Ethnoarchaeology of Pastoral Transhumance in Kashmir Himalayas

Abstract

Despite immense ethnographic and archaeological potential, nomadic pastoralism finds not much attention from an ethnoarchaeological perspective in India. The ethnoarchaeological survey was thus undertaken among the contemporary pastoralist tribe of Bakarwal in the Kashmir Himalayan region to aid in the development of a diachronic model for seasonal transhumance. From this study, it is suggested that pastoralist communities in the northwest Himalayas retained flexible ethnic identities, dynamic settlement and subsistence patterns, and maintained trade and exchange relationships with adjacent groups over the historical period. The ethnoarchaeological analysis of Bakarwal sites in the Kashmir Himalayas has demonstrated that these sites’ structure, geographical positioning and functionality provide critical information concerning the exploitation of the landscape by the pastoral groups.