Nomads in the Middle East

A history of pastoral nomads in the Islamic Middle East from the rise of Islam, through the middle periods when Mongols and Turks ruled most of the region, to the decline of nomadism in the twentieth century. Offering a vivid insight into the impact of nomads on the politics, culture, and ideology of the region, Beatrice Forbes Manz examines and challenges existing perceptions of these nomads, including the popular cyclical model of nomad-settled interaction developed by Ibn Khaldun. Looking at both the Arab Bedouin and the nomads from the Eurasian steppe, Manz demonstrates the significance of Bedouin and Turco-Mongolian contributions to cultural production and political ideology in the Middle East, and shows the central role played by pastoral nomads in war, trade, and state-building throughout history. Nomads provided horses and soldiers for war, the livestock and guidance which made long-distance trade possible, and animal products to provision the region's growing cities.

INTEGRATING INDIGENOUS SOCIO-CULTURAL FORMS IN ENVIRONMENTAL ADULT EDUCATION FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION BETWEEN PASTORAL NOMADS AND HOST COMMUNITIES IN NIGERIA

Conflict between pastoral nomads and host communities in Nigeria today have resulted in the degradation of the environment, and the impoverishment of the host communities. This has occasioned banditry, criminality and even armed insurgency by nomads and host communities. Strategies identified by government and researchers geared towards resolving the conflict and ensuring peaceful co-existence between farmers and herders have not helped to a large extent. Such strategies include among others, establishment of cattle colony in the federating states, establishment of the Commissions of Enquiry, and deployment of securities, environmental dialogue, environmental communication, environmental mediation, regular environmental sensitization meetings. In spite of the above-mentioned strategies, the conflict still persisted. This paper explored some of the indigenous socio-cultural forms which can be integrated in environmental adult education for forestalling conflict between pastoral nomads and their host communities in Nigeria. The paper concludes that since environmental adult education thrives on the experience of the participants derivable from their value systems which brings to bear in learning, efforts should be made to utilize these sociocultural forms which embody peoples’ values systems in mobilizing and educating herders and farmers on the need for peaceful co-existence.

Against the Mane: How Barbaric Was the ‘The Golden Age of Barbarians’?

Against the Grain is both a wide-ranging voyage of discovery and a regionally focused study of the trajectory of agriculture from its earliest appearance until historical times, coupled with discussion of the mechanisms that maintained early states. For Scott, the state is a fragile entity (pp. 21, 23, 118, 125) based on the production of grain, along with water transport, city walls, tax collection, specialized administrators, monumental centres, kings, social hierarchy, filth, epidemic disease and an insatiable demand for enslaved labour. With such a definition, there is a little hope that the societies of Eurasian pastoral nomads can be seen as anything other than ‘barbarians’ living outside the laws and hierarchies of agricultural states. It is these Eurasian nomadic pastoralists and their relations with the state that will form the focus of this commentary.

CHALLENGING THE INVISIBILITY OF MOBILE CULTURES REMOTE SENSING, ENVIRONMENT AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE NEAR EAST

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Remote sensing has provided a modern wider perspective to approach the earth with its various environments and impact of humans by prospecting previously unknown frontiers of human life. The traces of mobile groups are archaeologically often more difficult to detect than those of the sedentary ones, but new approaches and methods have changed and enhanced the ways to extract archaeological information of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads. Remote sensing, for example, provides alternative views from above and better visibility in a larger scale, especially with high resolution solutions, than on the ground to trace sites. Mobile people have become more visible in archaeology, and therefore their importance in the development of human cultures has received more focus and understanding. This paper will focus on the use of remote sensing in the archaeological study of mobile cultures and their environments in the Near East. Various examples of techniques and site types will be discussed, and the suitability of applications will be considered based on the studies by Finnish and Finnish-Swedish projects in the Near East. We will provide examples of applications and emphasize the importance of empirical approaches in studying archaeological evidence by remote sensing. GPS coordinate points have served as the basis of our field survey and mapping. From the image-based data we shall deal with aerial photographs, CORONA satellite photographs, Landsat, SPOT, QuickBird and GeoEye satellite images. From the range-based data we shall discuss X-SAR Shuttle Mission 2000 and ASTER-DEM data, but LiDAR and geophysical devices will only be briefly considered.</p>

Cherie Kartchner Woodworth’s Research and Publications

Cherie Woodworth’s impressive publications included articles, review articles, and book reviews; her unpublished research consisted of numerous conference papers and oral presentations. Cherie’s dissertation and articles concerned fifteenth-century Muscovite history, especially princely clans. Her book reviews encompassed a wide variety of fields and disciplines. Her final research project addressed the interaction of steppe pastoral nomads with their sedentary neighbors. The maturity of mind, originality, and soundness of judgment demonstrated in her research and publications attest to a quality of mind one would expect to find only in a superior senior scholar.

Ancient Steppe Nomad Societies

Throughout more than two millennia, the extensive droughty areas in East Asia were occupied by pastoral nomads. A long history exists of hybridity between steppe and agricultural areas. The ancient nomads had a specific pastoral economy, a mobile lifestyle, a unique mentality that assumed unpretentiousness and stamina, cults of war, warrior horsemen, and heroized ancestors that were reflected, in turn, in both their verbal oeuvre (heroic epos) and their arts (animal style). They established vast empires that united many peoples. In the descriptions of settled civilizations, the peoples of the steppe are presented as aggressive barbarians. However, the pastoral nomads developed efficient mechanisms of adaptation to nature and circumjacent states. They had a complex internal structure and created different forms of social complexity—from heterarchical confederations to large nomadic empires. The different forms of identity in pastoral societies (gender, age, profession, rank) are presented in this article. Special attention is given to how ethnic identity is formed from small groups. The ethnic history of the ancient nomads of East Asia is described, particularly for such pastoral societies as the Xiongnu, the Wuhuan, the Xianbei, and the Rouran.

Mongol nomádok ma

We are witnessing changes to the Mongolian nomad social system: globalisation, political, economic and climatic changes are all affecting traditionalpastoral nomadism. The mobility of the Mongolian nomads drastically decreased in the last twenty years. Some researchers argue that the mobilitychange will accelerate the acculturation of Mongolian pastoral nomads. Basedon my fieldwork and research, I consider the issue of acculturation a verycomplex phenomenon, which depends on the adaptiveness and flexibility ofthe nomads. For this reason, we should look at these specific aspects of theMongolian nomadic pastoralism. In this study, I present the historical, economic and ecological reasons for the mobility decrease and the theoreticalbackground of my fieldwork.