Animal Domestication and Pastoralism: Socio-Environmental Contexts

Introduction

The domestication of herding animals and the development of pastoralist societies have played a key role in human economic, ecological, and social history (Dyson-Hudson and Dyson-Hudson 1980). Pastoralism supports substantial human populations in Eurasia, Africa, and South America, and both pastoralists and other farmers still rely predominantly on the few animal species that were domesticated in the early to mid-Holocene. Understanding changing human-animal relations with domestication and the development of pastoralism provides insights into the biodiversity of the animals on which contemporary pastoralists rely, the history of milk-drinking, and the coevolution of humans and domestic animals. Archaeology provides broad perspectives on pastoral societies as complex and flexible social constructs, as forms of risk management, and as resilient systems evolved over millennia to help people to cope with aridity, climatic changes, and environmental extremes.

Definition

Concept...