Examples of Nomads and Sedentaries

Examples / by admin / June 05, 2022

The nomads they are those peoples that do not settle in the same place but lead a life in constant movement according to the needs that arise. The sedentary, on the contrary, are the peoples who settle in a defined and stable space, and plan their way of life based on the characteristics of that place.

The transit of humanity from nomadism to a sedentary lifestyle represents one of the great milestones in the history of our species, and it is a topic that numerous anthropological studies deal with, since it marked our way of existence forever.

It is estimated that this change in our way of life occurred in the Mesolithic period, around 10,000 BC. C., when the first human settlements appeared in the Middle East region. From then on, great changes took place in the world, such as the appearance of the first cities and the daily use of farming, which in turn allowed the diversification of work and the appearance of private property.

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nomads	sedentary
They do not settle in the same place, they lead a life in continuous movement.	They have a defined and established home, in which they settle for most of their existence.
They inhabit tents and huts that can be quickly dismantled.	They build their home with a strong and durable structure, with the intention of inhabiting it throughout their lives.
They are usually organized in tribes or communes, generally with simple and patriarchal hierarchies.	There is a State, whose organization and hierarchy exceeds the mere family hierarchy through institutions.
They have low job differentiation.	They have a high differentiation of work.
They are usually unrelated to writing and do not accumulate assets.	Writing and currency are central elements that allow the accumulation of knowledge and wealth.
They are dedicated to hunting, fishing, gathering, grazing and trading.	They are engaged in agriculture, construction, commerce and industry.
Their model of life is low-polluting and with little impact on nature.	Their model of life involves environmental damage: pollution, depletion of resources, displacement of ecosystems.
For example: the Chichimeca people, the Sarakatsani people, the Yanomami people.	For example: any current western society.

See also: acculturation

What about the nomadic peoples?

Nomadic peoples are those who do not have a specific home, that is, they do not settle in the same place, but lead a life in continuous movement. They spend time in one region, exhaust the available resources, and then move on to another.

The word “nomad” comes from the Greek nomad, translatable as "that lets the herds graze", but taken in turn from the North African people of the numids, an ancient Berber kingdom now extinct. Originally, all of humanity led a nomadic existence, grouped into small tribes or larger hordes, oblivious to the idea of staying in one place for life. Today, however, the vast majority of human beings are sedentary, except for a few nomadic peoples or semi-nomadic (moving within a more or less defined territory) who still cling to their model of life traditional.

Characteristics of nomadic peoples

Nomadic peoples are characterized by the following:

They do not have a fixed and determined home, but rather move continuously throughout the territory. Therefore, they do not build cities or buildings, but instead inhabit simpler structures that can be quickly and easily assembled and disassembled, such as tents and huts.
His model of life consists of displacing the population towards the resources, that is, they must move once the nearby resources are consumed. They usually engage in hunting, fishing, gathering, grazing and trading.
They have a low level of productive development, they diversify the work among their members very little and they transmit knowledge from parents to children.
They are usually organized in small to medium-sized tribes or communes, generally with simple and patriarchal hierarchies, and with a strong oral tradition.
They are usually unliterate, which has made it very difficult to study the nomadic cultures of old. Nor do they accumulate goods, since they carry with them everything that can be easily moved.
Their model of life is low-polluting and with little impact on nature.

Examples of nomadic peoples

Some of the nomadic peoples that survive today are:

The Tuareg people, made up of native Berbers from the African Sahara.
The Wayúu people, in western Venezuela and eastern Colombia.
The Chichimeca people, made up of natives of the north and low-west of Mexico.
The Bedouin people, made up of native Arabs from many countries of the Middle East.
The gypsy or gypsy people, in various countries of Europe.
The Eskimo or Inuit people in Greenland.
The Sarakatsani people, in Greece and the Balkans of Eastern Europe.
The Yörük people, in Turkey and the southeastern Balkan region and Anatolia.
The Mbuti people, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Pehuenche people, in the Andean mountain range of Chile.
The Yanomami people, in the Amazon region of Venezuela and Brazil.

What are sedentary peoples?

Sedentary peoples are those that have a well-defined and established home, in which they settle for most of their existence. Unlike nomadic peoples, sedentary people rarely change their place of settlement, and if they do, they simply choose another to settle down again. Sedentarism is, therefore, the opposite of nomadism.

The vast majority of humanity has led a sedentary existence for thousands of years, and that is what has allowed to build the current world, with cities in which knowledge and resources are accumulated and transform. Human culture is, both in the West and in the East, in Africa and Oceania, a majority culture and predominantly sedentary, since this model of life is the only one that allows accumulation and diversification from work.

Characteristics of sedentary peoples

Sedentary peoples are characterized by the following:

They settle in a certain place and build their home there, rarely changing it for another or leaving it permanently. In that place they settle and cohabit, as we do today in our cities.
Their way of life consists of transferring resources from their place of origin to the settlement, where they are concentrated and can be transformed or distributed. Its main economic activities have to do with agriculture, construction, commerce and industry.
In these societies there is a State, whose organization and hierarchy exceeds the mere family hierarchy through institutions. These allow the formal emergence of established religions, economic models, exchange networks and armies with which to conquer other peoples and found powerful empires.
They have a high differentiation of work. Writing and currency are central elements in sedentary culture, which allow the accumulation of knowledge and wealth. Sedentary life tends to concentration, that is, to the unification and standardization of culture.
Their societies encompass large numbers of people and have high levels of social and cultural organization, as well as different models of governance and resource management.
Its development model consists of the transformation of nature and, therefore, causes environmental damage: pollution, depletion of resources, displacement of ecosystems.

Examples of sedentary towns

Actually, any nation in the world that has a capital city is a viable example of a town. sedentary, as currently nomadic peoples represent a very low percentage of the total population human.

The young Latin American republics, the old European nations, the agricultural countries of Southeast Asia or even the former British colonies in Africa and Oceania are examples of sedentary people today.

References:

"Nomad" in Wikipedia.
"Sedentarism (anthropology)"in Wikipedia.
"The first sedentary" in the National University of San Marcos (Peru).
"Nomads of the world" in National Geographic.

Follow with:

Social change
Difference between tongue and idiom
Migrant, emigrant or immigrant

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