According to the Oxford English Dictionary, pastoralism can be defined as ‘the practice of keeping sheep, cattle, or other grazing animals' and ‘the nomadic, non-industrial society that this implies'.

¹ The first part of this definition is very broad and would include a vast range of mixed farming practices as well as those based principally upon livestock. The second part of the OED definition raises some significant questions that will be revis­ited later in this chapter.

To what extent are pastoralists bound to be nomadic? How can we investigate questions of mobility through archae­ological research, and are highly mobile societies less visible in the archae­ological record? What should we call animal herders in industrial societies, and how do they differ? This chapter, however, focuses on cultures that rely on the herding of animals for the majority of their subsistence, though some discussion of mixed farming regimes is important in setting the scene, in order to identify the origins of some herding practices and to help make comparisons with purely pastoralist economies. The chapter will first deal with key issues affecting the origins of pastoral societies, such as the circumstances of animal domestication, the supply of fodder, and the origins of dairying and wool exploitation. It will then deal with the issue of mobility and how to identify it. These sections will draw attention to the variety of methods that can be used to investigate the nature of pastoral economies and societies. While reference will be made, as appro­priate, to pastoralist cultures worldwide, the chapter will focus primarily on Eurasia. The prehistoric sequence in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, will serve as a case study for the archaeological analysis of the development of pastoral societies, and will also highlight how much research there still is to do. ^[265]

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