Low-tech Nomadic Pastoralists

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Nobody in a pastoralist society has 5,000 cattle. Nobody has 2,000 cattle, and if they do, they're a legend on the earth. After a certain point, even in places where cattle are the unit of account, actual wealth is in the form of worked goods or, as you note, bonded labour. Usually pastoralists have a limited reliance on the latter for practical reasons, though. Large-scale slavery requires a lot of devoted infrastructure.

My assumption was that the majority of the herds/flocks would be sheep and goats. 40-50 to the "Average" head of a house hold seemed about right.

Edit
1000 sheep (possibly total numbers, possibly just breeding numbers) is listed as the number of stock per bronze age Kazakh "Tent", but I'm unsure what the exact scale of a "tent" is but it seems to be 1-2 families.*

These numbers are based on pastural analysis, so assuming standard consumption 10 sheep = about 2 cattle or 1 horse.

Now assuming 2 families per 1000 sheep (equivalent to 200 cattle) thats 500 sheep per family. Adding a second assumption that the numbers represent total stock not just breeding stock and this number might be halved again. So 250 sheep equivalents per familiy, (however large the family is) represents a possible upper limit on flock size assuming you just count breeding stock. This is based on the area grazed by each "Family", if for example the "family" has 10 horses this leaves grazing for 150 sheep.

*Source:
Pastoralist Landscapes and Social Interaction in Bronze Age Eurasia
By Michael David Frachetti

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by (E)

My assumption was that the majority of the herds/flocks would be sheep and goats.

Even so, 5000 is a ludicrously high number

40-50 to the "Average" head of a house hold seemed about right.

That's not an unreasonable number at all, although the head of a large polygynous household might easily have twice that, and a really rich person might even have 1000 or 1100, but after that increasing wealth pretty much stops being in the form of more livestock because herds bigger than that have to be split up over multiple pastures in widely separated locations, which pastoral societies aren't really set up for. A feudal lord might have 5 estates, each with a herd of 350 cattle on it, and own 1750 cattle, but he would never have an actual, single herd that size.

[(E)]

I think we may defining herd differently, I was working off the total number of breeding animals "owned" by an individual of a particular status. Unless I am mistaken I think you are referring to the total number of animals in a single group.

Either way I added an edit to my previous post that to be honest doesn't clarify things much but might add a different perspective.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by (E)

I think we may defining herd differently, I was working off the total number of breeding animals "owned" by an individual of a particular status. Unless I am mistaken I think you are referring to the total number of animals in a single group.

Either way I added an edit to my previous post that to be honest doesn't clarify things much but might add a different perspective.

Perspective has nothing to do with it. Individuals in pastoralist societies don't own 5000 head of livestock. It's not a thing that happens.

[Ficholas]

Oh, wow. I only got one email notification for this thread so I thought I only got one more. I would've replied on my phone if I had known. I think for my purposes it would be useful to revisit the numbers (E) gave for an Iranian nomad, since it's changed to 250 per family. I don't think that original x100 number would would work since it would give a status 4 person 25,000 sheep or equivalent. What number or scale would work better? What would an example herd for different statuses look like?

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Perspective has nothing to do with it. Individuals in pastoralist societies don't own 5000 head of livestock. It's not a thing that happens.

Individuals in pastoralist societies don't "own" a lot of anything. Most of these societies are tribal, and the majority of the animals are going to be collectively owned, though the leader of the tribe may very well claim ownership of all the animals of the tribe. It's gonna vary depending on the particular tribe and individual.

I certainly wouldn't be surprised of a Khagan claiming thousands of sheep as his property.

[Ficholas]

So, it seems that the conclusion is that the average herd would be somewhere between 50-250, maybe lower, for a status 0 family, which would mean a herd worth $21000 at least for most families. Assuming the 1000 sheep equivalent number given by Dalillama is for Status 4, that means the absolute wealthiest people in a tribe or possibly entire confederation would have about $420000 in just their herds. This means that the wealthiest only have a 20 times larger herd than the average family. I would assume a status -1 family would half the herd of a status 0 family, meaning they have 10500 in animals. I can't really figure out where status 1, 2, and 3 would fit between these, so if anyone has their own guesses I'd appreciate it. I'm not really married to these numbers, but they're just a estimation and my attempt to compile what people have been saying into one post. Feel free to correct or create your own numbers if you disagree with mine.