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The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia Nov 7, 2020 19:51:13 GMT

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Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2020 19:51:13 GMT

Seasonal movements of Bronze Age transhumant pastoralists in western Xinjiang
Peter Jia,Gino Caspari ,Alison Betts,Bahaa Mohamadi,Timo Balz,Dexin Cong,Hui Shen,Qi Meng

Published: November 4, 2020 doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240739

Abstract
The paper explores seasonal movements of Bronze Age mobile pastoralists in the western Tianshan mountainous region of Xinjiang, China. Fieldwork by a team from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) and the University of Sydney, Australia have identified cyclical land use practices associated with the Andronovo cultural complex. Their pattern of seasonal movements has been reconstructed through ethnographic studies and analysis of modern snow and grass cover. Using this detailed combination of data, the study defines requirements for seasonal pastures–winter, summer and spring/autumn–and shows a clear correlation between modern land use and seasonal patterns of movement in the Bronze Age.

1. Introduction
Western Xinjiang is a land of mountains where the narrow ridge of the Tianshan is split in two by the Yili River. The high steep-sided peaks are permanently glaciated, forming numerous rivers cutting deep valleys down to the desert below. The upper slopes below the snowline are forested, with open patches of grassland. With the exception of the Yili Valley, rainfall is low, and the land is not well suited to agriculture, although dry farming is possible in some particularly favourable places. Irrigation agriculture is practiced today at the foot of the mountains, exploiting permanently flowing rivers fed by snow and glacial meltwater. Historically, the main economic strategy has been transhumant pastoralism, taking advantage of the extreme ranges of altitude and the rich seasonal grassland pastures. This is still the case today where Kazakhs and Mongols, who have historically migrated into this region, herd sheep, goat, cattle and horses in a round of seasonal movement. Archaeologically, this lifestyle can be traced back in various forms to the Bronze Age when the first herders moved into the western Tianshan from the Eurasian steppe.

Transhumant pastoralism is characterized by regular movement of herders and their livestock between fixed points to exploit the seasonal availability of pastures [1]. In western Xinjiang, annual movement is vertical and typically fairly short range, generally from 20–200 km. Although the herds provide the main basis of the economy for most pastoralists in the region, almost all of them engage to a greater or lesser extent in limited agriculture, depending on the environment in which they operate. Contemporary pastoralists in the lush Yili Valley cultivate quite large numbers of fields, both for fodder and for cash or food crops, but in the more arid Bortala Valley, agriculture is relatively limited. Going back into prehistory, the Eurasian Bronze Age is widely characterised as being based on a pastoral economy, but little work has been carried out on the precise nature of that economy beyond identification of the animals and plants that supported it. In particular, few studies have been undertaken on the nature of seasonal movement in relation to economic management, a notable exception being the work of Frachetti [2] in the Semirech’ye region of eastern Kazakhstan. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct models of seasonal movement for Bronze Age pastoralists in western Xinjiang. The archaeological evidence, while extensive, is insufficient to determine the structure of seasonal movements with any degree of precision, nor is the reasoning behind choices for camp sites clearly identifiable. To model these for the archaeological record, this study uses data drawn from ethnographic studies and analysis of modern snow and grass cover. Fieldwork permission (No. 350) was issued by the Chinese State Bureau of Relics to D. Cong (3196027).

2. The Bronze Age in Xinjiang
The first Bronze Age peoples appeared in Xinjiang in the 3rd millennium BCE, mobile pastoralists superseding, and probably blending with, the last communities practicing age-old lifestyles of hunting, fishing and foraging who had dominated the wider region since the Palaeolithic. Bronze Age groups first appeared in the northern part of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor bordering western Xinjiang when the eastward spread of Yamnaya peoples from beyond the Ural Mountains created the rise of a local Early Bronze Age culture, the Afanasievo, in the Altai Mountains. Afanasievo people in the Altai-Sayan region are genetically indistinguishable from Yamnaya populations, confirming an eastward expansion across the steppe [3]. Afanasievo groups are also linked to the oldest known evidence for dairy consumption in the eastern Eurasian steppe, suggesting that human migration into the Altai was associated with the introduction of domestic livestock [4]. Although a few Afanasievo burials have recently been reported in western Xinjiang [5–7], the first strong evidence for Bronze Age groups there appears with the Qiemu’erqieke (Chemurchek, Khemtseg) population in the north of Xinjiang [8] and Xiaohe/Gumugou to the south [9]. The Qiemu’erqieke culture can be dated broadly from around the mid-3rd millennium BCE, with the tradition as a whole lasting probably up until c. 1700 BCE [10]. Xiaohe/Gumugou dates also from the mid-3rd millennium to the mid-2nd millennium BCE [9]. Qiemu’erqieke and Xiaohe/Gumugou emerged out of Altaic/Mongolian and east Eurasian populations [11–13], while a third early group, the Tianshanbeilu culture, appearing in the oasis of Hami at the eastern end of the Tianshan, had its ancestry to the east in early oasis farming populations in Gansu and the Hexi Corridor [10, 14]. By the early 2nd millennium BCE, new Eurasian agro-pastoralists moved in from the west, occupying some of the same lands as the southerly expansion of Qiemu’erqieke peoples. They spread into the western hills and mountains of Xinjiang, along the Tianshan towards the east, and south into the Pamirs, close to the western end of the Tibetan Plateau. This group shared broad affinity with the loosely defined Andronovo complex that appeared widely across Eurasia in the later Bronze Age [15–17], more specifically the eastern Federovo variant [18].

A long-term project to conduct a detailed study of Andronovo groups in Xinjiang is in progress under the leadership of a team from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) and the University of Sydney, Australia. The team has been working in Wenquan County, in the Bortala River area, in the far west of Xinjiang [18, 19], particularly at the occupation site and associated burial grounds of Adunqiaolu. The Upper Bortala River, also known as the Wenquan (Hot-Springs) River, originates between the Alatao and Biezhentao Mountains in the western Tianshan, flowing eastward through Wenquan (Hot Springs) County (Fig 1). It then joins the Daheyanzi River and runs out into Aibi (Ebinur) Lake. In the upper reaches of the Bortala River, the river bed lies close to the foothills of the Biezhentao Mountains on the south bank and on the north bank is separated from the Alatao Mountains by a wide band of gently sloping alluvial fans at an elevation of about 2000 m a.s.l. Behind the alluvial fans are low hills, backed in turn by the mountains. The alluvial fans form important areas of open pasture in the semi-arid steppe, drained by a dense network of seasonal streams. The east-west orientation of the valley provides the north bank with maximum exposure to seasonal sunlight. Altitude ranges from c. 1000 in the riverbed to c. 4000 m a.s.l. in the mountains.

Located far from any oceans, the region has a temperate, semi-arid, continental climate. The annual average temperature is around 3.6°C. Temperature extremes range from a maximum of 37.2°C to a minimum of -35.9°C [20]. Generally, the lowest temperature of the year occurs in January, with an average of -15°C, while in July the mean temperature is around 23°C [21]. Rainfall is low with an annual average precipitation rate of c. 200mm, mainly concentrated from May to July, when the region experiences about 60% of the annual total. The other months are much dryer, with monthly precipitation between November and March at usually less than 10mm. The vegetation types in Wenquan county are determined largely by the region’s distinct zones of elevation [22]. In the mountain foothills steppe vegetation is the most common, composed mainly of stipa grasses, including S. caucasica, S. grandis, S. orientalis and S. sareptana. Plants including sagebrush (Artemisia frigida), fetusca grasses (F. ovina, F. rupicola), and Seriphidium gracilescens are also commonly included in the steppe community. Areas adjacent to and above the steppes are covered with meadow vegetation, with the dominant plants represented by artemesia (Artemisia subulate), sedge (Carex stenocarpa) and annual meadowgrass (Poa annua). Alpine vegetation composed of cushion-like rock jasmine (Androsace) dominates on the higher slopes. Forests of Asian spruce (Picea schrenkiana) alternate with steppes and meadows, principally on the northern sides of the mountains. Around the Adunqiaolu site, stipa steppe is found widely and constitutes the main landscape. Spruce forest is rare, while in the river valley bottoms poplar (Populus) and willow (Salix) are common.

As is generally the case with prehistoric pastoralist populations, Bronze Age remains include many cemeteries, but in the Bortala Valley there is also clear evidence of settlement through the presence of stone house footings of distinctive plan. Bronze Age stone-based habitation sites might be far more widespread than previously assumed. This type of monument extends into northern Xinjiang [23, 24], Kazakhstan [25], the Russian Altai and Tuva Republic, although there is an ongoing debate whether smaller versions are connected to seasonal habitation [26] or should rather be interpreted within a ritualistic framework [27, 28]. Archaeologically, investment in construction of stone houses is often taken to indicate permanent settlement, but this is clearly not the case in the Bortala Valley. A body of evidence shows that the houses were used on a rotating seasonal basis; investment in the construction of permanent buildings was worthwhile because the houses were used regularly over many years. This can be proven in various ways, one of the most valuable of which is the recent ethnographic record. Despite the fact that the modern pastoral populations in the region have tents, they construct stone or timber houses which they occupy seasonally, making use of their tents only in the warmer months when they move more widely in search of good pasture. As is the case today, the Andronovo people appear to have constructed houses in differing locations according to the cycles of the seasonal round: for winter, for summer and for the various mid-seasons at either end of the year. Bronze Age houses have been found at high altitudes around 3000 m a.s.l. near the summer campsites of local herders in locations that would be uninhabitable in winter due to deep snow cover and sub-zero temperatures (2016 test pit excavation, unpublished database). Large residential structures have been identified on mountain slopes at the relatively high altitude of 2300 m a.s.l. next to the winter campsites of the modern herding community at Adunqiaolu [18, 29]. As part of the work of the CASS and University of Sydney team in the Bortala Valley, several field seasons have been devoted to study of recent camp sites and herding practices in order to gain a deeper understanding of Bronze Age land use patterns and economic decision making.

Last Edit: Nov 7, 2020 19:52:48 GMT by Admin

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The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia Nov 8, 2020 5:18:00 GMT

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Post by Admin on Nov 8, 2020 5:18:00 GMT

3. Seasonal movement of modern pastoralists
3.1. Seasonal movement
Traditional subsistence economies in the valley comprise seasonal transhumant pastoralism, combined with limited cultivation. The modern vertical transhumance pattern is driven by the seasonally oscillating availability of pastureland resources at different altitudes. Transhumance usually includes four major movements correlated with changes through the seasons. There is an annual migration between three seasonal campsites; the local term for the traditional pattern of animal management is “four seasons and three locations”. The herders move their animals following the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter, to provide animals with the best grazing. “Three locations” means that the herders use only three major campsites within three pasturelands over the four seasons, using the same campsite for both spring and autumn. Each campsite is constructed differently, according to the specific needs of the season or seasons in which it is used (Fig 2). The herders move to the spring camps in mid to late March to prepare for lambing. The spring and autumn camps are located in the same place, usually on an open flat low-lying area at around 900–1200 m a.s.l. In these milder seasons the location of adequate grazing takes priority over access to water which may be some distance away. In the low-lying areas the spring grass appears earlier than elsewhere and lasts longer into the autumn. The spring/autumn camp is also near arable land suitable for growing crops or hay, and most herders have a block of land which is used primarily for the cultivation of fodder crops to supplement winter grazing. In early May the move is made to the summer camp when high altitude pastures first start growing. Here the animals are kept until late September. The summer pastures generally lie around the tree line at 3200 m a.s.l. In late September the herds are brought down again to the lowlands to the autumn/spring camp. At this low-lying camp the grazing is available as late as possible into the cold season. In early December the last move of the year is made to the winter camp.

Fig 2. Differences in seasonal camps in the Wenquan area.

Variations on this type of seasonal pastoral transhumance can be found throughout the Eurasian steppe, in Central Asia, Iran and in the Near East [30–33]. The choice of location and number of seasonal camp sites may differ according to local climate and landscape. Cribb [33, 34] describes a similar pattern of three seasonal camps used over four seasons among western Iranian herders in Luristan. In highland Asia, herders on the Tibetan plateau and some pastoralists along the Himalayan rim may only have two seasonal campsites, for summer and winter respectively [34]. In the Altai Mountains, Kazakh herders may have more than three locations, depending on local conditions [35].

Over many generations of herding practice, local people in the Bortala Valley have developed a deep understanding of how best to use the landscape through the changing seasons (Figs 3–5). For the herders of Wenquan, the best winter pastures are in mid-altitude locations at Adunqiaolu and Kazan, while the summer pastures are located at high elevations in Husta, Harnur, Anji and around Sarimu Lake. Autumn/spring pastures are low-lying, near the river. The location of each seasonal camp is selected according to specific conditions.

Fig 3. Transhumant routes among the local herders in Wenquan.

Map created using ArcGIS Pro 2.5.0. Single use licence issued to Meng Qi by ESRI Australia Pty Ltd (Environmental Systems Research Institute). We acknowledge the use of Esri base maps as noted in the image.

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The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia Nov 8, 2020 19:32:33 GMT

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Post by Admin on Nov 8, 2020 19:32:33 GMT

Fig 4. Kazak herders in the Yili Valley migrating to their winter camp at Kazan in Wenquan in mid- November 2016 (P. Jia).

Fig 5. Transhumance from the summer pastures at Harnur to the autumn camp in the river valley in early September 2018 (D. Cong).

Given the extremely cold climate during the winter within high latitude regions such as the Tianshan, the most important issue for local herders is to find a good location to stay during the winter. Among pastoralist societies, winter is a particularly difficult period for both humans and animals, not only due to the cold climate but also because there is a higher risk of natural disasters. Two major winter threats (dzud) [36, 37] are exceptionally heavy snowfall called the “white disaster”, and drought caused by very little snowfall, called the “black disaster” by herders all over the Eurasian steppe [30–33]. Heavy snowfall can cause severe problems for herders since thick snow cover can prevent the animals from accessing natural grazing. If there is insufficient fodder in storage, the animals may die in large numbers. Heavy snowfall can also cut off all road connections, leaving the herders and animals in the winter pastures isolated from major population centres. If the animals become weak and sick the herders have no access to veterinary treatment and medications. By contrast, in the case of a “black disaster”, there may be insufficient snow to provide water for both humans and animals.

Over hundreds of years of experience, local herders have selected a range of different areas as optimal locations for winter pasturelands. Winter camps need to be placed in a south-facing spot sheltered by a small hill, or in a south-facing depression in a mountain valley. The shelter, and south-facing aspect exposed to maximum winter sunlight, limit the amount of snow lying on the pastureland. Sheep need less than 15 cm depth of snow accumulation to access grass under the snow. However, some snow is required so that it can be collected to provide a water supply for both humans and animals. These winter pasturelands could also be used to graze animals in other seasons as well, but this is not always the case. For instance, the grassland at Adunqiaolu about 2000 m a.s.l. is a favoured winter pastureland and although there is also good grass there in summer the local herding community conserves this by a ban on herding in this area except in winter. The Adunqiaolu pastureland is optimally suited for winter camps (Fig 6). The strong wind along the valley prevents the snow from drifting and it generally lies less than 15 cm deep, while the entire area faces south towards the sun. There are also small hills sporadically distributed across the slope, forming sheltered spots and depressions suitable for winter camps. The area has long been used in winter and today more than a hundred camps are located in this area, making it one of the best winter pasturelands in Wenquan County.

Fig 6. Modern winter camp at Adunqiaolu with little snow cover on the adjacent pasture.

The camp faces south towards the sun with a small hill behind (P. Jia).

For the summer camp there is a quite different set of criteria. The site must have an open flat area to build the camp and a sheep fold. It should be cool during summer, near a fresh water supply such as a spring, a stream or a river, and there needs to be a good supply of high-quality grazing. Glacial meltwater in summer contributes to increased water flow in the rivers and streams and to the appearance of numerous springs at higher elevations [25]. In the upper Bortala Valley, these conditions for summer pastureland are usually found up in the mountain areas, up to 2600–3000 m a.s.l. in places such as Harnur, Angji and the grassland surrounding Sarimu Lake (Fig 7).

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The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia Nov 9, 2020 1:16:38 GMT

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Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2020 1:16:38 GMT

Fig 7. Wenquan herder Bangba’s summer camp at Big Angji, a high-altitude summer pastureland (2700 m a.s.l.) (P. Jia).

For spring and autumn, the Bortala valley pastoralists generally select a single location for both camps (Figs 8 and 9). These campsites are usually down in the river valley at a lower altitude than the winter and summer camps so that spring comes earlier, and autumn lasts longer than in the other areas. Autumn and spring are also key periods for animal reproduction, in order to time lambing to coincide with spring. Partitions are built within the sheepfolds to isolate the rams with the mature ewes in autumn and to separate out the pregnant ewes, lactating ewes and young lambs during the spring. Otherwise, rams are kept isolated from the rest of the flock for most of the year except during the winter after the ewes are already pregnant. The flat land near the river may also be used for fodder production (hay) for winter.

Fig 8. Traditional spring/autumn campsite for local herders.

The site was abandoned after the herders moved to a newly constructed government funded house with an animal fold in a permanently settled village (P. Jia).

Fig 9. Intermediate campsite used during the spring–summer transhumance (1800 m. a.s.l.).

The circular dark patch of soil surrounded by a fence is the animal fold. The small log-built hut sees only seasonal use for the herders to stay (P. Jia).

However, not all local herding patterns follow the “four seasons and three locations” since even within the small section of valley around Wenquan County area pasture and climate are highly diversified. For some areas such as the Husta grassland which stands at a relative low altitude (1600–1800 m a.s.l.) on the southern slope of the Alatao mountains with a moderate climate and good pasture from spring through summer into autumn [38], herders need to move only twice, once in spring up to the Husta pastureland and again in autumn to winter camps at Adunqiaolu. By contrast, some herders using relatively high altitude (2900 m a.s.l. or above) summer pastureland, such as Bangba’s (a local Mongolian herder) summer pastures, Big and Small Angji on the high slopes of the Tianshan (Fig 7), may need several short-stay intermediate campsites and pasturelands between the spring and summer pastures. Speed of movement is dictated by increasing temperatures and growth of grass during the spring. Exploiting several short-stay pastures one by one, the herders can move slowly up to the high pastures at Angji by the time full summer arrives. Such intermediate campsites are also used during the summer-autumn transhumance. When the temperature starts to fall on the high mountain pastureland in autumn, Bangba moves to the lower campsite (Fig 9), and then on again to the autumn camp when the temperature becomes too cold for the animals.

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The Yamnaya Steppe Herders from Russia Nov 9, 2020 20:58:46 GMT

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3.2 Ethnographic analogies
The application of ethnographic analogy to archaeological data is often perceived as problematic [e.g. 39, 40] and merits some discussion in relation to this study. In this case, there are two parts to the analogy which should be considered separately. Firstly, there are some basic constants. The landscape of the Bortala Valley has not changed substantially between the Bronze Age and the present day. Latitude and altitude remain the same and the sun still stands in the south. The needs of the domestic animals, sheep, goat, cattle and horses, while making allowances for modern breeds, remain overall very similar. There are climatic differences, as discussed below, but they are not so extensive as to radically change the types of economic options available to subsistence occupants of the valley. The second part of the analogy concerns socio-cultural patterning. Modern day herders operate in the context of an urban based market economy and within a centralised state. Bronze Age agro-pastoralists functioned as extended familial or sub-tribal groups within an unconstrained landscape. These differences influence decision making, particularly in the spring and autumn camps. The spring and autumn camps are primarily selected on the basis of early and late grazing, but today proximity to roads, transport and markets is also a factor. Access is a factor in all modern seasonal choices. Where in the Bronze Age support in times of difficulty would only have been available from near neighbours in local pastures, today regular contact is needed at all times of year between the town and the camps.

Critics of ethnographic analogies also recognise these two sides to the problem. A key issue is that cultures may diverge sharply in their responses to given economic-ecological constraints [48]. Hawkes [41] suggests that the further removed the subject of the analogy is from physical, natural constraints, the greater the ‘human’ element and thus the greater the probability of culturally diverse practices. However, we argue that in this case the degree of removal is slight. The approach taken in this paper is supported by Gould [42] who argues that if archaeologists are able to identify physical and biological limiting factors imposing essentially invariant constraints on human behaviour, it is then possible to formulate hypotheses about the behaviour of past populations under the same or very closely similar conditions. Wylie [39] notes that this relates to a very narrow set of circumstances, “in those rare limiting cases where the reconstructed behaviour is, by nature, a direct and exclusive consequence of impinging ecological or material conditions”, but she suggests that in these cases the inferences may be raised “to the level of deductive security”. Gould too agrees that such instances are rare, such as “where a particularly restrictive natural environment limits the options for survival”. We argue that the choice of seasonal encampments is, and was in the Bronze Age, governed by very specific ecological and environmental constraints which limit the influence of cultural differences to a degree that modern ethnographic data may be used to construct hypotheses about Bronze Age seasonal patterns of movement.

Fig 10.

Location and area of seasonal pastureland in Wenquan: 1. Kazan Winter pasture 2, Adunqiaolu northwest summer pasture, 3. Adunqiaolu northwest core area of summer pasture, 4. Adunqiaolu winter pasture, 5. Core area Adunqiaolu winter pasture, 6. Wenquan spring-autumn pasture, 7. Entire Husta Grassland -summer-spring–autumn, 8. The Centre of Husta-summer-spring-autumn, 9. Harnur summer 1, 10. Harnur summer pasture 2, 11. Xiaowenquan Summer pasture, 12. Sarimu Lake summer pasture. Image created using ArcGIS Pro 2.5.0. Single use licence issued to Meng Qi by ESRI Australia Pty Ltd (Environmental Systems Re

4. Methodology and results
The ethnographic study clearly shows that in understanding transhumance patterns in western Xinjiang, elevation alone is too simplistic as a proxy for seasonal patterning. Selection of seasonal locations is defined by the accessibility, quality and availability of grazing, but not necessarily all together. Winter accessibility is intricately linked to snow cover which sees major variations throughout the years. Pasture quality is related to the available water supply for a specific range land. Considering these as the main environmental parameters which define the ideal usage pattern of a given range land, we are developing a model to determine pastoralists’ choices for seasonal movements. Like every model this is a radical simplification of a complex human-environmental interaction, but we are trying to capture the essence of what makes a specific location preferable to others with regard to a localized subsistence economy. We analyze the dynamic parameters of pasture quality and snow cover throughout the year. It is clear that this approach omits for example interactions between different human groups, such as access limitations, traditionalized land tenure, or special treatment of parts of the landscape connected to grazing bans during certain times of the year. The limitations and simplicity, however, have the advantage that we can validate the model with the ethnographic accounts provided above and identify mismatches and problems for which additional explanations are necessary. We want to test whether snow cover and pasture quality are factors that allow us to determine the ideal use of a particular range land and validate the outcome based on the ethnographic data.

4.1 Study area spatial limits and boundary definitions
The analysis was conducted covering the entire Bortala Valley. In order to distinguish meaningful grazing ground entities, we applied the designations made by local pastoral nomads living in the area. Using raster data covering the entire valley, we would be able to define the suitability of a grazing area on a pixel by pixel basis (depending on the resolution of the data this is 500m x 500m for MOD10A2 and 10m x 10m for Sentinel2 red and NIR bands). However, we choose to base our evaluation on the coarser, but more meaningful ethnographic usage patterns. This allows for better delineation of the grazing grounds and a direct comparability as to whether the applied approach is able to reflect the current land use patterns in the area. The analyses were conducted for the following pasture areas: Adunqiaolu winter pasture, the core area of Adunqiaolu winter pasture, the Kazan winter pasture, the Wenquan spring/autumn pasture, the Husta spring/summer/autumn pasture, the core area of the Husta pasture, the eastern and western part of the Harnur summer pasture, the north-western Adunqiaolu summer pasture, the core area of the north-western Adunqiaolu summer pasture, and the Sarimu Lake summer pasture (Fig 10). The delineation of these pasture areas is based on the ethnographic survey described above. Local herders mentioned these areas of usage to P. Jia, who then mapped the extent of the range lands by the key points derived from the handheld GPS. We analysed three areas which were designated as winter pastures through the ethnographic survey: The Adunqiaolu winter pasture, its core area, and the Kazan winter pasture. Note that the core area of the Adunqiaolu winter pasture is fully included in the larger Adunqiaolu winter pasture and therefore highly correlated with the latter. Three areas which were considered to be fit for grazing in spring and autumn were analysed: the Wenquan spring/autumn pasture, the Husta spring/summer/autumn pasture, and its core area. Five designated summer pastures were analysed: Harnur East summer pasture, Harnur West summer pasture, Adunqiaolu Northwest summer pasture and its core area, and the Sarimu Lake summer pasture. Again, Adunqiaolu and its core area are ethnographically distinguished, and the former encompasses the latter which leads to a high degree of correlation. Harnur East and Harnur West are connected.

Last Edit: Nov 9, 2020 20:59:16 GMT by Admin