ABSTRACT

The pastoralists in the study area reside in small isolated communities of between two and forty families. Each community is composed of one or more lineages, descended from Turkmen nomadic families that inhabited the desert before the Soviet period. While modern ethnographic accounts of Turkmen pastoralists are lacking, their economic and social systems in the pre-Soviet period are described in papers of the USSR Institute of Ethnography (1973). The desert communities are at least 10 km apart and often much further, connected by tracks through sand dunes. The basis of every settlement is a well tapping into groundwater, annually recharged with the spring rains. Rainfall is sparse, with an annual average of 150 mm and crop agriculture is not possible in the desert. Virtually all desert families raise livestock, mainly sheep but also goats, camels and cattle.