Crisis Pigeon Group

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June 11, 2023

Download Hunters Transition Outline Early Sami History Pdf _VERIFIED_

Of course, the book has some shortcomings. Probably, the most important is its insufficient contextualization in reindeer pastoralism studies. The book is well-grounded in Saami studies, no doubt. But reindeer pastoralism is not limited to Saami, and some aspects of the analysis by the authors would certainly have benefitted greatly from comparison to more eastern reindeer pastoralist systems and their history. Previously such comparisons were hindered by the linguistic barrier: Saami studies existed mainly in Nordic languages, while studies of eastern European and Siberian reindeer pastoralists were predominantly in Russian. Nowadays, however, a lot of publications in English are available in both traditions, and their separations have ceased to make much sense. Thus, the full significance of the book, which I tried to outline at the beginning of my review, becomes obvious if the processes analysed in it are put into context of similar processes in other reindeer pastoralist systems. This brings us to the second point of criticism, which is rather more abstract and, probably, should be better presented as a wish for the future. As I already said at the beginning of my review, the studies of pastoralist transition in the Arctic tend to be regionally and locally focused and, therefore, preoccupied by the local factors and variables. Thus, the authors of the reviewed book state as a matter of fact that the pastoralist transition was caused in their case by the change in taxation and trade. Similarly, the transition among Chukchee (which occurred at the same time as that among the Saami) is usually explained by the rise of warfare caused by the export of firearms and military support by Russians. The pastoralist transition among Nenets is explained by their attempts to avoid Russian control and taxation. I do not wish to criticize any of these explanations, but I cannot fail to notice that the pastoralist transition occurred in a relatively short time (200 years) over a huge territory. Does this fact not point to some common ultimate causes active across this territory, something enabling the proximate causes, such as the taxation system or the warfare inspired by colonizers, to produce the effects they did? If so, should not we try to look beyond the concrete cases to find these factors?