Nomads on the Steppe

[gagenater]

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.

Warfare related deaths are going to be similar for both societies at least based on past records. Agricultural societies definately have more issues with diseases simply because the population densities tend to be higher, and people live close together more often. Agricultural societies have much higher birth rates which allow them to replace their losses more easily though. Good for the society, but not so good for the individual.

Fishman786's original quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

Is the way that nomadic pastoralists view the world. It's a well known fact that this was their world view, and in fact still is. The addition of:

Originally Posted by Boblof
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).

is also true, but for young men of military age this is mostly another set of advantages for being a nomadic pastoralist - not a group of downsides. Somebody is going to give orders no matter what, fighting and stealing is fun, and most young men imagine that dying in battle is an honorable and glorious way to go. You can see this dynamic still playing out in the Sahel as a part of the battles between Sudan and South Sudan, in Libya, and in Mali.

 

[Boblof]

Warfare related deaths are going to be similar for both societies at least based on past records. Agricultural societies definately have more issues with diseases simply because the population densities tend to be higher, and people live close together more often. Agricultural societies have much higher birth rates which allow them to replace their losses more easily though. Good for the society, but not so good for the individual.

Agricultural societies do not have as high share of warfare related deaths (some might, but not on average), warfare was normally an area of life where a very specific part of the population was involved, usually just the warrior elite and a portion of unlanded farmers sons. While losses in war was ofc very high as a share of the population in classical agricultural societies compared to modern conflicts such as the world wars it was still much smaller than for hunter gatherers or pastoral nomads for whom war was more of an every-mans game and constant low intensity warfare made sure to pick off a large portion of the men of any particular generation.

Fishman786's original quote: [...]

Is the way that nomadic pastoralists view the world. It's a well known fact that this was their world view, and in fact still is.

So? Agriculturalists usually fancied themselves as the best and manliest guys around wherever and the guys with the greatest empires or the most awsome temples or followers of the best God etc. and considered pastoral nomads to be a bunch of smelly barbaric subhumans. Every society always views itself as the best there is but that's neither here nor there.

The addition of: [...]
is also true, but for young men of military age this is mostly another set of advantages for being a nomadic pastoralist - not a group of downsides. Somebody is going to give orders no matter what, fighting and stealing is fun, and most young men imagine that dying in battle is an honorable and glorious way to go. You can see this dynamic still playing out in the Sahel as a part of the battles between Sudan and South Sudan, in Libya, and in Mali.

War is ultimately a way of getting stuff when you don't have enough, not a way to amuse yourself (otherwise I hear that Russian Roulette is quite tiltilating). The main difference between nomadic pastoralists and agriculturalists here is that agricultural societies tend to engage in more formalized warfare. Agricultural societies tend to have periods of peace that then deteriorate into short explosive periods of open warfare where the bulk of losses are on the loosing side, pastoralists on the other hand tend to have no periods of even relative peace at all, just constant more or less intensive warfare where both sides are likely to accrue high losses over time.

As a warrior in an agricultural society you tend to spend the majority of your time at home relatively secure, you only partake in warfare in short explosive bursts when you instead fight alot and if you are on the wining side loot relativey large populations with impunity, dragging home slaves to do your work for and hopefully adding enemy land to your own. As a pastoralist low intensity warfare is everyday business, someone always keep a lookout for cattle rustlers and enemy riders that can come at you without any sort of warning, for them war is keeping others away from the cows and if things go well take cows and perhaps even some women away from the enemy. Nomads invading agricultural societies is still very infrequent and should not be seen as the normal state of affairs. The average horse nomad would not pillage China and carry off with the emperors concubines, he would just try to win the everyday battle to add more cattle than he looses and most probably he would eventually be killed.

What I'm trying to say is that both modes of subsistence pretty much sucks once you start to reach carrying capacity. It is a hard, brutal and often short life, agriculture being a bit more to the "hard" end of the spectrum and pastoralism being a bit more to the "brutal" side of the spectrum perhaps. The main point speaking in favour of agriculture however is that there are significant gains to be made when you first adopt it, for when a group of people start growing stuff they can avoid hitting carrying capacity for a while and perhaps then gain the upper hand over neighbours by virtue of being more numerous. Thats why people have adopted agriculture several times independently of eachother and that is why it then spread.

 

[gagenater]

You pretty much summed it up Boblof. and I agree with you. I was trying to answer the question 'why didn't agriculturalists replace pastoral nomadism faster/more often still. The reasons I was citing are some of them. The advantages of agriculture for a society in general are not as large as they might seem to be today compared to the times and places when agriculture was just getting started up.

The model for agricultural/state warfare where elite groups and 'extra' boys were primarily involved in the war developed a bit after (albiet soon after) agriculture itself. The known records of early rome and other agricultural societies argue for a warfare model that was much more like the nomadic one - at least at first there just weren't enough people around for the later elite/extra people are soldiers model to be the primary/sole mode of warfare organization.

I was not trying to imply that societies go to war for 'fun' but individual soldiers often in the past and present have volunteered for military service based on the idea that it will be exciting, adventurous, a chance to get loot, a chance to see the world, etc.

 

[HuzzButt]

THe nomadic turkic tribes werent so much ideologically disposed to their culture, the phenomena Sinofication occured in pretty much all the cases where nomadic tribes had long contact with China or any other stationary empire for that matter.
As for riches, the amount of silk they recieved by extorting china could have made them happy men, but then Züd comes along and kills the cattle.
Until whatever tribe one is talking about ousted the previous ruler of a non nomadic empire they were all paupers, living a summer at a time and fearing that the hay wouldn't last until the next, So they took up arms and sacked chinese border towns, pretty safe thing to do, the chinese cavalry relied on horses from the nomadic tribes.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

It is a hard, brutal and often short life, agriculture being a bit more to the "hard" end of the spectrum and pastoralism being a bit more to the "brutal" side of the spectrum perhaps. The main point speaking in favour of agriculture however is that there are significant gains to be made when you first adopt it, for when a group of people start growing stuff they can avoid hitting carrying capacity for a while and perhaps then gain the upper hand over neighbours by virtue of being more numerous. Thats why people have adopted agriculture several times independently of eachother and that is why it then spread.

Agriculture is hard? Compared to anything vaguely nomadic, it is dead easy. You work frantically in very intermittent periods, but the rest of the time you just sit around and watch the grass grow. Literally.

Agriculturalists have waaay too much spare time on their hands. That idleness is what let them go around building big stone things and going on war campaigns for flimsy reasons.

So? Agriculturalists usually fancied themselves as the best and manliest guys around wherever and the guys with the greatest empires or the most awsome temples or followers of the best God etc. and considered pastoral nomads to be a bunch of smelly barbaric subhumans. Every society always views itself as the best there is but that's neither here nor there.

Manliest? Agriculture is traditionally women's work - and was perceived as such. It still is. Where you got mixed farming/herding communities, you'll find the men herding and the women farming.

Agriculturalists perceived nomads as very frightening tough barbarians, while nomads regarded agriculturalists as effeminate weaklings.

Peek only into Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah for all the old prejudices about Nomads vs. Sedentary folks. Nomads are good and virtuous, courageous, reliable, trustworthy, self-reliant, entrepreneurial, noble, superior, etc., Sedentary folks are bad and corrupt, luxurious, untrustworthy, intemperate, cowardly, lack fortitude, dependent, meek, servile, submissive, inferior, etc.

 

[Deaghaidh]

Agriculture is hard? Compared to anything vaguely nomadic, it is dead easy. You work frantically in very intermittent periods, but the rest of the time you just sit around and watch the grass grow. Literally.

Agriculturalists have waaay too much spare time on their hands. That idleness is what let them go around building big stone things and going on war campaigns for flimsy reasons.

Yes and no, both lifestyles are/were highly seasonal, with periods of back breaking, unrelenting physical labor and periods of relative ease. Agriculturists probably had more down time in total, but evidence is they paid for it by being less well nourished, and of course those "side projects" tended to consume their potential leisure time anyways.

You might say the big advantage of the nomad over the sedentary is that it is much harder for a leader to force the nomad to use their down time in ways that he wants, as the nomad can pick up and leave the clan/tribe, whereas the farmer has to stay with his land and store of crops.

Manliest? Agriculture is traditionally women's work - and was perceived as such. It still is. Where you got mixed farming/herding communities, you'll find the men herding and the women farming.

Agriculturalists perceived nomads as very frightening tough barbarians, while nomads regarded agriculturalists as effeminate weaklings.

Peek only into Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah for all the old prejudices about Nomads vs. Sedentary folks. Nomads are good and virtuous, courageous, reliable, trustworthy, self-reliant, entrepreneurial, noble, superior, etc., Sedentary folks are bad and corrupt, luxurious, untrustworthy, intemperate, cowardly, lack fortitude, dependent, meek, servile, submissive, inferior, etc.

I'd tend to agree, but it's not universal of course, many agricultural tasks tended to be considered "women's work" as opposed to hunting, herding and fighting. Sometimes this acquired a theological justification (woman is fertile, and should therefore plant), sometimes simply practical (herders and hunters being more likely to encounter predators/enemies, children being able to assist in agriculture more easily). Nomads tended to consider themselves tougher and "manlier" than settled people, who in turn often viewed nomads as uncivilized at best. Which side was more moral depended largely on who you asked.

 

[Boblof]

You pretty much summed it up Boblof. and I agree with you. I was trying to answer the question 'why didn't agriculturalists replace pastoral nomadism faster/more often still. The reasons I was citing are some of them. The advantages of agriculture for a society in general are not as large as they might seem to be today compared to the times and places when agriculture was just getting started up.

The model for agricultural/state warfare where elite groups and 'extra' boys were primarily involved in the war developed a bit after (albiet soon after) agriculture itself. The known records of early rome and other agricultural societies argue for a warfare model that was much more like the nomadic one - at least at first there just weren't enough people around for the later elite/extra people are soldiers model to be the primary/sole mode of warfare organization.

I was not trying to imply that societies go to war for 'fun' but individual soldiers often in the past and present have volunteered for military service based on the idea that it will be exciting, adventurous, a chance to get loot, a chance to see the world, etc.

Ahh ok sorry, I'm a bit of a contrarian at times

Agriculture is hard? Compared to anything vaguely nomadic, it is dead easy. You work frantically in very intermittent periods, but the rest of the time you just sit around and watch the grass grow. Literally.

Agriculturalists have waaay too much spare time on their hands. That idleness is what let them go around building big stone things and going on war campaigns for flimsy reasons.

No... just No...

Manliest? Agriculture is traditionally women's work - and was perceived as such. It still is. Where you got mixed farming/herding communities, you'll find the men herding and the women farming.

Yes, most peoples considered themselves to be the best and manliest. And not all agricultural tasks are normally considered womans jobs, plowing was a mans job while milking was a womans job, cutting hay was a mans job while milling (in the abscensce of a mill) was considered a womans job etc. In Sweden herding cattle was normally considered a womans job (perhaps because Kulning just sounds better when a woman does it).

Agriculturalists perceived nomads as very frightening tough barbarians, while nomads regarded agriculturalists as effeminate weaklings.

Peek only into Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah for all the old prejudices about Nomads vs. Sedentary folks. Nomads are good and virtuous, courageous, reliable, trustworthy, self-reliant, entrepreneurial, noble, superior, etc., Sedentary folks are bad and corrupt, luxurious, untrustworthy, intemperate, cowardly, lack fortitude, dependent, meek, servile, submissive, inferior, etc.

You seem to have got it backwards, he had precious little good to say about nomads;

Arabs dominate only of the plains, because they are, by their savage nature, people of pillage and corruption. They pillage everything that they can take without fighting or taking risks, then flee to their refuge in the wilderness, and do not stand and do battle unless in self-defense. So when they encounter any difficulty or obstacle, they leave it alone and look for easier prey. And tribes well-fortified against them on the slopes of the hills escape their corruption and destruction, because they prefer not to climb hills, nor expend effort, nor take risks. Whereas plains, when they can reach them due to lack of protection and weakness of the state, are spoils for them and morsels for them to eat, which they will keep despoiling and raiding and conquering with ease until their people are defeated, then imitate them with mutual conflict and political decline, until their civilization is destroyed. And Allah is capable of their creation, and He is the One, the Victorious, and there is no other lord than Him.

Edit: note that Ibn Khaldun when he talks about Arabs means only people of Arabic ancestry (essentially Beduins), not Arabized poples in the Middle East and North Africa.

 

[unmerged(59881)]

Can someone actually give me a source saying that herders are typically healthier and better nourished than agriculturists? I have some sources saying that was the case of early agriculturists vs hunter-gatherers, but they certainly don't cover herders.

Also, comparing pure plantgrowers with pure herders is a bit tricky. Typically, an early agriculturist's diet would be suplementent by varying amounts of wild plantfoods as well as small amounts of meat/fish, be it hunted, gathered or from domestic animals. Equally, nomadic herders would use all possible food sources, wild animals for meat to preserve the precious herds, gathered plants as much as available, and traded domestic plants, wherever possible.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

No... just No...

Yes, just yes.

There's a reason civilization emerged within minutes of agriculture being invented. All those idle labor hours....

You think nomadic peoples had enough leisure time to waste on building big useless stone crap like this?

Yes, most peoples considered themselves to be the best and manliest. And not all agricultural tasks are normally considered womans jobs, plowing was a mans job while milking was a womans job, cutting hay was a mans job while milling (in the abscensce of a mill) was considered a womans job etc. In Sweden herding cattle was normally considered a womans job (perhaps because Kulning just sounds better when a woman does it).

That's not a mixed society. That's a 100% agricultural society. Yes, men exist in such societies and are given tasks to do. It is not because women can't do it. It is because men have to be given something to do.

In mixed societies, women do the ploughing/hoeing, hay-cutting & milling. Agriculture is just an extension of foraging - what women do.

I know of no mixed culture - or heck hardly any culture - where male agriculturalists are regarded as "manly and hardy" - particularly if you got nomads nearby to compare them against. Ibn Khaldoun didn't invent the effeminate stereotype. The cowardly, submissive, "quivering peasant" is a common caricature of male farmers in most world literature. Nomads, by contrast, always get a manlier billing - savages perhaps, but brave, hardy savages.

It should hardly be surprising. Compared to agriculture, nomadic lifestyles are extremely harsh. With lush lowlands taken over by agriculturalists, nomads usually live in harder conditions, in harsher climates, deserts, rocky hills and mountains, frozen tundra, etc. Their living conditions are bare subsistence, with hardly (if any) luxuries or crafts. Hard, pitiless environments make for hard, pitiless people. They may be considered savages by the agriculturalists, but no one doubts their toughness. From the Scottish Highlander to the Arab Bedouin, the Mongol tribesmen to the Afghani mujahadeen, they have always enjoyed a pretty good press as manly and tough, natural warriors, something that has always seemed to elude sedentary lowland peasants. A peasant who takes up a weapon is almost a laughing stock. A herdsman is never seen without his claymore.

There's nothing in the nomadic lifestyle that can be characterized as "effeminate". The lifestyle is simply not suitable for women. It's not only the constant dangers of beasts and fighting. There's no downtime, you have to be always on top of the herds and always on the move. Pregnant women can't move easily - nomadic women endure horrific rates of miscarriage and childbirth death. It is not built for cozy family life - children can't keep up with adults. Nomads will not have more children than they can carry in movement or in flight - at most two for an adult. Excess children, the elderly and the injured are often abandoned or put to death. The farmer's homestead is not so limited - he can have as big a family as his land can feed, which usually means a big brood, with additional dependents and hangers-on thrown in. Nomadism is not compatible with tranquility or domesticity, it is not a lifestyle built for women.

So women farm, men herd. Such is the traditional division of labor from Neolithic days. And the old stereotypes come with it. Peasants are effeminate, submissive, cowardly, nomadic herdsmen are manly, defiant, courageous, etc. I have never seen the stereotypes reversed.

tl, dr: For all the mawkish Super Bowl commercials, farming is the easy life. The male farmer was the world's first metrosexual.

You seem to have got it backwards, he had precious little good to say about nomads;

Edit: note that Ibn Khaldun when he talks about Arabs means only people of Arabic ancestry (essentially Beduins), not Arabized poples in the Middle East and North Africa.

I have the Muqaddimah right in front of me. I was quoting the superlatives directly from the text.

Ibn Khaldun didn't have much good to say about Nomad civilization. Civilization is a sedentary thing. Nomads have no civilization. And when they come across it, they usually destroy it. You can call that "bad". But like a good social scientist, Ibn Khaldun makes no judgment call there. He is just describing what happens historically.

But when it comes to describing individual character of Agriculturalists vs. Nomads, Ibn Khaldun finds a lot of adjectives. Peasants have typical "female" qualities - fearful, submissive, devious, attached to luxuries and comforts, like women, reliant on the "Master of the House" to protect them. Nomadic herdsmen have "male" qualities - brave, independent-minded, straightforward in his dealings, simple, puritanical, self-reliant. Peasants can only put up a fight when organized, armed and led by superiors. A nomad has no superior, his clan leader can only ask, not order, him to do something, etc.

Ibn Khaldun uses the term "Bedouin" as shorthand for nomadic peoples. He is describing a lifestyle, not an ethnicity - he makes that patently clear. In the prelude, to avoid confusion, he notes the equivalence of the Arab Bedouins to nomadic Berbers, Kurds, Turkomans and Turks (Ch.2.ii). But the bulk of Berbers of North Africa were sedentary agriculturalists. He notes the existence of an intermediate transhumance "sheepmen" stage, but the purest nomad is the desert-dweller, the Bedouin, and he takes that as the archetype nomad for his general theory of human civilization.

 

[Arilou]

There's a reason civilization emerged within minutes of agriculture being invented. All those idle labor hours....

It's not so much that agriculture gives you more time as it distributes time very unevenly.

In Sweden herding cattle was normally considered a womans job (perhaps because Kulning just sounds better when a woman does it).

This has to do with the kind of pastoralism practiced though, and seems to have been a relatively recent (IE: Within historical record) development.

I know of no mixed culture - or heck hardly any culture - where male agriculturalists are regarded as "manly and hardy" - particularly if you got nomads nearby to compare them against. Ibn Khaldoun didn't invent the effeminate stereotype.

There was certainly a stereotype that the sami reindeer herders were lazy as opposed to the tough-scraping farmers. (probably helps that agriculture around the polar circle kind of sucks )

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

There was certainly a stereotype that the sami reindeer herders were lazy as opposed to the tough-scraping farmers. (probably helps that agriculture around the polar circle kind of sucks )

Well, the Sami were Neolithic hunter-gatherers until very late. IIRC, they only got into reindeer-herding in the 16th-17th C. - and even so, only a small fraction, the mountain folk. Coastal Sami went into semi-sedentary fishing.

Sami didn't have the time to saddle their reindeer, perfect their weapons and rain terror down on the Swedish peasantry.

If they had, Santa Claus's yearly "visits" on his reindeer would be of a whole other quality.

 

[Hibernian]

Well, the Sami were Neolithic hunter-gatherers until very late. IIRC, they only got into reindeer-herding in the 16th-17th C. - and even so, only a small fraction, the mountain folk. Coastal Sami went into semi-sedentary fishing.

My Historical Atlas book says they adopted reindeer herding around 1000 AD, but I don't know how correct it is (they were certainly the last Uralic group to do so).

Sami didn't have the time to saddle their reindeer, perfect their weapons and rain terror down on the Swedish peasantry.

If they had, Santa Claus's yearly "visits" on his reindeer would be of a whole other quality.

Haha, now that's a funny image. Just thinking about it, if there were a counterpart to the States considered aggressive? thread, called "States considered Pacifist" or something, the Sami would probably win that. They never seem to have do anything to anyone.

 

[Arilou]

They never seem to have do anything to anyone.

IIRC there are some finnish legends that proclaim them to be sinister, and they are of course associated with Dark Magic (TM) but that's pretty much it. They're not even known for drunken knife-fights or anything.

 

[DarthJF]

IIRC there are some finnish legends that proclaim them to be sinister, and they are of course associated with Dark Magic (TM) but that's pretty much it. They're not even known for drunken knife-fights or anything.

Well, by one interpretation they are the bad guys in our national epoch that we went to war with. Also, bad marriage material.