Local landscape organization of mobile pastoralists in southeastern Turkey

• Examines archaeological features, resources around pastoral campsites in Turkey.
• Archaeological survey, NDVI, and cost distance show local landscape organization.
• Mobile pastoralists invested in infrastructure that improved water and pasture.
• Infrastructure encouraged seasonal re-inhabitation, structured daily movement.
• Methods applied elsewhere can show historical variation in pastoral use of marginal land.

Survey archaeology can contribute a unique perspective to the history of mobile pastoralism by investigating local pastoral landscapes—the organization of resources and features immediately surrounding a campsite. This paper examines empirical evidence for mobile pastoralists’ modes of inhabiting and transforming local landscape over the last 600–700 years on the edges of the Upper Tigris River Valley, southeastern Turkey. Multispectral satellite imagery analysis is employed to spatially relate vegetation patterns and archaeological features connected with herding. Statistical analysis of cost distance rasters enables quantitative spatial analysis of feature distribution in the landscape. Three main conclusions about pre-modern mobile pastoralists are drawn: (1) Mobile pastoralists altered their local landscapes in order to shelter humans and animals, collect water, and improve fragmented pastures of variable quality. (2) Pasture and water features were fixed, re-usable investments that encouraged seasonal re-inhabitation. Over time, these features became landscape anchors—geographic foci that structured the spatial organization of local landscapes. (3) The topographical position of domestic and herding features would have resulted in vertical daily movement patterns for humans and animals. The study represents a first step in reconstructing mobile pastoralists’ dwelling spaces and pre-modern land-use strategies on the fringes of Mesopotamia.