Susan H. Lees

The Origins of Specialized Nomadic Pastoralism: A Systemic Model

A model is presented which describes the transition from mixed rainfall-dependent agriculture with animal husbandry to specialized modes of production based upon irrigated agriculture and nomadic pastoralism. This model emphasizes selective pressures for mixed farming before irrigation agriculture had expanded in the arid alluvial zones of Mesopotamia, and selective pressures for specialization after irrigation agriculture had become established in that zone. It goes on to describe dynamic interaction between specialized groups once such specialization has become institutionalized. Department of Anthropology Hunter College, CUNY May, 1973 THE IMPORTANCE OF nomadic pastoralism in the rise and fall of ancient Old World civilizations has come under increasing scrutiny by archaeologists today. Archaeological evidence indicates that the process of domestication of plants and animals occurred in conjunction, and that the earliest food producers practiced mixed farming (Flannery 1965:1247-1256; Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969; Reed 1971:432450; Flannery 1969:73-100). Specialized nomadic pastoralism, which requires grain inputs from external sources, apparently was a later development. We are led to ask, then, what were the selective pressures which led to such specialization? When did it occur in relation to other events; why did it not occur sooner; and why did it occur where it did? Though there is still little archaeological evidence to confirm one view or another, ecological analysis of the effects of certain agricultural practices suggests some likely possibilities. On the basis of this type of analysis, we may formulate a hypothesis concerning systemic relationships between agricultural and animal husbandry practices. This should prove useful in pointing to the time periods and locales in which data relating to the establishment of nomadic pastoralism, as a specialization, could most profitably be sought. Our hypothesis, most briefly stated, is that there was a direct relationship between the development of nomadic pastoralism as a specialization involving substantial populations, and the development of canal irrigation. In our model of this relationship, we see selective pressures for specialization in nomadic pastoralism arising from the practice of canal irrigation as a technique of agricultural intensification. Although it is very probable that some degree of nomadic pastoralism predates canal irrigation in the Near East and elsewhere, our hypothesis would be unsupported if the expansion of highly specialized nomadic pastoral populations were not in some measurable way associated with the expansion of irrigation agriculture. The remainder of this paper will make this hypothesis explicit. Though we base our model upon material from the Near East, we suspect that it is more or less applicable in other areas of the Old World, such as China, where similar specializations also evolved. Throughout most of the area for which early agricultural sites are known in the Near East, rainfall tends to be seasonal, variable, and often sparse. Agricultural production in semiarid and arid lands tends to be an annually uncertain undertaking, for the critical variable affecting productivity is water. Dependence upon rainfall alone would require that aggregate human

Case Studies in Human Ecology

Foraging: 1. Australian Aboriginal Subsistence in the Western Desert S. Cane. 2. The Ecological Basisof Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence in African Rain Forests: The Mbuti of Eastern Zaire T.B. Hart, J.A. Hart. 3. Batak Foraging Camps Today: A Window to the History of a Hunting-Gathering Economy J.F. Eder. 4. Northern Islands, Human Error, and Environmental Degradation T.H. McGovern, et al. Pastoralism: 5. Who Survives Drought? Measuring Winners and Losers among the Ariaal Rendille Pastoralists of Kenya E. Fratkin, E.A. Roth. 6. Coping with Drought: Responses of Herders and Livestock in Contrasting Savanna Environments in Southern Zimbabwe I. Scoones. 7. From Zomo to Yak: Change in a Sherpa Village N.H. Bishop. 8. What Alpine Peasants Have in Common R.McC. Netting. Subsistence and Intensive Agriculture: 9. Changing Household Composition, Labor Patterns, and Fertility in a Highland New Guinea Population P.L.Johnson. 10. Variation and Change in Fertility in West Central Nepal S. Folmar. 11. Land Use, Soil Loss, and Sustainable Agriculture in Rwanda D.C. Clay, L.A. Lewis. 12. Agricultural Intensification in a Philippine Frontier Community: Impact on Labor Efficiency and Farm Diversity W.T. Conelly. 13. Seventeenth-Century Organic Agriculture in China W. Dazhong, D. Pimentel. 14. Kofyar CashCropping: Choice and Change in Indigenous Agricultural Development R.McC. Netting, et al. 15. Time, Space, and Transnational Flows: Critical Historical Conjunctures and Explaining Change in Northern Nigerian Agriculture L.D. Lennihan. 16. Ecology and Mormon Settlement in Northeastern Arizona W.S. Abruzzi. Index.

Irrigation and Society

Wittfogels hydraulic theory of the origin of the state has provided the subject of irrigation and society with a privileged place in archaeology; contemporary literature concerning the social consequences of irrigation development has been neglected by archaeologists. The literature suggests that irrigation technology has as much to do with bureaucratic power as with water. Bureaucratic managementand mismanagement of irrigation technology mediate the outcome of such development projects on the affected populations. This observation challenges theories that posit a linear relationship between population growth and technology. Archaeologists would benefit from applying the insights from the development literature to archaeological analyses of irrigation.

Social policy and inequality: A case study of problems in a planned society

Mark Iris and Avraham Shama. Immigration Without Integration: Third World Jews in Israel. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkmen Publishing Co., 1977 (in press).

The Role of Exchange in Productive Specialization

12.50.