Before humans were able to communicate with people easily around the globe, culture and technology were some of the rarest and most important commodities to humankind. This was especially true during the Neolithic Revolution. Despite all the benefits urban living provided, it still resulted in a major detriment to people: it greatly reduced the number of nomads in the world. Exchanging new ideas and cultures would have died out had it not been for pastoralists, who filled this vital role by acting as conduits for unique technology and cultural practices. They accomplished this by moving from place to place, encountering societies, observing their characteristics, and sharing such characteristics with other societies. Unlike their sedentary
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Without these exchanges, the world would have essentially been an isolated place. Given that there were few societies in those times, they were often scattered across unfathomably large distances. Town and city residents would never have made these enormous treks, because there was no reason to. In other words, since urban centers had everything people needed near them, people did not leave them. Pastoralists, in contrast, were not so lucky. They relied on animals to live, so when the animals did not eat, they did not eat. Seeing that their animals would ravage the land of grass, they had to move them to more luscious areas quite often. Occasionally in this process, pastoralists would encounter new societies and take part in the aforementioned counsels. Pastoralists were, in effect, the bonds that held the world together. They ensured that societies kept exchanging new technologies and ideas – even if just indirectly – to the benefit of all humankind. They are what allowed the Shang Dynasty to have Babylon’s map, the Sumerians to have Egypt’s paper, or the Ancient Greeks to have the Zhou Dynasty’s iron weapons. Societies were still “trading” new thoughts and inventions with each other, like in the past; they just happened to be using a secondary source – a conduit – to connect each
Without these exchanges, the world would have essentially been an isolated place. Given that there were few societies in those times, they were often scattered across unfathomably large distances. Town and city residents would never have made these enormous treks, because there was no reason to. In other words, since urban centers had everything people needed near them, people did not leave them. Pastoralists, in contrast, were not so lucky. They relied on animals to live, so when the animals did not eat, they did not eat. Seeing that their animals would ravage the land of grass, they had to move them to more luscious areas quite often. Occasionally in this process, pastoralists would encounter new societies and take part in the aforementioned counsels. Pastoralists were, in effect, the bonds that held the world together. They ensured that societies kept exchanging new technologies and ideas – even if just indirectly – to the benefit of all humankind. They are what allowed the Shang Dynasty to have Babylon’s map, the Sumerians to have Egypt’s paper, or the Ancient Greeks to have the Zhou Dynasty’s iron weapons. Societies were still “trading” new thoughts and inventions with each other, like in the past; they just happened to be using a secondary source – a conduit – to connect each