The Archaeology of Mobility


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Series: Cotsen Advanced Seminar 4
ISBN: 978-1-931745-50-5
Publication Date: Jul 2008
Price: Hb and eBook $55
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Hans Barnard and Willeke Wendrich

A majority of laymen, politicians and scholars consciously or subconsciously understand settled living as the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder. Accounts of people surviving and even thriving in peripheral areas are often instrumental to construct and maintain the dichotomy between 'the desert and the sown.' It is sometimes stated that mobile peoples obtain their material culture from neighboring settled populations, rather than produce their own, and that they do not leave recognizable archaeological traces apart from 'ephemeral campsites.' From the 24 chapters in this volume, however, it is clear that there is indeed an 'archaeology of mobility.'

Archaeology of Mobility

By applying specific and well-defined methods, it is eminently possible to come to a better understanding of mobile people in archaeological contexts. Such an archaeology of mobility encompasses much more than tracing ephemeral campsites. Much like any other group, mobile people produce, appear to use and discard a distinct material culture which includes functional objects, art and architecture. There have been edited books on the archaeology of nomadism in various regions, and there have been individual archaeological and anthropological monographs, but nothing with the kind of coverage provided in this volume. Its strength and importance lie in the fact that it brings together a world-wide collection of studies of the archaeology of mobility.

This book provides a ready-made reference to this world-wide phenomenon and is unique in that it tries to redefine pastoralism within a larger context by the term mobility. It presents many new ideas and thoughtful approaches, especially in the Central Asian region.The Archaeology of Mobility
Table of Contents

Chapter 1. The Archaeology of Mobility: Definitions and Research Approaches by Willeke Wendrich and Hans Barnard

Part I: The Past in the Present

Chapter 2. Things to Do with Sheep and Goats: Neolithic Hunter-Forager-Herders in North Arabia by Alison Betts 
Chapter 3. An Archaeology of Multisited Communities by Reinhard Bernbeck
Chapter 4. Archaeology and the Question of Mobile: Pastoralism in Late Prehistory by Abbas Alizadeh
Chapter 5. Desert Pastoral Nomadism in the Longue Durée: A Case Study from the Negev and the Southern by Levantine Deserts
Chapter 6. The Origin of the Tribe and of ‘Industrial’ Agropastoralism in Syro-Mesopotamia by Giorgio Buccellati
Chapter 7. Pastoral Nomadism in the Central Andes: A Historic Retrospective Example by David L. Browman
Chapter 8. Colonization, Structured Landscapes and Seasonal Mobility: An Examination of Early Paleo-Eskimo Land-Use Patterns in the Eastern Canadian Arctic by S. Brooke Milne 
Chapter 9. The Emergence of Cultures of Mobility in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia: Evidence from the Intersection of Rock Art and Paleoenvironment by Esther Jacobson-Tepfer
Chapter 10. Nomadic Sites of the South Yergueni Hills on the Eurasian Steppe: Models of Seasonal Occupation and Production by Natalia I. Shishlina, Eugeny I. Gak and Alexander V. Borisov
Chapter 11. Trogodytes = Blemmyes = Beja? The Misuse of Ancient Ethnography by Stanley M. Burstein
Chapter 12. Is the Absence of Evidence, Evidence of Absence? Problems in the Archaeology of Early Herding Societies of Southern Africa by Andrew B. Smith
Chapter 13. The Social and Environmental Constraints on Mobility in the Late Prehistoric Upper Great Lakes Region by Margaret B. Holman and William A. Lovis
Chapter 14. Nomadic Potters: Relationships Between Ceramic Technologies and Mobility by Jelmer W. Eerkens
Part II: The Present in the Future
Chapter 15. Mobility and Sedentism of the Iron Age Agropastoralists of Southeast Kazakhstan by Claudia Chang
Chapter 16. Crossing Boundaries: Nomadic Groups and Ethnic Identities by Stuart T. Smith
Chapter 17.  Variability and Dynamic Landscapes of Mobile Pastoralism in Ethnography and Prehistory by Michael D. Frachetti
Chapter 18. Mobility and Sedentarization in Late Bronze Age Syria by Jeffrey J. Szuchman
Chapter 19. Suggestions for a Chaîne Opératoire of Nomadic Pottery Sherds by Hans Barnard
Chapter 20. History of the Nomadic Architecture of the Hadendowa in Northeast Sudan by Anwar A-Magid
Chapter 21. The Bedouin Tent: An Ethno-Archaeological Portal to Antiquity or a Modern Construct? by Benjamin A. Saidel
Chapter 22. Naming the Waters: New Insights into the Nomadic Use of Oases in the Libyan Desert of Egypt by Alan Roe
Chapter 23. From Objects to Agents: The Ababda Nomads and the Interpretation of the Past by Willeke Wendrich
Chapter 24. No Room to Move: Mobility, Settlement and Conflict Among Mobile Peoples by Roger L. Cribb
Chapter 25. NOMAD: An Agent-Based Model (ABM) of Pastoralist-Agriculturalist Interaction by Lawrence A. Kuznar and Robert Sedlmeyer