Monday, November 14, 2011

Chapter 12: Pastoral Peoples

"Revolution of domestication"

  • Began around 11500 years ago
  • It involved animals and plants
  • People who practiced this type of economy learned to use (milk, blood, wool, hides and their own animals meat)
  • Some of the animals started a new way of transportation
  • Pastoral societies were less productive
  • They also had smaller populations unlike an agricultural society
  • They did not live in villages, towns or cities
  • Characterized for their mobility
People who constantly move around are called nomads because of the shifting of herds in regular patters. Building large states among nomadic people was a difficult task to do because they did not have the wealth to buy professional armies and bureaucracies. Pastoral nomads had a relationship with their agricultural neighbors not only economically, militarily but culturally as well. At one point and time Judaism, Buddhism, different forms of Christianity, and Islam found a home somewhere around nomadic people in inner Eurasia. Xiongnu lived in Mongolian north of China. During this early nomadic empire there was a huge military confederacy that spread from Manchuria deep into Central Asia.The Xiongnu empire began a revolution in nomadic life. Early fragmented/egalitarian societies were transformed into more centralized and hierarchical political system.   

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