Nomadic lifestyles dependent on herd animals developed independently on the grasslands of Eurasia and North America about 5,000 years ago. The landscapes that these peoples occupied were generally similar, but the basis of their nomadism was quite different. Eurasian steppe nomads relied on domestic sheep, goats, cattle and horses for their subsistence and on horses, cattle and, to a limited extent, camels for their travel; North American prairie nomads relied on wild bison for subsistence and on themselves and dogs for travel. In comparing the two lifestyles, this study shows that certain features, such as the use of circular portable dwellings, seasonal rhythms of movement, and minimalist material cultures, were quite similar; but other features, such as the use of metals, access to urban civilizations, the nature and scale of warfare, and overall population sizes, were very different. Yet, both kinds of nomadism dominated their respective landscapes until being supplanted by European or EuroAmerican expansionism between about 300 to 150 years ago.

This book presents the first comprehensive overview of the Black Sea region in the prehistoric period.

This volume is unique in bringing together these wide-ranging issues of knowledge mobilization in education. The volume editors critically analyse these complex issues and also describe various efforts of knowledge mobilization and their effects. While the contributors themselves speak from diverse material, occupational and theoretical locations.

The Native American on a horse is an archetypal Hollywood image, but though such equestrian-focused societies were a relatively short-lived consequence of European expansion overseas, they were not restricted to North America's Plains. Horse Nations provides the first wide-ranging and up-to-date synthesis of the impact of the horse on the Indigenous societies of North and South America, southern Africa, and Australasia following its introduction as a result of European contact post-1492. Drawing on sources in a variety of languages and on the evidence of archaeology, anthropology, and history, the volume outlines the transformations that the acquisition of the horse wrought on a diverse range of groups within these four continents. It explores key topics such as changes in subsistence, technology, and belief systems, the horse's role in facilitating the emergence of more hierarchical social formations, and the interplay between ecology, climate, and human action in adopting the horse, as well as considering how far equestrian lifestyles were ultimately unsustainable.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the pre-modern economic history of Central Asia and the Silk Road, covering several millennia. By analyzing an abundance of sources and materials, it illustrates the repeated economic heydays of the Silk Road, during which it linked the Orient and Occident for many centuries. Nomadic steppe empires frequently dominated Central Asia, molded its economy and influenced trade along the Silk Road. The book assesses the causes and effects of the wide-ranging overland trade booms, while also discussing various internal and external factors that led to the gradual economic decline of Central Asia and eventual demise of the Silk Road. Lastly, it explains how the economic decline gave rise to Chinese and Russian colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Detailed information, e.g. on the Silk Road’s trajectories in various epochs, is offered in the form of numerous newly drafted maps.

The Destruction of the Bison, first published in 2000, explains the decline of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than a thousand a century later. In this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, Andrew C. Isenberg argues that the cultural and ecological encounter between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains was the central cause of the near-extinction of the bison. Cultural and ecological interactions created new types of bison hunters on both sides of the encounter: mounted Indian nomads and Euroamerican industrial hidemen. Together with environmental pressures these hunters nearly extinguished the bison. In the early twentieth century, nostalgia about the very cultural strife which first threatened the bison became, ironically, an important impetus to its preservation.

A narrative history of how Attila, Genghis Khan and the so-called barbarians of the steppes shaped world civilization. The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples—the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths—all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world. In this new, comprehensive history, Professor Kenneth W. Harl vividly re-creates the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age. Their brutal struggle to survive on the steppes bred a resilient, pragmatic people ever ready to learn from their more advanced neighbors. In warfare, they dominated the battlefield for over fifteen hundred years. Under charismatic rulers, they could topple empires and win their own.

Two major dividing lines have formed the megastructure of Eurasia, determining the historical epochs of the continent's peoples. The first, vertical (longitudinal) line has separated East and West since the Paleolithic Age. The East was dominated by Mongol peoples speaking Sino -Tibetan, Manchu-Tungus, and Altaic languages. The Caucasoid peoples of the West spoke mostly Indo-European, Semite, and Finno-Ugric languages. The second line divided the continent horizontally (by latitude) into North and South. This division was closely connected with the Eurasian Steppe Belt. To the north of it lay the world of hunter-gatherers and fishermen. To the south, settled agriculture was dominant. The Steppe Belt itself was the domain of pastoralists, the nomadic and semi-nomadic herders. These lines converged at the entrance to the Great Silk Road. With the swift development of horse domestication and horseback riding, the nomads moved--from the Early Metal Age (500-400 BCE) to Genghis Khan's and the Genghisid's Great Empire (1200-1400 CE)--to the forefront of Eurasian history as their world became increasingly involved in dramatic and sometimes tragic relationships with their southern neighbors. This book focuses on the tangle of problems in these nomadic peoples' history.