Some have maintained that nomadic people leave little residue for archaeologists to find and, relative to settled villagers, this is true. However, there are remains if one knows what to look for and where to find sites. Both Tom Levy and Steve Rosen (this volume) have shown that it is possible to find sites of nomads, especially in the very arid parts of the southern Levant, and sites have also been found in Jordan (Betts and Russell 2000), and Iran (Abdi 2002; Hole 1974; Mashkour 2002; Mashkour and Abdi 2002; Mortensen and Mortensen 1989). The mobility of pastoral people requires them to occupy many sites during the seasonal round, and it remains for archaeologists with an understanding of terrain and herd behavior to piece together a convincing annual cycle of sites for any particular group.
Any campsite is only one stopping point on a migration, whether it be long or short. Even though the Baharvand Lurs could reach their destination in a few days of walking, they stop along the way for longer or shorter times, depending on the weather, the proximity of other camps, and condition of the pastures. At each stop they configure the camp differently. When they are hunkered down for the winter, their tents are enclosed by stone walls and are sited for protection from the wind (fig. 14.3). As the weather eases, they may move a short distance to a clean spot, away from the build-up of dung and fleas. During migration, they may simply set up screens around each family’s site and build a small fireplace (fig. 14.4). When they reach their destination, there are many opportunities for the composition of the camp to change, as families from many small camps have the opportunity to intermingle. Depending on the season, tents may be oriented differently — protection from wind, or to take warmth or shade from the sun. In all cases, however, tent sites are within easy vocal communication.
Camps also vary with the seasonal needs of the livestock (Digard 1975; Hole 2004). For protection, the tents may surround an open corral (fig. 14.5), and in the spring, when there are lambs and kids, each tent may have an annex to shelter them. In Luristan the floor is covered with branches and there are small canals to allow for the drainage of liquid waste (fig. 14.6). Saidel (this volume) shows campsites with small corrals that look very much like what one sees in the Zagros during springtime and it will be interesting to discover whether his sites are specific to the season. In addition to tent sites, nomads may also leave other traces, such as feed troughs (fig. 14.7), grain storage bins (fig. 14.8), bird traps (fig. 14.9), and corrals
FRANK HOLE
(Fujii 2007). During migration, some of the tribe placed a stone on piles when they crossed particularly difficult summits (fig. 14.10).
My personal experience is primarily in the zagros, but I have also observed and obtained some ethnographic information from former nomads on the north syrian steppe. This did not entail vertical transhumance; rather it was a movement from riverine sites to the steppe during the wetter seasons. While I found a number of modern camps during my surveys, I found few convincing ones from prehistory. There are a couple of factors that may be pertinent. First, stone is not commonly found over most of the steppe, so that the evidence of campsites may be restricted to fireplaces, ovens, and perhaps ditches. A more serious factor is that the land surface has changed markedly over the millennia and has likely either buried or eroded traces of sites. alizadeh and colleagues (alizadeh et al. 2004) have shown this to be true in susiana. Modern land use also contributes to geomorphic changes and has caused irreparable damage to archaeological traces (Kouchoukos 1998; Kouchoukos and Wilkinson 2007).
Tents and shelters
The two prevailing types of nomad dwelling are the black tent (fig. 14.11) and the yurt (Cribb 1991a-b). In the Near East the black tent is near universal while the yurt is confined to Turkic-speaking peoples of Anatolia and Central Asia. Whenever people were mobile they had to have some kind of shelter. From Paleolithic times onward in regions where plant material was available it was probably used; in some cases animal skins might have sufficed. What is different and significant about woven tents is that they can be moved from place to place. However, some have maintained that the black tent could not have been used before the use of pack animals. There is no question that a black tent, woven of goat hair, is heavy and cannot be carried easily by humans (fig. 14.12). However, it is composed of long strips of cloth, each of which can be handled separately and reassembled with pins, still heavy, but manageable. I maintain that the tent could be of any age — certainly weaving was known and sophisticated long before the Neolithic (Soffer, Adovasio, and Hyland 2000). I have also maintained that the tents need not be moved, at least in the zagros, where ethnographic nomads constructed shelters of reeds or of oak branches for summer use, leaving their tents cached in their winter pastures or in nearby settlements. Black tents are good for shade but they get very hot in summer. The kula, or bowers as early travelers described them, are tent-size shelters used in the summer, composed only of a roof of branches (fig. 14.13). As I have observed, the floor plans of these are identical to tent sites.
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