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World History 1

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The adoption of guns by societies in Europe, Asia, and Africa was the beginning of the end for some <OpenstaxTerm>nomad</OpenstaxTerm>ic cultures. For centuries before this, nomadic societies had often played an important role in world history and were often important agents in bringing about historical change. For instance, life on the Indian subcontinent was transformed by the arrival of mounted Indo-Europeans around 1500 BCE. The sacred texts of the Indo-Europeans, the <OpenstaxTerm>Vedas</OpenstaxTerm>, were the basis on which the religion of Hinduism was built, and their social organization formed the basis for the Hindu caste system. Their language, Sanskrit, became the sacred tongue of both Hinduism and Buddhism.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The nomadic tribes of central Asia set in motion changes that contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire. In the fourth and fifth centuries CE, the <OpenstaxTerm>Huns</OpenstaxTerm>, who occupied central Asia, the Caucasus, and eastern Europe, began to sweep westward, attacking and conquering Germanic tribes that lived on the borders of the Roman Empire. These tribes, the <OpenstaxTerm>Goths</OpenstaxTerm>, the <OpenstaxTerm>Visigoths</OpenstaxTerm>, and others, fled before their onslaught into Roman territory, destabilizing the empire. In East Asia, mounted nomads had a similar effect on Chinese society. Over the centuries, a variety of tribes—the <OpenstaxTerm>Xiongnu</OpenstaxTerm>, the <OpenstaxTerm>Jurchen</OpenstaxTerm>, and others—alternately traded with and attacked Han Chinese settlements. During the <OpenstaxTerm>Qin dynasty</OpenstaxTerm> (c. 221 BCE), construction of a wall began to protect the more settled areas of China from the roaming riders. When this failed, because the wall was built along only portions of the border between the lands settled by the Chinese and those occupied by nomadic tribes, Chinese emperors gave tribute in the form of gifts and Chinese princesses to mollify more aggressive tribes, which also demonstrated that the status of women was seen as being completely secondary to the agency and needs of men, even those from high social standing.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Beginning in the early modern era, nomadic societies increasingly began to settle down. The adoption of firearms by settled societies undoubtedly jeopardized the continued existence of nomadic societies. When firearms technology was perfected, meaning guns and artillery became more accurate and could fire farther and faster, mounted archers could not compete. This does not completely explain the disappearance of the nomadic way of life, however. Although early firearms were unwieldy and could not easily be fired from horseback, once they became more lightweight, they could have been adopted by nomads, and some nomadic societies, such as the <OpenstaxTerm>Plains Indians</OpenstaxTerm> of North America, did adopt them.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Not all nomads were mounted warriors. <OpenstaxTerm>Mongols</OpenstaxTerm> and <OpenstaxTerm>Arab Bedouins</OpenstaxTerm> were both, as were the <OpenstaxTerm>Huns</OpenstaxTerm> and the <OpenstaxTerm>Xiongnu</OpenstaxTerm> who plagued the Han dynasty. However, many nomadic groups neither rode horses nor formed armies. The <OpenstaxTerm>Sami</OpenstaxTerm> reindeer herders of Scandinavia and Russia and the <OpenstaxTerm>Gaddi</OpenstaxTerm> shepherds of the Himalaya were not traditionally warriors. Furthermore, settled societies, like those of Europe, also fielded mounted warriors. The European knights of the Middle Ages disappeared as a result of the widespread adoption of gunpowder and firearms. It also took several centuries after the development of firearms before mounted warriors no longer formed part of the world’s armies. European and U.S. combatants in World War I made use of cavalry. It is thus perhaps more correct to say that gunpowder made cavalry (other than modern “cavalry” in the form of tanks) obsolete, than to say that gunpowder made nomads disappear. Finally, while mounted warriors are today a thing of the past, nomadic societies still exist across geographic boundaries around the world, although their numbers are much smaller. Many modern Mongols and Arab Bedouin, for example, still lead a nomadic lifestyle.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> The Past Meets the Present </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Nomadic Lifestyles in the Twenty-First Century </OpenstaxH3>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		In the twenty-first century, many people still lead nomadic lifestyles. Roughly one-quarter of Africa’s population consists of nomadic pastoralists who graze herds of cattle and goats. In China, millions of Mongolians also live as herders on the Asian steppes, though the group has been gradually relocating to cities. Climate change, political conflicts, and economic factors are forcing nomadic groups to adopt new practices and are threatening their way of life. Desertification is expanding the size of Africa’s Sahel desert region, making it more difficult for pastoralists in West Africa to find grazing lands for their flocks. As they search out grasslands, they have found themselves competing with both small farmers and commercialized agricultural enterprises for access to land and water. This has at times led to violence, just as clashes between nomadic herders and settled farmers did in past centuries. In Cote d’Ivoire in March 2016, such violence resulted in twenty-seven deaths. In the first eight months of 2018, conflicts between farmers and pastoralists cost more than 1,300 Nigerians their lives. Hundreds of thousands more have been displaced by such conflicts.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Just as gunpowder and firearms adversely affected some nomadic groups in the early modern era, so too did the development of land mines affect the <OpenstaxTerm>Kuchi</OpenstaxTerm> of Afghanistan and change their way of life. Their herds were destroyed, and armed conflict often made traveling dangerous. For the Kuchi, who are Sunni Muslims, being allied with the <OpenstaxTerm>Taliban</OpenstaxTerm> has worsened their situation. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion in 2001, the Kuchi were given rights to graze their animals on land claimed by the Shi’a Hazara ethnic group. When the Taliban were routed from power, the Hazara sought revenge by expelling the Kuchi from the pastureland they had been using. Now it is unclear what will happen to the Kuchi.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxUl>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			In what ways are the problems that nomadic pastoralists face today similar to those of the past? In what ways are they different?
		</OpenstaxLi>
		<OpenstaxLi>
			What are possible solutions to some of the difficulties nomadic people encounter in the twenty-first century?
		</OpenstaxLi>
	</OpenstaxUl>
</OpenstaxNote>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The rise of firearms played a role in forcing many nomads to adapt to changing military, political, and social realities, which in turn would lead many to move toward sedentarization. However, they were only the <OpenstaxEm>means</OpenstaxEm> by which some modern states enforced their will on nomads; guns were not the <OpenstaxEm>reason</OpenstaxEm> nomadic groups declined. The reasons modern states made war on nomads were various. Often, settled people feared nomads, especially those who waged war on them or who competed with settled people for natural resources. In the case of the North American <OpenstaxTerm>Plains Indians</OpenstaxTerm>, for example, settled people not only feared the mounted warriors, but they also coveted the lands they occupied. So long as the Plains tribes claimed extensive hunting grounds, the colonizing farmers, ranchers, and miners could not utilize the natural resources of the American West as they wished.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Modern nation-states with permanent borders also objected to nomads crossing at will from one nation into another. They regarded nomads as a threat to national security and sovereignty and forced them to settle. Modern nation-states also found it easier to tax people who were not always on the move. As nations industrialized, nomads’ access to the grasslands and water sources that their herds needed was jeopardized. Private lands were fenced. Water sources were polluted. Grasslands were grazed by animals owned by commercialized livestock interests that produced meat to feed city dwellers. As <OpenstaxTerm>industrialization</OpenstaxTerm> made settled life more comfortable, many nomads willingly abandoned their traditional way of life.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Increasingly, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, <OpenstaxTerm>climate change</OpenstaxTerm> has also made nomadic life more difficult. Droughts and more severe weather are jeopardizing grasslands and water sources for animals. Lack of grass is disastrous for nomadic pastoralists. The soldiers of the Mamluk Sultanate made use of early cannons at the <OpenstaxTerm>Battle of Ain Jalut</OpenstaxTerm>. That was not what made them victorious, however. The Mongol force they faced was much smaller than such armies usually were. The arid climate of the Levant could not supply enough grass for the thousands of horses (five or six per person) that Mongol warriors traveled with, which forced the Mongols to field a smaller army. Now, more nomad homelands are experiencing <OpenstaxTerm>desertification</OpenstaxTerm> and harsh winter temperatures, and this may be the final blow for the world’s few remaining nomadic societies.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Read about the experiences of <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77MongoliaNom">nomads in Mongolia</a> who are making the decision to settle in cities.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>

17.3.2 The Age of the Nomad

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome