A pastoralist manifesto: breaking stereotypes and re-conceptualizing pastoralism in the Near Eastern Neolithic

Ever since early forms of pastoralist activity emerged some ten thousand years ago during the Neolithic, pastoralism has played a critical role in shaping the economic, social and political context of the Near East in rural and urban settings alike. However, despite increasing evidence detailing the significant impact pastoralists had on the structure of later proto-urban and urban societies, the significance of nascent pastoralist activities for Neolithic households and communities has so far been largely dismissed. This paper suggests some of the underlying reasons for the disciplinary myopia regarding the contribution of pastoralist activity to broader shifts in Neolithic social and economic organization in the southern Levantine Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (Late PPNB), a period during which dramatic changes in settlement patterns and social organization coincided with the emergence of intensive domestic livestock herding and animal production. In particular, I suggest that the persistent and pernicious stereotype of pastoralism as an unchanging socio-economic mode perched on the edge of subsistence and society has coloured interpretations of pastoralism in the PPNB, in spite of the centrality of pastoral production in these societies. Informed by historical travelogues, archaeological research focused on agricultural production and animal domestication and the dominance of pastoral ecological models that minimize pastoral productive potential, wealth accumulation and social currencies, these stereotypes are uniformly projected onto various pastoralist groups in the region, regardless of their place in time or local cultural context.