolian nomadism Ali's camp: site structure at the household level Conclusion

23

Contents

8

The structure and location of nomad settlements

133

Nomad settlement systems The internal structure of nomad campsites The overlap of nomad and sedentary settlement forms Camps and villages Conclusion 9

10

SanaydinYayla The camp and its inhabitants The domestic complex Quantitative analysis of discard Some implications for archeological investigation The domestic complex in context

The lost world of Nemrut Dag

162

185

The setting Initial observations Interpretation of campsite ND-1 The Alikanli: an ethnographic account ND-1 in retrospect: an informed reassessment Conclusion

11

12

212 N o m a d archaeology: a n assessment Tepe Tula'i Other evidence ofpossible tentsites The Early Transcaucasian Culture: a test case Future prospects T o w a r d s a model of unstable settlement systems Theoretical perspectives Comparative and diachronic approaches The future

225

References

230

Glossary

245

Index

248

Vlll

ILLUSTRATIONS 1.1

General map of Middle East with historical and archaeological sites and modern nomad groups 2.1 Interaction between mobility and mode of subsistence 3.1 Internal dynamics of the pastoral and agricultural modes of subsistence in response to favourable and unfavourable conditions 3.2 Computer simulation of pastoral flocks showing the effect of high kill-off of immature males 3.3 Computer simulation of different herd compositions subjected to a sequence of adverse seasons 3.4 Nomadic migration in eastern Turkey 3.5 Distribution of household livestock ownership for Yoriiks and Yomut Turkmen 4.1 Schematic diagram of levels in a nomad residence hierarchy 5.1 Sherds found in campsites in western and eastern Turkey 5.2 A large ceramic churn for yoghurt manufacture; from western Iran in the last century 5.3 Grindstone and slabs from a campsite in eastern Turkey 5.4 Stratigraphic context revealed in a bread-oven pit, eastern Turkey 5.5 A long-abandoned campsite in central Turkey 6.1 Ali;s tent, southern Turkey 6.2 A topak ev tent form from central Turkey 6.3 Black tents, eastern Turkey 6.4 Frame of an alacik from the Taurus Mountains, Turkey 6.5 Diagram of an alacik showing construction and internal organization 6.6 Plastered stone hearth inside an alacik, southern Turkey 6.7 Stone-built fireplaces from tentsites in southern and eastern Turkey 6.8 Plan of a tentsite with internal and external hearth, southern Turkey 6.9 A long-abandoned tentsite with stone platform, southern Turkey 6.10 Floorplans of tentsites and house employed by villagers in western Iran 6.11 Floorplans and elevations of adjacent tentsite and hut from Baluchistan 6.12 Variability in dwelling forms among the Beritanli, eastern Turkey ix

6 17 24 30 32 37 43 46 TJ 78 79 81 81 85 87 87 89 90 92 93 94 95 98 99 102

Illustrations

6.13 Seasonal variation in Yoriik tent plan and facilities 6.14 A typology of dwelling forms: tents, composite dwellings and houses 6.15 Seasonal variation in dwelling form among villagers in western Iran 6.16 Schematic diagram of changes in dwelling form 7.1 Regional map of the southern coast of Turkey around Silifke 7.2 Plans of abandoned campsites around Karakegi, southern Turkey 7.3 Historical Yoriik migration routes in southern Turkey 7.4 Ali's winter campsite 7.5 Interior views of Ali;s dwelling 7.6 Distribution of items in surface recording of Ali's camp 7.7 Principal components analysis of spatial distributions at Ali;s camp 7.8 Spatial cluster analysis of distributions at Ali's camp 7.9 Spatial patterning of distributions in relation to structures and features of Ali's camp 8.1 Abandoned Luri campsites, Zagros Mountains, Iran 8.2 Campsite locations on mountain shelves, Turkey 8.3 Principles of campsite spatial organization 8.4 Variability in campsite organization among Bakhtiari nomads 8.5 Schematic diagram of the relationship between pasture lots and the size of campsites 8.6 A Kurdish camp in eastern Anatolia photographed in the 1930s showing stratified organization and linear structure 8.7 Beritanh chiefly camp in eastern Anatolia 8.8 Campsites located in association with ancient ruins, western Iran and eastern Anatolia 8.9 Plans of Luri encampments near archaeological mounds, western Iran 8.10 Village plans from Syria and Iraq 9.1 General plan of Sanaydin Yayla 9.2 An alacik at Sanaydin Yayla 9.3 Floorplans of tents from Sanaydin Yayla {alacik) and a nearby camp (black tents) 9.4 General view of Sanaydin Yayla looking across Area A 9.5 The domestic complex featuring structures and activities 9.6 Plan of Area A, Sanaydin Yayla 9.7 Distribution of items over recording zone A, Sanaydin Yayla 9.8 Results of principal components and spatial clustering for recording zone A 9.9 Results of principal components and spatial clustering for recording zone B 9.10 Contoured distributions of items in Area A by 5 metre quadrats 9.11 Distribution of faunal remains in Area A, Sanaydin Yayla 10.1 Map of Nemrut Dag 10.2 Abandoned campsite ND-1 from the north 10.3 Plan of campsite ND-1, Nemrut Dag, together with floorplan of tentsite

104 106 109 111 113 116 121 122 123 125 127 129 131 136 138 140 142 143 148 149 150 152 159 163 167 168 171 172 173 174 177 179 180 181 186 189 190

Illustrations

10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5

Estimation of household composition and social structure at ND-1 Nomadic migration routes in the Lake Van region Changes in Alikanli tribal structure and residence hierarchy Plan of campsite ND-47 Nemrut Dag General view of ND-4, Nemrut Dag Members of the Alikan tribe outside the headman's tent, Nemrut Dag Stone platforms and tent footings, Tepe Tula7i; Khuzistan Suspected ancient tentsites from Khuzistan A suspected nomad tentsite from the late Byzantine levels of Han Ibrahim §ah, eastern Anatolia Tent-like floorplans from the Early Transcaucasian Culture Changes in settlement structures, Early Transcaucasian Culture

XI

194 197 204 206 206 211 213 217 219 222 223

TABLES 3.1 4.1 5.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 10.1 10.2 10.3

Comparative sizes of small stockholdings of households in Near Eastern communities Functional properties of different levels of segmentation for nine Near Eastern tribal groups Inventories of Near Eastern nomad and village material culture Classification of materials recorded at Ali's camp Nearest neighbour and segregation statistics for selected materials at Ali;s camp Results of principal components analysis of Ali's camp Chi-square tests for significant difference between cluster groups at Ali;s camp Faunal elements from recording zone at Ali's camp Nearest neighbour and segregation statistics for distributions in recording zone A; Sanaydin Yayla Principal components analysis of recording zone A7 Sanaydin Yayla Principal components analysis of recording zone B, Sanaydin Yayla Comparisons between recording zones A and B Faunal elements in Area A, Sanaydin Yayla by anatomical classes Chi-square tests for significant difference between domestic complexes and special areas, in terms of faunal element classes Estimated demographic composition of ND-1 Demography and animal holdings for five wealth classes, Alikanli Distribution of households (tents) over size classes of units, Nemrut Dag

xn

35 50 70 124 126 127 129 131 175 175 178 179 181 182 192 204 208

PREFACE The convergence of three long-standing interests - a fascination with Anatolia, the phenomenon of nomadism and commitment to the progress of analytical archaeology - have come together in producing this book. Scattered observations during travels in Iran and Turkey during the mid-1970s had convinced me that pastoral campsites provided an ideal laboratory in which to pursue certain strands of emerging middle range theory, particularly with respect to occupation floor models and site structure. What might have been a detailed empirical study, carried out under controlled conditions in carefully selected sites, changed direction in the field. Confronted with the realities of ethnoarchaeological research in the modern Near East, I was not only forced to be more eclectic in terms of the campsites studied, but was also encouraged to diversify, taking an interest in Seljuk history and local history, ruined caravanserais and the accounts of nineteenth-century travellers, together with neo-Marxist anthropology and quantitative techniques of spatial analysis. While I had planned for a more in-depth coverage of a single region or group of nomads, there were compensations in the form of greater geographical range and diversity in the nomadic and semi-nomadic groups visited. The beginning of my ethnoarchaeological fieldwork coincided to the day with the October 12 military coup in 1980 which put certain constraints on my activities. Yet compared with other countries in the region, conditions in Turkey were quite favourable. Iran, in the midst of an Islamic revolution, was closed to foreign fieldworkers and the regions of Khuzistan and Luristan, where so much recent nomad ethnoarchaeology has been carried out, are now a battlefield. Afghanistan is likewise in the grip of war, and conditions on the peripheries of neighbouring states have been affected by this instability. It occurred to me that this is no accident for, as I shall argue later, nomads have been in part a response to - and also frequent contributors to - such turbulent conditions since at least the beginnings of civilization in the region. I began to realize that an archaeological perspective on nomadism would have to come to terms with the sociopolitical factors which have influenced the extent and nature of nomadism through time and that these same factors could be detected, albeit in static form, in numerous ethnographic accounts of nomads. Many individuals have played a part in the genesis of this volume. Colin Renfrew has always been a source of inspiration and was never slow to respond to my pleas for advice and direction from Ankara. Clive xm

Preface

xiv

Gamble, my supervisor at Southampton, was always on hand to get me over the rough patches. I am also grateful to the relentless Peter Ucko, not only for a heavy hand during the dissertation years but also for extorting funds from various sources on my behalf. Steve Shennan has helped to bring the study into focus and has assisted with sundry statistical and computer problems. Thank you also to the other post-graduate students at the Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, particularly Sarah Colley and Siriol Mynors who shared my ups and downs in the last frantic year of the doctoral dissertation. Without support from the University of Southampton Studentship the study could not have continued. I recall with gratitude my colleagues from the Social Science Department at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara where I lectured for two years, and early discussions with a number of prominent Turkish scholars on this and related topics. Unpublished material and moral support was provided by Meral Ozbek, Giiven Guliiksoz and I§in Aricanli. Qok sagol to the villagers and nomads of Anatolia whose generosity and sense of humour made the experience of field work a rewarding one. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to Giilgin Cribb who helped with the study in many ways, large and small, and shared with me the rigours of Anatolian roads. I am indebted to Tim Ingold for his comments on earlier drafts of this work. Robert Whallon and Frank Hole made available unpublished manuscripts which greatly influenced my earlier approaches to the subject. Antonio Sagona of the University of Melbourne has generously provided much background material and feedback on the Early Transcaucasian Culture. Peter Andrews provided information on nomad architecture and also supplied some of the photographs. I also benefited greatly from the detailed comments of the late Professor Emrys Peters of Manchester, my external dissertation examiner. Facilities and office resources for the preparation of this volume were provided by the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland.

1 INTRODUCTION Persian, I have never yet run from any man in fear and I am not doing so from you now. There is, for me, nothing unusual in what I have been doing: it is precisely the kind of life I always lead, even in times of peace. If you want to know why I will not fight, I will tell you. In our country there are no towns and no cultivated land; fear of losing which, or seeing it ravaged, might indeed provoke us to hasty battle. If however you are determined upon bloodshed . . . one thing there is for which we will fight - the tombs of our forefathers. Find those tombs and try to wreck them, and you will soon know whether or not we are willing to stand up to you. (Herodotus, The Histories, Book IV, 125)

The defiant reply of the Scythian chieftain Idanthyrsus to Darius, King of Persia, contains a number of points of interest to any student of nomadic pastoralism as an anthropological and historical problem. The ceaseless cycle of mobility, the lack of fixed assets and the military advantages which flow from both - all are common themes in the anthropology of Near Eastern nomadism. Historians receive the occasional glimpse of nomadic cultures and life ways, such as the above. But, like Darius, archaeologists have had great difficulty in pinning down ancient nomads. Indeed for many years it seemed that the only archaeological traces of nomadic cultures were likely to remain those mysterious tombs or kurgans to which Idanthyrsus referred. If, like Darius, we intend bringing nomads to boot, then we would do well to concentrate not on the obvious manifestations of nomadic material culture - the tombs, the weapons, the works of art - but instead attempt to understand nomadism as a phenomenon, as a system with its own underlying dynamics and its correlates in space and time. Had Darius possessed such an understanding then he would perhaps not have been led such a merry chase; nor would his departure from the field have been quite as undignified. Likewise the uninformed archaeologist will be at the mercy of uncontrolled observations, chance encounters and tantalizing glimpses from afar, remaining blissfully unaware of the larger pattern. He will most probably depart the field in equal disarray.

Research objectives High in the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey, looking down on an encampment of black tents drawn up in a valley 150 metres below, I began to realize that the aim of my study was not the discovery of ancient

Nomads in archaeology

nomad cultures but something equally challenging. From my vantage point I could see that there was an underlying order in the location and orientation of tentsites. The layout of each tentsite and its associated features - forecourts, hearths, ash dumps, midden deposits - conformed to a single blueprint. I had seen and visited many such camps before and had studied published photographs and plans of campsites from Morocco to Afghanistan and Siberia to the Sudan, but perhaps not from quite the same angle. I was of course familiar with Yellen's (1977) ring model of !Kung settlements and Binford;s (1978a) Nunamiut hunting stand, but three things struck me here. First, most of the structures and features I could observe were recoverable archaeologically. Second, there were at least three distinct levels in the organization of the campsite: one set of rules governing the layout of workspace and features with respect to the tent itself, another set controlling the location of tents vis-a-vis each other as well as the terrain, and another set of factors which dictated that the campsite should be located here as opposed to a dozen other possible locations. Third, I was struck by how very different was the algebra underlying this pattern from any of the other settlement systems documented by archaeologists and by the impression - only a hypothesis at this stage - that the entire pattern was, in principle, deducible from what is known about the social and economic organization of pastoral peoples. The settlement pattern I was observing contained three interesting qualities: redundancy, 'grain7 and 'texture'. There was a high degree of redundancy in the organization of household space. Each tent, together with its work areas, features and facilities, was laid out apparently according to a single blueprint. The 'grain; was apparent in linear patterns in the location and orientation of tentsites forming parallel lines where possible but responding also to aspect and the lie of the land. The 'texture' of the settlement was a regular alternation of living floors and open spaces. There appeared to be a simple grammar underlying the spatial organization of the campsite, an understanding of which would enable a researcher to both recognize and predict the layout of other campsites. Perhaps more importantly I began to perceive that this grammar was a manifestation of the wider organization of nomadic and pastoral life. A method of series of methods, perhaps a whole framework, would be needed to explain why pastoral campsites should be distributed and organized in such a characteristic way. In common with other volumes in this series (Gould 1980; Torrence 1986) this book is about the building of middle range theory. Middle range theory involves the identification of key variables or indicators, the construction of valid instruments for the analysis of archaeological data (Binford 1983, p.129), the definition of units of analysis and the perception of appropriate scales of resolution for the solution of different problems. Middle range theory seeks to establish sets of variables which are known to interact in a certain way for a wide range of problems, although the exact nature and extent of the interaction will vary with individual applications. These do not constitute 'covering laws7 or 'laws of culture process'. A law implies a certain relationship between components E always equals me - whereas the most we can hope for in a subject like

Introduction

archaeology is some general statement that questions about energy will involve mass and some exponent of velocity. Middle range theories are not just 'middle sized' theories or small theories upon which larger theories may be built, but theories which occupy a mid-point in the research process. If we wish to propose general theories about raw materials procurement and exchange in cultures at different levels of complexity, then we may first need to recognize that the key variables involved include control over supply and production, efficiency, sophistication of technology, simplification, standardization and specialization (Torrence 1986, pp.40-5). If an example of a 'law' is the formula for relating floor size or settlement size to population (Narroll 1962; Cook and Heizer 1968) then a corresponding instance of middle range theory is the recognition that settlement size and population size or density interact with each other though the nature of this interaction varies at different population sizes and also in relation to external factors such as the mode of production (Fletcher 1981, p.98). Likewise the identification of domains and modular units in David Clarke's (1972b) study of Iron Age Glastonbury is a case of middle range theory employed in the wider task of understanding the principles of Iron Age settlement systems. Essentially, middle range theory is not about laws, but about constructs and model building. Since the inception of behavioural archaeology (Schiffer 1976) archaeologists have begun to look at sites in a new way. While Schiffer's approach was mainly confined to the reconstruction of behavioural events and distinguishing behavioural from post-depositional processes, the behaviourist perspective does not exhaust the range of possibilities opened up by the new approach. Other studies have shifted the emphasis from patterning in 'primary' refuse to regularities in the distribution of 'secondary' refuse (Schiffer 1972; Murray 1980), with a corresponding attention to the general 'maintenance of life-space' (Binford 1981) as opposed to the performance of specific tasks. If works as disparate as Yellen's (1977) account of !Kung campsites, Binford's (1978a) Eskimo hunting stand, Flannery's (1976) Mesoamerican village, Kramer's (1979) Iranian villages, Hodder's (1982) accounts of East African settlements and David Clarke's (1972b) study of Glastonbury have anything in common, it is the central notion of site structure defined most recently as 'the spatial distribution of artifacts, features and fauna on archaeological sites' (Binford 1983, p.144). This definition is inadequate in that it is not so much the distributions themselves that are important as the spatial relationships between items and/or features and relationships between the factors or variables that account for these visual patterns. Any site may be envisaged as a set of items, artifacts or debris, organized with respect to a set of features (Binford's 'framework'). The underlying control variables may be divided into: those relating to 'body mechanics' (ibid., p. 145) or kinetics which may be presumed fairly constant across space and time; environmental variables involving terrain, aspect, shelter, etc., which will also be fairly constant depending on the priorities of the site's inhabitants; and social or economic factors such as kinship distance, wealth and status which may be expected to vary between populations. Also present will be sets of variables which might be

Nomads in archaeology

termed 'cultural', and it is here that the greatest scope for variation occurs, particularly as the size and complexity of settlements increases. I am therefore less sanguine than Binford (ibid., p. 146) about being able to decipher all the information 'coded into the organization of site structure7. Cultural variables in particular are liable to produce variations in form and scale which will prove resistant to the application of 'laws ;. In any particular case it will therefore be necessary to understand the unique patterns introduced by cultural factors in addition to those accountable by kinetic, environmental and social factors. This approach to site structure implies a form of 'structuralism', which should however be distinguished from the 'structuralisme7 (Gellner 1982) of the so-called cognitive school. We are concerned with pattern and redundancy in spatial form and relationships without necessarily reading into this any notions of essentialism, that such forms 'have deep natures or constitutions or inner essences7 (ibid., p.99). Of course the kind of middle range theory advocated here could just as well be pressed into the service of 'structuraliste' or cognitive theories about human spatial behaviour, as attempted in numerous works by Hodder (e.g. 1982). The concept of site structure can be used with equal effect to support arguments about on-site behaviour and the organization of activity space on the one hand, and theories of spatial patterning based on conceptual or ritual systems on the other. A concern with site structure need not commit the archaeologist to any stance at the 'grand theory' level. However it does presuppose the use of a range of techniques for the detection and analysis of spatial patterning, which in turn place certain demands on the conduct of excavation and the manner in which data are defined, recorded, stored and processed (see Winter 1976; Bogucki and Grygiel 1981; Ammerman et al. 1978). If the New Archaeology of the late 60s and early 70s taught us anything it was that data do not exist as a priori facts but are the result of constructs which researchers use in approaching their raw material, and reflect not only the researcher's aims and presuppositions but also the general paradigm within which he or she operates. Currently a range of statistical techniques is being developed for the analysis of intra-site and regional spatial patterning (Hodder and Orton 1976; Orton 1980, 1982; Kintigh and Ammerman 1982; Whallon 1973, 1974, 1984). Attempts are even being made to address the difficult question of quantifying relationships between features and item distributions (Simek 1984). At the same time revolutions are occurring in the computer storage of spatial information. Unfortunately excavation technology and organization generally lag behind these trends, and much of the current effort in the development of site structure models has been directed into ethnoarchaeological work.

Ethnoarchaeology Like many other students of site structure I have been forced to confront the issue of the role of ethnoarchaeology. Our discipline recently went through a decade of an almost indecent concern with the use of ethnographic analogy (Binford 1972a; 1972b; 1972c; Chang 1967). While

Introduction

recourse to ad hoc ethnographic parallels will no doubt continue to inform and misinform archaeologists for years to come (Ucko 1969), arguments by ethnographic analogy have no place in middle range theory. The close association of middle range theory and ethnoarchaeology derives not so much from the use of ethnographic analogy to predict the past (Binford 1967; Durrenberger and Morrison 1977; Orme 1973; Allen and Richardson 1971; Gummerman and Phillips 1978) but from the fact that ethnographic settings provide an optimal environment in which to identify and study the behaviour of key variables, refine measuring instruments and isolate appropriate analytical units. The ethnographic setting may be likened to a laboratory in which phenomena are studied under controlled conditions. The application of constructs, instruments and models so derived to 'real7 archaeological problems and data has nothing to do with ethnographic analogy. Nor is there any necessity that they be derived from ethnographic contexts. One of the most elegant middle range models, Clarke's (1972b) 'modular unit7, was derived almost entirely from archaeological data, with a little help from Roman ethnohistory. Yellen's (1977) !Kung campsites were archaeological in the sense that most of them had no recorded systemic context, and this was true also of some of my abandoned nomad camps. Binford's (numerous publications) view of ethnoarchaeology as a laboratory for generating middle range theory by studying the relationship between archaeological 'statics7 and the 'dynamics' of a living system is a useful one. But it should not be forgotten that dynamic relationships can also be studied through archaeological data, and that these data, as opposed to the physical remains in the archaeological record, are never really 'static7. There is no reason why the study of dynamics should be confined to the ethnographic domain, although it is certainly true that understanding the operations of dynamic systems in the present can assist greatly in imparting form and meaning to archaeological residues. In documenting the spatial organization of contemporary nomads I am not attempting to map this organizational structure onto ancient nomads. I am suggesting that in prospecting for nomad sites we need to design surveys with regard to certain factors: that, for example, temporal and spatial variations in both the permanency of dwellings and the physical layout of settlements have a bearing on the detection of regional tendencies towards nomadization or sedentarization; that the investigation of suspected pastoral or nomadic sites will be more informative if certain kinds of study units and sampling schemes are employed and particular forms of spatial analysis applied. Investigations along these lines may well point to a system organized in a similar fashion to those observed today analogy, or to something quite different, anomaly (Gould 1980) - but whatever the outcome it is the tools forged in the ethnographic setting which

are imported into the past, not that setting itself. As a laboratory for the development of middle range theory pastoral campsites present certain obvious advantages. Campsites that are abandoned, but still active may be studied without the impediments imposed by continuous occupation. Campsites may be studied while occupied as well as in various stages of abandonment - i.e. they may be observed in both systemic and archaeological context, enabling us to move from the

Nomads in archaeology

realm of statics to dynamics and back again with relative ease. Although my own observations were confined to a few years, the long-term study of single campsite locations offers the prospect of detecting diachronic variations in discard patterns, architecture, settlement plans and intensity of use. As Binford (1983, p.397) has recently observed, while site structure has been approached in terms of seasonal and functional variations, There has however been essentially no discussion of long term patterns of change in the disposition of a complete system in space7.

Geographical scope and environment Fig. 1.1 General Map of Middle East with historical and archaeological sites and modern nomad groups. Modern campsites mentioned in connection with this study are also shown, distinguished according to winter or summer camps.

Before moving on to an account of contemporary nomadic pastoral systems it is necessary to define the geographical scope of the study. While evidence is drawn from the entire area of the Near East and Central Asia, from the Atlas Mountains to the Altai, the core area, for which the conclusions reached in the course of this study are held to be valid, is the mountain arc of the Taurus and Zagros, covering much of modern Turkey and Iran, together with associated low and high altitude steppelands (see Fig. 1.1).

Introduction

During one of my sojourns in a summer campsite some 1,500 metres up in the Taurus Mountains, a small shepherd boy brought me a piece of rock, explaining that it contained eski Musiilman sanat (ancient Islamic artworks). The delicate patterns inscribed in the stone were indeed reminiscent of the kind of intricate inscriptions and miniatures found in mosques, but the whole composition could be identified as a starfish, a fossil from an ancient Miocene sea. Other marine fossils of seashells and molluscs were common in rocks all over the campsite. Some millions of years ago, during the Miocene era, the tectonic plates supporting Africa and Eurasia began to come into collision, with the Arabian plate caught in between. The tremendous forces involved have raised the great mountain chains of the European Alps, the Taurus and the Zagros, across to the Hindu Kush and Himalayas, where similar processes are under way involving the Indian Subcontinent. Along much of the length of the Taurus Mountains a cross-section through the ranges follows the following sequence. Fairly precipitous limestone hills or karst formations, trending in an east-west direction, rise directly out of the sea or the coastal plain, cut by the deep gorges of streams whose catchments lie in sheltered valleys to their north. Behind this initial barrier rises an even higher escarpment with the limestone

KEY summer fr camp spring/ o D autumn camp winter camp x modern village

THE TAURUS - ZAGROS ARC LOCATION OF NOMAD CAMPSITES AND OTHER SITES 0

50

100

200

300 km

Gulf Bartholomews 1: 4 000 000

tribal migration routes town, city

archaeological site A ancient campsite

Nomads in archaeology

giving way to granite and more gently rounded summits, falling on their northern slopes to low foothills and the vast sweep of the Anatolian Plateau. Rising directly out of these steppelands are the great volcanic cones from Emir and Hasan Dag in the west, to Erciyas, Nemrut, Siiphan and Agri Dag in the east, thrown up by disturbances deep in the subduction zone where the African plate plunges beneath the Eurasian one. To the east, where the mountain chains begin to sweep around to a northwest-southeast direction, rises the limestone massif of the Jilo Mountains, a tangled maze of saw-toothed ridges and deep abysses. While a certain amount of shearing and slippage occurs along the Taurus section of the arc, in western Iran the tectonic plates meet head on, producing downwarping in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf and setting up a series of parallel ripples running from northwest to southeast, each a little higher than the previous one, culminating in the snow-capped peaks of the Zagros. Again the relatively open terrain of the higher altitudes, or thrust zone (Gilbert 1983), contrasts with the convoluted limestone ridges and deep, sunless gorges at the lower altitudes (Sunderland 1968). The implications for human settlement of such a landscape have been considerable. From very early times until the present, population has been concentrated on the plateau or the coastal plain and Mesopotamia. Moreover the mountain chains have served as significant cultural barriers, though by no means impenetrable ones. In sharp contrast to the situation in Arabia and Central Asia, the major access routes through the ranges, by which trade and communications are carried on, also serve as the migration routes of nomads, bringing them into continual contact with sedentary society. It is the character of this interaction, as much as the great environmental and seasonal contrasts, which has influenced nomad social structures and settlement systems.

2 ORIGINS AND DEFINITIONS The weapon is his companion . . . Who knows no submission, Who eats uncooked flesh, Who has no house in his lifetime. (from a Sumerian text, in Chiera 1924, p.20)

While the quest for the origins of nomadic pastoralism is not the central theme of this work, the issue must be raised if only because it has formed the focus of so much archaeological work. Yet the origins of nomadism may not be of quite the same significance as other origins - such as the origins of food production and of urban life. In the latter instances we are dealing with major systems transformations which require extremely complex explanations and models and which are part of a general trend towards organizational complexity and increased energy capture. The advent of nomadic pastoralism has its place in all this but if; as suggested earlier, it is peripheral to the main line of cultural evolution, then it may not require the same level of explanation. Perhaps nomadic pastoralism cannot be said to have had a precise origin, or perhaps it has had many origins in many places and at different times. If, as argued by some (Khazanov 1984; Gilbert 1983; and also in this work), nomadism is an unstable and fluctuating phenomenon involving a heavy commitment to pastoralism, then we would be far better off studying those sets of conditions under which it emerges or declines than in searching for origins or building causal models. A good starting point would be to define the necessary conditions for the existence of nomadic pastoralism. These include the presence of suitable animal species, a suitable physical environment for the maintenance of these species and the appropriate technology and social relations for domestication and continuous herding. The period in cultural evolution at which all these conditions were fulfilled may be taken as the predicted baseline for the subsequent appearance and reappearance of nomadic pastoralism. Yet existing theories of nomadic origins have tended to concentrate around two periods. It has been argued, most frequently by social anthropologists and historians, that nomadism is a consequence of the specialization and integration of pastoralism and cultivation which was

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only possible with the development of complex (i.e. urban) societies (Lees and Bates 1974; Khazanov 1984, etc.). Others, predominantly archaeologists (Hole 1978; Gilbert 1983), have pushed the search for nomadic origins far back into the neolithic.

Historical evidence Although accounts of ancient Near Eastern history often seem to assume the presence of a fluid, peripheral and mobile pastoral population, they are rarely explicit on this point. To the extent that recognizably nomadic groups appear at all it is generally within the context of the wider political designs of neighbouring states whose sources tend to stress administrative categories rather than economic or social ones. Apart from terms loosely translatable as Sandbewohner, Wilden, Zeltwohnern, Wandern and Raubern (Vardiman 1977, p.22), there seems to be no ancient term which conveys the exact sense of 'nomad'. Even today, terms which initially conveyed the meaning 'nomad7 have taken on an increasingly ethnic flavour. For instance, the term Baluchi was originally employed by settled populations to refer to all nomads, but as many nomads settled the term remained as an ethnic designation (Spooner 1969, p. 150). The Turkish word ydrtik (wanderer) has also assumed a quasi-ethnic character. It is possible that a purely economic distinction between nomad and sedentary, pastoralist and cultivator, was not considered relevant in the past at least to those who kept the records. The earliest documentation of something resembling nomadism in the Near East concerns groups coming under the blanket term Amorites. These appear to have been a highly mobile, semitic-speaking population occupying the margins of the Fertile Crescent in the first half of the second millennium BC (Oppenheim 1977; Girshman 1964; Albright 1940, p.109) (see Fig. 2.1). They are described as keeping large herds of cattle, sheep, goats and asses (ibid., p.122) which confirms a pastoral emphasis, but not necessarily nomadism. Mural paintings from the 1,900 BC site of Beni Hasan portrayed a tribal chieftain named Absha with his retinue of kinsmen armed with throwing sticks and javelins and a baggage train of asses (Patai 1951, p.404). This could well be a nomadic group in migration, but there is no corresponding evidence for large flocks in attendance. It has been suggested (Roux 1966, p. 138) that the Amorites - or at least large sections of them - practised a form of sheep nomadism analogous to that pursued by modern Bedouin. Valuable insights into this period (circa 1,750 BC) have been obtained from archives discovered at Mari on the Upper Euphrates. Interpretations of these sources (Luke 1965; Rowton 1973, 1974) point to a small, vigorous kingdom deriving its income from river trade, intensive riverine agriculture and extensive pastoralism. Surrounding peoples, of an evidently tribal character - the Haneans, Suteans and Jamenites - appear to have been under varying degrees of political control. The Haneans, who seem to have formed the tribal power base for the ruling dynasty, displayed a 'semi-nomadic; pattern of residence in riverside villages, cultivating during the summer months and migrating into the steppe and northwards into the Khabur Valley during winter. The

Origins and definitions

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other groups appear to have had more extensive migrations, taking them beyond the authority of the King of Mari for much of the year (Luke 1965). Extensive surveys and excavations in the Khabur Valley (Mallowan 1977; Oates 1976) have however failed to reveal any traces of pastoral campsites, though none were explicitly sought. Dramatic shifts in the zone of settlement within this area suggested to Oates (1976, p.235) that agriculture and large-scale settlement was only possible when state authority was able to resist nomad incursions. The period covered by the Mari archives was apparently a low point for settlement in the Khabur basin. Similarly the advent of dark ages has led historians and historical archaeologists to put forward nomad invasions as an explanation. This approach is epitomized in a volume entitled Dark Ages and Nomads, 1000 BC (Mellink (ed.) 1964) based largely on chronological arguments and exotic artworks. The theoretical poverty of this approach has led one reviewer (Barnett 1968) to remark: 'Yet a nagging doubt remains. Dark ages certainly, but nomads? Was the question precisely enough formulated, if at all?7 A useful critique of this and other migrationist themes is contained in a review article by Adams et al. (1978). Apart from lists of spoils, including large numbers of livestock taken on Assyrian or Hittite raiding expeditions, little is known of the subsistence base of the peoples inhabiting the Zagros and Taurus Mountains where most of the contemporary nomads appearing in this study are located. These people of the hills, the Gutians, Kassites, Hurrians, Mannai and Lullubi, make fleeting appearances in Mesopotamian and Anatolian history as maurauders, founders of dynasties and victims of Assyrian razzias. Archaeological evidence from settled sites in the region confirms an emphasis on pastoral production (Levine and Cuyler-Young (eds.) 1977) but beyond that we cannot go. People of known nomadic affinities, the Scythians, Cimmerians and Sarmatians, erupt fleetingly onto the scene. Historical references to them are common, and there are some indications of economic and domestic life. For instance Strabo describes the Sarmatians as '(partly) nomads and others tent-dwellers and farmers7 (Khazanov 1984), while Herodotus (IV, p. 105) reveals considerable variability in the extent of pastoralism practised by various Scythian tribes. But apart from a few arrowheads and isolated hoards (Phillips 1972; Mellink (ed.) 1964) all attempts to pin them down to recognizable assemblages or settlements have been inconclusive. They are still best known from the royal tombs to the north of our study area, although recent excavations in the Soviet Union have revealed what appear to be the remains of open campsites (Shilov, unpublished paper, World Archaeology Congress, 1986). A form of Bedouin nomadism in the piedmont zone at the foot of the Taurus Mountains was documented in Roman times (Peters 1978) during which the north-south migratory cycle occasionally interfered with the major trade routes running east-west. This is in the same region as the kingdom of Mari, arguing for a continuity of pastoral and possibly nomadic tendencies from very early historical times. Historical accounts during the Islamic Period (AD 1,000 to 1,900) provide secure evidence for a substantial nomadic presence in large areas of

Nomads in archaeology

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the Near East, particularly during the Turkic and Mongol incursions during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD (Cahen 1968; Minorsky 1978; Turan 1971; Siimer 1980). At the time of the initial Seljuk migrations into Iran and northern Mesopotamia there is some evidence of indigenous migratory pastoralism in the Zagros and Taurus foothills and conflict over the control of pasture between the new immigrants and original occupants (Lambton 1973; Bos worth 1973). The question of the presence of ancient nomadic groups, however these are defined, in the mountain regions of the Near East is left unresolved by the available historical evidence. There is enough evidence to encourage further investigation and to point to archaeology as the principal medium of inquiry.

Theories of nomadic pastoral origins Lees and Bates (1974) propose a model according to which an initial pattern of mixed dry farming and subsistence pastoralism is gradually replaced by a more specialized form of cultivation based on canal irrigation. The new system supports an increased population and, as it is labour-intensive, problems occur in the scheduling of agricultural and pastoral activities. As a consequence pastoralism becomes confined to the more marginal steppe and mountain regions where seasonal migrations of greater amplitude become necessary, but is assured of a future through the demand for specialized pastoral products from the heavily populated areas. Increasingly asymmetric power relations develop between the distinct populations associated with each mode of subsistence and, by dint of their military capabilities, nomads are sometimes able to extend political control over settled communities while the latter tend to dominate the economic and cultural spheres. A slightly different scheme involving nomadization by default has been put forward independently by Adams (1974), Wright (1977, p.388), Flannery (1972) and Spooner (1972, p.126). With the intensification of irrigation agriculture, those who were unable to cope successfully with the change might be tempted to fall back on their pastoral resources - either temporarily until new agricultural opportunities emerged or permanently as specialized pastoralism became a viable strategy. This model may be partly subsumed by that of Lees and Bates. A further variant of the Lees and Bates hypothesis has been proposed by Irons (1975), and supported by Gilbert (1983), in which the growth of urban centres in the Zagros highlands created an increased demand for pastoral products, leading to a section of the population engaging in transhumant pastoralism and ultimately nomadism. Interestingly Gilbert (1983) argues that it is the reduction in the pastoral sector, relatively speaking, which has the effect of creating scarcity, raising the relative price of animal products and opening up a niche for nomadic entrepreneurs. Some empirical support for these views comes from Hole's (1977) study of prehistoric sites in the Deh Luran Plain. He argues that an intrusive population of irrigation agriculturalists originating from northern Mesopotamia moved down the Assyrian Steppe in a steady wave of advance

Origins and definitions

13

(see Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1973). By about 6,000 BC the indigenous mixed dry farming and herding subsistence pattern was displaced into areas unsuitable for irrigation: Once the higher and more dependable yields of irrigation agriculture were recognized it would be a simple step to remove most of the herding to the margins of the plain and the significantly better pastures in the mountains. Such a physical separation would have benefitted farming and herding by Keeping animals out of the fields and by allowing them to graze in cooler, lusher pastures. It is notable how much larger the animals kept by nomads today are than those kept year round in Deh Luran. (Hole 1977, p.14) The increased productivity of irrigated land then led to a greater all-round dependency on cereal resources, not only by sedentary villagers but also by pastoralists who now began to concentrate on renewable products such as milk and wool as selection for these physiological capacities occurred. These products could then be exchanged for cereals to augment the small quantities of winter wheat grown by the pastoralists. The combination of pastoralism and limited dry farming is a subsistence strategy commonly employed by nomads today. Schaffer (1972) also proposes a model of dual specialization for the Sistan region of eastern Iran. This developmental model begins with irrigation agriculture supporting village and incipient urban settlements along limited strips of alluvial land. With increased growth, the surplus population begins to occupy the arid periphery by exploiting thinly spread pastoral resources and adopting a mobile lifestyle. These ideas are reminiscent of the conclusions reached by Masson (1972) for the nearby region of Soviet Turkmenia. However Schaffer adds a further twist. Subsequent population increase is accommodated by agricultural intensification and urbanization which are both facilitated by the ready-made regional communication network established by the nomads. Nomads have even been credited with playing a vital role in the rise of civilization and state formation. During the Uruk period, according to Johnson (1973, p.159): coordination of local production and seasonal exchange with herders may thus . . . have increased decision-making requirements to the point that an expanded decision-making organization [the incipient state] was necessary. In a similar vein, Wright (1977, p.338) speculates: Could an increase in the number of pastoralists appearing every winter in the lowlands put pressure on the regulatory institutions of the settled enclaves? Ancient trade has long been linked with the activities of nomads. Ever since Perrot (1962) noticed that the distribution of traded goods in the neolithic Levant and Syria closely followed modern Bedouin migration routes, speculations along these lines have abounded. There is some historical evidence (Klengel 1977, p.164; Khazanov 1984, p.209) that pastoralists were already involved in the caravan trade of southwest Asia by the Middle and Late Bronze Age (second millennium BC) though chiefly

Nomads in archaeology

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as guides and escorts but; as Khazanov (ibid., p.211) points out; they 'neither created this trade nor did they determine its development and its fortune7. There are certainly contemporary examples of nomadic pastoralists-cum-traders (Ferdinand 1962), and most nomads have a keen interest in trade as consumers. But attempts by archaeologists to invoke nomads as active agents in the long-distance movement of commodities and dissemination of 'information7 (Wright 1969; Schaffer 1972), or to detect the presence of ancient nomads by following the pattern of traded goods (Crawford 1978), are far from convincing. Underlying most of these nomad-trader schemes is the assumption of an underlying commerce in 'ideas7 (e.g. Hole et al. 1969, p.354). However there is little in contemporary accounts to point to nomads as an ideal medium for such exchanges. Attempts to identify nomadic cultures with certain material complexes have rarely been successful. The widespread dissemination of ceramic styles over the Sistan region, attributed to nomad entrepreneurs using the vessels as containers (Schaffer 1972), could easily be accounted for by other mechanisms. The rapid spread of black burnished pottery, together with other elements of the Early Transcaucasian Culture in the third millennium BC, has also been linked to nomadic migrations (Burney 1961; Whallon and Kantman 1969, p.130). However the Early Transcaucasian Culture is now known to contain a full range of settlement types from villages to cities and, while indicators of a mobile lifestyle are present, this is hardly a nomadic culture (see Chapter 11). All of the above scenarios have much in common. All take a holistic or systems approach to the question of origins. All emphasize specialization and integration, with only Lees and Bates raising the question of asymmetries in power. Interestingly all seem to associate the appearance and enhancement of nomadic tendencies with the growth of sedentary populations and the expansion of urban centres. While it is certainly difficult to imagine nomadic pastoralists existing entirely independently of settled and urban communities, as Khazanov (1984) and many others have suggested, I believe that the above scenarios are to some extent based on a misunderstanding of how pastoral nomad and sedentary systems interact. This in turn may stem from the mistaken concern with the search for origins mentioned above. If nomadism is to be understood as an alternative specialization which arises under certain economic and sociopolitical conditions rather than a discrete system which somehow evolved, then we would expect these conditions to follow from the above explanations. We would expect tendencies towards the consolidation of state power, economic integration and the spread of cultivation to be associated with an increase in nomadic activity and in the degree of specialization in pastoralism. While this may have been true of the initial establishment of nomadic systems in previously unoccupied marginal environments, such a correlation does not seem to hold for long-term interactions between the sedentary and nomadic sectors. In Chapters 4 and 5 I will attempt to outline why this is so, drawing on ethnohistorical sources as well as a host of ethnographic observations which, though synchronic in character, nevertheless suggest the presence of underlying diachronic tendencies.

Origins and definitions

15

The time frame It is intriguing that, while the models dealt with above apply to time periods ranging over four millennia, much the same systemic factors are mentioned in each case. In fact for Luristan and the middle Zagros Mountains nomadism appears to have had at least two origins, the first in the seventh millennium BC (Hole 1977; Goff 1966, 1981) and the second in the third millennium (Gilbert 1983). Moreover a third origin has been proposed for the region in the first millennium BC, involving the immigration of 'real7 nomads from further north to replace existing seminomads (Khazanov 1984, p.7). Much of this confusion arises from the difficulties of adequately defining nomadism as well as the nature of the data involved. Those authors who draw on archaeological and subsistence data tend to place the point of origin earlier, while those concerned with historical and ethnohistorical data prefer later dates. In particular many students of Central Asian nomadism tend to identify its origins with the first historical sources either from southwest Asia or China (Lattimore 1951; de Planhol 1959) and to see the origins of southwest Asian nomadism in terms of migration from Central Asian heartlands: 'In the first centuries of the last 1000 years BC the pastoralists and semi-nomads of the previous thousand years BC began to be replaced in certain cultural areas of western Asia by real nomads who were often migrants from other areas7 (Khazanov 1984, p.7). Where 'real7 nomads are defined in terms of complex sets of political and socioeconomic criteria, the problems of detection for the prehistorian are considerable. Evidence for developed pastoralism and seasonal habitation are insufficient to meet such definitions. In my view we should cease asking 'Were prehistoric mobile pastoralists real nomads?7 in terms of ethnographically derived models, and instead begin to ask to what extent can we evaluate certain key dimensions in production, mobility and settlement in prehistoric pastoral and agro-pastoral cultures? The parallel development and interplay of cultivation and pastoralism (Reed 1959; Sherratt 1981) in the Near Eastern food-producing revolution suggest that these key dimensions were present from a very early date.

Nomadic pastoralism defined The time at which nomadism is perceived as originating depends on one's definition of nomadism. Any such definition must involve the key factors of pastoralism and mobility, and it is the weighting given to each of these and the way in which they are measured that give rise to the many different approaches. Khazanov (1984, p.7) defines nomadism as: 'a distinct form of food-producing economy in which extensive mobile pastoralism is the predominant activity and in which the majority of the population is drawn into periodic pastoral migrations7. His approach approximates that employed here in that he gives due weighting to 'the ratio of pastoralism and agriculture7 (ibid., p.9) rather than the extent of mobility per se.

Nomads in archaeology

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However difficulties with the scheme employed by Khazanov arise when he attempts to circumscribe and classify nomadism. An exacting set of requirements needs to be met before any group is allowed as 'real nomads7. Pastoral specialists in mixed farming are not regarded as nomadic because this represents a division of labour within the same society while nomadism requires a division of labour between different societies (ibid., p.18). 'Pure7 nomads are marked by a complete absence of agriculture, even in a supporting role; and are thereby confined to pockets in the Eurasian inner highlands and steppes, Arabia and the Sahara. Most of the peoples described as nomadic by Near Eastern ethnographers are classified as 'semi-nomadic pastoralists' characterized by extensive pastoralism in conjunction with supplementary agriculture (ibid., p. 19). 'Semisedentary pastoralism' or herdsman husbandry is village-based, while yaylag pastoralism is a specialized mountain form of herdsman husbandry (ibid., p. 23). Forms of 'household husbandry7 with or without intensive fodder feeding are fully integrated at the household level (ibid., p.24). However 'semi-nomads' are further classified into those who are specialized at the family level and those specialized at the 'sub-society7 level (ibid., p.20). To my mind such complicated and rigid typologies could be easily replaced by a single dimension specifying the level - household, village, tribal section, region - at which specialization occurs. The search for a fully nomadic society should be abandoned in favour of an approach which recognizes nomadic tendencies manifested in varying degrees in a wide range of societies and communities. Nomadic pastoralism is a dual concept comprising two logically independent dimensions - nomadism and pastoralism. Within each of these dimensions dualisms such as nomadic/sedentary, agricultural/pastoral, the desert and the sown, perpetrate gross distortions of our ability to understand the relationship between the two. Each dimension may be viewed as a continuum, and the relationship between them is best represented in terms of a probability space (see Fig. 2.1) in which groups or individuals are uniquely located with respect to each axis. While the pastoral/agricultural and nomadic/sedentary dimensions must be distinguished conceptually, this need not imply that groups or individuals are necessarily randomly located within this probability space. In fact, as indicated by the location of the groups shown in Fig. 2.1, there appears to be a strong linear relationship between the two. The greater the degree of pastoralism, the stronger the tendency towards nomadism. The association between pastoralism and nomadism is recognized implicitly in the statements of some of my informants in Anatolia: 'We have only 20 goats so we stay around the village, but cross-eyed Ahmet has 100 sheep and goats so he goes each summer to Sultan Dag. The more animals you have, the further you have to move/ I do not hesitate to discuss village pastoralism and nomadic pastoralism as part of a single phenomenon for, while the two represent very different solutions, they are nevertheless solutions in terms of the same system of constraints and opportunities. In tackling the problem of Near Eastern nomadism, the village herd may not be such a bad place to begin.

Origins and definitions

Fig. 2.7 Interaction between mobility and mode of subsistence. Schematic diagram showing a degree of correlation between the two variables. The approximate locations of a number of communities mentioned in the text are indicated with respect to both axes.

17

Fully nomajijc^lfkanli • ) Karakeqi;;

s'' Lurs'' Sanaydin MODE OF / SUBSISTENCE Agriculture

#

Mixed

Shirdasht /

/

Pastoralism

Hasanabad Shahabad Fully sedentary MOBILITY zone of high interaction •

communities mentioned in text

Pastoralism Pastoralists have been defined as 'those who are dependent chiefly on their herds of domestic stock for subsistence' (Krader 1959, p.499). This definition implies ownership and should also include an element of mutualism as the animals involved are also dependent on humans (Ingold 1980). Pastoralism is only one of the possible modes of exploiting herd animals - hunting and ranching are others (ibid., 1980) - characteristically involving protection of the herd and systematic consumption of its renewable products. However while some (e.g. Bates 1971, p.112, 1972, p.52; Vincze 1980, p.392; Goldschmidt 1979, p.16; Ingold 1980, pp.2, 25) refer to pastoralism as a 'mode of production', I prefer, in view of the particular connotations given the term by Marxist theory, to substitute the term 'mode of subsistence7. By 'mode of subsistence7 is meant: 'some configuration of productive forces and relations permitting the exploitation of natural resources and reproduction of the social groups involved' (Cribb 1984b, p.4). It does not extend to the relations of production above the reproduction of the community itself, and does not involve the 'mode of appropriating surplus labour7 so essential to a Marxist analysis (see Hindness and Hirst 1975; Friedman 1974; Godelier 1977; Parsons (ed.) 1978). Thus a

Nomads in archaeology

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pastoral mode of subsistence may coexist with an agricultural mode of subsistence - perhaps involving the same social group or specialized sectors within a single community - under a wider mode of production. By the same token it would be possible to consider two forms of pastoralism operating under different modes of production - for example, pastoralism during the Seljuk period and that of the twentieth century - as part of a single mode of subsistence. There are certainly plenty of examples of adjacent nomads and peasants, or of pastoralists and cultivators within the same village (Sweet 1975), employing different tools and techniques, distributing land and animals according to different systems of allocation, yet who are integrated into a wider regional economy and subject to appropriation by the same ruling class whether a landed, pastoral or urban elite (see Lambton 1953; Rosenfeld 1965; W. Swidler 1972). Groups (or individuals) may therefore be ranked along an agriculturalpastoral continuum according to different criteria such as the overall level of pastoral production or the extent to which their livelihood is met through pastoral as opposed to other modes of subsistence. Small numbers of livestock may be kept by cultivators without necessarily bringing into play all the elements of a pastoral mode of subsistence. However increasing emphasis on pastoral production, accompanied by a rise in the number of animals herded, will require specialized forms of animal management and changes in household organization. The full expression of such a tendency towards pastoral accumulation will ultimately involve a household in the kinds of logistics and social networks characterized as 'nomadic'.

Nomadism While nomadism need not imply a lack of patterned movement or fixed migration cycle as suggested by some (Gulliver 1958), neither does it exactly connote a 'fixed round of movement . . . a cyclical or rhythmic movement' as suggested by Krader (1959, p.499). The presence of a regular, seasonal cycle of movement - universally attested to in the Near East and also Central Asia (see Vainshtein 1980, pp.96-7) - should be regarded as a necessary but by no means a sufficient condition for the full expression of nomadism. Viewed in the short term it is understandable why so much weight has been placed on the seasonal cycle and regular migration tracks. Such regularities loom large within the scope of the ethnographic time frame. Yet in study after study there emerge instances of departures from regular migration routes or situations in which access to these routes is only tenuously maintained (e.g. Bates 1972; Irons 1975). While the political ramifications of such events have been discussed (Bates 1972), the implications for patterns of mobility have not been explored. Viewed over the long term it becomes clear that small perturbations in seasonal migration tracks could eventually build into wholesale shifts in the distribution of migratory groups. It is this latter tendency which I would regard as being characteristically 'nomadic'. A useful distinction might be drawn between forms of tied or tethered nomadism (Ingold 1987, p. 184), fixed to a well-worn migration track, and untied nomadism, in which shifts into new migration tracks are frequent.

Origins and definitions

19

Again, however, it is not difficult to see, over an extended time frame, how the former condition might be transformed into the latter. Much of the confusion in definitions of nomadism may be traced to the use and abuse of the term 'transhumance7. It has been variously used to describe the exploitation of seasonal pastures within the same valley system by village flocks under the care of shepherds (Monteil 1959, p.579; Krader 1959, p.500), the migration of whole village communities with their flocks for a season (Johnson 1969, p.18; Swidler 1973, p.32) and the seasonal movement of nomadic pastoralists (Stauffer 1965, p.290; Stenning 1957, pp.58-9; Tapper 1974, 1979c). It has frequently been employed - implicitly and sometimes explicitly - to describe an intermediate state between sedentism and nomadism. Again the difference between the terms nomadism and transhumance is logical rather than categorical - the two operate on entirely different scales. I would suggest that the term 'transhumance' be confined to a form of livestock management making use of seasonal variations in the availability of pasture. As such it may be either vertical or horizontal, and could include all three of the patterns referred to above. Given this definition, typologies according to which groups are categorized as sedentary, nomadic or transhumant (e.g. Swidler 1973; Krader 1959) become meaningless. 'Alpenwirtschaft7 is a form of transhumance (Miiller 1938; Vincze 1980) but has nothing to do with nomadism. The transhumance of village flocks may or may not involve an element of nomadism, depending on whether the population moves with the herds. The degree of human involvement is therefore one vital index of the presence of nomadism. The other is the degree of potential mobility of the transhumance track itself. Only where a transhumance pattern involves substantial numbers of people engaged in tending and exploiting the herd for subsistence, and is potentially subject to lateral shifts into new zones at either end of the cycle, are we dealing with the upper end of the sedentary-nomadic continuum. Like 'transhumance7, 'semi-nomadism' is a much abused term. For example it has been used by Patai (1951, p.405) to cover forms of pastoralism based on sheep and goats, as opposed to 'pure7 nomads herding camels (Middle East) or horses (Central Asia), and by Bacon (1954) to denote pastoralists who import grain. Both usages confuse the separate dimensions of pastoralism and nomadism. Nomadism then reduces to the organization of migratory communities, and nomadic pastoralism focuses on those communities whose migrations are organized around the transhumant migration of livestock (see Spooner 1972, p.130). At the local level, and viewed over a short time scale, transhumance emerges as the salient characteristic of nomadic groups. It is only at the regional level and over an extended time scale that the full implications of nomadism, as distinct from transhumance, emerge with full clarity. And it is at just such a temporal and regional scale that archaeology, as opposed to social anthropology, is best equipped to approach the problem of nomadism.As recognized some time ago by Dyson-Hudson (1972), nomadism cannot be reduced to a back-and-forth movement according to the seasons. Annual removal to widely dispersed seasonal encampments is of

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20

less interest in itself than the possibility of frequent changes in residential association which it opens up. This constant circulation and instability in the composition of residence groups has long attracted social anthropologists, although until very recently (Tapper 1979a) the reasons for this attraction were not explicitly discussed. It is this very quality which likewise affects the physical formation of nomad campsites and settlement systems and affects the character and texture of the archaeological traces into which they are transformed. It may lie at the very heart of the problem of detection and recognition of nomad sites. Four features of nomadism are therefore pertinent to this inquiry: (1) The presence of transhumant migrations of livestock accompanied by human communities - vertical or horizontal, long or short distance. (2) The possibility of fluidity in the formation of residential associations, including some turnover in group membership and both seasonal and long-term changes in the size of co-resident communities. (3) A high degree of household autonomy at the operational level of herding logistics and camp group formation. (4) The maintenance of a flexible system of rights of access to territory in accordance with frequent changes in residence and wholesale shifts in the pattern of migration tracks and demands on grazing land. More than the overt pattern of geographical movement, the overall organization of a community needs to be stressed. Essentially nomadism involves the regular migration of a community together with much of its productive base within a single ecological niche. This may occur between different environmental zones or within a single zone. According to this definition neither hunter-gatherers nor shifting cultivators are nomadic. The former may be highly mobile, but exploit a variety of resources and niches which constitute the productive base. The latter may well exploit a single niche - perhaps through swiddening - but again they do not move their productive base into the new location.

Hunter-gatherers and nomads compared In view of the potential for confusion between the archaeological traces of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads it is necessary to spell out the differences between their respective productive strategies and corresponding territorial systems. As Khazanov (1984, p. 15) has pointed out, the 'nomadism' involved in a system based on food procurement is quite different from that of a food-producing system. There are important differences not only in the motives which govern the pattern of movement but also in the pattern of movement itself and, above all, in the principles of site generation which apply to each. Enough is now known about the territorial behaviour of existing and recent hunter-gatherers (Lee and DeVore (eds.) 1968, 1976; Lee 1972; Woodburn 1968, 1972; Binford 1978b, 1980, 1983; Yellen 1977; Gould 1980) to permit some broad generalizations. In spite of major differences in technological complexity and range of movement (Binford 1979), the underlying themes that emerge are consistent. The texture of a huntergatherer territorial system is dominated by seasonal base camps centred on water resources and located so as to provide access to major resources.

Origins and definitions

21

To these must be added special purpose sites such as ceremonial sites, killsites and hunting-blinds. Rights in territory are acquired mainly through descent or marriage, though the actual composition of residential groups fluctuates according to seasonal resource density following lines of kinship and affiliation to estate owners. Some archaeologists, such as Foley (1981) in East Africa and Hiscock (1984) in Australia, see such territorial systems in terms of relative densities of item distributions over a continuous surface with nodes of high density rather than as a series of discrete sites. With the exception of base camps for the exploitation of abundant (e.g. marine) resources or scarce resources (e.g. dry season camps around waterholes), changes of residence are frequent and usually take place over short distances, attuned to the progression of a constantly changing resource-use schedule. While violent conflict is by no means absent from hunter-gatherer life, and while it may well arise from considerations of territory, the element of territorial aggrandizement appears to be absent. This is not to say that displacement of some groups by others does not occur, but it may be difficult to determine just what constitutes a 'group'. As Ingold (1987) has recently suggested, the fundamental difference between hunter-gatherers and nomads is that, whereas in the former case the relations of production are tied to territories or significant sites, nomadic productive relations are largely independent of place, being vested in mobile pastoral capital. While it is not true to say that nomadic pastoralists lack a concept of territory, their territorial system is geared to the acquisition of pasture rather than establishing vital symbolic links between the community and a particular locale. Accordingly, the logistics of nomadic and hunter-gatherer migration differ fundamentally. While the hunter-gatherer, whether forager or collector (Binford 1980), schedules his movements with regard to consumption, the pastoral nomad is tied to a schedule of pastoral production which is in turn dependent upon the consumption patterns of pastoral stock. Whereas the hunter-gatherer exploitation strategy is an eclectic one which incorporates a wide range of available and preferred plant and animal species, that of the pastoralist is driven by a single overriding preoccupation - the search for pasture for his flocks. This means that the hunter-gatherer;s territorial system is far more complex than that of the pastoralist - attuned as it is to the competing demands of a wide range of resources. While the hunter-gatherer will be familiar with the entire spectrum of resources and features in his landscape, the pastoralist will be acquainted with only a narrow band comprising the pastoral niche itself. In this sense he is more like an agriculturalist except that, instead of an intensively farmed plot of land, his range consists of a continuous strip of real estate over much of which he may lay only temporary claim. The pastoral nomad's mode of migration is therefore direct and certain. This is not to say that nomads are not logistically organized or incapable of following 'embedded7 strategies (Binford 1978a) nor that forms of 'multiresource' nomadism (Salzman 1971, 1972) are impossible - only that the search for pasture provides the main impetus. Given the possibilities of modern technology, the advent of a nomad commuting between campsites by truck or motorbike represents no special paradox (Bates 1980; Chatty 1980).

Nomads in archaeology

22

The fundamental differences from which many other contrasting features flow are these: (1) Hunter-gatherer migration is centred on procurement and consumption, while pastoral migration is motivated by production which is in turn tied to the consumption patterns of livestock. (2) Whereas the territorial system of the hunter-gatherer is based on moving himself towards his resources, or moving resources to people, for purposes of consumption, that of the nomad involves moving an entire infrastructure of production and consumption - including accommodation and staple foods - with little regard to the regional availability of micro-resources apart from the basics of water and firewood. (3) Whereas hunter-gatherers characteristically move in order to vary their procurement strategy to exploit a wide variety of different resources in different places and different seasons, nomadic pastoralists move in order to exploit the same basic resource - pasture - in different seasons. In a sense the main motivation behind pastoral migration is to maintain access to a single environmental niche by following its seasonal relocation from one geographical location to another. (4) For hunter-gatherers the activities of procurement and consumption are spatially and temporarily associated (i.e. consumption follows close on procurement, usually at the same place or nearby, except where long-term storage is available). For nomadic pastoralists the activities of pastoral production and human consumption are continuous and largely independent of each other (see Hesse 1984). (5) Hunter-gatherer migrations follow a complex spatial pattern covering the greater part of a well-defined territory or range, while nomad migrations are simpler, following a migration track which may cover only a small part of a number of territories. (6) Hunter-gatherer movement tends to be governed by the principle of risk-minimization, whereas the migration of pastoralists is motivated as much by a desire to optimize conditions for pastoral production as to minimize risks for the herd. (7) Along with the less complex territorial system of nomadic pastoralists, we would expect their archaeological remains to be more spatially constrained and to exhibit less functional variability than in the case of hunter-gatherer sites. The model of a base camp surrounded by special purpose sites connected to different procurement strategies holds little relevance for the archaeological study of nomadic pastoralists. (8) Finally, whereas hunter-gatherer territorial patterns and migratory behaviour tend to be fairly stable and localized, those of nomadic pastoralists incline towards marked instability and dramatic shifts in migration tracks (Stenning 1957; Ingold 1987). Displacements of large residential and political units by others are extremely common. This stems from the fact that territorial aggrandisement is a key feature of nomad life. This non-seasonal component in nomadic migration, arising from the very forces of production central to specialized pastoralism, marks the nomadic system as inherently expansionist. To fully understand the pattern of nomadic migration requires a large tapestry indeed.

3 NOMAD PASTORAL ECONOMY It should be known that differences of condition among people are the result of the different ways in which they make their living . . . Some people live by agriculture, the cultivation of vegetables and grains; others by animal husbandry, the use of sheep, cattle, goats .. . Those who live by . . . animal husbandry cannot avoid the call of the desert. (ibn Khaldun, AD 1332-1406, The Muqaddimah)

Nomadism and the integration of pastoralism and agriculture There has been much discussion concerning the differences between pastoralism and agriculture, the desert and the sown (Nelson 1973); with much stress being laid on either the complementarity of pastoral and agricultural products or the conflicts generated through competition for resources. Much of this misses the point. Pastoralism and agriculture differ not only in the things produced but more fundamentally in the nature of the productive process itself. While both modes of subsistence in a Near Eastern context are subject to large fluctuations in productivity (Adams 197A), the manner in which each system responds to these fluctuations is quite different.

The organization of pastoral and agricultural production

Whereas fluctuations in the level of agricultural production tend to be buffered and absorbed by the stable structure of a sedentary community, similar fluctuations in pastoral production are amplified throughout the organization of a pastoral community. The essential difference stems from the fact that, whereas farming productivity is influenced directly by environmental factors such a temperature, amount and timing of rainfall or overexploitation of soil, pastoral productivity is affected via the mediation of herd animals. As already indicated, pastoral success tends to result in an increase rather than a slackening of labour requirements, not so much in herding itself but in extractive activities such as milking, processing and shearing. Conversely failure and decline of pastoral capital will lead to reduced labour requirements in both herding and the processing of pastoral products. The nature of the contrast is indicated schematically in Fig. 3.1. Given a sequence of favourable years and disaster years the two 23

Nomads in archaeology

KEY Level of production _ Productive capital _ Amount of land „ Labour required ... Consumption f r. outside sources _

Fig. 3.1 Internal dynamics of the pastoral and agricultural modes of subsistence in response to favourable and unfavourable conditions. (a) An agricultural mode of subsistence tends to minimize fluctuations in productive factors. (b) Pastoralism tends to enhance the extremes in variability. Moreover the extremes tend to run together in a strong boom and bust cycle.

24

HIGH

AGRICULTURE LOW Temporary rise in m*Qt productivity due to animal losses

TIME HIGH

PASTORALISM LOW

BAD

GOOD BAD SEQUENCE OF YEARS

GOOD

systems respond as follows. As capital losses drive down productivity, the pastoralist will require less pasture land while the farmer's land holdings and requirements need not be diminished. At the same time labour requirements are greatly reduced for the pastoralist, but will remain at much the same level for the cultivator. By the same token, during a sequence of favourable years, existing levels of agricultural land and capital investment (e.g. plough animals, equipment) will tend to hold down production. For the pastoralist, all the factors of production will work together to initiate an upward spiral in productivity (see Cribb 1984c). In summary, the agricultural system emerges as a stable one which tends to absorb fluctuations in productivity through the relative constancy of land, labour and capital requirements. The pastoral system, by contrast, emerges as a highly unstable one in which requirements of land and labour tend to closely follow fluctuations in the level of capital holdings. Under favourable conditions the rapid build-up of productive capital will lead land and labour requirements upwards, while a succession of reverses will result in the under-use of pasture and the off-loading of herding labour into seasonal work. The pastoral mode of subsistence therefore tends to oscillate between upward spirals of accumulation and a vicious circle of decline (Spooner 1972, 1973). These cycles of engagement and disengagement of the factors of production are linked to highly flexible institutions for the distribution of grazing rights, the circulation of livestock and the concentration or dispersal of labour resources through impermanent residence associations (Cribb 1984c). It is this that has led some to describe pastoralism as 'fluid, marginal, transitional and unstable7 (Spooner 1972, p. 130). The terms 'marginal' and 'transitional7 are quite inappropriate, and 'instability7 should be confined to the cycle of production itself, not the social forms which help to absorb this. No assumptions should be made about the complementarity of the two modes of subsistence - they do not necessarily coexist in order to ensure a

Nomad pastoral economy

25

balanced diet or to even out ecological imbalances as has been argued by some participants in the domestication debate (e.g. Flannery 1972). Nor is there much support for the view that pastoralism is a form of resourcebanking against the uncertainty of agricultural production (Hole and Flannery 1962; Adams 1974). On the contrary, the evidence strongly suggests that pastoralists and cultivators suffer simultaneously from environmental calamities, though political instability tends to favour the pastoralist. For instance livestock numbers in the Zagros village community studied by Watson (1979) were much reduced at the same time as a sequence of crop failures had brought great hardship to the villagers. Moreover the forms of scheduling required by the two systems likewise complement at some points and contradict at others. Each represents a distinct set of options with its own rules, potentialities and constraints. Of course one or the other or both, in various measures, may be pursued by the same group or individual - the variety of agro-pastoral and specialized agricultural or pastoral systems in the Near East is limited only by the range of available environments and market niches. Pastoral and agricultural production may be integrated at a number of levels, the most basic being that of the household itself. This generally occurs where cultivation is dominant and limited numbers of livestock are kept. Although some nomadic pastoralists also practise cultivation, this is usually seasonal only and of a very primitive kind. The two modes of subsistence are often more effectively integrated at the community level and this may occur in two ways. One is to split the community into specialist sections. Tapper (1977) describes an arrangement among Pashtuns in Afghanistan whereby some families remain in the village to attend to cultivation while others - not necessarily the same ones each year specialize in pastoralism throughout any given year and migrate in summer to distant mountain pasture. Coon (1965, p.213) describes something similar in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Some Qashqa'i beyleh (minimal camp groups) split into two sections in summer, one of which remains to grow crops and fodder in winter quarters while the other moves with the flocks to summer pastures (Marsden 1976, p. 15). The second kind of arrangement is for the entire community to alternate between pastoral and agricultural pursuits in the course of a single annual cycle. This is a common pattern throughout the mountain regions of the Near East (see Chapter 9; also see Watson 1979, ch.8; Edmonds 1957; Edelberg 1966-7; W. Swidler 1972, 1973) and not simply a stage on the way to sedentarization. It has been widely reported among Kurdish groups in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Millingen 1870; Geary 1878; Maunsell 1901; Sykes 1908; Dickson 1910; Hay 1921). Partition into agricultural and pastoral sectors subjects one part of the community to pressure towards nomadization. It is interesting that this may last for no more than a year and that the 'nomadic' and 'sedentary7 sectors of the community are actually interchangeable!

Integration at higher levels The integration of pastoralism and cultivation at higher levels allows nomadic tendencies to be more fully realized than is the case with any of the above examples. The presence of nomadic and sedentary sections of

Nomads in archaeology

26

the same tribe (see Sykes 1908) reflects a high degree of specialization and interdependence within a single political and territorial unit. Such integrated' tribes (Rowton 1974) have often been confused with a nomadic tribe in the process of sedentarization (i.e. a transient form) but do in fact represent a persistent pattern, leading Rowton to suggest that 'it is in the integrated tribe that the symbiosis between nomad and sedentary finds its fullest expression' (1974, p.8). Many tribes of the Bakhtiari; Khamseh and Qashqa'i confederacies in Iran, and the larger Kurdish tribes of eastern Turkey, are organized along these lines. Division into nomadic and sedentary sections is a persistent theme in a catalogue of Kurdish tribes drawn up at the turn of the century (Sykes 1908), although the precise levels of segmentation involved are somewhat unclear. Still higher levels of integration are possible. The terms 'dimorphic chiefdom' and 'dimorphic state7 (Rowton 1973) have been used to describe a political system where a chiefly family or dynasty installed in a town or city holds sway over a mixed population of tribal nomads (forming its power base), and non-tribal peasantry (forming its productive base). While Rowton (1973, 1974) presents cogent arguments and evidence to support the presence of such structures in the recent and ancient historical past (see also Rosenfeld 1965; Cole 1973; Woods 1976), ethnographic examples are understandably rare. Nevertheless the manner in which such an entity might evolve is readily discernible in the situation of the tribal khans of Iran: The power of the khans derives from two sources: on the one hand, from the tribe of which they are the leaders, and, on the other hand, from the land which they own. In their capacity as landowners they collect their share of the produce of the land or their rents and dues as other landowners, while in their capacity as tribal leaders they collect certain levies from their followers. (Lambton 1953, p.283) While much exchange between nomads and the sedentary sector occurs locally, and is directed primarily at the reproduction of household units (Oberling 1974, p. 18; Swift 1977), a large pastoral surplus can be an important component of regional and even national economies. For example the Qashqa'i supply Fars Province in Iran with the bulk of its mutton, leather and milk products in addition to carpets and other textiles (Oberling 1974, pp. 16-17). The extent of the nomad contribution to the Iranian economy was underlined during the period of enforced sedentarization under Reza Shah during the 1930s which resulted in severe shortages of meat and milk throughout the country which could not be made up by sedentary pastoralism (Stauffer 1965, p.285; Katouzian 1978, p.366). Historical sources suggest that exchanges at this level are not a recent phenomenon. During the first part of the nineteenth century the Lurs, Bakhtiari and Qashqa'i were supplying urban centres in western Iran with meat, milk products and textiles during the summer months (Rawlinson 1839, p.104; de Bode 1845, p.90). A number of generalizations, vital to what follows, may be drawn on the basis of the above discussion: (1) The articulation of the agricultural and pastoral modes of subsistence does not necessarily occur in a complementary fashion. The two

Nomad pastoral economy

(2)

(3) (4)

(5)

27

modes represent separate options in the pursuit of productive strategies which are responsive to both market pressures and conditions of political stability. Some support is lent to the suggestion (Lees and Bates 1974) that the origins of nomadism (i.e. the nomadic tribe) are to be sought at a time when specialization in pastoral and agricultural production became a possibility. This does not preclude the possibility of a degree of nomadism at lower levels of integration (household, village) prior to such specialization. There are indications that optimal conditions for the efficient deployment and accumulation of livestock are to be found where pastoralism is specialized above the level of the community. The emergence of nomadic features seems to relate to the level at which pastoral and agricultural production are integrated into a functional economic and ecological unit. Only at the supra-community level, where specialized agriculture and pastoralism are pursued separately by different communities within the same tribal unit or in a tribal-peasant combination, are both conditions of nomadism fulfilled - an entire community in constant association with transhumant herds and one which is free to cut its ties with a particular locality or transhumance track. Finally, the process of nomadization itself may be conceived of in terms of the integration of pastoral and agricultural subsistence modes at progressively higher levels in the sociopolitical and residence hierarchy. By the same token, sedentarization occurs when the two modes of subsistence are combined at progressively lower levels within this hierarchy.

Factors of production: the pastoral herd Large-scale pastoralism involves an essentially unstable interaction between three basic elements - herds, people and pasture (Sweet 1974; Swidler 1973, p.31; Swift 1977, p.461). These three elements may be considered at a number of analytical levels, but for the time being we are concerned with the physical properties of pasture land, the speciesspecific characteristics of the animals herded and the labour processes involved.

Pasture Statements to the effect that nomads create their own desert and steppelands wherever they move may hold a degree of truth. Historically the distribution of steppelands in the Near East and Eurasia appears to have fluctuated according to the balance of power between states and empires based on sedentary agriculture and those whose power base resided in shifting populations of herders and mixed farmers (Hyames 1972, pp.1739). Pasture is never 'natural', in the sense of being in a pristine condition. While pastoralists may make little conscious attempt at pasture improvement or modification, continuous grazing exerts selective pressure on the distribution of plant species. Overexploitation of pasture often results in a

Nomads in archaeology

28

climax vegetation unfavourable to pastoralism, characterized by minimal species diversity and selection in favour of highly toxic species (see Nyerges 1980). Pasture areas in the Near East represent a retardation of the post-Pleistocene ecological succession of vegetation communities (see Dimbleby 1976; Wright 1968). Palaeobotanical evidence for the modification of vegetation in favour of pastoral species occurs as early as the seventh millennium BC (Wright 1968; Dimbleby 1976). It is the marked seasonality in the development of pastures in different climatic zones that gives rise to regular flows of livestock over a network of pastures, and a tendency for intensively used pastures to become exhausted is one of the factors behind lateral shifts in migration routes (Stenning 1957).

Characteristics of herd animals: sheep and goats

Near Eastern conditions of semi-aridity and strong seasonality in rainfall make this region best suited for the herding of small stock, particularly sheep and goats. Complementary patterns of selective grazing by sheep and indiscriminant browsing by goats (Johnson 1969; p.9; Spooner 1972, p. 122; Nyerges 1980) make this combination of species a useful one both in terms of productivity and stock management. The species-specific tendency towards flocking among sheep (Garrard 1984; Swidler 1973, p.31) is exploited by man to concentrate animals in manageable units, while the higher mobility of goats makes them useful as flock leaders (Dahl and Hjort 1976, p.250; Nyerges 1980). A common sight along roadsides throughout the region is a tightly packed column of sheep; flanked by a phalanx of black goats strutting out ahead, with a shepherd and a dog or two bringing up the rear. Rudimentary time and motion studies indicate that the optimal size of aflockcapable of being managed by a single team of shepherd and dog falls somewhere between 250 and 400 head (Barth 1961, p.22; Dahl and Hjort 1976; W. Swidler 1972, p.74; 1973, p.28) and it has been suggested that the rate of ingestion of grass tends to be higher among flocks of this size range due to bio-social factors (Tribe 1950). The choice of sheep or goats, or some combination of the two, may also be guided by economic factors. Goats, with their higher milk yields and shorter life cycle, are more suited to household subsistence needs, while sheep and sheep products tend to command a higher market price (Spooner 1972, p.123; Stauffer 1965, p.292). This question has recently been investigated in some depth by Redding (1984). The choice of breed may also take account of productivity (Swidler 1973, p.26), but nomadic breeds are generally adapted to their cycle of movement. They tend to be larger and more robust than village breeds and good all-rounders, but less tolerant of climatic extremes (Bates 1972, p.51; Barth 1961, p.6; W. Swidler 1972, p.70). A certain amount of gene flow between nomadic and sedentary breeds occurs through mutual rustling activities (Bates 1972, p.52).

Flock demography Natural tendencies of fertility and mortality in aflockare to a large extent under cultural control. Annual fertility rates of of 0.7 to 0.9 births per adult

Nomad pastoral economy

29

female per year are common in Near Eastern flocks (see Demiruren 1974; Bates 1973, p.149; Stober 1978, p.84; Ehmann 1975, p.101) and may be even higher for goats due to the tendency to produce litters (Dahl and Hjort 1976, pp.91-3; Stauffer 1965, p.292). High natural losses of up to 30 per cent are common among neonatals (Stober 1978, p.84; Dahl and Hjort 1976, p.95) and the survivors, particularly males, are usually heavily culled in order to reduce the ratio of unproductive to productive animals. Maximum age usually corresponds with the end of reproductive life, around five or six years for sheep with a median age of three (Dahl and Hjort 19767 p.95; Bates 1973, pp.147-9). Particularly among sheep, whose breeding tends to be more under human control than that of goats, breeding is strongly seasonal, occurring between July and September, so that lambs are dropped in late winter, between January and March (Barth 1961, p.7; Bates 1973, p.147; Sweet 1974, p.93; Stober 1978, p.84). The seasonally of the breeding cycle leads to the presence of annually spaced age cohorts which, together with the effects of high fertility and the annual cull, result in herds of a distinctive age-sex structure which varies seasonally (see Hesse 1984). This structure is largely a product of human intervention designed to secure the flow of selected pastoral products in certain seasons. Flock numbers will be at their peak immediately following the lambing season. Spring and early summer are the high points in the preparation of milk products as lamb numbers are systematically reduced and the milk supply diverted to human use. At other times of the year flocks will shrink through the sale of yearlings and natural attrition, and activities of herd maintenance and reproduction predominate. Thus different seasonal settlements will contain flocks of varying demographic structures.

Fluctuations in the size of flocks Not only in the course of the seasonal cycle but also in the longer term, flocks of small stock are given to large and sudden fluctuations in size and changes in age-sex composition (see Bates 1973, pp. 150-3, and figs. 12, 13). Compared with larger stock, such as cattle or camels, they contain a higher risk factor (Dahl and Hjort 1976, p.254) balanced by a capacity for rapid recovery. The explosive growth potential of a herd of goats or flock of sheep is illustrated in Fig. 3.2 which uses computer techniques to trace the growth of a simulated flock set to moderate fertility and mortality rates, 30 per cent loss of neonatals and an annual cull of male yearlings. The simulation demonstrates that even a heavy take-off of animals for meat consumption or sale need not jeopardize reproductive success. The age structure of the flock and of the death population are controlled by the prescribed fertility and mortality rates which also provide data for the computation of rough productivity indices for meat, milk and wool (see also Payne 1973). A flock with this age-sex structure turns out to be a highly efficient productive unit (Davis 1984) and one which is capable of prodigious expansion (see Cribb 1982, 1984b, 1985, 1987). If left unchecked, such a system would quickly lead to the imposition of Malthusian population controls. The tendency towards herd expansion is a fundamental feature of the

30

Nomads in archaeology

Fig. 3.Z Computer simulation of pastoral flocks showing the effect of high kill-off of immature males. (a) A typical Near Eastern herding scenario.

FLOCKS tttfttftittt

RUN NO. 1. Low Ittature Cull. Adult Hort: 12 I Young Hort: 30 I

l u a t Nort: 10 I Birth Rate: 44 I

GROWTH YR 0 20 40 I 0I 1 I 2 I1MII 3 HIM 4 HIM 11 5 HUM 11 6 Hlflfllll 7 IIIIIflIM

P R O F I L E

NO, OF LIVESTOCK 80 100 120 240 140 ISO 200

lIliMHUM

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

iiiiiiiinuiiE iiHiinimitn jiiiiimiiiimii ifiiiinfiiiiiutiii 11II1I1UIllfi 111111111 J 0

1 + 4. + 1 1 + 1 + + 20 40 40 80 100 120 240 160 180 200 Annual growth Rate = 11.157 1 p.a.

A6€ PROFILE 0-1 I| 1-2 II

Ib.tt

2* umiiiiiiffiiiiniHiiiiiiiiiif

MORTALITY PROFILE o-i ifimiiiiiiiiifiiiiiii

1-2 inn

44,91 8.21

2+ I I

0

10 20 30 40 50 40 70 80 90 Percent 1

100

Productivity Indites 1 HEAT = 0.141 HILK = 0.182 WOOL = 0.318

pastoral mode of subsistence (Herskovits 1926; Dahl and Hjort 1976; p. 17). Viewed over a regional perspective in terms of the interests of pastoralists as a whole, it is a recipe for ecological disaster. But when considered at the level of the individual unit of production - the household - its underlying logic is difficult to refute. First, large numbers of animals, although stretched to the limit of endurance during the worst grazing season, will repay the investment of time and energy under favourable conditions. Second, since there is an element of chance in the manner in which disasters befall individual flocks, at least some of the contributors to a pastoral population explosion can hope to escape its consequences. Finally, the more livestock are maintained, the more will be likely to survive any given setback (Barth 1961, p.101; Johnson 1969, p.5). In reality the exponential expansion of flocks is subject to ecological controls which come into play long before the absolute carrying capacity

Nomad pastoral economy

Fig. 3.Z (b) Increased kill-off of immature males not only fails to slow the growth rate but also enhances efficiency.

31

FLOCKS ftimmtt RUN NO. 2. High Iwature Hale Cull.

Adult Hort: 12 Z Young Hort: 30 Z

Iitat Hort: 50 Z Birth Rate: 80 Z

GROWTH YR

HO. OF LIVESTOCK 20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200

0 0 1 2 3

PROFILE

i I 1 I

4 limiinii 5 IIIIIIIIIMI

6 7 8 9 10

HUH III! !H UlIIIIIIIBfl imiiiiiiimiE iinmiifiifiiiii iiiiiniiffiiisnju!

n iuniiffiiiiittmiMi

12 iiniiitiiiiiiiieiniEi 13 1llllfIllilllliilllH!ItIIH 14 IIIilllllllllfillliflHIl I 15 IIIIIilifISIIttllllllilH11111II11 0

20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200 Annual Growth Rate - 11.029 Z p.a.

A6E PROFILE

0-1 II t-2 If ?* iiifiiifiiiiiiiiiimsgfifii HORTftLITY PROFILE 0-1 lUllllllllllllfllll 12 I11IIIIIIII!tlIIIlllt

24 jBimnn I—

0

3 1 . IX 13. n 55.0Z

37.91 40.81

2i.«

k — t — + — + —I—t—i—f—t—+

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Percent I

100

Productivity Indites : HEAT = 0.276 H1LK = 0,2B5 HODL = 0.275

of an environment is approached. Epidemics tend to hit hardest when livestock are in poor condition as a result of grazing shortages. Frosts and unseasonal snowfall can inflict high losses on flocks which are being advanced or retarded along the normal migration schedule to take advantage of marginal grazing (Bates 1972, p.51). Disasters such as drought or epidemic - often in combination - or a particularly severe winter tend to affect herds generally, while others such as attack by predators, theft and local weather conditions take a more selective toll. According to Hole (1978, p. 142), two out of every five years in Khuzistan are likely to be disaster years and may result in the loss of more than half of livestock holdings. This general pattern is borne out by other ethnographers (Bates 1973, pp.150-3; Barth 1961, p.103; Irons 1975, p.156; Shahrani 1979, p.91). As the Mongolian proverb has it: 'A herd belongs to the first adverse season or powerful enemy7 (from Khazanov 1984).

Nomads in archaeology

Fig. 3.3 Computer simulation of different herd compositions subjected to a sequence of adverse seasons. The herding scenarios are run over the same sequence of good and bad years. (a) Herding scenario set to the same parameters as Fig. 3.2b. (b) Increase in the kill-off of breeders, compensated by rising birthrate: the herd begins to decline. 3

32

The profound effect that such factors can have on individual livestock holdings among the Yoriiks of southern Turkey has been demonstrated by Bates (1973). Over a three-year period the fluctuations were dramatic, with virtually all households being affected by the severe winter of 1968, but with large herd owners weathering these setbacks more easily than small herd owners. The growth of a herding system consisting of herds whose age-sex structure is under human control has been modelled through computer simulation. While the composition and rate of growth of a flock are determined by factors endogenous to the system and under the control of man, limitations on flock growth of the kind discussed above are exogenous, deriving from the physical environment. Fig. 3.3

FLOCKS

FLOCKS

tifftftftili

ftttftttttf

RUN NO. 1. Parameters as for Fig. 3.2b

RUN NO. 4 . High Adult H o r t a l i t y , Reducing Young M o r t a l i t y .

Adult Hort: 12 Z Young Hort: 30 Z

Adult Hort: 20 Z Young Hort: 10 Z

liiat Hort: 50 Z Birth Rate: 80 Z

B ft 0 N T H

PROFILE

GROWTH

NO. OF LIVESTOCK 100 120 240140

180 200

-•-

0 1 I 2 I inmiiii 3 IIIlllllilSlifUJM 4 IIIIIIIIIfHH 5 lIlillflillflMM 6 1 Hill

7 iniiiuiiifiim

9 Illflllllttll

10 lummmiii M IffillllifMlttl

12 IHHIIIIUIHIIII

n inmiinmii M ininnnimiu

is i6 t7 IB 19 20

i minimi iinnmn imnmi iHiiinn IHJmilll

0

i M a t Hort: 50 Z B i r t h Rate: 80 Z PROFILE

YR

HO, OF LIVESTOCK 60 80 100 120 240 160 1B0 200 0 20 ._-+ * + 4. * 1 1 1 I 0I I 2 inillHIIMHIilt 3 ItlHItflllliiIMM 4 IIIIIIIIIIBMM 5 lllllllllllBMIt 6 lllllllllfllBMU 7 iniiiiiiinimiiM 8 unuiflii 9 ininimi 10 I nun 11 iiiimiHtn 12 illinium it 13 inniimt 14 liniiiiiiii IS llffllllltil 16 I 17

20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200 Annual Growth Rate = 12.903 I p.a.

0

20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200 Annual Growth Rate - 9.804 Z p,a.

AGE PROFILE

31.41 14.3Z 54.31 HORTALITY PROFILE

o-i imiiniiniiiiiin

38.21

41.21 20.61

1-2 l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l f l l

2* iwmaam I 0

-+ ¥ f + + 1. 60 10 20 30 40 50 Percent I

•

f

f

70 80 90

f

Productivity Indices : HEAT = 0.242 HILK = 0,281 WOOL « 0.271

16.11 48,21

HORTALITY PROFILE 0-1 U t t H I 1-2 UllltttfIllllllllltltlllll

2*

11.81 52.91

••Illlllllinill

I

100

35.71

0-1 I i-2 iiniiui 2+ I

0

+

4.

+

+

1

35.3Z

4.

4.

+

+

10 20 30 40 50 iO 70 80 90 Percent Z

1

100

Productivity Indices : HEAT = 0.28A KILK = 0.214 W 0 L = 0.241

33

Nomad pastoral economy

Fig. 3.3 (c) Increased adult kill-off balanced by further enhanced birth rate and reductions in mortality of young and immatures: even so the flock falls well below the level of viability, (d) Optimal herding strategy, conserving breeders, killing off immature males.

shows how differently constituted flocks fare over the same sequence of good and bad years. The pattern of exponential growth punctuated by periodic setbacks illustrates a number of interesting properties of an intensive ova-caprine herding system. First, any herd with a moderate natural growth rate can adequately cope with a series of setbacks. Second, disasters tend to be most debilitating when they occur closely together before the regeneration process is fully under way. Finally, those flocks which contain the highest proportion of breeding stock are best able to withstand a series of setbacks, vindicating conventional pastoral wisdom. Over the long term, and on a regional scale, animal populations nomadic or otherwise - are constrained by severe and periodic exogenous FLOCKS

FLOCKS

tttmttftftt

iittttfiiti

RUN NO. 3. Increased Adult Mortality, Higher Birthrate,

RUN NO. 2. Decreased Adult Mortality.

Adult Mort: 20 Z Young Hort: 30 Z

Adult Mort: 10 I Young Mort: 30 Z

I Mat Mort: 50 Z Birth Rate: 90 Z

GROWTH YR 0

20 4 0

Uiat Mort: 50 Z Birth Rate: 80 Z

GROWTH

PROFILE

NO. OF LIVESTOCK 60 BO 100 120 240 160 180 200

I 0

PROFILE

NO. OF LIVESTOCK 20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200

0I

0 I 1 I 2 llllllllltilltll 3 1111111111111111

i ii nun uiiiiiiuimmi

IIIIIIIIIIIIIRHI!

imimiiimin

i illinium i 5 minium i

liiiiiiiuiiimm iflllllllllllHMIIH i if f iiiiniHf ssn 111111 HIM iiiimiiimni niiiiiiiiiuiui IllllllllllllfllHIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBUIIII lUIHIIIIIIflllHI imiiiimiiimiiiii I HIM III 111 i l l i n i u m ii i IllfllllllHUII IIIIIIMHUI timuuimiii

6 iminium it 7 illinium ii ii

ilium niiini Hum it lima 11

n

UIIIMIIIHIIIII

0

ftSE PROFILE o-i iifiiiimififiiif

33.31 15.41 51.31

1-2 innIHI

2* i iiiiiiifiKitHliiiuiiiii MORTALITY PROFILE

33,31 40.0Z 26.72

01 Illlllflllllllllll 1-2 Illlfllllttllllllilll 2+ 0

0

20 40 60 80 100 120 240 160 180 200 Annual Growth Rate - 8,333 I p.a.

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Percent I

80

100

Productivity Indices : HEAT = 0.321 HILK = 0.295 WOOL « 0.256

AGE 01 1-2 2*

20 40 60 80100 120 240 160 ISO 200 Annual Growth Rate 13.953 t p . a .

PROFILE tlllflfllllllfffl Illlllli IlllllflllllllllllllllHIHIl

31.31 13.61 55. It

MORTALITY PROFILE 0-1 IllllllllflllllUlfU 1-2 U11IIiIIIIlll 11UIIII 24 IHIIini 0

40.4Z 42.6Z 17.0Z

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Percent I

100

Productivity Indices : MEAT « 0.255 MLK • 0.286 WOOL = 0.276

Nomads in archaeology

34

controls. However the high reproductive potential of small stock permits a rapid recovery to previous levels. This alternating 'boom and bust7 cycle (see Stauffer 1965, p.292), the corollary of a high accumulation and highrisk strategy, is fundamental to any understanding of a nomadic pastoral system based on the husbandry of small stock. Its effects ramify outwards into other areas of nomadic life, including the structure of co-resident communities and tenure of grazing land.

The pastoral mode of subsistence Animals as capital The singular fact about animals under a pastoral mode of subsistence is that they are owned, and for most Near Eastern pastoral systems it is the individual family that constitutes both the unit of ownership and the unit of production. Digard (1975) seems to be alone in regarding the basic unit of production as the cooperative herding unit/ which is perhaps better understood as a management unit. This is not to deny the presence of systems of pastoral tenancy whereby animals are lent, leased and placed in the care of shepherds or contract herders - we shall encounter such systems presently. Nor does it necessarily imply egalitarianism in nomad political structures. What it does mean is that in understanding pastoral herds as a form of capital we need to be aware of those limiting properties which constrain the scope of pastoral accumulation and transactions. For this reason I would regard pastoral flocks as a form of restricted capital. While the term 'pastoral capital' is not to be taken in the same sense as market capitalism, I would defend its use to represent a factor of production alongside land and labour, based on the definition of capital as 'a resource in respect of which one controls its reproductive value7 (Paine 1971, p.158). But while herds may be described as 'fields on the hoof7 (Ekvall 1968), there are major differences between pastoral and agricultural capital. The above account of herd demography has made it clear that herd animals - particularly small stock - constitute an extremely volatile form of capital. However pastoral capital is not subject to diminution through inheritance as are, for example, peasant land holdings (see Spooner 1964, p.65, 1973). Given the necessary conditions for pastoral accumulation, each division of a herd among sons can be offset through a 'topping up7 process - so that a herd of 100 animals divided among three sons could be expected to grow into three herds of 100 each. If the analogy of a finite cake cut into ever smaller segments with each generation is appropriate to an agricultural system, then its pastoral counterpart would be the process of biological cell division by which each division results in new units similar in size and structure to the original. While the numbers of animals held per household vary greatly both within and between groups of Near Eastern pastoralists, it would appear that between 50 and 100 sheep and/or goats is a normal complement for the contemporary household. Information on average herd/flock numbers gleaned from a range of Near Eastern sources is presented in Table 3.1. It

Nomad pastoral economy

35

should be borne in mind that; due to variations in household size and composition between nomadic groups, and between nomads and villagers, the average number of animals per family is not always a reliable indicator of relative livestock wealth. Correlations between wealth (in terms of livestock numbers) and household size; such as those observed by Bates (1973, pp.182-3) and Irons (1975, pp.163-3) should be reconsidered in this light. For this reason Be§ikqi (1969) has employed an index of average livestock holdings per person as a measure of household wealth and as a basis for comparison with smaller village households. Nevertheless Table 3.1 indicates that the average numbers held by nomadic groups are consistently a few orders of magnitude larger than those held by villagers in the same regions, although the numbers per village household in one region may approach - though rarely exceed - those held by nomads in another. The ratio of nomad flocks to village flocks for most regions appears to hover around 5:1. There is a sizeable literature addressed to the question of optimal household herd size (Stenning 1958; W. Swidler 1972; Bates 1973; Dahl and Hjort 1976; Redding 1984; Rubel 1969) all of which stresses the crucial role of the size and consistency of the labour supply and the division of household labour along age-sex lines. But while the household may be the unit of ownership and the key institution allocating roles and responsibility in pastoral labour, it would Table 3.1a Comparative sizes of small stockholdings (sheep and goats) of households in Near Eastern communities (nomadic communities) Group Afshar Alikanli Baharvand Baharvand Bakhtiari Basseri Bedouin Boyr Ahmad

Jaf

Kirghiz Kirghiz Qashqa'i Qashqa'i

Sagikara Yomut Yoriiks Yoriiks Unspecified Unspecified Unspecified Unspecified

Region Kerman, Iran E. Anatolia Luristan Luristan W. Iran Fars, Iran N. Syria W. Iran N.E. Iraq Pamirs Afghan Pamirs Fars, Iran (using 'hired' shepherds) Central Anatolia Gurgan, Iran Ala Dag, Anatolia Ala Dag, Anatolia

Average no. per household

Date of observation

Source

100 (S) 160.4 (S) 200 (SG) 40 (SG) 50 (SG) 80-160 (S) 100 (S) 45 (SG) 21 (S) 95 (S) 200-1200 (S) 140 (S)

1970s 1965 early 20th C 1970s 1970s 1950s 1960s 1970 1922 1890s 1970s 1970s

Stober (1978: 84) Besjkgi (1969:124) Baharvand (1975:59) Hole (1979:146) Ehmann (1975:101,121) Barth (1961:13) Sweet (1974:100) Fazel (1973:132,148) Edmonds (1957:148) Hedin (18981:177) Shahrani (1975: 89) Beck (1981:349)

235 (S) 268 (S) 94 (S) 80 (SG) min. 40, max. 600-700 (SG) 50 (SG)

1970s 1969 1970s 1930s

Beck (1981:349) Bates (1973:148) Irons (1975: Appendix 1) Frodin (1943-44: 243)

1930s 1960s

Frodin (1943-44: 243) Smith (1971:132)

1815-16 1815-16 1890s

Morier (1837:25) Morier (1837:25) Hedin (18981: 272)

Iran Persia (middle herd owner) 100 (S) Persia (wealthy) 1000 (S) 1200 (SG) Turkestan (rich)

S = sheep; G = goats; SG = sheep and goats

Nomads in archaeology

Table 3.1b

36

Comparative sizes of small stockholdings (sheep and goats) of households in Near Eastern communities (village communities).

Village

Area

Average no. per household

Ahlat Asadabad Batman Burkhaar Qizre Hazro Giingiis Hasanabad Haydari Hizan Idil Joushaqan Kozluk Mountain villages Mukti Pervan Qom-Yazd

E. Anatolia Iran E. Anatolia Iran (wealthy) E. Anatolia E. Anatolia E. Anatolia W. Iran Iran E. Anatolia E. Anatolia Iran E. Anatolia Central Anatolia E. Anatolia E. Anatolia Iran

29.9 (SG) 4 - 6 (SG) 11.3 (SG) 1000-1200 (SG) 20.8 8.3 (SG) 5.2 (SG) 21.0 (SG) 5-10 (G) 14.9 (SG) 25.7 (SG) 50-60 (G) 8.1 (SG) 25 (SG) 12.6 (SG) 13.3 (SG) a few goats

Saggiz Shirdasht* Silopi Silvan Yassihoyiik

Iran W. Iran E. Anatolia E. Anatolia W. Anatolia

10-20 (SG) 52 (SG) 21.5 (SG) 7.0 (SG) 31 (S)

Date of observation

Source

1965 1950s 1965 1950s 1965 1965 1965 1960s 1950s 1965 1965 1950s 1965 1969 1965 1965 1950s

Besjkcj (1969:124) Lambton (1953:353) Besjkgi (1969:124) Lambton (1953:353) Be§ikcj (1969:124) Besjkcj (1969:124) Besjkcj (1969:124) Watson (1979: table 4.1) Lambton (1953:353) Be§ikqi (1969:124) Besjkcj (1969:124) Lambton (1953:353) Besjkcj (1969:124) Bates (1973:20) Besjkcj (1969:124) Besjkcj (1969:124) Lambton (1953:353)

1950s 1960s 1965 1965 1965

Lambton (1953:353) Watson (1979:249) Be§ikgi (1969:124) Besjkcj (1969:124) METU (1965:82)

/ 1 i n *.n 9fifl\ ^Up 10 L\J\J)

*Migrating in summer. S = sheep; G = goats; SG = sheep and goats

be misleading to envisage each household as an isolated unit. Although economic self-sufficiency is a positive virtue, household flocks are frequently subsidized far in excess of the resources of an individual household. Kin support and patron-client relationships are often crucial factors in household viability. Furthermore the very mobilization of labour resources for the management of flocks and the exploitation and control of territory involve households in wider cooperative groupings. It is necessary here to draw an important distinction between what I have termed the productive unit or unit of ownership in pastoral economy (i.e. the household) and units of livestock management or rangeland management. The flock whose straggling passage across the AnkaraAdana highway interrupts your Near Eastern odyssey is almost certainly not the holdings of a single family but a composite of sections drafted from a number of household flocks, usually by age-sex criteria, in order to achieve a certain size and mix of old and young, male and female or sheep and goat (Fig.3.4). The shepherds and dogs will, in all probability, come from different households from the animals themselves. This will be so whether the flock originates from a settled village or a tent encampment, though is somewhat less likely in the latter case. Some authors, such as Nyerges (1980) and Vincze (1980), have concentrated on the actual mechanics of herding, the tempo of flock movements, grazing

Nomad pastoral economy

37

Fig. 3.4 Kurdish nomads passing through a village on the autumn migration trail, eastern Turkey. I was struck by the similarities in dress and material culture between nomads and villagers inhabiting the same region.

patterns and work shifts of shepherds (see also Watson 1979; Middle East Technical University 1965). The basic techniques and practices seem to vary little from camp to village (see Sweet 1974). Studies of the formation of camp groups such as that of W. Swidler (1972) have laid great stress on logistical factors such as the need to consolidate small family holdings into a single herd and the formation of effective shepherding teams, pointing to features of nomad residence groups which facilitate these. It should be stressed that such organization occurs in order to exercise management options and that it may tell us little about the driving forces behind nomad economies. A distinction has been drawn between the dual roles of herder and husbandman (Paine 1971; Vincze 1980), and Tapper (1979a) has even suggested employing the term 'flock' for units of livestock owned by a household, reserving 'herd7 for the kind of management unit described above. These distinctions reflect a more fundamental one between the level of technique, logistics and labour management on the one hand - the 'forces' of production in Marxist terms - and that of long-term strategic factors, access to resources and accumulation - relations of production - on the other.

Characteristics of pastoral labour In the first instance, the accumulation of pastoral capital is limited by the availability of herding labour, though this need not always be drawn directly from the nuclear family. Pastoral labour has three distinctive properties. First, as noted by Barth (1973a, p. 15), labour is directed primarily at capital maintenance, the success of which incurs more rather than less effort. Second, pastoral labour can be intensified only in so far as it serves to concentrate the ownership of livestock within certain households. It does not permit any given region to support a greater number of animals (Bates and Lees 1977, p.836). Third, pastoral labour is highly

Nomads in archaeology

38

competitive. Herding is a zero sum game in which one herder's gain is usually another's loss, except under conditions of herd expansion during recovery from an extensive drought or epidemic. Central to an understanding of the economics of pastoral nomadism is the concept of household viability (Stenning 1958). The achievement of a satisfactory balance between labour and capital, personnel and flocks, emerges as the primary constituent in household viability. Where household composition is such as to provide an adequate and well-balanced labour pool, capital may be adjusted to labour through flock expansion or direct acquisition of livestock. Alternatively labour may be adjusted to capital as where, for example, an increase in flock numbers provides the necessary wealth to hire additional herding labour. The effectiveness of the primary labour pool, that provided by the household itself, depends on both the number and sex of children born and on the stage occupied by the household in terms of its developmental cycle (Goody (ed.) 1958). According to Barhavand (1975, pp.60-1), a moderately well-off Luri household with 200 sheep requires a minimum of one elder son as herder, one younger son to look after the lambs, an adult male to manage cows and pack animals, two or three women or girls for milking and domestic tasks and one or two men for cultivation. Clearly a perfect balance is possible only at a certain stage in the developmental cycle of any given nuclear family. An optimal strategy aimed at ironing out imbalances as a family moves through its domestic cycle would be, in effect, to run the developmental cycles of successive generations into one another by delaying the economic independence of new nuclear family units (i.e. maintaining an extended family structure). Bates (1973, pp. 17789) presents data from Turkish Yoriik nomads which suggest that the optimal ratio of workers to consumers and optimal productivity per unit labour are achieved in his third wealth quartile (those owning 250-349 sheep), which also contains a higher than normal proportion of extended families. Note also that such flocks lie within the range (250-400) for efficient herding in a single household-based management unit. Under a strongly virilocal system involving payments of brideprice, the flow of women in marriage is accompanied by a counter flow of livestock, often resulting in temporary imbalances between livestock and labour. Each marriage of a son causes a depletion in pastoral capital through brideprice payment but brings in a new unit of female labour. A family with many sons will thus experience a series of losses of livestock but will retain a core of pastoral labour - together with additional female labour - capable of taking up the slack as flocks regenerate. However a household with only daughters will experience a series of windfalls in livestock but will lack the herdsmen to manage them. This point has been well illustrated by Irons (1975, pp. 164-7) in a comparison between the life cycle of two Yomut families, one with five sons and a daughter, the other with five daughters and two sons. Again options centre on the scheduling of marriages and the rate of fissioning of new nuclear units. These problems, common to all Near Eastern pastoral nomads, have invited a range of responses. According to Irons (1975), the marriages of sons among the Yomut Turkmen are delayed for as long as possible, thereby retaining a pool of herding labour capable of amassing a parental flock large enough

Nomad pastoral economy

39

to sustain a series of brideprice payments. Subsequently, delayed cohabitation of spouses and co-residence in the parental household continue to enhance the concentration of herding labour. While such a strategy may well serve as a form of population control, it also paradoxically tends to maximize the personnel within each extended household, thereby 'minimizing the number of households that fall below the the viable limit in terms of their labour resources' (Irons 1975, p. 169). By way of contrast, Barth (1961, pp.18-29) describes the Basseri as facilitating early marriage and any early splitting off of new households - a practice which seems to be associated with a higher rate of population increase, a higher proportion of non-viable households and marked trends towards sedentarization among such households (see also Irons 1975, p.99). However no theory of household viability can be adequate which confines itself to the internal resources of each household. While certainly autonomous in terms of decision-making and the disposal of resources, nomad households do not stand alone. Each participates in an extensive support network based on kinship, affinality, patronage and voluntary association. Even severe shortfalls in capital and labour need not result in a loss of viability where the support of kinsmen can be relied on. An anecdote from the Qashqa'i will serve as illustration. Ahmet Bey's herds were devastated by a freak snowstorm in one of the treacherous passes of the Zagros. Within a few days each household in the beyleh (camp group) had contributed one or more sheep, according to means, to make up a new herd equal to the original. Other resources, particularly seasonal labour, may serve as a backup for nomad families fallen on hard times - in recent years the petroleum industry has played this role in southwestern Iran (Katouzian 1978). Salzman (1972) even talks of a form of 'multiple resource nomadism7 in which no particular resource base is predominant. Where pastures are owned, as among the Shahsevan (Tapper 1979b), speculation in pasture land can preserve viability where other resources fail. Only where all three major components - herds, kin support and land - are lacking does loss of viability and sedentarization become inevitable among the Shahsevan. The most important options in ironing out imbalances in labour and capital may be summarized as follows: (1) Internal adjustments such as delays in marriage and/or household segmentation or adoption. (2) The formation of cooperative herding units to facilitate mutually beneficial exchanges of labour and deployments of livestock. (3) Hiring of shepherding labour from outside the household unit. (4) Contract herding involving the temporary consignment of flocks to other households, together with usufruct rights over perishable products. (5) Material or labour support from more affluent kinsmen. A related process, usually involving non-kin or distant kin, is the formation of patron-client relationships. (6) Recourse to alternative resources such as land, seasonal work, military adventurism or commercial enterprises. The range of responses of ethnographically documented pastoralists to imbalances of household labour and capital appears to reflect underlying differences in economic and social organization which may vary not only

Nomads in archaeology

40

geographically but also temporally in response to changing political and market conditions. Furthermore the involvement of households in associations beyond the extended family and herding group appear to correlate with degrees of inequality in the distribution of wealth and status.

The egalitarian response: the Basseri The Basseri, as described by Barth (1961), epitomize a form of egalitarianism sometimes mistaken for the norm among pastoralists but indicative of a certain solution to the balancing of the key factors of production labour, capital and land. Organized into self-sufficient household units, mostly nuclear families, the Basseri are dependent on labour from within the household, maintained by a high birthrate but limited by early marriage and fissioning of new nuclear units. Household viability is pegged to a minimum capital requirement of around 60 sheep, and labour and capital are adjusted through the formation of cooperative herding units consolidating the flocks of two to five families into an optimal herd of 200 to 400. According to Barth, those whose flocks exceed this size may be forced to rely on hired shepherds or contract herders, the inherent inefficiency of which imposes limitations on the further accumulation of livestock. The pastoral economy is therefore seen as being held within limits defined minimally by the capital necessary to remain viable, and maximally at that point where labour efficiency and herd productivity are subject to diminishing returns (but see Huntington 1972). At the lower end of the range households are forced out of the nomadic sector into the lower levels of village society, at the upper end a few large herd owners are persuaded to convert their pastoral holdings into a more secure investment in the form of agricultural land, entering settled society as landlords. Through attrition at both ends of the wealth spectrum a certain stable ratio of humans to animals and of both to land is maintained. We might expect a characteristic negatively skewed distribution curve of animals among households - a preponderance of small herd owners tapering off to a few big-time herders. According to Barth (1961, p.126) the human and animal populations are regulated through Malthusian controls acting directly on the flocks via over-grazing and epidemic, and indirectly on the human population via enforced sedentarization as flock numbers fall below the minimum threshold for economic viability.

The stratified response: the Qashqa'i More recent work among southwest Asian pastoralists (Irons 1975; Beck 1980; Bates 1973; Shahrani 1979) suggests that other responses are possible. Under the right conditions nomadic herding can be big business. The claim made by Barth (1961, p. 103) that the 'net productivity rate for the owner declines as the size of the herd increases7 can no longer be accepted as an inherent property of pastoral capital. The initiation of a spiral of accumulation seems to be related to the development of elaborate systems of shepherding, contract herding and pastoral tenure involving the alienation of livestock, paralleled by the emergence of large

Nomad pastoral economy

41

differentials in wealth and the rudiments of social stratification (Black 1972; Garthwaite 1978; Digard 1979; Beck 1980; Shahrani 1979). Elements of this type of response are to be found among the Qashqa'i, neighbours of the Basseri. Whether the contrasts stem from real 'cultural7 differences, or the particular window which the respective ethnographers had on each society, or historical changes between the 1950s and the 1970s, is difficult to assess. According to Beck (1980), Qashqa'i households mostly comprise nuclear families, as among the Basseri. But the Qashqa'i make extensive use of shepherd labour to make up for labour shortages within the household. Household flock sizes tend to be relatively high (see Table 3.1), approaching the range for optimal herding efficiency, and the banding together of households into herding units is not much in evidence. Moreover there seems to be no minimal capital threshold below which households are forced into sedentarization - kin support is available, or shepherding contracts may be entered into with wealthy families. But shepherds are not necessarily prospective herd owners going through the initial stages of flock accumulation as occurs in many other pastoral societies (Yoriiks, Basseri). Many remain as shepherds all their lives, so that shepherd households are recognized as a distinct social category and the status of shepherd may be permanent, if not ascribed. Shepherds, together with landless labourers, represent the fourth in a fivetiered system of stratification ranging from tribal khans down to servants and craftsmen (Beck 1980, p.330). Moreover they occupy a special position with respect to the tribal organization: Hired shepherds are not only poor in animals . . . they also lack personal and tribal access to pastures and they have few affiliations with tribal leaders. Poor integration in the tribal system is the key element. Most shepherds are members of poorly integrated sub-tribes that

have weak leadership systems . . . The minor subtribes, although structurally equivalent to the major ones, are a source of shepherds to the major

ones . . . Because they usually lack pasture rights and adequate wealth in animals, they cannot easily quit shepherding . . . They tend to have weak agnatic and affinal links that provide them with little economic or political assistance. (Beck 1980, pp.334-5; emphasis added) More is involved here than the logistics of levelling out imbalances between labour and capital at the household level. The system allows wealthy households with a number of flocks to stay within the pastoral sector 'where they create sources of employment for the poor' (Beck 1980, p.335), and permits a greater range of economic diversity. This 'stratified7 response should be marked by a bimodal distribution of livestock with a large bulge of households with few or no animals and a smaller peak of large herd owners. The adjustment of human to animal population is likely to be such that a higher proportion of humans can be maintained as nomads, relative to numbers of livestock, than in more egalitarian forms. The effects of Malthusian controls on livestock numbers will be to set up a flow of personnel into dependent or auxiliary statuses within the nomadic sector rather than into the sedentary sector. In short, the maximum concentration of individuals will be achieved that can be supported by nomadic pastoralism within a given region.

Nomads in archaeology

42

Pastoral 'feudalism': Central Asia and the Kirghiz

This process has been taken to its quintessence in Central Asia through a kind of pastoral 'feudalism', an elaboration of contract herding whereby wealthy households place sections of their flocks with poorer families, known as the saun system (Lattimore 1951, p.96; Shahrani 1979, p.179; Vainshtein 1980, p.104). Like shepherding, this system can serve to balance out discrepancies in labour and capital between equivalent and often related households. But it can also lead to a system of pastoral tenancy in which the huge livestock holdings of tribal elites are farmed out to 'tenant' households who have only temporary usufruct rights over milk and wool on the understanding that any capital increase must be restored to the owner. Under such a system the physical distribution of animals among households will bear little relation to the distribution of ownership. For instance, among the Kirghiz of the Afghan Pamirs, the khan alone owned over 16,000 sheep and goats of which some 14,000 were dispersed among 130 households (Shahrani 1979, pp. 165,182). The annual redistribution of livestock by a politically powerful elite ensured the supply of sufficient animals for the subsistence needs of each household, thereby retaining personnel within the nomadic sector. The ownership or control of pasture land may also be an important factor here. The buying and selling of grazing rights or pasture lots has been reported among the Shahsevan in northwest Iran and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan (Tapper 1979b), and among other nomads the domination of large tracts of land by tribal leaders appears to form the basis for the annual allocation of grazing rights among tribal members (Shahrani 1979; Beck 1980; Oberling 1974, p.15; Fazel 1973). Such forms of pastoral tenancy may be viewed at the sociopolitical level in terms of patron-client relationships. Clients may well form an expendable labour pool which can be dumped in hard times (Peters 1966; Swift 1977; Marx 1977, p.354) but, where supported by kin or tribal ties, the elevation of an elite can also serve as a major resource during difficult times (e.g. Spooner 1964, p.63).

The commercial response: the Yoriiks of Southern Turkey Where nomads are heavily incorporated into a system of capitalist market forces the costs incurred through household consumption and herd maintenance often tend to outrun livestock market prices. Such appears to be the case among the nomadic Yoriiks where such fluctuations condition the flow of personnel into or out of the nomadic sector. Under such conditions the minimum threshold of animals required for household viability will be raised, resulting in fewer nomads with larger flocks though not necessarily greater disposable assets. Since individual flocks are likely to fall within the optimal range (250-400) for efficient herding, cooperative herding units are not formed and shepherding labour tends to be drawn from within the household. Since the household is both the unit of production and the unit of management, any severe imbalances in the matching of labour and capital resources may lead to sedentarization. The pattern of livestock ownership will tend towards a normal distribution with a majority of middle herd owners. In ecological terms, the number of animals pastured within a given region is likely to remain constant, but

Nomad pastoral economy

Fig. 5.5 Distribution of household livestock ownership for Yoriiks and Yomut Turkmen. The Yoriik example (a) conforms closer to a normal distribution than the Turkmen (b). (After Bates 1973,fig.14; and Irons 1975, table 12.)

43

30

No. of t«nts

20

YOROKS

"

M

.I. I1 I Herd size

No. of tents

15-

n...

YOMUT

10-

1 1

10

20

$0

100

ZOO

400

600

700

Herd size

they will be concentrated in fewer hands. Fig. 3.5 shows the distribution of livestock ownership among the Yoriiks (Bates 1973, p. 163, fig. 14) and the Yomut (Irons 1975, table 12). The Yoriiks display a roughly normal distribution, slightly negatively skewed, with a mean of 268.35 and median of 245, compared with the more nearly bimodal distribution of the Yomut.

4 RESIDENCE, DESCENT AND TERRITORY The social significance of nomadic mobility is that it gives the opportunity for continual choice and change in residential association, within a wide but limited and relatively homogeneous social field, an opportunity inherently denied to settled people. (Tapper 1979a, p.46)

Nomad camps have been likened to 'mobile villages7 (Barth 1961, p.25; Stauffer 1965, p.285). The analogy holds up to a point. Camps, like villages, are composed of individual dwellings, each containing a household unit. Tents are generally clustered together for reasons of sociability and security. The residents of both settlement types form a face-to-face community. However as our attention shifts to residential patterns, community organization, property relations and territory, the analogy begins to break down. Failing major catastrophe, there is a certain inertia in the physical layout and membership of a village, which is absent in a nomad camp. Other things being equal, the villager will tend to remain where he is and any change in residence will involve a major decision. For the nomad such decisions are routine and the composition of a nomad camp can persist even over short timespans only through constant reaffirmation (Barth 1961, p.25). The size and composition of nomad residence groups is therefore highly responsive to decisions taken at the household level.

Nomad social organization Central to this residential flexibility is the nomad facility for reinforcing social relationships through physical distance. A village plan may well reflect lineage structures or status distinctions (Kramer 1979; Watson 1979), but any changes in these structures will not necessarily result in people moving house en masse to fit the new situation. By way of contrast, each new nomad encampment is laid out according to a subtle grammar of kinship networks, status and herding logistics (see Chapter 8). A key factor in any current camping arrangement is the state of conflict between households. The principle is beautifully illustrated by Barth (1961) who observed two families, who had clashed over the occupation of a choice 44

Residence, descent and territory

45

tentsite, dragging their goods and chattels off in opposite directions to set up their tents at each extremity of the camp. Many ethnographers particularly those who have worked in both migratory and settled village communities (W. Swidler 1972; Watson 1979) - have remarked on the generally low levels of interpersonal tension, if not overt conflict, among nomads as opposed to villagers. This may be due in part to the ability to defuse conflict situations by reinforcing social distance with physical distance. These residential arrangements are spin-offs rather than causal factors. The constant need for decisions affecting residential location and associations is underlied by the chronic instability and changes in fortune which have emerged as the hallmark of the pastoral mode of subsistence. Nomadic mobility provides the framework through which such decisions may be implemented. Changes in the size of household flocks can upset labour-sharing arrangements within herding units leading to the formation of new cooperatives each season. Where pasture is allocated in fixed lots, annual variation in quality together with fluctuations in flock sizes may result in families being allocated different lots each year. Conflict is a frequently cited reason for the fissioning of camp groups, but such imbalances between labour, capital and pastureland are frequently at the heart of conflicts (see Peters 1960). It is well known that small cooperatives have a low tolerance threshold for conflict which, short of the intervention of some higher authority, will normally lead to the hiving off of individual households or the splitting of camps.

Descent groups and residence groups Given the regular modular layout of most nomad camps it is tempting to superimpose kinship structures on these plans, particularly for archaeologists raised in the archaeology-as-anthropology tradition. Let it be said from the start that a tendency for camps to form on the basis of agnatic descent groups is virtually universal among Near Eastern nomads. But this is a tendency only, and a wide range of options is normally held open: 'Fully effective exploitation of nomadic mobility . . . is possible only if each household and each lineage is free to move over a wide area and, if necessary, to take up permanent residence with people with whom they share no close ties of kinship7 (Irons 1975, p.39). The most intensive studies of camp group formation (Bates 1973; Barth 1961; Tapper 1979a; W. Swidler 1972, 1973; Peters 1960) have invariably found that cognatic and affinal ties are as statistically common as those of patrilineal descent although, given the widespread practice of parallel cousin marriage (Barth 1973b; Murphy and Kasdan 1967; Khuri 1970), these different strands are often difficult to unravel. But more important than empirical arguments based on actual camp group membership are conceptual differences between the processes of lineage segmentation and residence group formation. Lineage segments proliferate through time in a regular manner forming structurally equivalent units in a nested hierarchy. The segmentary lineage model as summarized by Sahlins (1961) envisages all units, however high or low in the hierarchy, as fulfilling much the same function - the

Nomads in archaeology

46

pursuit of the blood feud. The residence hierarchy, by contrast, is one in which each level is formed in accordance with a different set of principles and for a different purpose. While certain levels of agnatic segmentation may sometimes be correlated with a particular level in the residence hierarchy (e.g. a camp group composed predominantly of members from a single maximal lineage) not all levels of segmentation correspond with any level in the residence hierarchy. In short, as pointed out long ago by Evans-Pritchard (1940, pp.203-7), the physical distribution of households and residence units can never correspond exactly to the structure of agnatic descent, although the latter may often serve as a rough characterization of the former. Moreover, among different groups of nomads, different levels of segmentation materialize at the core of functioning communities. Yet in a comparative study of a number of nomad ethnographies from the Near East and North Africa Tapper (1979a) discovered a remarkable degree of consistency in the size of residence groups at each level in the residence hierarchy. Five or six levels of group formation emerge overall, each characterized by a discrete range of lowest to highest numbers. He points out that: 'the communities . . . vary widely in size within particular societies, while average sizes are remarkably uniform7 (ibid., p.61). The results of his comparisons have been graphed in Fig. 4.1. Tapper employs these data to support the hypothesis that these regularities are a reflection of species-specific size thresholds (Forge 1972; Johnson 1978) somehow Fig. 4- i Schematic diagram of levels in a nomad residence hierarchy based on estimates from 14 ethnographically recorded nomadic societies in the Near East and North Africa. The numbers refer to households or 'tents'. The dispersion of average figures for sheep herding groups and mixed herding groups are shown at right. (Compiled from data presented by Tapper 1979a.) 1: Herding unit, a: 'A' type or primary community. b-e: 'B; type or secondary community levels.

Mixed herding (camel, cattle,sheep)

5cde

i.abcde

i.abcde

i.abcde

i.abcde

i.abcde

•

Residence, descent and territory

47

'wired into' all human societies but achieving their full geographical expression only among nomads and other mobile groups: it will be among nomads rather than among settled peoples that we can expect the emergence and evidence of any inherent social dynamic processes generating interactional communities of a certain size and character . . . The same factors may operate in settled societies but it is sooner in mobile and flexible than in stationary and fixed societies that we can expect them to express themselves in social groupings. (Tapper 1979a; p.61) While I am attracted to the kind of theory being advanced here, I must admit to being highly suspicious of the data employed in this instance, and on two grounds. The first involves the source of the data - ethnographers attempting to convey an overall view of a society on the basis of reports from a limited number of informants are prone to cite rounded figures such as 5 to 10, an average of 100, etc., rather than observed ranges of 4 to 13 or averages of 93.5. Second, when dealing with a hierarchy, estimates of higher level units, even less accessible to direct observation, are apt to become multiples of lower order units. Such values are liable to fit a log scale, such as that employed in Fig. 4.1, by way of their formal mathematical properties rather than any actual relation to the phenomenon under study. Such amplified imprecisions may well convey an impression of discrete ranges and hierarchy where none in fact exists. Sheep

herding

20.000 I 1000

M.ON 5OO0

ii I

,

)ioo

ioo<

TOO

200

80 80

30 I

*f

35

J0

Z

4

labcde CO Q

on :*: —>

cr \— X

CD

labcde

QL

Ld CO CO

OQ

i.abcde

i.abcde

i a bede

i.abcde

— •

a

x o 3

CO

X

X

C5

CO

CO

i.abcde"

CO

o

a.

m

'•

Nomads in archaeology

48

More substantial and relevant to our present aims is the identification of a unit at the lower end of the hierarchy dubbed the A Type or primary community composed of somewhere between 20 and 60 households: 'based on a dominant lineage, with a greater or lesser proportion of temporarily resident affines, multilateral kin, unrelated clients or herdsmen7 (Tapper 1979a; p.60). The primary community, whose defining feature is that it permits the direct interaction between all household heads, tends to form around pastoral resources such as tracts of grazing or water sources. They vary in year-to-year stability according to whether grazing rights are individually owned or jointly held (maximal stability) or subject to frequent redistribution, with the strongest tendencies towards the formation of agnatically based residence groups occurring in the former case. Within its structure camp groups of various sizes may be constituted in response to different seasonal demands and direct adjustments between personnel and resources effected. It is commonly a pasture-holding estate controlling - at least for a season - a particular pasture lot allocated on the basis of tribal membership, within which members of the community share equal rights to the available pasture. It may coincide with a lineage segment, but is more commonly composed of an agnatic core together with collateral, affinal and unrelated households. Within the structure of the primary community it is possible to identify camp groups and herding units formed for logistical herd management purposes. Within the primary community no permanent authority structures emerge, though a headman or elder is usually 'elected7 each year. Fission or fusion of these groups occurs in response to imbalances between population and resources. But, according to Tapper (1979a, pp.59-61), ecological factors and the matching of human, capital and pastoral resources cannot account for the regular formation of primary communities of a certain size range cross-culturally, and he points to aggregations of a similar order (regional bands) among hunter-gatherers. The implication is that size-related factors involved in conflict resolution and corporate decision-making define the range within which solutions to ecological and economic imbalances can be arrived at. While the need for concensus on issues such as grazing territories and commitment to joint herding arrangements is important, the ability to arrive at such a concensus - in fact any concensus - is lost once the number of household heads has exceeded a certain threshold, not because of lack of agreement per se but through a breakdown in the processes by which agreement may be reached. This model may be subsumed under a broad body of organizational theory, used to account for the formation of chiefdoms and the origin of the state, which ultimately falls back on social psychological explanations (Lee 1979; Johnson 1978; Renfrew et at. 1982). It tends to stress the role of variables such as scale and the size of information networks as against the constant of human information processing capacity. As such it does not necessarily go against the theory of modes of subsistence outlined above but raises another set of factors which must be built into the model at the relations of production level. Above the level of the primary community the character of the groupings and their reasons for formation undergo important changes. The order of groupings fall within the ranges 80-1,000, 1,000-5,000 and 7,500-25,000 households, and are characterized by Tapper (1979a) as

Residence, descent and territory

49

B Type or secondary communities. These are no longer residence units but levels in a settlement hierarchy above the face-to-face level. Agnatic descent may be emphasized as a primary criterion for membership in pasture-holding territorial groups, and membership in these units is far more stable than that at the primary community level. Outsiders must be incorporated as opposed to being simply associated. At some level above that of the primary community we find a unit - oba, oymak, oulad, etc. associated with a particular territory or migration schedule, though within this group there will be considerable fluidity in the allocation of pasture estates and the membership of camp groups (primary communities) from year to year. Although face-to-face contact within such communities may be rare, they act as important reference groups of a sub-ethnic character within which there is broad agreement on social norms and customs. Furthermore, secondary communities at some level - usually 'tribe' or 'sub-tribe7 - constitute a marriage isolate or endogamous unit, though a statistically high level of endogamy may also be found within the primary community. It should be emphasized that each segment within the nomad residence hierarchy forms not as a result of any inherent segmentary principle, but through the effect of different sets of factors operating at each level. The household is the primary unit of labour supply and ownership. At the level of the herding unit, logistical and herd management considerations are paramount. The primary community forms around the operational units of the pastoral economy - actual physical camps of varying seasonal composition. At a still higher level blocks of territory are associated with stable descent groups which are endogamous and act as cultural reference groups. The dichotomy between primary and secondary communities marks that point below which some degree of flexibility in economic and residential association is essential, and above which the emphasis begins to shift to membership in territorially linked groups defined in terms of either agnatic descent or political allegiance (see Table 4.1). The Basseri provide a good illustration of this kind of structure. Households form into herding units (2-5 tents) on the basis of bilateral or affinal ties, camping together throughout the annual cycle. Camps (10-40 tents) are the closest thing to a primary community, forming 'a very clearly bounded social group, their relations to each other as continuing neighbours are relatively constant while all other contacts are passing, ephemeral and governed by chance7 (Barth 1961, p.25). But camps constitute a single settlement unit only during migration. While an agnatically related core forms the nucleus of most camps, the presence of cognatic kin and 60 per cent intra-camp endogamy make it in essence a 'bilateral, nearly self-perpetuating kin group7 (ibid., p.41), although there is some fluidity in membership. Herding units do not represent segments of the camp since they are differently constituted each year. Nor does the camp represent a lower-order segment of the next level in the hierarchy, the oulad. The oulad, of around 100 tents, is an agnatically defined descent group with a formally recognized leader, the katkhoda, who is directly responsible to the tribal chief. This is the pasture-holding estate within which all oulad members enjoy equal grazing rights. It has its own migration schedule

50

Nomads in archaeology

Table 4.1

Group Alikanli

Bakhtiari

Baluch

Basseri

Jaf

Functional properties of different levels of segmentation for nine Near Eastern tribal groups (from information contained in Tapper 1919a)

Level of segmentation asiret

No. of households

Pasture estate

Migration Contiguous Political territory unit group

? ?

kabile oymak

50-60

zoma

20-40

//

?

tayfeh tireh tash

?

35

oulad

11

camps

?

tribe section subsection khel

Reference group

Marriage isolate

Descent group

X

X

X

X

X

(partial)

X

x X

?

X

X

X

X

X

X

10,000 ?

500 150

camp

20?

herding units

3-4

confederacy tribe (it) tireh oulad

20,000 3,000 200 100

camps herding units

10-40 4-5

asiret

?

tribe

800

X X

(agnatic core)

X

X X

X

X

X X

X

X

(2/3 within camp) ?

[headman raiz)

hoz (max. lineage) khel herding units Pashtun

confederacy tribe

X

X

?

khel

20-50

X

bonkuh beyleh

X

(lineage segment)

X?

tayfeh tireh

X

x (elder)

?

tayfa

//

X

20-30

1,000 ?

herding units Qashqa'i

?

X

x {malik) x{khan)

X

(headman )

?

25,000 3,000 80 30-40 ?

{katkhoda) X

X

(elder)

X

X ?

Residence, descent and territory

Group Shahsevan

Level of segmentation

5,000 500-1,000 200 100

// tribe

tayfa section

Yomut

No. of households

tireh

20-30

/7 tribe

5,000 1,000

oba

25-1,000

Reference group

Pasture estate

51

Migration Contiguous Political territory group unit

Marriage isolate

Descent group

X X

X

(90%)

X

(chief) X

(40%)

X

x x

(agnatic core)

?

( pokesmar

• )

(agnatic core)

Dotted line shows boundary between primary •nary and secondary communities

Key:

a$iret beyleh bonkuh hoz il habile katkhoda khel malik

tribe minimal camp group camp group tribal section tribal confederacy maximal descent group headman tribal section/camp group chief

oba oulad oymak raiz tash tayfa tayfeh tireh zotna

large migratory unit migratory group migratory unit chief descent group tribal section tribe tribal section camp group

and is therefore the key administrative and political division within the tribe. Above the oulad stands the tribal section; or tireh (over 200 tents); a stable agnatic descent group which has no political role or leader and seems not to be important in pasture allocation, though it normally covers a territory of contiguous estates. The tireh seems to function as the primary reference group and marriage isolate. The tribe itself (around 3,000 tents at the time of the study) is a political creation consisting of tribal sections brought together under the domination of a khan, forming a territorial and migratory unit but lacking any notion of common agnatic descent. The Basseri constitute a Persian-speaking ethnic unit within the Khamseh Confederacy (10,000-20,000 tents), a loose association of five tribes - the others being Turkic- or Arabic-speaking - administratively created as a counterweight to the powerful Qashqa'i confederacy to the northwest. The Ilkhan (paramount chief) of the confederacy was drawn from the Qavam, a family of wealthy Shiraz merchants (Barth 1961; Marsden 1978, p.7). One wonders whether the importance attached by Barth to the oulad as an organizational unit may have been partly due to the phase in the annual cycle at which the Basseri were observed. Had they been studied in summer pastures, possibly some other unit may well have emerged in the allocation of pasture. For instance Tapper (1979b, p. 100) suspects that some form of individuated access to pasture lots may well have been present among the Basseri, as among the Qashqa'i (Beck 1980) and the Lurs (Black 1972).

Nomads in archaeology

52

The role of the tribe Nowhere is the 'problem of the tribe7 (Helm (ed.) 1968) more problematic than among Near Eastern pastoral nomads. Traditionally the term has been used loosely to describe politically recognizable units of unspecified size and function. Recently however it has come under close scrutiny and given a range of connotations. While no definitive solution to the 'problem' will be offered here; a discussion of the concept may help to draw together some of the lines of argument followed above. Having described pastoral nomadism in terms of a Marxist-inspired theory of modes of subsistence, it might appear tempting to dismiss the notion of tribe as a piece of superstructural baggage, as indeed some Marxists have tended to do (Fried 1968; Marsden 1978; Bruinessen 1979). However a number of problems have emerged from this analysis, particularly the matter of access to far-flung pastoral resources, which have not so far been adequately accounted for. I believe that an account of tribal structures and processes will serve to clarify these questions. First I will dispose of some recent misuses of the term. Any attempt to fit tribally organized Near Eastern nomads into a scheme of sociopolitical evolution moving from band through tribe to chiefdom and state (Service 1966; Sahlins 1961) is bound to weave a web of contradictions. 'Tribes7 often appear to be organized in a manner more appropriate to that of chiefdoms, or even states, and may be found incorporated into state structures. Such 'tribal chiefdoms7 seem to have existed alongside states for some 5,000 years, in close interaction, without the former having evolved into the latter in any general sense, though of course particular states have been founded or conquered by tribal elites (Rosenfeld 1965; Spooner 1969; Woods 1976). Objections to the evolutionary view by Marxists are founded on a different view of the genesis of tribal structures. Fried (1968, pp.15-16) and Bruinessen (1979, pp. 148-9) see tribes as a secondary phenomenon, an organizational response to the pressures of adjacent states. According to Marsden (1978, p.10) the tribe - specifically the Qashqa7i taifeh emerged as a unit of organization and a means of classifying people only in the twentieth century. Prior to this the operational units tended to be sub-tribal and more numerous, the size of the units varying with the power of the state (Marsden 1976, p.12). By contrast, Bruinessen (1979, p.228) sees a kind of devolution occurring in nineteenth century Kurdistan as more complex organizational forms, Emirates collapsed, allowing 'simpler forms7, tribes of varying degrees of complexity, to emerge. These suggestions emanate from a primarily political conception of the tribe as 'a political means of defining populations7 (Marsden 1976, p.9). This view denies that there are any economic and social processes at work which might be elucidated by such a concept as 'tribe7, and focuses on a particular level of organization - the interface between tribesmen and state administration. Closer to my own view is that expounded by Emmanual Marx (1977) who sees the tribe as an autonomous territorial unit (see also Dole 1968); though rather than a bounded unit I prefer to see it as a territorial system,

Residence, descent and territory

53

an organization for the control of territory. This should not be confused with Sahlin's (1961) model of the segmentary lineage system, useful for envisaging the operation of the blood feud and territorial conflict in some societies. The tribe too is a segmentary system, but its segments have little in common with those of the segmentary lineage. While Fried (1968, p.5) is correct in defining the tribe in terms of a series of aggregates, it should be stressed (as above) that these aggregates are neither structurally nor functionally equivalent but formed on the basis of different criteria, for different purposes and for the solution of different problems at each level. Certain southwest Asian anthropologists (e.g. Irons 1968, 1975; Salzman 1978) have correctly identified many of the features of the segmentary lineage system among nomadic pastoralists, but they are mistaken in using such a model to account for nomadic territorial systems. Whereas within primary communities criteria of common residence and economic cooperation predominate, at the secondary level greater weight is given to membership in lineages which serve as marriage isolates and cultural reference groups. A third element is usually involved in the form of authority structures centring on chiefs which penetrate the secondary level and are capable of holding together large lineage-based units which recognize no common descent. The process by which tribal units crystallize around a central lineage or powerful individual seems to have been historically common. Such units possess a central core organized in lineages, together with a fluctuating element which may shift allegiance to rival leaders (Millingen 1870, p.28; Edmonds 1922). Such accretions could also occur, according to Bruinessen (1979, pp.136-7), not only through recruitment from other tribes, but also by attracting nontribal peasantry. Barth (1961, pp.132-3) recognizes two patterns of tribal evolution: the first by way of population growth, segmentation and incorporation; the second occurring much more rapidly through the aggregation of tribally - and even ethnically - diverse elements around a strong leader. The impression of stable lineage-based structures often conveyed as a result of synchronic modes of ethnographic inquiry may conceal a system in a constant state of flux. This perceived lineage structure is frequently a product of conscious rationalizations by tribal leaders or provincial administrators, an edifice of kinship erected on the basis of a common political or military purpose (see Barth 1961, p.55). This was recognized long ago by ibn Khaldun (1967, p. 100): It is clear that a person of a certain descent may become attached to people of another descent . . . Such a person comes to be known as having the same descent as those to whom he is attached and is counted as one of them . . . Family lines in this manner continually changed from one tribal group to another . . . Such may have been the origins of the Marri tribe, characterized by Pastner (1978, p.262) as originally a 'military and looting organization' only later welded into a structure of lineages. A case of administrative creation is found in the Khamseh Confederacy - of which the Basseri are members - referred to above, founded by wealthy Shiraz merchants under state sponsorship. A closely related phenomenon is the creation of tribes or confederacies

Nomads in archaeology

54

'by decree' around a nucleus of freshly recruited military units. Mercenaries drawn from diverse sources, together with their households and retainers, may be offered 'tribal7 status as a reward for loyal service. The Shahsevan, literally 'those who love the Shah' (Tapper 1979c), and the Alikanli (Be§ikgi 1969) seem to have had such an origin, and historical accounts of warfare from Seljuk to Safavid times employ the convention of equating cavalry strength with household heads of nomadic tribes or 'tents' (Minorsky 1978; Masson-Smith 1978). Certainly a case can be argued for a partial rethinking of 'tribal' processes in terms of the accretion of heterogeneous units in response to largely political pressures. The tendency is greatly facilitated by the fluidity in composition of units at the primary community (camp and migration group) level, and soon rationalized into an overarching structure through the grammar of kinship and descent and the ramifying effects of affinal ties transformed into kinship networks with the passing generations. But the spontaneous generation of tribes and confederacies in this manner is no fleeting phenomenon, for the achievement or conferment of tribal status invariably involves, at the very least, identity with a territory and/or migration cycle. It may well involve substantial control of a territory.

The tribe as a territorial system There are in the Near East many tribal groupings which involve nomadism only marginally, if at all, ranging from sedentary Kurdish mountain villagers (Barth 1953; Bruinessen 1979) to Berber citrus cultivators (Hart 1970) to Marsh Arabs (Thesiger 1964). In all cases, however, the common denominator appears to be a fluid territorial system and intense competition for scarce land or water resources. It is becoming a little clearer now why pastoralism, nomadism and tribalism should form such a coherent package. The inherent instability of a pastoral mode of subsistence, accompanied by constant changes of residence and fluctuations in the size and composition of co-resident groups, both demands and facilitates a territorial system of great complexity and maximumflexibility.Just such a system has been envisaged by Spooner (1971, p.205): 'security of access to a particular set of resources is less important than the maintenance of a network of relationships which would secure options to switch from one set of resources to another as conditions required'. The sociopolitical structure which secures such options is what I understand by the term 'tribe'. Salzman (1978) has suggested that the segmentaiy lineage acts in this way, providing a stable system of organization for those with no stable territorial framework. Granted that the structure of segmented lineages and the nested descent segments involved in the blood feud may be observed among Near Eastern pastoralists (Irons 1975), they serve merely to trace out the lines of current territorial disputes rather than provide the basis for territorial control. This must frequently be sought in structures of authority, whether generated from within the tribal system or externally imposed. The 'tribe' simply refers to a territorial system in which control is not vested in the state apparatus, or at least

Residence, descent and territory

55

where certain areas of control are relinquished to local interests and collectives. This is illustrated by the frequently stated adage that tribesmen do not pay taxes, only dues to tribal notables (Rowton 1973, 1974; Bruinessen 1979). The tribe constitutes the operational unit through which units of population are matched to units of territory and in which hegemony over, or rights within a territory or migration track, are vested (Cribb 1982, 1984c). Among nomads it is the larger divisions at the tribal section level that are most clearly identified with a particular tract of territory.

Tribal allocation of territory The allocation of territory within a tribal framework can occur in various ways. A common pattern observed among the Qashqa'i, Basseri, and Boyr Ahmad in southwest Iran is the seasonal allocation of pastures owned by the khan or held as common territory to sections or estates depending on relative need, livestock numbers and bargaining power within the tribal framework (Oberling 1974, p.15; Barth 1959, p.10, 1961; Fazel 1973). For the most part, however, the khans hold this power in reserve, exercising it only in cases of conflict or during times of major reorganization such as in the turmoil after World War II (Barth 1961, p.76) and as recently as the overthrow of the Shah among the Qashqa'i (Beck 1980, p.349). Something similar was found among the Bakhtiari: The khans had little control over the pastoral base of the Bakhtiyari [sic] which was controlled by family or extended family units . . . Apparently the khans could assign or reassign pasture land as reward or punishment, but seldom did so' (Garthwaite 1978, p. 185). In Turkey, where pastures are usually rented, tribal elders are heavily involved in the formation of rent collectives by means of which household livestock resources are matched to available tracts of grazing (Be§ikgi 1969). The correlation of tribal organization with systems of territorial control is perhaps best illustrated by instances where access to pasture is achieved in other ways. Where this occurs, tribal organization is either weak or non-existent. Anatolian Yoriiks, though fully nomadic, are forced to rent pasture on a piecemeal basis such that there is little consistency in their territorial pattern from one year to the next. Pasture rental is an individual concern, and tribal identity appears correspondingly weak (Bates 1973). The Kurdish pastoral village studied by Watson (1979) made use of pastures owned by the village landlord and lacked any suggestion of tribal organization. Village-based groups in Southern Turkey migrating to summer pastures owned corporately by the village (Tuncdilek 1962, 1963; Johanson 1966) are devoid of tribal organization. It was observed that among Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey tribal affiliation tended to be weak, only being made explicit in the course of feuds or conflicts, while among nomads tribal identities were continually reinforced through migration and the division of pastures (Bruinessen 1979, p.51). Finally, Tapper (1979b, pp. 102,109) appears to regard the loss of pasture rights as coterminous with the loss of Shahsevan tribal membership. Even though pastures are individually owned and alienable, it is highly significant that property transactions are confined to members of the same tribal section (Tapper 1979b, p.111).

Nomads in archaeology

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The regional variation in modes of controlling and allocating pasture may well be matched by temporal variations. This may be true even in the course of a single seasonal cycle. I have a suspicion that if Barth had stayed with the Basseri through an entire annual cycle, instead of just the spring migration, the egalitarian image that emerged might have been different. Authoritarian elements in pasture allocation are more likely to come into play where large tracts of summer pasture are concerned than for the patches of roadside grazing exploited in the course of migration. I have a further suspicion that an ethnographer returning to the same nomadic group once every decade may well find vastly different modes of pasture allocation in operation each time in the wake of war ; revolution, shifts in market forces and political policies. The effects of the current war in Afghanistan on nomadic lifeways and systems of pastoral tenure would prove very illuminating. A tantalizing glimpse of the rapidity with which such changes can occur is offered by Beck's (1980) observations of the Qashqa'i in post-revolutionary Iran. An increasingly individuated system of pasture acquisition and rental which prevailed during the last decade of the Pahlevis (1970s) was replaced, it seems almost overnight, with one in which tribal systems of collective tenure and allocation by khans were reasserted (Beck 1980, p.332). The system of individuated pasture 'ownership' described by Tapper (1979b, 1979c) among the Shahsevan may well have been a product of temporary stability and state ascendancy, as with current pasture rental systems in Turkey. It remains an open question to what extent the differences between ethnographic accounts of nomads (e.g. Irons 1971; Tapper 1979a) are due to unique and stable features within each system or to the varying political and economic conditions which prevail during different periods in which fieldwork is carried out.

Tribalism and territorial instability The tribal system can only be fully understood when it is set in motion. The inherent tendencies towards the expansion of pastoral herds do not automatically result in pastoral expansion but, given an adequate labour supply and means of acquiring pasture, a well-organized group can embark on a cumulative spiral which will place increasing strain on any static organization of territory. The manner in which this occurs is suggested by the following observations made by Barth in the course of the Basseri migrations: If the Kurdshuli population and flocks grow, sections of that tribe will tend to hold back one or two marches, thereby encroaching on the rights of the Basseri . . . Thus, through competition and continual pressure to utilize alternatives, the pattern of division of pastures by allocation of different il rahs [migratory cycles] is continually kept in rough relation to the needs and powers of different tribes. (Barth 1959-60, p.8) Similar mechanisms of pasture reallocation by khans, speculation in seasonal pasture lots (Tapper 1979a) or the pooling of tribal resources for collective pasture rental (Be§ikgi 1969) exert an inexorable bias towards those households or sections who are both sufficiently rich in livestock to

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generate demands on pasture, and strong enough in personnel or influence to back up these demands. Progressive displacements of this kind, often accompanied by territorial conflict, form a dominant theme in tribal history (Hole 1979, p. 157; Baharvand 1975; Sykes 1908; Be§ikgi 1969) and have been vividly described by nineteenth-century observers of Bakhtiari and Kurdish nomads (de Bode 1845, p.87; Maunsell 1901, p.123; Sawyer 1894; Wilson 1926). Such readjustments of personnel and flocks to pastoral resources cannot easily be effected through the kinds of voluntary shifts in camp group membership that occur at the primary community level, but frequently involve direct competition and conflict with large groups of strangers. Moreover territorial extension generally involves the segmentation of territory-holding groups. The evolution of the Baharvand tribe in Central Luristan during the early twentieth century occurred through a series of episodes of growth and fission (Baharvand 1975, pp.47-9). Just as the promotion of ascendent groups on the hierarchy of named segments proceeds with their territorial expansion, so territorially weak groups merge and decline. In this way the formal structure of tribal organization is preserved against a backdrop of the continual reshuffling of segments. Where authoritarian leadership is an important component in tribal organization, as in the Zagros region, the security and prosperity offered by a strong leader can exert a kind of gravitational pull on the peripheral elements of neighbouring tribes, causing them to shift their allegiance (Barth 1961, pp.85-6). This process, aptly described by Edmonds (1922, p.348) as a 'perpetual intrigue to undermine the position of a rival group by detaching its doubtful adherents', is part of the pattern of tribal accretion described above and can occur on a large scale. It is recorded that during a severe famine in 1871 no fewer than 4,000 Qashqa'i families shifted their allegiance to the Bakhtiari (Oberling 1974, p.218). It is not difficult to envisage the initial build-up of large tribal empires such as the Seljuk (Cahen 1968; Sumer 1980) and the Akkoyunlu (Woods 1976) through precisely these mechanisms (see Krader 1979), although it should be noted that the growth of tribal entities in this way need not necessarily entail any territorial displacement of constituent units. It is possible that the relatively stable nomadic territorial systems observed by ethnographers in the course of the 1960s and 70s are largely the result of increasingly effective control by modern nation states at that time (see Stauffer 1965; Fazel 1973). While invariably desired by earlier rulers (Bates 1971), such control was not always possible: The Persian government is ever jealous of the migrations of these tribes, and they cannot remove from one province to another without first having obtained the Shah's permission. In times of trouble, such as the death of the king, frequently, if they be strong enough to encounter opposition, they pass from their old haunts to better places. (Morier 1837, pp.237-8) ; being so powerful, the Kashka i [sic] are able to select their own pasture ground. The Kashka;i thus range over a great extent of country, doing great injury in their movements. (Sheil 1856, pp.398-9)

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Observations in Luristan early this century reveal a confused patchwork of constantly shifting allegiances, the rise and decline of tribal segments of various orders and the continual displacement of some groups by others, among which a number of the processes discussed above may be discerned: The Yusufvand are now in the process of absorption by the Hasanvand. . . . According to the Lurs; the Qalarvand and Baharvand [see Baharvand 1975] were not among the nine original tribes of the Dirakvand but came in comparatively recently and absorbed most of them . . . The former summer quarters of the Sagvand in Hurud are now occupied by the Bairanvana. Owing to the bitter blood feud the Sagvand Ali Khani no longer go south while the Rahim Khani stay summer and winter in Araoistan. (Edmonds 1922, pp.345-7)

Nomadism as a cyclical phenomenon The great thirteenth-century Arab thinker ibn Khaldun (1967) saw nomadism not only as a cyclical phenomenon but also as one closely interwoven with the dynastic cycle of civilizations with which nomads interacted. Is there any justification in this view? Having sketched the main economic and sociopolitical variables involved in the phenomenon of nomadism, it remains to put the system in motion. What factors or conditions tend to be associated with the expansion or retraction of nomadic activity?

Phases of territorial stability and instability

Within any given matrix of pastures and migration tracks patterns of mobility may remain relatively stable for a time. However changes in climate or environmental stress, as well as general changes in economic and political conditions, can lead to radical shifts in migration tracks (Cribb 1984c). Such 'migratory drift7 (Stenning 19577 pp.58-9) appears to be most frequent under Near Eastern conditions when a breakdown of central authority allows full rein to the territorial aggrandizement and opportunism inherent in pastoralism. Such displacements, prompted by an intensification of the kinds of territorial mechanisms described above, will usually occur at right-angles to the direction of seasonal migration and along the major ecological divide, whether mountain-lowland or steppe-arable. The net effect of such displacements, by which tribal units are conveyed rapidly from one region to another, may well emerge historically as a major migratory episode or 'invasion7 such as the Turkic incursions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Bosworth 1973; Lambton 1973; Cahen 1968; Minorsky 1978). It must be said here that, while I fully endorse recent criticisms of 'migrationist7 themes in archaeology (see Adams et al. 1978), particularly where nomad invasions are held responsible for cultural lacunae or change, migratory episodes such as those described above are not illusions but real events which are likely to have archaeological correlates -

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though perhaps not of the kind that have in the past sprung all too readily to hand. In terms of our model, such an episode represents 'untied7 nomadism. Pure untied nomadism involves continual migration into new territories. According to Vainshtein (1980, p.97) something like this occurred on the Central Asian steppe only briefly during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when conditions of chronic warfare caused the formation of large, compact migratory groups consisting of hundreds or even thousands of tents. The huge concentrations of livestock that resulted led to the rapid exhaustion of pastures, hence the need for constant migration into new areas. Historical sources record the presence of large camps of kibitkas, a kind of tent on wheels or covered wagon, during these periods (see Vainshtein 1980, pp.99-100) and passages from Herodotus (IV, p.119) describing 'waggons which served as houses for the women and children7 indicate that something similar may have been present on the Eurasian steppes two millennia earlier. Constant incursions by militarily strong groups seem to have had a chain reaction effect on other pastoralists, forcing them to adopt similar strategies of rapid deployment and concentration. It was the outer ripples of this cumulative process that impacted on the periphery of the Near East during the latter part of the eleventh century and throughout the twelfth. Such an intrusive episode is likely to be followed by one in which the nomadic groups gradually settle into relatively fixed migration tracks, exhibiting a 'tied7 rather than an 'untied7 pattern. Nomadism then operates in what de Planhol (1979) has called a 'saturated7 milieu in which it must come to terms with competing interests from a wider sociopolitical spectrum. Following the Turkic, Mongol and Timurid episodes, nomadic groups in southwestern Asia seem to have become progressively tied to stable territorial systems (Reid 1978, pp. 120-1; Wood 1976) with periodic recurrences of instability such as that during the nineteenth century (Morier 1837; de Bode 1845; Sheil 1856; Millingen 1870).

The nomadization-sedentarization cycle

The continuum between nomadism and sedentism may be viewed synchronically in terms of a range of productive strategies from settled agriculture, through various forms of mixed farming and forms of 'seminomadism7, to tied and, ultimately, untied nomadism. But the nature of this continuum cannot be fully appreciated unless it is viewed diachronically and unless explanations are offered for the movement of individuals or groups from one polar extreme to the other. Ultimately it is necessary to consider nomadization and sedentarization as systemic processes connected with changes in land-use patterns and sociopolitical trends over broad regions (Barth 1973a) or, in the words of Khazanov (1984, p. 12) 'to return to diachrony its proper place in the study of nomadism7. Alternating phases of nomadization and sedentarization observed in Iran in the present century appear to have been closely linked with the evolution of the modern state, changes in government policy and variations in the effectiveness of central and local administration. While there are many unprecedented factors guiding official action in this case, the

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responses of nomadic groups to state pressure seem to exemplify certain features of nomadic, and tribal, organization. The early decades of the twentieth century seem to have been a period of nomadization. It was at this time that the Baharvand reached their apogee of power and established a wide-ranging migratory system over much of southern Luristan (Baharvand 1975, pp.48-9). The establishment of the Pahlavi Dynasty under Reza Shah and the implementation of modernization policies during the 1920s and 30s (Pahlavi 1961, p.220) led to a programme of enforced sedentarization whose motives were primarily political - to break the basis of tribal power and remove what was considered to be an anachronism incompatible with the development of a modern state (Marsden 1978; Stark 1933; Baharvand 1975, pp.51-2; Oberling 1974, p. 153). These were difficult times for nomads. The enforced curtailment of pastoral migration led to massive losses of livestock which in turn affected supplies of pastoral products to regional markets (Stauffer 1965). But Reza Shah was mistaken in the belief that tribalism could be obliterated by bringing an end to nomadism while an essentially pastoral orientation and strong pressures towards transhumant movements remained. As it happened, the removal of coercive pressures led to the resumption of nomadism as before. With the collapse of Reza Shah's government during World War II and the imposition of a joint Anglo-Soviet military administration, there was a massive resurgence of nomadism over much of Iran. The Yomut Turkmen, who had been settled a generation earlier, 'destroyed the permanent dwellings they had been forced to build and reverted to year-round residence in tents7 (Irons 1971, p.147; 1975, p.12). A similar pattern of renomadization occurred among the Basseri (Barth 1961, p.3), the Boyr Ahmad (Fazel 1973, p. 135), the Shahsevan (Tapper 1979a and c) and the Qashqa'i (Garrod 1946a, p.35). With the re-establishment of the Pahlavis in the post-war period, the trend was again toward sedentarization, this time accompanied by major economic changes favouring agricultural intensification and a programme of land reform - the Shah's White Revolution (Pahlavi 1961). By the 1970s nomadism seemed little more than an embarrassing echo from the medieval past, and it must be said that most academic writers of this period tend to convey this impression (Oberling 1974, ch.XVII; Tapper 1979b; Beck 1980; Stauffer 1965). The history of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 has yet to be written. But on current indications one of the side-effects of this event was yet another resurgence of nomadism in those areas which began to slip from the direct control of Teheran. Full details have not yet emerged (Tapper pers. comm.; Beck 1980, pp.349-50). The Bakhtiaris, staunch supporters of the Shah's regime (the empress Soraya, the former head of the secret police (SAVAK), Timur Bakhtiar, and the Shah's short-lived successor, Shahpur Bakhtiar, were all Bakhtiaris), presumably have no love for the present regime. The Kurds and the Brahui made a strong bid for independence. The situation of the Shahsevan and Yomut is unknown at present. The most interesting developments occurred among those masters of international intrigue, the Qashqa'i, located not far from the Iran-Iraq war zone. Shortly after the abdication of the Shah, Nasr Khan, the former head of the Qashqa'i Dynasty who had been exiled in California,

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returned to the Qashqa;i country and it was not long before migrations resumed in earnest. The Qashqa'i were back in business. This will be a fascinating area for future research, although by the time political conditions are sufficiently stable to permit ethnographic research, we will, in all probability, be well into another phase of sedentarization. The lesson for students of the history of nomadism is that policies of enforced sedentarization are likely to be ineffective while the underlying factors giving rise to nomadism remain unaltered. Even radical restructuring of systems of land tenure and agricultural policy are likely to be effective as a means of sedentarization only so long as such systems remain in operation. In any given nomad population - particularly when tied to stable migration routes - both nomadizing and sedentarizing tendencies will be present. The degree of nomadism practiced can be seen as a balance struck between these opposing tendencies (Barth 1961, p.118). Short-term cycles or recurrent nomadism (Monteil 1959, p.581) are deducible from the model of pastoral and agricultural modes of subsistence outlined above. Depending on the current state of livestock v. agricultural markets or the level of security, households may disengage temporarily from pastoral production only to return at a later date. For example impoverished Yoriik households may cease migration during difficult times, only to return when sufficient livestock have been amassed or prices for pastoral products have improved (Bates 1973, p.219). Indeed some households have been through this process more than once. Edmonds (1957, p. 146) stresses that there is 'nothing irrevocable7 about settlement among Jaf nomads in Kurdistan and that nomadism may be resumed once a household's viability has been restored. Cumulative tendencies towards either nomadization or sedentarization on a regional basis will involve a complete restructuring of the system of rewards and constraints which govern the interplay of the agricultural and pastoral modes of subsistence. Considerably more is at stake here than the economic profitability of one or the other subsistence strategy. Ultimately the choice of strategy is linked to broad patterns of land use, demographic factors and political stability (Bates 1971).

The process of sedentarization It has been noted (Hole 1978, p. 157) that concurrent tendencies towards high population growth among nomads as well as settled groups and the expansion of agricultural production seem to be inimical to the continuation of nomadic forms of pastoralism. The persistence of such trends, usually under conditions of political stability and security, can tip the balance against an unstable pastoral adaptation. The way in which this can occur - often against the wishes of the producers themselves - is illustrated by the case of a predominantly pastoral Kurdish community in western Iran (Watson 1979, ch.8) whose absentee landlords were forcing them into cultivation because of the lure of increased profits. Even where pastoralism remains dominant, changing systems of rewards can lead to a situation such as that described by Black in Luristan during the height of the late Shah's agricultural reforms:

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For the last ten years it has been becoming 'old fashioned' to be a nomad, and only the lure of unlimited speculation in sheep leading to the potential acquisition of great wealth has prevented tne development of an overtly anti-pastoral ideology . . . [The] aim [is] to be rich in animals without pursuing nomadic skills. (Black 1972, p.620) Imbalances between human and livestock populations may also be associated with trends towards sedentarization. Hole (1978, p.148) noted that a rise in the nomad population, together with a decline in livestock holdings per household - too many people, too few animals - was making the nomadic option less viable. Conversely, among Yoriiks in Turkey, a rise in minimal flock numbers and the wasting away of nomad populations as an increasing number of households become unviable, seems to be part of a cumulative trend towards sedentarization (Bates 1973). Though acting in opposite directions in each case, a state of imbalance is common to both. According to our model, phases of sedentarization should be accompanied by a decline in specialization between pastoralism and cultivation, the merging of nomadic and sedentary sectors within tribal units, the weakening of tribal organization - though not necessarily its disappearance - and the pursuit of pastoralism largely within the framework of a mixed agro-pastoral system. Within a regional context we would expect to find a rise in the ratio of total human population to total animal population, though overall increases in human population may leave the absolute numbers of livestock still at a high level. In human terms, the carrying capacity of a given region will be enhanced. Once sedentarization is under way it can produce major changes in patterns of village and even urban settlement as well as shifts in the ethnic composition of settled populations (Coon 1965; Eberhard 1953a and b). Spooner (1969, pp.147-9) has outlined a schedule of stages in the sedentarization of Baluchi nomad tribes. The mobility inherent in nomadism means that any particular group will rarely undergo the full cycle of nomadization to sedentarization within the same locality. The wholesale voluntary settlement of one large Kurdish tribe in northern Syria is said to have resulted, within a matter of a few years, in the establishment of 29 farms, 48 hamlets, 28 villages and one town (Bruinessen 1979, p.103). The socioeconomic changes accompanying sedentarization include an ossification of the current state of inequality to produce a more class-like form of economic stratification, stabilization of the territorial system and changes in the function of lineage and marriage systems (Bates 1973, ch.VII; Baharvand 1975, ch.9; Swidler 1973; CM. Pastner 1978; Salzman 1980).

The process of nomadization Due to the conditions of state ascendency and modernization under which most ethnographic work on nomadism has been carried out, the process of nomadization is poorly understood (Glatzer 1982, p.61). It is nevertheless possible to make a number of deductions on the basis of our mode of subsistence model, supported by some ethnographic and ethnohistorical observations.

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Nomadization occurs in response to conditions of environmental and political insecurity (the two are frequently related) through the exercise of options inherent in an unstable subsistence strategy based on pastoral accumulation. It proceeds not simply by an all-round increase in emphasis on pastoral capital, but also through the concentration of livestock in the hands of certain households and communities. The process is considerably more complex than the scenario outlined by Adams (1974) whereby failed cultivators move off with their livestock as a new mobile resource base. Small-scale mixed farming may continue, but increasingly large numbers of animals will be tied up in the hands of specialized pastoralists. The disparity in animal numbers per household between village and nomadic pastoralists referred to earlier (see Table 4.1) indicates the presence of certain thresholds beyond which nomadic options, involving the familiar systems of flexible access to pasture regulated through tribal institutions, become increasingly advantageous. Agricultural and pastoral production will become specialized above the community level as nomadic and sedentary sections crystallize within tribal units and whole tribes or groups of tribes become predominantly identified with pastoralism and nomadism. Isolated cases of nomadization have been observed in the Near East, though none is as well documented as that observed in the Sudan by Haaland (1969). Coon (1965, p.215) mentions a gradual transition from village agriculture to sheep nomadism in parts of the Near East, but gives no specific examples. In Iraqi Kurdistan during the 1920s Edmonds (1957) observed the replacement of a nomadic group by a non-nomadic section of the Jaf tribe and noted that: 'As the size of their flocks increased the newcomers began to follow their predecessors northwards on the summer migration7 (ibid., p. 143). An interesting case has been reported from the Wakhan Corridor in the northeastern corner of Afghanistan shared by Kirghiz nomads and Wakhi agro-pastoralists (Shahrani 1979). Among the latter, two pastoral strategies were observed. On the one hand the poorer villagers 'keep a few cattle and sheep and goats for transport, milk, fleece, manure . . . or cash7, while the other form is confined to 'a small number of land-rich Wakhi households . . . that own large herds of sheep, goats [at least 100 head], cattle or yak7 (Shahrani 1979, p.63). The latter appear to be undergoing the initial stages of nomadization in emulation of, and in competition with, their Kirghiz neighbours (Shahrani 1979, p.191). The best-documented case of nomadization is that of the Pashtuns in western Afghanistan among whom it arises as a solution to tensions between the agricultural and pastoral economies attendant on growth in the numbers of livestock, which is itself a response to fluctuating ecological conditions and economic demand (Glatzer 1982). While nomadization and renomadization are relatively easy within the Pashtun ethnic group, movement in both directions between nomad and sedentary sectors becomes more difficult where major ethnic differences occur, as in the Jawand region of Afghanistan where the nomads are recent Pashtun immigrants alongside the Persian-speaking Firuzkuhi sedentary majority (ibid., p.76). The reasons for an increased emphasis on livestock as a basis for subsistence are to be found, not in dietary requirements nor market exchange, but in positive selection for an unstable productive system which

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is able to accomodate rapid fluctuations of fortune and is responsive to any opportunities afforded by unsettled conditions. Associated with a trend towards nomadization will be an overall decline in the ratio of human population to that of livestock within a given region. The reversion of marginal cultivated land to pasture would effectively lower the carrying capacity of a given region.

5 NOMADS - THE INVISIBLE CULTURE? Pastoralists are not likely to leave many vestiges by which the archaeologist could recognize their presence. They tend to use vessels of leather and basketry instead of pots, to live in tents instead of excavated shelters or huts supported by stout timber posts or walls of stone or brick. Leather vessels and baskets have as a rule no chance of surviving. Tents need not even leave deep postholes to mark where they once stood. (Childe 1936, p.81)

As the title suggests, it is the purpose of this chapter to question the assumption that nomads and their material remains are inaccessible to archaeologists. Nomads need not be archaeologically invisible. At the same time they do not constitute an archaeological 'culture7 in the Childean sense. Paradoxically therefore, although the artifacts and campsites used by ancient nomads need not lie beyond the capacity of modern archaeology, there may be no simple means by which these are distinguishable from the productions of more settled communities. The traveller in the more isolated parts of the Near East should not be surprised to see groups of migrating nomads passing through villages whose inhabitants dress in the same manner as the nomads, speak the same dialect, employ the same range of household utensils, possess the same species of domestic animals and, in some cases, claim the same tribal affiliation. Differences there certainly are, but these are often ideological, organizational and economic rather than 'cultural'.

Nomadism as an archaeological problem It has frequently been asserted that nomads are light travellers and therefore leave little archaeological imprint in the way of recoverable materials or modifications to their environment. Ever since Childe (1936) pointed out the futility of searching for archaeological traces of nomads this proposition seems to have been accepted by generations of Near Eastern archaeologists (but see Hole 1974, 1978) and is still reiterated by some (Gilbert 1983, pp.107-8; Evans 1983, p.77). Such arguments, based on ethnographic observations, have been applied to other kinds of material culture assemblages as well (Heider 1967; Cranstone 1971; Ascher 1968; Deetz 1968). Ethnoarchaeological investigations of pastoral sites have also 65

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tended to stress the fragility of nomad material culture (Gifford 1977, 1978; Robbins 1973; Murray and Chang 1980). Yet generations of prehistorians, who face recovery problems of similar magnitude, have not been prevented from building up an impressive profile of hunter-gatherer material culture, subsistence and organization. In comparison with hunter-gatherers, the prospects for nomad archaeology appear quite favourable. Many contemporary pastoralists use ceramic pots and storage jars and it is highly likely that in the past, before the widespread availability of metal, glass and plastic, this was even more common (see Hole 1978, p.150; de Schauensee 1979, p.37; Solecki 1979, p.323). Tentcloth may be perishable, and tentpoles leave only shallow depressions, but these portable structures are often accompanied by more substantial features or fixtures. These include raised or levelled floors, mud or stone-lined hearths, stone storage platforms, alcoves, tent foundations and sometimes substantial walls. Solid stone-built corrals are also common features in nomad camps. Nor does Childe mention the presence of animal droppings which can, under some circumstances, form quite thick deposits. If we accept the assumption of nomad invisibility then we might expect archaeologists to consider the matter closed or to suspend speculation on matters which can neither be proved nor supported by archaeological evidence. The fact that they have not done so underlines the paradox that if a proposition cannot be proved, neither can it be disproved. Childe himself was aware of this: The failure to recognize prehistoric settlement sites as belonging to pure pastoralists is not any proof that such did not exist. (Childe 1936, p.81) The presumed absence of evidence for ancient nomadic pastoralists has effectively removed the burden of proof and left a vacuum into which has rushed a great deal of hot air. The topic abounds in ill-founded speculations, untestable theories and magnificent flights of fancy. The sudden appearance of a new culture in an area may be attributed to the arrival of a new wave of nomads. Anomalies in settlement evidence are all too easily attributable to the presence of nomads who, of course, left no record. In this way the presence of elaborate public architecture unaccompanied by settlement evidence is easily explained: We must imagine the plain of Pasargadae full of tents, under which passed a good deal of the daily life. . . . such a place cannot be called exactly a town. It looks more like the first settlement of nomads. (Herzfeld 1935, p.28) This suggestion was later rejected by Stronach (1963, p.19) on the equally tenuous grounds that the presence of pottery around the site proves that the inhabitants could not have been nomads. Thus much of the evidence for ancient nomads is negative - the disappearance of populations or cultures, the absence of summer resources, the lack of settlement evidence. Concrete evidence for nomad occupation sites is meagre indeed and has led to suggestions that evidence for ancient nomads must be sought elsewhere:

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We must look at other means of testing the theory [of the presence of ancient nomads] other than the identification of nomad sites in conjunction with settled sites. (Crawford 1978, p.130) While some attempts have been made to infer seasonal occupation of sites on the basis of the age-sex structure of faunal remains (Bokonyi 1972; Wheeler Pires-Ferriera 1977), these face problems of partial or biased sampling and can serve as guidelines only (see Cribb 1984b). The task of finding and interpreting settlement evidence of early nomad occupations is one that cannot be evaded. Others have implicitly acknowledged the need for settlement evidence of this kind and see the absence of such data as inhibiting the progress of research: Archaeologically there is virtually no data with which to test such a hypothesis [about nomads and decision hierarchies] . . . Thus far no sites which can be identified as herding camps have been discovered on the Susiana Plain itself. (Johnson 1973, p.159) While no one has completely overcome the formidable problems of locating nomad sites and assessing their relative density . . . no researcher has claimed increased evidence of pastoralists early in the fourth millennium. (Wright 1977, p.348) After proposing the nomadization of the entire Late Bronze Age population of Mesopotamia, Adams admits: But like virtually everyone else, I havn't [sic] yet really faced the underlying problem or systematically sought for data that would clarify it. (1974, p.9) Not only have nomad sites failed to materialize, but there appears to be no firm indication of what such a site may look like or how it might differ from village or hunter-gatherer sites (see Smith 1983, p.85). As Crawford (1978, p. 131) admits, 'no criteria exist at present for identifying the remains of nomadic settlements'. This in turn raises the possibility that nomad sites have been discovered but not recognized as such: If a nomadic site is located it may well be misinterpreted and attributed to an earlier period because of the paucity and simplicity of the material remains. (Crawford 1978, p. 130) This observation is important in view of the presence of a small body of settlement evidence which may have a bearing on the issue of early nomadism - if only the means of evaluating it were at hand. A number of caves and rockshelters in mountainous areas of the Near East show signs of having served as makeshift corrals or temporary campsites (Hole and Flannery 1962; Solecki 1964, 1979; Dupree 1963b). Flat settlements such as Zawi Chemi Shanidar in northern Iraq (Solecki 1981) and the basal levels of mounds in the Zagros Mountains, such as Tepe Sarab (Braidwood 1961) and Tepe Guran (Melgaard etal. 1963; Mortensen 1964), have

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evidence of pastoralism and temporary, seasonal settlement but they occur very early in the development of food production, well before the period suggested by most theories of nomad origins. Surveys conducted in areas of southwest Iran where nomadism is conspicuous today have generally failed to detect sites that can be identified unambiguously as nomadic (Hole 1962, 1968; Thrane 1964; Mortensen 1974). Even where such sites have been explicitly sought the result has usually been the discovery of still more village mounds (Hole 1979; Zagerell 1975). To date there is only one site, Tepe Tula;i in Khuzistan, that could be identified by the excavator (Hole 1974) as a seasonal pastoral campsite containing what appear to be tentsites. Significantly the site was discovered quite by chance in the course of a salvage excavation of a Sassanian complex. The 8,000-year antiquity claimed for Tula'i (Hole 1974, p.237) is still in dispute as the stratigraphy and ceramic associations are far from clear (see Chapter 11). The dimensions of our problem are now becoming clearer. It is not a simple matter of nomad sites being present or absent. On a practical level there is a need to develop appropriate techniques for the location of such sites. This in turn presupposes the existence of clear criteria for the identification of a site as 'nomadic' or 'pastoral'. Finally, such criteria need to be grounded in explicit definitions of concepts such as 'nomadism' and 'pastoralism', such as those discussed in the previous two chapters, together with operational definitions of 'nomadic campsite7, 'pastoral camp;.

The organization of nomad material culture Nomad material culture is best conceived in terms of three key dimensions. The first of these concerns the degree to which items of material culture exist permanently on a site - whether occupied or unoccupied - or are circulated from one site to the next. This may be dichotomized into fixtures on the one hand and portables on the other, the main consideration being the function, size and weight of the item. The concept of fixtures used here corresponds closely with Binford's (1978a) understanding of 'site furniture'. The second dimension of material culture ranges from durables on the one hand to perishables on the other, according to the likelihood that items will deteriorate through time. This affects the archaeologist's perception of material culture in that highly perishable items are likely to be continually renewed rather than circulated, but are less likely to materialize in the archaeological record. A third dimension concerns the value of items, measured in terms of the difficulty or cost of acquiring or replacing them (i.e. valuables as opposed to expendables). The former are more likely to be curated or preserved in systemic context and transported from site to site. The latter are more likely to be discarded on the site and, if durable, preserved in archaeological context. The position of any item with respect to the three axes will reflect both its role in the organization of material culture and its chance of surviving

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into archaeological context. For instance items which are portable, perishable and valuable (like carpets) will have virtually zero archaeological visibility. Fixtures which are both durable and expendable and of low intrinsic value (such as stone hearths) will be site-specific and have a much higher visibility quotient. Intuitively one would expect nomad sites to contain a very high proportion of fixtures as opposed to portables and expendables as opposed to valuables. In what follows an attempt will be made, using these dimensions as guidelines, to build up a profile of nomad material culture with a view to assessing its visibility and identifying those variables most pertinent to archaeological investigation.

Nomad and village material culture compared While there may be a bias towards lighter, more portable materials, the range of objects that may be observed in a nomad camp is comparable to that observable in Near Eastern villages. A comparison of material inventories from five different communities - both nomadic and sedentary (Table 5.1) - bears this out. Hasanabad and Shirdasht (Watson 1966, 1979) are both in the Kermanshah Valley in western Iran, within a few kilometres of each other though separated on economic and ethnic criteria. The Hasanabadis are Lakispeakers (a dialect somewhere between Farsi and Kurdish), while the Shirdashtis are Kurds, the former share-cropping cultivators with a few animals, the latter predominantly pastoral. According to Watson (1966, p. 19) 'Most of the household equipment used in the Kurdish village is very similar to that at Hasanabad7. This is in spite of the fact that the inventory shown in Table 5.1 was recorded at the Shirdashtis7 spring tent camp. Apart from the use of modern plastic items, the inventory for Sanaydin Yayla in southern Turkey does not differ in its essentials from these Iranian examples in spite of the great geographical distance and ethnic differences. Also notable is the relative absence from the inventories of items specifically connected with herding. We are reminded that herding as an activity requires virtually no tools (Hole 1978, p. 166). The physical nomad household, like its village counterpart, is primarily concerned with reproduction and consumption rather than production, though animal products are sometimes processed near tents. The most obvious material evidence of pastoral activity on most nomad camps I visited - apart from stone corrals, bones and deposits of animal droppings - was perishable wool clippings, bits of cloth (for tying the legs during shearing) and small bottles which had contained veterinary preparations (cf. Murray and Chang 1980). Self-sufficiency in material paraphernalia appears to be the rule, with minimal lending and borrowing of common household items even among close relatives (Barth 1961, p.3), the only exception being for newly established households (Be§ikqi 1969). In contrast to one of the earlier myths about pastoral society, property and domestic goods are individually owned by each household and not communally.

Ethnohistorical accounts of nomad material culture

Although often fragmentary and impressionistic, ethnohistorical descriptions of nomad material culture suggest the same basic inventory. Most of

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Table 5.1 Inventories of items of material culture, Near Eastern nomadic and village communities Sanaydm Yayla Summer Camp, South Central Anatolia. (Fieldwork, September and October 1981.) Metal: Shield for baking bread (sag) Cooking tripod Poker Aluminium pots & bowls Heavy, engraved brass serving tray Teapot Cutlery, knives, teaspoons Shovel Sheep shears Shotgun Axe Kerosene lamp Pocket knives - wood & metal Gas cooker & cannister Wood: Large tripod for churning cheese & yoghurt Loom - 3 heavy beams Woven bread basket Bread board & rolling pin Wooden spoons Mortar & pestle Sieve for flour - together with wire netting Large wooden chest containing clothing Board supporting chest

Ceramics: 2 or 3 small pots teapot & tea saucers Glass: Tea glasses Medicine bottles Plastic: Bowls Large basins, buckets Water cannisters Clear polythene plastic - multiple uses Textile: Mats Kilims or rugs Storage sacks Donkey bags Bedding Leather: Skin container for churning Shoes

Alikanh Nomads, Eastern Anatolia (Besjkcj 1969:112, table 27). (Observed in summer camp in Nemrut Dag.) Metal: Iron plate or convex shield - baking bread (sac) Iron tripod to support plate (sag ayak) Large dish - mixing dough Large cauldron - iron Small cauldron - iron Crockery and cutlery - copper Tray for serving meals (sini) Tin container for water Ewer- vessel with handle & spout Copper bowl (tas) Tea pot Tray for serving tea Lamps and lanterns Shovel Sheep shears

Ceramics: Tea pot

Wood: Large boxes - storing belongings Comb for wool

Other: Broom

Loom (spi) Spindle (tefi) Mallet - for driving in tent pegs

Glass: Tea glasses Bottle for keeping paraffin Textile: Mattress Quilt Cushions Felt mats (kilim) Goat-hair bags Leather: Skin bags - churning Skin bags - all-purpose containers Suitcases

Comments: Besjkcj does not mention the use of large ceramic cooking pots, such as those sunk into pits to bake bread observed at ND-1. However there is no doubt that these are in regular use.

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Qashqd'i Nomads, South West Iran (after Marsden, 1976:33,55). (Note: not confined to household items; excludes jewellery, horse trappings, etc.) Metal: Cooking tripod Kettle & tripod - copper, iron Tongs - iron Exterior of open box Cooking pots (4) & lids (2) - copper Mallet for pegs - wood & metal Trays - tin & brass Cooking pot & lid - copper Kitchen knife Ladle - aluminium Bread turner or shield - iron Cooking tray-iron Plates (2) - aluminium Water jug - brass Teaspoons Sugar hatchet - steel Club-headed stick Pipe - metal & wood

Wood: Tent lattice - willow cane Tent pins Tent buckles Tent poles Tripod - for churning yoghurt Looms Pestle & mortar Bread board & rolling pin Samovar box Baby shade, frames Flutes Ceramic:

Drum-aluminium Branding iron Sheep shears Sheep/goat bells

Water u ) § Textile: Goat-hair cloth Tent decoration Storage bags (2) Bed covers (3) Cushions (2) Prayer mat

Tongs-brass

Inside of o p e n b o x of fired clay

Porcelain teapot (repaired with wire) Porcelain saucers (made in Japan) P i p e ( p j u s t i n & p l a s t i c components) Opium pipe . Dl

fastlc:.

Shirdasht Spring camp of Shirdasht village at Duzaray, W. Iran (after Watson 1979: 263). Metal: Iron plate for cooking bread (saj) Fire tongs Iron pincers - to support vessel over fire Iranian pots (4) - tinned copper Long-handled frying pan - tinned copper Small brass tray Small, heavy metal bowls (3) Light aluminium bowls Large shallow pan - for mixing dough Tin sieve - flour Tin tea kettle Tin samovar Tin can-tea container Brass bowl - to hold tea glasses & pot Short-handled adze (sugar hatchet) Kerosene lantern WoodLarge wooden spoons (2) Wooden sugar bowl Twig broom

Ceramic: Cloth-covered pot lids (2) Small ceramic stew pot with perforated loop handle Saucers for tea cups (3) TextileCarpet C A s or rugs (2) Quilts (2) B o l s t e r s (2) W o o j b l a n k e t s (2) B u n d l e of e x t r a b e d d i n g L

?ther: Basketry trays (3) Comments: The interior of the tent is kept very clean with all bedding put away during the daytime and all unused utensils in their place' (Watson 1979: 263).

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Table 5.1 continued Hasanabad Sedentary village (after Watson 1966:1814). Metal: Iron plate for cooking bread Metal support for fire Tongs; poker Pots; pans Small metal bowls (1 or 2) Metal tablespoon Tea kettle Teapot Sugar hatchet Steel awls, needles Axe or adze Kerosene lamp Pocket knives Tin container Bowls & pots - tinned copper Wood: Bread board Flour sifter Large wooden spoons Small tray Sugar bowl Meat beater

Spindles (2 or 3) Matches Mortar & pestle for salt Simple vertical loom Ceramic: Imported jars Plain bottle-like jars rUcc. Vofldbb. Tea glasses (2 or 3) & saucers Textile: Woven rugs (1 or 2) Felt mat Quilts (2 or 3) Bolsters (2 or 3) Woven bag to hold salt Leather: Goatskin bag Basket: Wicker work pot lids Basket tray - for draining rice Stone: Rotary quern

Yoruks Nomads, Western Anatolia (Bent 1891:271-5). (Observed within occupied camp.) Camel pack saddles - textile & leather Skin churns Churning tripod - wood Wooden stirrer Wooden mortar - for pounding coffee

Wooden dishes Wooden bowls Copper utensils Copper heirlooms

Bakhtiari Nomads, Central Zagros, Iran (Thesiger 1979:123). (Observed during migration.) Tents Bedding Pots - metal Pans - metal Sacks of grain Baharvand Lurs Central Zagros, Luristan, Iran (Baharvand 1975:57). Bags Bedding Pots (not specified whether metal or ceramic) Other cooking utensils Pack bags - for grain Carpet bags Goatskins - for water Lamb & kid skins - for butter Blankets - placed under the loads carried by animals Ropes

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Lurs Nomads, Central Zagros, Iran (Stark 1933:250). (Observed in camp.) Convex metal shield - for bread baking A few copper vessels A rug or two Some goatskins - for carrying water Comments: 'Poverty had simplified their household furnishings' (Stark 1933: 250).

Basseri Southern Zagros, Fars, Iran (Barth 1961:11,123). (Observed during migration period.) Rugs Blankets Pails - milk Skins - milk Cooking pots Pack bags Other equipment

Kirghiz Pamir Mountains (Hedin 18981:423). Metal: Large iron cooking pot Iron or copper cans with handles or lids Potstand & poker - iron Hatchets-iron

Ceramic: China basins Other jent Saddies

Wood: Flat wooden dishes Loom Kneading trough

Bedclothes Carpets Sacks of grain & flour Goat bags

Cor

Comments: 'Household goods are not many... accommodated b y 2 o r 3 y a k s ' (Hedin 18981:423).

» sieve j,, Fiddle & guitar

these observations have been made in the course of migration when nomad material culture is 'on display', and the impression is usually one of structured chaos and highly eclectic modes of transportation (e.g. Mounsey 1872, pp.247-8). One early military observer provides the following vivid account of the Kurdish Herki tribe on migration where the borders of modern Iran, Iraq and Turkey intersect: A long, straggling string of laden travellers, mules, horses and cattle . . . They travel in a leisurely fashion, two or three families apparently travelling together, their impedimenta of sacks of corn, tents, rugs, felt mats, clothes etc. loaded onto horses and cattle while here and there a sick sheep or calf will be tied onto the top of a load. The women plod along in rags, carrying on their backs an odd assortment of cradles, pots, piles, trays, butter-making skins, gourds, samovars, gear for weaving and spinning and the inevitable baby. (Dickson 1910, p. 13)

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Other Kurdish groups on the march in the early 1920s are described as: driving along thousands of sheep and goats, their tents, cooking pots, sacks of grain and household impedimenta piled up on the backs or ponies, cattle and women. (Edmonds 1957, p. 13) oxen and donkeys laden with black tents, poles, reed screens, huge cooking pots, skins of rhon (yoghurt), cradles and babies. (Edmonds 1957, p.366) Casual observations made in tents suggest that nomad material culture may have been somewhat simpler in the recent past than at present, though the economy of space used in stacking items and concealing them under rugs can be deceptive to all but the most dedicated observer. Freya Stark;s descriptions of Luri tents in the 1930s suggest a relatively impoverished material culture: 'Poverty simplified the household furniture. A few copper vessels, a rug or two and some goat skins for water was all I could see' (Stark 1933, p.251). So too in the Elburz Mountains near the Caspian Sea she talks of only the 'bare essentials' in summer campsites (Stark 1934, p.423). It should perhaps be borne in mind that this was the period of Reza Shah's sedentarization campaign and not a time of great prosperity for nomads in general. However earlier observations (e.g. Hedin 1898 I, p.423) seem to confirm a paucity of material culture. For instance the Hamawand Kurds were described as: 'not much better than armed gipsies. Their tents are filthy and they have very little of the commodities which pass for riches in that country' (Dickson 1910, p.376). It should also be noted, however, that comparable observations in villages of the period have also yielded an impression of equally spartan furnishings (e.g. Brandenberg 1905; Mordtmann 1925). Although any assessment is bound to be tenuous, the ethnohistorical evidence suggests that, questions of relative wealth and poverty aside, the range of items in the average nomad household inventory is comparable with that observed today.

Changes in inventories Most items of nomad material culture are portable, though heavy items such as tents, poles, shovels and even axes may be cached. Many items are of metal and therefore potentially durable - these are also valuable and will be curated and repaired and will have a low rate of entry into archaeological context. Even today small groups of tradesmen make a viable living travelling from campsite to campsite fixing metal pots, repairing shoes, etc., as well as performing circumcisions (e.g. Barth 1961). The high proportion of metal recorded among debris on some of my southern Anatolian campsites was due to the ready availability of castoffs from nearby modern settlements - petrol cans, jam tins, metal strips, nails from packing cases, and wire. Prior to the advent of relatively cheap tin and aluminium containers it is possible that functionally equivalent items were made of more perishable materials such as wood or skins. Among the Baharvand in southwest Iran metal trays and dishes have to an extent replaced wooden precursors (Baharvand 1975, p.57; Hole 1978, p. 149). A similar process seems to have

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occurred in Anatolia; if early travellers; reports are to be believed. Among Yoriiks on the Mediterranean coast wooden artifacts such as mortars for pounding coffee; dishes and bowls were said to be 'most generally in use', although 'each tent has its heirlooms of copper utensils which are mended with great care and handed down for generations7 (Bent 1891, p.31). In recent years plastic has begun to replace metal and wood, particularly for large bowls, basins and buckets. It has the advantage of being light and portable, but wears out rapidly. In the course of numerous visits to campsites I found that plastic cannisters and buckets were among the most appreciated gifts. Plastic scrap formed a high proportion of debris on the campsites where surface recording was carried out. Plastic containers were used for carrying and storing water, though drinking water was kept cool in aluminium jugs. Skins were still used for churning yoghurt and cheese. One view of the impact of plastic on nomad material culture might be that it represents a modern corruption of a traditional culture. However it serves as ample illustration of the priorities according to which nomad material culture is organized. The rapid adoption of a material which fits the key criteria of portability, both in terms of its lightness and robustness (resistance to breakage), has important implications when we come to study the role of pottery, functionally equivalent but possessed of the opposite physical properties.

The role of pottery in nomad material culture The possibility that pottery may have been more extensively used by nomads in the past than it is today has recently been raised by Hole (1978, pp.150-1). Assuming that high-quality metal containers were in short supply in the distant past, wooden functional equivalents might have been employed though - significantly - not in operations involving heating, cooking or boiling. With the availability of new materials such as enamel or aluminium there has been a trend away from the use of pottery for these purposes so that the relative scarcity of sherds on modern nomad sites may well be deceptive in terms of our assumptions about older sites. Observations of abandoned Bedouin campsites in the Syrian Desert seem to confirm this: 'If the encampment is an old one, a sherd or two may also be found, but if recent there will be none as modern Bedouin generally use enamel or aluminium vessels' (de Schauensee 1968, p.36). However a recent impoverishment in ceramic technology and decline in usage has also been noted in settled communities. Hole (1978, p. 149) notes that, except for ceramic jugs to cool water, the household inventory of settled Iranian villagers includes very few ceramics, although the archaeological record attests to the fact that this was not always so in the past. Watson (1966, 1979) also found that her sedentary and pastoral communities differed little in the extent of their use of pottery.

Some preliminary hypotheses While the large cooking pots described in the passages quoted above were almost certainly of metal, pottery use among Near Eastern nomads is

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widely known. Ceramics occupy an interesting position in nomad material culture since, in terms of our model, intact vessels are highly 'perishable7 in the sense that they are easily broken. This property also places them low on the scale of portability - one would not expect to find large ceramic pots on nomad baggage trains. However the sherds produced by the breakage of a pot are themselves highly durable. While potentially portable, they are of such low value that they become, in effect, site fixtures. Two types of ceramics might therefore be expected to occur on nomad sites. Small portable items such as teapots, cups, jars or clay pipes - most of which would be regarded as valuables - will be circulated from campsite to campsite, only occasionally entering archaeological context through breakage or loss. Large items such as cooking pots, storage jars or bowls might be expected to remain on particular sites as fixtures and to sustain a much higher rate of breakage or abandonment and incorporation into archaeological context. Ceramic cooking pots are known to have a relatively short use-life (de Boer and Lathrap 1979) and would be discarded on occupied campsites at a relatively constant rate. It is now possible to put forward a number of preliminary hypotheses concerning the analysis of pottery on nomad sites: (1) Pottery use is unlikely to be as intensive as for settled sites sharing the same material culture complex. (2) The range of sizes and types of vessel represented is likely to be much narrower than is the case for sedentary sites sharing the same cultural complex. (3) The distribution of sherds in terms of vessel size should be bimodal, with many sherds from large vessels (fixtures) and a smaller concentration at the lower end of the size spectrum. (4) Depending on the extent of use of pots as fixtures, we might find a size distribution skewed towards the upper or lower end of the range. These hypotheses suggest the kinds of variables that might be of interest to an archaeologist wishing to distinguish between nomad and sedentary sites on the basis of ceramics scatters alone. The data with which they might be tested would require a much more detailed recording and collection of sites, ancient and modern, than I was able to attempt. However scattered observations of contemporary campsites by archaeologists suggest that they may be pointing in the right direction.

Evaluation of the hypotheses Many campsites observed by myself and other archaeologists appear to contain very few sherds, widely scattered and of small size. Watson (1979, p.267) noticed 'a piece of tea saucer' lying in the Medan campsite above Shirdasht village, and describes a small ceramic stewing pot with perforated handles (ibid., fig. 10.4) in use by one tent-dwelling family. Many of the southern Anatolian campsites studied contained just a few scattered sherds from small vessels such as cups or teapots. China teapots and a few medium-sized ceramic jars were used at Sanaydin Yayla and some of the sherds recorded in the midden areas were from such vessels. Glass sherds from tea glasses were also common in and around tentsites. At one summer camp on Sultan Dag in western Anatolia, abandoned for

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around six months, a concentration of sherds from a single thin-walled jar was found in situ immediately in front of the kitchen area of a tentsite where someone had dropped it (Fig. 5.1a). Sherds were also found thinly scattered around other tentsites at Sultan Dag. In sharp contrast, the abandoned summer campsites recorded at Nemrut Dag in eastern Anatolia contained an abundance of coarse, blackened sherds from large cooking pots or bread ovens which are sunk into the ground outside the tents (Fig. 5.1b). The vessels had obviously been Fig. 5-1 Examples of ceramics on nomadic campsites. (a) Sherds from a single vessel at a campsite in western Turkey. The vessel was painted with a white geometric design. (b) Coarse sherds from cooking pots at a summer campsite at Nemrut Dag in eastern Turkey. The sherds are lying in a stone-walled tent enclosure near a recessed hearth. A small grinder manufactured from local low-grade obsidian is also shown.

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imported into the area which contained no suitable clays, but had been installed as site-specific fixtures rather than being moved from site to site. These examples are highly suggestive in terms of the fourth of the hypotheses outlined above. The western Anatolian sites contained small quantities of mainly fine ware and glass sherds falling at the lower end of the range of vessel size; while those in eastern Anatolia contained large quantities of coarse sherds from very large vessels. Paradoxically the Kurdish tribes responsible for the latter assemblages are 'nomadic7 to a far greater degree than are the Yoriiks of western Anatolia, for the most part living under the tent for the entire annual cycle. The different assemblages represent alternative strategies in the organization of material culture constant circulation of valued, portable items in contrast to the installation of more common and cumbersome vessels as fixtures in particular campsites, to be used seasonally. These modern observations are borne out by ethnohistorical examples. Among some nomadic groups large ceramic vessels were used as churns in the production of cheese, though a goatskin container swung from a tripod is the more usual method (e.g. Bent 1891, p.31; Ferdinand 1959-60, p.36). One of the more intrepid and observant nineteenth-century travellers, Lady Ella Sykes (1898, p.155), displays one such churn in use near Kerman in western Iran (Fig. 5.2). The large pot, resting on a piece of Fig. 5-2 A large ceramic churn for yoghurt manufacture from Kerman, western Iran, in the last century. Note the construction of the tent in the background, of alacik type (see Chapter 6). (Reproduced from Sykes 1898, plate opposite p. 155.)

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Fig. 5.3 Grindstone and slabs from a campsite at Nemrut Dag in eastern Turkey.

cloth; is being rocked backwards and forwards by hand. Lynch (1901, p.323) observed a similar device in use for the same purpose, though apparently suspended from a tripod, not far from Nemrut Dag: 'A young woman . . . is engaged in swinging to and fro a large vessel of earthenware, which they use for making cheese'. Some of the surface sherds on the abandoned campsites at Nemrut Dag may have come from such a vessel though I did not observe any in use, nor are they mentioned by Be§ikgi (1969).

Stone artifacts Only at Nemrut Dag did I observe stone grinders and slabs. These were found inside the abandoned dwellings, apparently in their location of use and represent items of site furniture or fixtures (see Fig. 5.3). Hole (1978, p. 154) also notes that metates and manos are not found on Luri campsites, cereals being obtained in ground form from mills, though acorn smashers are frequently found near procurement locations. Projecting backwards to when lithic technology was widely used, it is possible that this would tend to raise the overall visibility of nomad sites

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where lithics were used or manufactured. However, in view of the difficulties involved in distinguishing nomad from sedentary inventories, the same difficulty would arise in attempting to distinguish between lithic industries. The kinds of indicators suggested above in relation to ceramics would be less applicable here. Similarly, with nomad and hunter-gatherer sites, any such size/portability function would be equally applicable to both. Indeed as Hole (ibid., p.166) acknowledges, it may well be impossible on the basis of lithics alone to distinguish the campsites of nomadic pastoralists from those of hunter-gatherers.

Stratigraphy and architectural remains Although the shallow stratigraphy of nomad sites has been stressed, observations in some of the larger summer campsites in eastern Anatolia, which are occupied regularly and for long periods of time, indicate that well-defined stratigraphic sequences may develop, though these may be confined to external hearth and midden areas. The bread-oven pit shown in Fig. 5.4 contained not only sherds from the cooking pot which had once occupied it but also, observable in its walls, a complex stratigraphic record of earlier occupations. The assertion by Childe (1936) that nomad architecture is perishable and insubstantial is questionable, as we have seen above. The frequency with which stone tent footings or walls are employed by contemporary nomads and the ready availability of stone suggests that such practices may also have existed in the past. In the course of fieldwork not only were long-abandoned tentsites frequently encountered but also whole campsites. The campsite shown in Fig. 5.5 consisted of more than a dozen highly disturbed stone arrangements whose dimensions suggested that they were the remains of tentsites. The fact that some were almost submerged beneath layers of alluvium, together with an almost total lack of surface artifacts, indicated a respectable antiquity.

The issue of 'household impedimenta7 We have already seen how nomad material culture tends to reflect that employed by related sedentary groups and how at least some of the problems of maintaining an adequate level of material welfare can be solved by caching strategies and by fitting out campsites with fixed facilities and site furniture. However this does not alter the fact that a very substantial proportion of essential items needs to be transported, particularly heavy and cumbersome perishables such as tents, rugs, bedding and foodstuffs for day-to-day subsistence. The use of pack animals such as donkeys, horses, mules, camels and even cattle has provided the solution for many generations of nomads. But what of that critical period in the evolution of nomadism when these species remained undomesticated or, in the case of the mule, non-existent? To propose alternatives such as the use of sheep or goats to carry small loads as reported for Tibet (Ekvall 1961) or women as beasts of burden is to evade the central issue and deflect attention from this key logistical problem - the main limiting condition by which the nomadic option is circumscribed.

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Fig. 54 Micro-stratigraphy revealed in a bread-oven pit outside a tentsite at Nemrut Dag in eastern Turkey. Sherds from large cooking pots are scattered around the edges of the pit. The remains of a broken cooking pot are embedded in the pit.

Fig. 5-5 A long-abandoned campsite at Ala Dag in the highlands of central Turkey. The concentrations of stone represent old tentsites now partly submerged under the alluvium.

In arguing for an early origin of nomadic pastoralism in western Iran; Hole (1978, 1984) claims that pack animals are in principle not essential to a nomadic system, that their presence merely 'encourages the nomads to build inventories of equipment. . . and makes longer migrations possible7 (Hole 1978, p.150). This implies that household impedimenta are somehow peripheral to the essential nomadic way of life and can be shrunk down to the bare minimum to be carried on the backs of the people themselves. First to go is the tent, to be replaced by a rough shelter, or kula, constructed entirely from local materials at each campsite. Next to

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go is bedding, through careful scheduling of migrations to avoid extremes of cold. Then the sacks of grain or flour, noted in nearly all migration trains, are jettisoned and replaced by a diet of wild acorns which today serve as a back-up resource. With respect to the last point, the use of acorns to make a kind of bread has been reported widely elsewhere in Iran (Stark 1933, p.251) and in Anatolia (Bent 1891, p.273) but, significantly, Stark also notes that sustained reliance on this diet is 'fatal to many of the children'. So it is with the other solutions as well. A scenario such as that proposed by Hole is untenable due to a basic misunderstanding of the role of material culture in the lives of Near Eastern nomads. Certainly the average nomad is a hardy customer used to long spells of night grazing with nothing but the hard stones and a rough blanket for a bed. But the blankets and eiderdowns, the cushions, kilims and embroidered rugs - indeed the very tent itself - are much more than just home comforts. In a sense they come as a complete cultural package, a transformation of the same standards and models of household organization that apply in sedentary village society. In much the same way as that outlined for East African pastoralists (Hodder 1982), they offer a medium for the affirmation of tribal identity as well as the expression of subtle shades of status, rank and wealth. It is impossible to imagine a pastoral nomad aspiring to the level of simplicity idealized in, for instance, studies of the !Kung bushmen (Lee 1979) or Australian Aborigines (Gould 1980). Unlike the bushman he cannot give away all his material possessions in return for the esteem of his fellows. The ethic of generosity characteristic of hunter-gatherer society stands in sharp contrast to the code of hospitality which applies in nomad society, which implies asymmetric reciprocity and the expression of dominance and rank. Far from being incidental to nomad life such an ethic, together with the material means for its expression, is fundamental to the organization and mobilization of a nomadic community, and a relatively high profile of material culture must be seen as an ideal, though perhaps not always realized, which is built into Near Eastern nomadism. A nomad lacking the wherewithall to entertain a 'guest of Allah' is not worthy of the name. Consequently, even if a group of herders could scrape by for a season or two in the manner proposed by Hole, it is doubtful whether this would represent a durable and stable adaptation. Pastoral production, combined with a pattern of consumption based on wild resources, would inevitably result in major strains and conflicts between the schedule for exploiting wild resources and that necessary for successful herding - except in the happy circumstance that both kinds of resources are abundant in the same localities at the same time. In an economy centred around the singleminded pursuit of pasture there are obvious advantages in a pattern of consumption which is independent of the resources available in any particular area through which one is passing. In short, there exist powerful constraints and imperatives which would, in the course of time, transform Hole's 'herder foragers7 into either full-blown nomadic pastoralists with an independent food supply or hunter-gatherers who just happen to keep a few goats.

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Conclusion Thus although we are now able to move beyond the simple assumption that 'nomads leave no traces', it is equally clear that the material dimension is an important, and in many ways a limiting, factor in any nomadic system. We are prompted to inquire: If nomad material culture is as developed as has been suggested, then why are nomad sites so difficult to detect? The answers lie in a better understanding of the processes by which material remains are distributed over the landscape and the factors which control this distribution. It is necessary to consider in some detail the organization of particular nomadic pastoral systems in time and space.

6 NOMAD ARCHITECTURE AND DOMESTIC SPACE

As I approached Ali's winter camp all illusions about the simplicity of my task began to crumble. The tent - if it could be called that - was fashioned out of a mixture of rough limestone boulders and dressed blocks from a nearby Byzantine complex (Fig. 6.1). Its walls were nearly 1.5 metres high, and it was entered via a short passageway and a rickety wooden gate held by lengths of twisted wire. The structure was surmounted by wooden beams and a mixture of tentcloth; straw and polythene plastic. The interior of the dwelling contained the now-familiar array of rug-covered platforms though its proportions were less elongated than the norm. In the front wall, adjacent to the doorway, was a recessed fireplace beautifully constructed out of Byzantine building rubble and capped by a large limestone block covered by floral bas-reliefs. In summer Ali would be up in the Taurus Mountains living in a black tent with only the barest of stone footings. The following year at about the same time (early September) I found him camped some 200 metres away in a small beige-coloured tent whose interior was almost identical to that observed in the previous winter, but which was devoid of any foundation other than a cleared earth floor and a small hearth consisting of three stones. The term nomad architecture may appear to contain an inherent contradiction. In fact there is a sizeable literature on the subject (Fagre 1979; Andrews 1981; Ferdinand 1959-60; Feilberg 1944; Edelberg 1966-67). Much of this is confined to a discussion of fabrics and supports, those portable elements which are least likely to survive in archaeological context. The distinction drawn in Chapter 5 between portables andfixturesis highly relevant to any discussion of nomad architecture. Much of the present discussion will focus on fixtures and the more durable elements of tent architecture. However, while tentcloth and tentpoles are perishable, the very size and shape of nomad tentsites have been influenced by the inherent potentials and constraints imposed by woven fabrics and supports. 84

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Fig. 6.1 Ali's winter tentsite, southern Turkey. The stone-walled tentsite was surmounted by a temporary structure of straw, tentcloth and polythene plastic.

What is a tent? In view of the difficulty of defining precisely where tent forms end and house forms begin I have frequently had recourse to the neutral term 'dwelling7. Bedouin tents have been defined as 'an eminently practical, completely portable house demonstrating all the principal elements of permanent architecture7 (de Schauensee 1968, p.32). Most other definitions also rely on analogies with permanent architecture, though that used by Hole (1984), which permits the term 'tent' regardless of 'whether or not the space . . . was actually covered with a woven fabric', approaches closer to an archaeologist's understanding. For our purposes a tent may be defined as a prefabricated structure consisting of a flexible covering and structural supports temporarily brought together to form an integrated architec-

tural unit. As indicated above, tents are probably best regarded as covering a certain range on a continuum from extremely temporary arrangements to more permanent dwelling forms. As archaeologists, rather than architects, what interests us most are the dimensions, features and configurations of household space which arise where the tent form is employed. These in turn may depend on the type of portable structure employed.

Types of nomad tents Nomad tents may be divided into a number of classes, each of which contains its own implications and limitations in terms of floorplans and internal organization. The Near East is the meeting place of two great

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tentage traditions of entirely independent origins and principles of construction, the one based on the beehive-shaped Central Asian yurt or kibitka, the other based on the locally evolved black tent. There has been a certain amount of hybridization, but for our purposes the following categories may be discerned.

Central Asian types Tents known as topak ev (literally, round house), or alacik in Anatolia, consist of a rigid wooden frame over which is draped an inert covering of felt (see Fig. 6.2; also Andrews 1981; Duly 1979, pl.88; Rappoport 1969, p.110). The frame is usually a hemispherical structure of curved ribs plugged into a central wheel at the top (see Land 1966, fig.3). The wheel is supported by a central pole and secured by a pair of ropes twisted together at high tension and fastened to a stout wooden stake driven into the centre of the floor to prevent wind uplift. The walls may consist of ribs only, as in the Shahsevan tent (Land 1966; Tapper 1979) or the ribs may be shorter, fastened to the top of a collapsible, cylindrical lattice to form the 'trellis7 tent (Andrews 1981; Ozkan 1978). A wickerwork or reed screen is then placed loosely around the felt-covered walls. The term alacik was initially used to describe this screen and retains that meaning among the Qashqa'i (Marsden 1976, p.26). More commonly the term stands for the tent as a whole, as among the Shahsevan (Land 1966) and throughout Anatolia. This is perhaps the most functionally specialized of all tent types, the product of a long evolution on the Central Asian steppes, perfected some time before the Turkic migrations into the Near East in the eleventh and twelfth centuries (see Andrews 1981). Such is the skill involved in its manufacture that it was often custombuilt by specialists. One old man living in a topak ev in central Turkey told me that all the tentframes in the camp had been made by a single carpenter in the provincial capital. This kind of structure is designed for protection against cold and strong winds rather than rain as the thick felt covering is slow to dry out. Its distribution is confined to Central Asia, Mongolia and the northern region of the Near East among Turkic-speaking groups such as the Yomut of the Gurgan Plain (Irons 1975), the Shahsevan of Azerbaijan (Tapper 1979c), Uzbeks and Kirghiz in northern Afghanistan (Shahrani 1979; and Michaud 1977) and scattered groups of relatively recent immigrants to Anatolia (Dominian 1915).

The black tent The Middle Eastern black tent, kara qadir (Turkish) or siyah chadour (Persian), by way of contrast, is a tensile structure consisting of tentcloth, usually woven goat-hair, supported by vertical poles and anchored by guy ropes (see Fig.6.3). Its principle of construction differs from the Central Asian type in that the cloth itself plays a role in holding up the structure (Evans 1983). The tentcloth consists of a series of standardized strips fastened together by wooden pegs (see Baharvand 1975, p.58; Watson 1979, figs. 10.1 and 10.2). Due to the properties of this material and the nature of construction, the black tent is well designed for protection

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Fig. 6.2 A topak ev or alaak tent form from central Turkey. These frames are made in a nearby town by specialist craftsmen.

Fig. 6.3 Black tents, eastern Turkey. The black tent is able to accommodate changes in the size and composition of households.

against both heat and rain. In hot ; dry weather the loosely woven fabric permits the circulation of air within the tent but ; when wet, the goat-hair fibre expands to form a fairly waterproof shield (Baharvand 1975, p.58). Alternative tent forms are easily achieved by varying the numbers and arrangement of poles and strips of tentcloth to produce anything from the small tig direkli gadir (three-poled tent) used by Yoriiks in southern Anatolia (Giirdal 1976; Johansen 1965; Kademoglu 1974; Johnson 1969; Bates 1973)

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to the huge ten- or twelve-pole structures of Kurdish tribes in eastern Anatolia (Ozbek-Koroglu 1980; Be§ikgi 1969) and the Qashqa'i of southwestern Iran (Marsden 1976). Such an architectural form is highly responsive to the variable requirements of seasonal settlements, fluctuating household size and the demands of hospitality, so that variations in size and form may occur not only between ethnic groups but also within individual encampments. This structural generalization means that the black tent does not lend itself so readily to classification by type as does the Central Asian form. Though more adaptable than the latter, the black tent is also less selfcontained and may require the addition of stone or mud walls to make it habitable during lengthy stopovers. The precise historical origins of the black multi-poled tent are uncertain (Daker 1984). It may well reach back into prehistoric times, but its evolution is most probably linked with that of village architecture - the tentcloth providing a convenient roofing material for sets of pre-existing walls. It is also the prototype for a much more elaborate form of 'royal tent' used by rulers in the Near East from early historical times (Evans 1983). Examples of such royal encampments have been described by Andrews (1981).

Barrel-vaulted tents This elliptical or semicylindrical form shares elements of those described above - more or less rectangular in plan but semicircular in section. On structural criteria, barrel-vaulted tents may be divided into two types. The first is a variant of the Central Asian yurt (Andrews pers. comm.). Instead of a central wheel, a straight ridge-piece with a row of sockets on each side runs down the spine of the roof, supported by a pole at each end. Ribs, similar to those used in the alaak or topak ev are fitted into this to produce something analogous to the inverted hull of a boat. Many of the components are interchangeable with the hemispherical form (see Rappoport 1969,fig.5.12),the same structural elements being used to produce tents with either rectangular or circular plans. The second form is the 'bender7 (Andrews pers. comm.) or gatma ev, similar in external appearance to that described above, but differing fundamentally in its mode of construction. There is no central ridge-piece or vertical supports. Instead curved hoops, standing parallel to each other, are fastened to horizontal stays and other curved pieces arranged concentrically at each end (Figs. 6.4 and 6.5). Such tents, also known as alaak, have been described in the central Taurus Mountains: The tents of this oymak (Kulfalli tribe) are made of felt . . . Their shape is round and long like a tunnel. The inner frame of the tent is criss-crossed with long sticks and these are covered with felt7 (Yalman 1977, p.214, my translation). Other reports mention both yurts and black tents in a Central Anatolian village (Naumann 1893). It is often difficult to discern whether gatma ev or Central Asian forms are being described. For instance, Mordtmann (1925, p.257) states 'Die Zelte der Jliriiken sehen wie Frachtwagen aus;, and photographs by Brandenberg (1905, p.12) are ambiguous on this point. Libby and Hoskins (1905) have described a single campsite in northern

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Fig. 6.4 Frame of a qatma ev

or alaak at Sanaydin Yayla, Taurus Mountains, Turkey. The frame was left standing for the winter. Note the horizontal stays, curved end pieces and wickerwork screen.

rr

s

Syria apparently containing both circular and rectangular forms which are definitely of qatma ev type: These [Turkmen] shelters differ from all other tents in Syria in having no centre pole and no ropes. Five or six huge ribs; shaped like wagon bows, are stuck firmly