Edited by William R. Leonard Department of Anthropology Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA Michael H. Crawford Department of Anthropology University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA Cambridge University Press 2002 FROM THE BACK COVER Animal-herding (pastoralism) is a subsistence strategy that is practiced by populations of low-producing ecosystems worldwide. Increasingly, it is vanishing due to land pressure and ecological degradation, particularly in the developing world. While previous books have examined the social, cultural and economic dimensions of the pastoral way of life, until now there has been no systematic examination of the biology and health of pastoral groups. Human Biology of Pastoral Populations fills this gap by drawing together our current knowledge of the biology, population structure and ecology of herding populations. It investigates how pastoral populations adapt to limited and variable food availability, the implications of the herding way of life for reproductive patterns, population structure and genetic diversity and the impacts of ongoing social and ecological changes on the health and well-being of these populations. This volume will be of broad interest to scholars in anthropology, human biology, genetics and demography. William R. Leonard is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, Illinois. He is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on aspects of physiology, nutrition and health. He has extensive fieldwork experience in Siberia and Latin America examining how human populations adapt to extreme environments. Michael H. Crawford is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas. His research focuses on anthropological genetics, particularly in populations of the Americas. He has also written The Origins of Native Americans (1998; ISBNs 0521 592801 & 0521 004101), and edited Different Seasons: Biological Aging in Mennonites of Midwestern United States (2000). CONTENTS List of contributors ix 1. The biological diversity of herding populations: an introduction 1 Michael H. Crawford and William R. Leonard 2. Genetic structure of pastoral populations of Siberia: the Evenki of central Siberia and the Kizhi of Gorno Altai 10 Michael H. Crawford, Joseph McComb, Moses S. Schanfield, and R. John Mitchell 3. Genetic structure of the Basque herders of northern Spain 50 Rosario Calderon 4 History, demography, marital patterns and immigration rate in the South Sinai Bedouins: their effect on the coefficient of inbreeding (F) 64 E. Kobyliansky and I. Hershkovitz 5. Uncertain disaster: environmental instability, colonial policy, and the resilience of East African pastoral systems 99 Sandra Gray, Paul Leslie, and Helen Alinga Akol 6. Changing pattern of Tibetan nomadic pastoralism 131 Melvyn C. Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall 7. Human biology, health and ecology of nomadic Turkana pastoralists 151 Michael A. Little 8. Economic stratification and health among the Herero of Botswana 183 Renee L. Pennington 9. Ecology, health and lifestyle change among the Evenki herders of Siberia 206 William R. Leonard, Victoria A. Galloway, Evgueni Ivakine, Ludmilla Osipova and Marina Kazakovtseva 10. Disease patterns in Sami and Finnish populations: an update 236 Simo nayha, Pauli Luoma, Saara Lehtinen Terho lehtimaki, Mary Jane Mosher, and Juhani Leppaluoto 11. Yomut family organization and demography 251 William Irons 12. Pastoralism and the evolution of lactase persistence 280 Clark Holden and Ruth Mace Index 308 EXERPT FORM CHAPTER ONE This volume evolved from a 1997 symposium held at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Meetings in Seattle, Washington. This symposium drew together the leading scholars of nomadic pastoralists from anthropology, demography, genetics and medicine. They focused upon the ecology and population biology of contemporary herding groups from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. While previous publications have summarized sociocultural variation in pastoralist groups (see Barfield, 1993), no previous volume has attempted to merge the ecological, demographic, health, and biological facets of the herding existence. Nomadic pastoralists are of great fascination to the more sedentary westerners, who tend to romanticize the nomads for their free spirit, apparently unencumbered by geographical and political boundaries. Nomads are envied for their perceived freedom, being able to break camp and move on to the next pasture. Bruce Chatwin (a writer and adventurer) in an essay entitled "It's a Nomad Nomad World" (Chatwin, 1996) extended this romantic fascination to hypothesize that humans are naturally migratory and that sedentism is the cause of many of the ills of contemporary society. In this introduction, we begin by addressing several key questions about pastoralists: What is nomadic pastoralism, and why does it exist? Why are nomads constantly on the move? What common features do the nomadic societies share? We will then provide an overview of the chapters in this volume, highlighting several central themes addressed throughout the volume. WHERE TO ORDER Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street New York, NY 10011-4211, USA Phone: 1-800-872-7423 Fax: 914-937-4712 Web site: http://www.cambridge.org Price: $80.00(Hardbound) ISBN: 0-521-78016-0
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