Nomads on the Steppe

[Jorsalfar]

But that get's me thinking, I wonder if the Arab expansion after Muhammad can be seen in the same way as the pattern of nomads coming to conquer settled peoples. I don't know much about Arab society at that time, but I think they were mostly nomads (in the desert and semi-desert parts of the peninsula at least), so maybe they had a the ability to summon a similarly high proportion of their population for warfare (i.e. like 20% to 25%), which would go a long way in explaining why they were able to so swiftly defeat 2 much larger and well established empires (Byzantium and Sassanid Persia). The only expiation I've heard before is that they were just so religiously fanatically that they had a much higher moral then their opponents (which may be somewhat true, but on it's own still doesn't explain how they could be quite so successful).

Yes, the Arab expansion could be seen in this view. I would usually bee careful with statements on why a particular group of nomads started to raid an agricultural society as we usually lack the data to explain it. The Arabs and the Mongols are however IMO two exceptions since we have at least some knowledge about the events that happend before their expansion. In both cases we have a group of people with strong traditions of raiding their neighbours. Usually those neighbours were a different tribe/clan from within these groups. In both these cases a unification leaves the tradtional raiding targets out of limit, which means that they have to seek new raiding targets. In the case of the Mongols that happend to be the Chinese and other settled people, and for the Arabs it was the Byzantine and Persian empires. In both cases the resistance to the raids turned out to be weaker than they had expected and the raids turned into conquest. The success is IMO not so much because of how large part of the population they could put under arms (although it's important), but because what gagenater said, they could hit and run because of their mobility. They could also withdraw into territory where it were close to impossible for civilised armies to follow, making it more or less impossible to engage them if one were in a superior position. The arabs could withdraw into the desert and the mongols into the steps. Neither is a place where you easily can take a large army without a lot of preperation, and if one did the enemy could simply scatter into 100 small groups.

 

[Orinsul]

Personally, ive only ever heard the view that the arab expansion was the result of them being nomads.
Believing in your cause only helps you win in movies. Large amounts of people on horses with tactics the people youre fighting have never seen before and population pressure behind you so theres lot of people to sign up works every time.

The same as the turks after them and the mongols after them. And the Huns and Germans and everyone else before them as well.
When there are too many people in a nomadic society as a result of short-term climate conditions, when things go back to normal all those people have to go somewhere. When theyre divided they fight amongst themselves and it rights itself internally, when theyre united they change the course of history, Atleast until civilisation got guns they did.
Even the Vikings were caused by a population boom in a place that couldn't sustain the number only instead of horses they had boats.

 

[unmerged(75409)]

The Arabs were not nomads. The Bedouins were pastoralists but that's not the same thing: They didn't move huge distances, only seasonally, and every year it would be between the same two places. And Mohammed plus all the leaders of Islam weren't even Bedouins, they came from Mecca or Medina and were city folk who owned land.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

The Arabs were not nomads. The Bedouins were pastoralists but that's not the same thing: They didn't move huge distances, only seasonally, and every year it would be between the same two places. And Mohammed plus all the leaders of Islam weren't even Bedouins, they came from Mecca or Medina and were city folk who owned land.

It's not that nomads usually move around in erratic patterns. Most follow an annual route to utilize the ressources (mostly grass for their animals, water, but also hunting and collecting grounds) most efficiently. If weather patterns change, enemies are getting too strong, or an easier way of making a living (plundering) is found, they'll deviate. Most nomads will keep distances as small as possible, just because it takes too much energy out of the animals.

 

[Boblof]

Hang on, but I thought all those Sahelian Empires were based around farming and city states originally, no? In my historical Atlas book, it shows the Sahel as a farming region from very early on (at least 3,000 years) with lots of small petty chiefdoms which then formed into larger kingdoms and then into empires, in the normal way. Where do the nomads come into that? I admit that my knowledge of how these states formed is a bit lacking, but from what I can tell their rulers didn't seem to have a nomadic culture since they lived in palaces within cities, in the style of any middle eastern Sultan.

Nomadic tribes and city states merge into eachother, they are not separate. Nomads fought over the settled peoples along the rivers and once they had conquored them they taxed them, protected them, married with them, traded with them and assimilated with them and that probably happened over and over again in waves. The empires that arose where neither entirely nomadic or entirely agricultural, they drew on both societies and both societies existed within their borders (think Ottoman Empire). Nomads tend to do the same thing everywhere, there is no point in conquoring an agricultural population and just kill everyone to make room for cattle. Nomadic Berbers conquored Ghana, the Nomadic Fulani conquored the Hausa states, the nomadic Kanembu created a huge empire centred around lake Chad etc. etc. and there is no reason to not assume that Mali, Ghana etc. had not also once been created in he same way by the same processes.

The Arabs were not nomads. The Bedouins were pastoralists but that's not the same thing: They didn't move huge distances, only seasonally, and every year it would be between the same two places.

Thats still nomadism, nomadism is simply "not sedentary", pastoral is to have a mainly husbandry based economy. Mongols and Beduins both are pastoral nomads (as opposed to being hunter-gatherer nomads or pastoral farmers), the difference lies in that the Mongols move over greater distances than Beduins, not in what they do.

 

[Deaghaidh]

An interesting comparison could probably be drawn between Eurasias great steppe and North America's Great Plains. If Old World Steppe is anything like the American one, I expect a big reason is that the climate and soil are simply awful for agriculture for any society lacking steel tools and sophisticated irrigation and/or pumping equipment. Once you have those technologies it turns into highly productive land, but the barriers to establishing a farming culture without them are massive. Pre-horse, the population in the great plains was almost entirely in the river valleys, where the soil was better wattered and easier to break up. Horses changed the game by making it possible to follow the herds and survive by hunting full time, as opposed to only whenever the animals were within walking distance. By contrast, vast grasslands are by nature good areas for huge herds of grazing animals, so once you add the mobility of horses you have ideal territory for a nomadic hunter/herder culture.

 

[DarthJF]

Instead of "why didn't they start agriculture" we should ask "why would they". Agriculture is very hard and labour intensive, so when the Steppe people had the possibility to survive by herding, hunting and trade/pillage I don't really see any reason why they'd want to settle down and tie themselves to tending fields all day.

 

[Deaghaidh]

Instead of "why didn't they start agriculture" we should ask "why would they". Agriculture is very hard and labour intensive, so when the Steppe people had the possibility to survive by herding, hunting and trade/pillage I don't really see any reason why they'd want to settle down and tie themselves to tending fields all day.

Life as a nomadic herdsman is no picnic either. The real upside for agriculture early on was the ability to store up surpluses for lean times, something that's much harder for a nomadic society.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

Life as a nomadic herdsman is no picnic either. The real upside for agriculture early on was the ability to store up surpluses for lean times, something that's much harder for a nomadic society.

Not completely true. The surplus a nomadic herder "stores" is actually the herd, so that animals can be slaughtered. The not storing surplus part applies to nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Why didn't they take up agriculture? An interesting question, one of the reasons might be that indeed early agriculturists seemed to have had a harder life and lower calory intake than hunter gatherers in neighbouring areas.
And then, why did some people take up agriculture? There's a funny theory that one of the reasons of growing cereals was actually to produce a raw material for alcohol production, strictly for ceremonial purposes of course :blush:

 

[gagenater]

Life as a nomadic herdsman is no picnic either. The real upside for agriculture early on was the ability to store up surpluses for lean times, something that's much harder for a nomadic society.

As noted by Kerry - animals are another source of stored food. what's more they are self portable, and have a higher energy density than any agricultural product. In fact for most agricultural societies up to and including the present day, when times get bad the majority of the animals/stock are slaughtered before the grain stocks are eaten. You need a significant amount of grain saved up from the previous year to replant - in many primitive agricultural societies something between 10 and 15% of the grain from the last harvest needs to be saved. Livestock on the other hand self reproduce, and if times are bad (say due to lack of rain or flooding) many of them won't live long anyway due to starvation - better that people eat them, and save the seeds that can be planted when times are better. A pastoral society during good times will let their herds and flocks build up close to the maximum carrying capacity of the land and eat young animals (calves and lambs) to keep their numbers down. Then when times get bad, they reverse and eat only older and male animals to preserve the maximum amount of breeding stock. that way when times get hard they can eat a lot of their stock, and not suffer in the long run, as the # of babies produced the next year isn't significantly impacted.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

As noted by Kerry - animals are another source of stored food. what's more they are self portable, and have a higher energy density than any agricultural product. In fact for most agricultural societies up to and including the present day, when times get bad the majority of the animals/stock are slaughtered before the grain stocks are eaten. You need a significant amount of grain saved up from the previous year to replant - in many primitive agricultural societies something between 10 and 15% of the grain from the last harvest needs to be saved. Livestock on the other hand self reproduce, and if times are bad (say due to lack of rain or flooding) many of them won't live long anyway due to starvation - better that people eat them, and save the seeds that can be planted when times are better. A pastoral society during good times will let their herds and flocks build up close to the maximum carrying capacity of the land and eat young animals (calves and lambs) to keep their numbers down. Then when times get bad, they reverse and eat only older and male animals to preserve the maximum amount of breeding stock. that way when times get hard they can eat a lot of their stock, and not suffer in the long run, as the # of babies produced the next year isn't significantly impacted.

Overall very good post!
But let's not get carried away, the energy density (as in kJ/kg) of meat is hardly as high as in cereals, or even most pulses.

What might be higher is the return of investment in terms of energy for herding systems in comparison to plant growing.

 

[gagenater]

Overall very good post!
But let's not get carried away, the energy density (as in kJ/kg) of meat is hardly as high as in cereals, or even most pulses.

What might be higher is the return of investment in terms of energy for herding systems in comparison to plant growing.

I looked it up and you are right depending on fat contact of the meat. - I always thought calories/unit weight of meat was higher than for grains. The other points still hold true though.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

I looked it up and you are right depending on fat contact of the meat. - I always thought calories/unit weight of meat was higher than for grains. The other points still hold true though.

Oh, absolutely, I'm just nitpicking because I see this misconception about meat, fat and energy content quite a bit. I happen to work in food related research, and the lack of knowledge even from people who should know better (namely medical doctors) is disturbing.

Anyway, the ultimate food for storage is cereal grains and pulses, which were in fact the primary combination of crops of the Fertile Crescent as well as of Mezo- and Southamerican agricultural systems.
I'm a bit lost on the development of herding, anybody any interesting literature?

 

[Arilou]

There i also the point that herding requires quite a bit more space than agriculture.

 

[Fishman786]

Agriculture: You have to do backbreaking work in a miserable muddy field all day, and then give your hard-earned produce to some kind of tax-collector or store-keeper.

Nomadic herding: You get to ride around on horses, lasso cattle, shoot arrows and occasionally raid and pillage stuff, and you don't have to take any orders from anyone.

Which of those sounds like the better deal?

 

[Boblof]

Agriculture: You have to do backbreaking work in a miserable muddy field all day, and then give your hard-earned produce to some kind of tax-collector or store-keeper.

Nomadic herding: You get to ride around on horses, lasso cattle, shoot arrows and occasionally raid and pillage stuff, and you don't have to take any orders from anyone.

A little correction on Nomadic hearding: You take order from your chieftain, or in his stead by some headman appointed by him, if you are a man you will have to partake in alot of small scale battles with neighbouring nomads, fending off cattle raids or partaking in cattle raids. If you are a man you are most likely to die in battle defending some horses or cows, another common cause of death is falling off your horse (which you will often ride while you sleep).

 

[gagenater]

A little correction on Nomadic hearding: You take order from your chieftain, or in his stead by some headman appointed by him, if you are a man you will have to partake in alot of small scale battles with neighbouring nomads, fending off cattle raids or partaking in cattle raids. If you are a man you are most likely to die in battle defending some horses or cows, another common cause of death is falling off your horse (which you will often ride while you sleep).

Aside from the death on horseback, all these social problems attend to early farming societies too - just replace the word nomad with farmer. If you want, you can replace death by falling off your horse with 'death from some weird disease you got from your livestock' for the early farmers.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

It seems Shepherding is the best of both worlds.

 

[Comrade Chaos]

It seems Shepherding is the best of both worlds.

Just ask God!

 

[Boblof]

Aside from the death on horseback, all these social problems attend to early farming societies too - just replace the word nomad with farmer. If you want, you can replace death by falling off your horse with 'death from some weird disease you got from your livestock' for the early farmers.

Well kinda, I would argue that warfare related death among men was probably a couple of times more common among nomads than among agriculturalists and I would be suprised if disease you got from livestock was noticeably less prevalent in pastoralists than among agriculturalists. But mostly my post was just a reaction to the rather romantic view of nomadic life that was produced in the post I answered to. Nomadic life was no picnic either (all premodern societies were subject to the same malthusian pressures) and there is no such thing as a non heirachical society.