Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity in the Lower Omo Valley

Abstract

.... a frontier region where society was fluid, highly adaptable, and capable of absorbing outsiders easily. Labour, rather than land, was the scarce resource. This placed a high premium on the ability of pioneering groups of individuals to contract and manipulate effectively a wide range of kinship and other ties in order to mobilise the social and political resources necessary for colonization .... as a result of the need for mobility, there were few barriers to the flow of population from one small-scale unit to another and the definitions of identity tended to be inclusive rather than exclusive (19&5:348-49).