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Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads.[1][2] In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased, reaching an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world as of 1995[update].[3]
Nomadic hunting and gathering—following seasonally available wild plants and game—is by far the oldest human subsistence method.[4] Pastoralists raise herds of domesticated livestock, driving or accompanying them in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.[5] Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups living in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are various itinerant populations who move among densely populated areas to offer specialized services (crafts or trades) to their residents—external consultants, for example. These groups are known as "peripatetic nomads".[6][7]
- ^ "NOMAD". Archived from the original on 2022-12-10. Retrieved 2022-12-10 – via The Free Dictionary.
- ^ "nomadism | society | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Archived from the original on 2021-05-05. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ "Nomads: At the Crossroads – The Facts". New Internationalist (266). April 5, 1995. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved January 10, 2013.
- ^ "Subsistence". explorable.com. Archived from the original on 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2019-02-24.
- ^ Homewood, Katherine; Rodgers, W.A. (1988), "Pastoralism, conservation and the overgrazing controversy", Conservation in Africa, Cambridge University Press, pp. 111–128, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511565335.009, ISBN 978-0521341998
- ^ Teichmann, Michael. "ROMBASE: Didactically edited information on Roma" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-21. Retrieved 2014-04-20.
- ^ Rao, Aparna (1987). The concept of peripatetics: An introduction. Cologne: Bohlau Verlag. pp. 1–32. Archived from the original on 2016-06-29. Retrieved 2017-09-10.
[...] peripatetics, [...] endogamous nomads who are largely non-primary producers or extractors, and whose principal resources are constituted by other human populations [...].