Psychology of feelings 

The transition to settled life and the emergence of a productive economy. What is a sedentary lifestyle? The transition to settled life also served as the basis for the development

The political organization becomes more complex with the transition to settled life and a productive economy (agriculture and animal husbandry). In archeology, this phenomenon is often called the “Neolithic revolution”. The transition to a productive economy has become an important, revolutionary milestone in the history of human civilization. Since that time, the early primitive local groups have been replaced by stable, sedentary forms of the community, the number of which ranged from many tens to several thousand people. Inequality increased within the communities, age statuses, property and social differentiation arose, and the beginnings of the power of the elders appeared. Communities united in unstable supra-communal formations, including tribes.

Early and advanced agricultural societies are characterized by a wide range of forms of political leadership. The most interesting example of leadership in early agricultural societies is the big man institution (from English, bigman). The fundamental difference between the power of big men and the power of leaders is the non-heritable nature of their social status. Bigmen were, as a rule, the most enterprising people who stood out for their diverse abilities, possessed physical strength, were diligent, were good organizers and could resolve conflicts. They were brave warriors and persuasive speakers, some of them were even credited with special magical abilities, the ability to conjure. Through this, the Bigmen increased the wealth of their families and community groups. However, an increase in wealth did not automatically lead to an increase in social positions.

The source of the big man's high status is his prestige associated with the organization of mass feasts and distributions. This allowed him to create a network of dependent individuals, which further contributed to his prosperity. However, the influence of the big men was not stable. It was constantly in danger of losing its adherents. Bigman was forced to demonstrate his high status, spend significant funds on organizing collective ceremonies and feasts, and distribute gifts to his fellow tribesmen. “Bigman saves not in order to use for himself alone, but in order to distribute this wealth. Every important event in a person's life - marriage, birth, death, and even the construction of a new house or canoe - is celebrated with a feast, and the more feasts a person arranges, the more generously he puts out treats, the higher his prestige.

The political power and status of the big man were personal, i.e. could not be inherited, and unstable, because they depended solely on the personal qualities of the candidate, his ability to ensure his prestigious position through the distribution of mass gifts.

American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins(b. 1930) notes such an aspect of the life and work of the big man in Melanesian society as open competition of statuses. The person who has ambitions and breaks into big men is forced to intensify his own work and the work of members of his household. He cites Hogbin as saying that the head of the men's house at the Busam of New Guinea "had to work harder than anyone else to replenish his food supplies. The one who claims honor cannot rest on his laurels, he must constantly hold great festivities, accumulating confidence. It is generally accepted that he has to “work hard” day and night: “his hands are constantly in the ground, and drops of sweat are constantly flowing from his forehead.” The purpose of holding festivities was to increase one's reputation, increase the number of supporters, and make others indebted. Bigman's personal career was of general political importance. When he goes beyond the narrow group of his supporters and begins to sponsor public festivities, through which he strengthens prestige, "makes a name for himself in a wide circle." “Big men with their consumer ambitions,” writes M. Sahlins, “are the means by which a segmented society, “decapitated” and broken into small autonomous communities, overcomes this split, at least in the field of food supply, and forms a wider circle of interaction. and a higher level of cooperation. Taking care of his own reputation, the Melanesian big man becomes the concentrating beginning of the tribal structure.

Tribe. The concept of "tribe" can be interpreted in two ways: as one of the types of ethnic communities in the early stages of the historical process and as a specific form of social organization and management structure characteristic of primitive times. From the point of view of political anthropology, the second approach to this term is important. A tribe is a supra-communal political structure. Each segment of the tribal organization (community, lineage, patronymic, etc.) is economically independent. Leadership in tribes, as in local groups, is personal. It is based solely on individual abilities and does not involve any formalized positions.

Scientists distinguish two historical forms of tribal organization: early and "secondary". The early, archaic tribes were amorphous, without clear structural boundaries and a common leadership of the totality of segments of various taxonomic levels. The main features of these tribes were: kinship relations, a common habitat, a common name, a system of rituals and ceremonies, and their own language dialect. The following terms are used to designate them: “tribe”, “maximum community”, “accumulation of local groups”, “primary tribe”, etc.

As an example, consider the Nuer tribes described by the British anthropologist Edwan Evans-Pritchard(1902-1973). The Nuer tribes are divided into segments. The largest segments Evans-Pritchard calls the primary departments of the tribe; they, in turn, are divided into secondary divisions of the tribes, and those into tertiary divisions. The tertiary division of the tribe covers several village communities, which consist of kindred and house groups. So, the Lu tribe is divided into the primary divisions of the gunas and the seas. The primary division of gunas is divided into secondary divisions rum jok and gaatbal. The secondary department of gaatbal is in turn divided into the tertiary departments of Leng and Nyarkwach.

The smaller the segment of the tribe, the more compact its territory, the more united its members, the more diverse and stronger their common social ties, and therefore the stronger the sense of unity. The Nuer tribes are characterized by the principles of segmentation and opposition. Segmentation means dividing a tribe and its divisions into segments. The second principle reflects the opposition between segments of the tribe. Evans-Pritchard writes about this: “Each segment is also split, and there is opposition between its parts. The members of each segment unite for war against adjacent segments of the same order and unite with these adjacent segments against larger departments.

The "secondary" form of the tribe is politically a more integrated structure. She had the germinal organs of tribal power: the people's assembly, the council of elders and military and (or) civil leaders. L. Morgan described a similar type of society in books; "League of the Hodnosaunee, or Iroquois" and "Ancient Society". The researcher singled out the following features of the Iroquois tribe: common territory, name, dialect of the language, beliefs and culture, the right to approve and dismiss peaceful leaders - sachems, military leaders and others. The tribes were divided into two exogamous groups - phratries, the latter consisted of clans and smaller structural divisions. There were five Iroquois tribes in total. They could field a total of 2,200 warriors.

The tribal council included tribal leaders, military leaders, and elderly women. All meetings were held in public, in the presence of adult members of the tribe. At the council, disputes between tribal divisions were resolved, wars were declared, peace agreements were concluded, relations with neighbors were settled, and leaders were elected. The eldest woman proposed the position of sachem from among the elderly warriors who distinguished themselves in wars and had a reputation for generosity and wiseness. After approval at the tribal council and at the conference council, the sachem received a symbol of his power - the horns. If he did not cope with his duties, then his horns were “broken off” - they were deprived of their sacred status. The leaders were also elected on the council of the league of tribes. The supreme leader of the conference was chosen from one of the tribes. Many of the nomadic pastoral societies of North Africa and Eurasia (Arabs, Tuareg, Pashtuns, etc.) can also be considered ethnographic examples of “secondary” tribes.

In the 60s. 20th century the view of the tribe as a universal institution of the primitive era has been criticized in Western anthropology. At present, most foreign researchers adhere to the point of view Morton Fried(1923-1986), according to which tribes arose only as a result of external pressure from developed state societies on stateless ones, and this form of social organization is exclusively secondary. In accordance with this opinion, the "tribe" is not included in the mandatory list of forms of transition of a political organization from local groups to statehood.

In this regard, it should be noted that the concept of the tribe is important for understanding the features of the chiefdom, which was the next step on the path to statehood. A tribal society is a less complex form of government and power than a chieftain. In a chiefdom, the people are removed from government, while in a tribal society, the people's assembly, along with the council of elders and the institution of leaders, is an important tool for developing and making decisions. In the chiefdom there is a hierarchy of power, social stratification, a redistributive system, and the cult of leaders is developing. The tribe is characterized by a more declared than real hierarchy, a more egalitarian social structure, the absence of a redistributive system, the institution of leaders is just beginning to take shape.

Chiefdom. Chiefdom theory (from English, chiefdom) developed by representatives of Western political anthropology. Within the framework of this concept, the chiefdom is seen as an intermediate stage between stateless and state societies. The most fundamental aspects of the theory of chiefdom were formulated in the works of E. Service and M. Sahlins. The history of the discovery and subsequent development of the theory of chiefdom is covered in detail in the works of Russian researchers S. L. Vasiliev and N. N. Kradin. The concept of "chiefdom" or "chifdom" entered the scientific apparatus of Russian researchers and was reflected in the scientific and educational literature.

Chiefdom can be defined as a form of sociopolitical organization of late primitive society, characterized by centralized administration, social and property inequality, a redistributive system of redistribution, ideological unity, but the absence of a repressive apparatus of coercion.

The main features of a chiefdom are:

  • a) the presence of supralocal centralization. The chiefdoms had a hierarchical decision-making system and an institution of control, but the existing authorities did not have an apparatus of coercion and did not have the right to use force. The ruler of a chiefdom had limited powers;
  • b) chiefdoms are characterized by a fairly clear social stratification and limited access simple community members to key resources; there is a trend towards secession of the elite from simple masses into a closed estate;
  • c) an important role in economy chiefdoms were played by redistribution, which meant redistribution surplus product;
  • d) chiefdoms are characterized by a common ideological system, a common cult and rituals.

Chiefdoms are characterized by social differentiation. The simplest chiefdoms were divided into chiefs and ordinary community members. In more stratified societies, there were three main groups: the top - hereditary leaders and other categories of the elite; medium - free full members; the lowest - various groups of persons with limited rights and disenfranchised persons.

As an example, one of the traditional societies of North-Eastern Tanzania in the second half of the 19th century can be cited. Chiefdoms here usually consisted of communities of 500-1000 people. Each of them was led by assistant chiefs (walolo) and elders (uachili), who connected communities with central settlement. General number these persons did not exceed a few dozen people. The community members brought gifts to the leader with food, cattle, and beer. For this, the leader provided subjects with magical protection in relations with the gods, protected from at

I love history very much, and this event in the development of human society could not but interest me. I am happy to share my knowledge about what is settledness, and talk about the consequences that were caused by a change in lifestyle.

What does the term "settled" mean?

This term means the transition of nomadic peoples to living in one place or within a small area. Indeed, the ancient tribes were very dependent on where their prey was going, and this was quite a natural phenomenon. However, over time, people moved to production of the desired product, which means that there is no need to move after the herds. This was accompanied by the construction of dwellings, housekeeping, which required the creation of things necessary in everyday life. Simply put, the tribe equipped a certain territory, while considering it their own, and therefore was forced to protect it from uninvited guests.


Consequences of the transition to settled life

The transition to this way of life and the domestication of animals radically changed the lives of people, and we still feel some of the consequences today. Settlement is not only a change in lifestyle, but also significant changes in the very worldview of a person. In fact, the land began to be valued, ceasing to be a common property, which led to the beginnings of property. At the same time, everything acquired, as it were, tied a person to one place of residence, which could not but affect the environment- plowing fields, building defensive structures and much more.

In general, among the many consequences of the transition to settled life, the most striking examples can be distinguished:

  • increase in the birth rate- as a result of increased fertility;
  • drop in food quality- according to research, the transition from animal to plant foods has led to a decrease in the average height of mankind;
  • increase in incidence- as a rule, the higher the population density, the higher this indicator;
  • negative impact on the environment- clogging of soils, rivers, deforestation and so on;
  • load increase- Maintenance of the economy requires more labor than just hunting or gathering.

One of the paradoxes of the transition to a settled way of life is the fact that with an increase in productivity, the population increased and dependence on agricultural crops. As a result, this began to present a certain problem: in the case of a poor supply of food, the load on all spheres of life increases.

There is a term "neolithic revolution". When you hear him, you imagine a mass of bearded, disheveled people in skins, armed with primitive axes and spears. This mass runs with warlike cries to storm the cave, where a crowd of exactly the same people, bearded, disheveled, with primitive axes and spears in their hands, has settled. In fact, this term denotes a change in the forms of management - from hunting and gathering to agriculture and cattle breeding. The Neolithic revolution was the result of the transition from nomadism to settled life. That's right, at first a person began to lead a sedentary lifestyle, then he mastered agriculture and domesticated some types of animals, he was simply forced to master it. Then the first cities, the first states appeared ... The current state of the world is a consequence of the fact that a person once switched to a settled way of life.

The first permanent human settlements appeared about 10-13 thousand years ago. Somewhere they appeared earlier, somewhere later, depending on the region of the world. The oldest, the first - in the Middle East - about 13 thousand years ago. One of the first of those found and excavated by archaeologists is Mureybet in Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates. It originated about 12,200 years ago. It was inhabited by hunter-gatherers. They built houses in the style of nomadic rented dwellings - round, 3-6 meters in diameter, but much more solid: they used pieces of limestone, fastened them with clay. The roof was covered with reed stalks. The reliability of dwellings is the only thing in which the inhabitants of the settled Mureybeta surpassed the nomads. The more important factor is food. They ate in Mureybet more poorly than nomads. Depended on the case - wild beans, acorns and pistachios will be born this season, or the harvest will be insignificant, there will not be enough tribe; whether a herd of gazelles will pass nearby or not, whether there will be enough fish in the river. Domestication (or “domestication”, in scientific terms) of plant foods in Mureybet happened a thousand years after the settlement appeared: they learned to grow wheat, rye and barley on their own. The domestication of animals happened even later.

In short, there was no food reason for establishing a settlement on the banks of the Euphrates. Permanent settlement, on the contrary, created regular food difficulties. The same in other regions - the inhabitants of the oldest settled villages ate more poorly than their nomadic contemporaries. If we take all the regions where the transition from nomadism to sedentism took place earlier than others - the Middle East, the regions on the Danube and in Japan - it turns out that from one to three thousand years passed between the appearance of settled settlements and the traces of the first domesticated plants (that is, in the Syrian Mureybet residents relatively quickly figured out how to grow their own grain). At present, most paleoanthropologists believe that the inhabitants of the first stationary settlements lived much poorer and ate less varied and plentiful than wandering hunters. And food security, food security is one of the main reasons for the movement of human civilizations. This means that food disappears - it is not because of it that people began to live settled.

An important point - the dead were buried in residential buildings of the most ancient settlements. Previously, the skeletons were cleaned - they left the corpses on the trees, they were pecked by birds, or they independently cleaned the meat, soft tissues from the bones, - after that they were buried under the floor. The skull is usually separated. Skulls were kept separately from other bones, but also in a dwelling. In Mureybet they were put on shelves in the walls. In Tell Ramada (Southern Syria) and Beysamun (Israel), the skulls were placed on clay figures - stands up to a quarter of a meter high. For people 10 thousand years ago, it was probably the skull that symbolized the personality of the deceased, which is why there is so much reverence, so much respect for him. Skulls were used in religious ceremonies. For example, they were “fed” - food was shared with them. That is, all the attention was given to the dead ancestors. Perhaps they were considered indispensable assistants in the affairs of the living, they always kept in touch with them, they were addressed with prayers, with requests.

Based on the finds of burials in the most ancient settlements, the religious historian Andrei Borisovich Zubov deduces the theory that humanity began to move to a settled way of life because of its religious beliefs. “Such attention to ancestors, ancestors who continue to help the living in their temporary, earthly, and eternal, heavenly needs, such a sense of interdependence of generations could not but be reflected in the organization of life. The graves of the ancestors, the sacred relics of the family, had to be brought as close as possible to the living, made part of the world of the living. The descendants had to be conceived and born literally "on the bones" of the forefathers. It is no coincidence that burials are often found under those adobe benches of Neolithic houses on which the living sat and slept.

The nomadic way of life, characteristic of the Paleolithic, clashed with new religious values. If the graves of the ancestors should be as close as possible to the house, then either the house should be immovable or the bones should be moved from place to place. But the veneration of the giving birth element of the earth required stationary burials - the embryo of a new life, the buried body, could not be removed from the womb as necessary. And so the only thing left for a man of the protoneolithic age was to settle down on the ground. The new way of life was difficult and unusual, but the spiritual upheaval that occurred in the minds of people about 12 thousand years ago required a choice - either to neglect the family, community with ancestors for the sake of a more well-fed and comfortable wandering life, or to link oneself forever with the indissoluble graves of the ancestors bonds of the unity of the earth. Some groups of people in Europe, in the Near East, in Indochina, on the Pacific coast of South America have made a choice in favor of the genus. It was they who laid the foundation for the civilizations of the new Stone Age,” concludes Zubov.

The weak point of Zubov's theory is again food impoverishment. It turns out that ancient people who stopped wandering believed that their ancestors and gods wished them a half-starved existence. To come to terms with their food disasters, food shortages, they had to believe. “Ancestors-skull-bones blessed us for starvation, for a thousand years of starvation,” parents taught their children. This is how it comes out of Zubov's theory. Yes, it could not be! After all, they prayed to the bones for the bestowal of great benefits: to save them from the attack of predators, from a thunderstorm, so that the upcoming fishing and hunting would be successful. Rock art of that period and earlier - a lot of wild animals on the walls and ceilings of caves - is interpreted as a prayer for successful hunting, plentiful prey.

"Paleolithic Venuses" - they were used to get the support of the forces of Life. It is unbelievable, impossible that in the most diverse regions of the world people would decide that the gods, higher powers want them to settle down and starve. Rather, on the contrary: a settled tribe, burying the bones of their ancestors under the floors of their dwellings, understands that their diet has decreased, and decides that this is punishment from their ancestors - because they violated the way of life, nomadism, adopted by their ancestors, thousands of generations of ancestors back in time. Not a single tribe would settle voluntarily if this led to food problems. Voluntarily - no. But if they were forced, forced - yes.

Violence. Forcibly, some tribes forced others to settle. For the vanquished to guard the sacred bones. One tribe won, beat another, forced the vanquished to guard the skulls and skeletons of their dead ancestors as an indemnity. Bones in the ground, skulls on the shelves - the defeated, the oppressed "feed" the skulls, spend holidays for them - so that the dead fathers would not be bored in the next world. Where is the safest place to store the most valuable? At home, yes. Therefore, bones under the floor, skulls on the shelves of round dwellings.

Probably, the winners of the vanquished were used not only to protect the dead. In the oldest settled settlement in Europe - Lepenski Vir, in Serbia, on the banks of the Danube, it appeared about 9 thousand years ago - the oldest part of the settlement had a seasonal character. The beaten tribe, or the weakest of the tribe, were forced to settle for several months of the year in order to do some work in the interests of the strongest. They produced axes or spears, harvested wild plants. Worked in the interests of the strongest.

Over time, the winners, the strongest, also switched to settled life - most likely, when they realized that with the help of the vanquished, all their needs could be resolved in general. Of course, special dwellings were built for the owners of the settlement: larger in area, with altars, additional premises. Among the remains of one of the oldest settlements of Jericho, they found an 8-meter-high tower with a diameter of 9 meters. The age of the tower is about 11,500 thousand years. Ran Barkai, a senior lecturer in the Department of Archeology at Tel Aviv University, believes that it was built to intimidate. Professor of the Moscow Architectural Institute Vyacheslav Leonidovich Glazychev is of the same opinion: “The tower is still a kind of castle that dominates the entire town and opposes its ordinary inhabitants to the power that is isolated from them.” The Jericho Tower is an example of the fact that the strongest also began to move to settled life and control those whom they forced to work for themselves. The subordinates, the exploited, probably rebelled, tried to get rid of the rulers. And the rulers came up with the idea of ​​sitting in a powerful tower, hiding in it from an unexpected attack, from a night uprising.

Thus, coercion, violence - at the root of the origin of the settled way of life. A sedentary culture initially carries a charge of violence. And in its further development, this charge increased, its volumes grew: the first cities, states, slavery, more and more sophisticated destruction of some people by others, deformation of religious thinking in favor of submission to kings, priests, officials. At the root of settled life is the suppression of human nature, the natural need of man - nomadism.

“Without Coercion, no settlement could be founded. There would be no overseer over the workers. The rivers would not overflow,” a quote from a Sumerian text.

Feb 16, 2014 Alexander Rybin

For many years it was customary to take the transition of primitive man from hunting and gathering to farming simply as an obvious historical fact. Subsequently, theories were formulated, one way or another explaining the mechanisms of this phenomenon, which is called the "Neolithic revolution".

This expression was introduced by the notorious Marxist historian Veer Gordon Child, whose developments were recently used by American researchers who proved .

Modern science, on the other hand, has an impressive arsenal of developments and technologies that allow at least partially transferring research from the category of purely theoretical to practical, albeit through modeling. The American-Korean tandem of scientists also resorted to the latest developments, showing how

the transition to agriculture was associated with a change in the already emerging institution of property.

A well-known Marxist and researcher back in the USSR Samuel Bowles and his colleague Jeong-Kyo Choi from the American used the climatic, archaeological and geological data at their disposal

to recreate the situation that accompanied the Neolithic revolution, which occurred at the junction of two geological eras - ending at that time Pleistocene and still ongoing Holocene- that is, about 12 thousand years ago.

Not so long ago, as at the junction of these two eras, the Pacific natives destroyed unique species of birds. Now the goal of researchers was to find out how the existing conditions contributed to the fact that the transition to a settled agricultural economy and the emergence of a new system of property became possible.

It turned out that initially, at the end of the Pleistocene, the transition to agriculture was a mass phenomenon. This was facilitated not only by certain evolutionary advances that occurred with man, but also by the prevailing climatic conditions. Later, however,

nature played a cruel joke: the climate changed again, and it turned out that it was much more efficient for a person to return to hunting and gathering again than to make great efforts to ensure that the plants planted by him survived in the new conditions. So, for example, were forced to do the inhabitants of the Australian coast, California Peninsula and modern Western Cape SOUTH AFRICA. The agrarian revolution in these places took place much later, namely with the arrival of European colonizers,

although the conditions for agriculture there have already become more than favorable.

In other lands, a person settled much more thoroughly: for example, in India, Scandinavia and the Levant. Initially, the transition to agriculture did not seem to be entirely profitable: due to the low development of technology, people were not able to collect the crop necessary for survival. Nevertheless,

farmers and hunters with gatherers continued to coexist in a kind of symbiosis until agriculture and cattle breeding began to fully meet the needs of people.

However, the sedentary lifestyle in itself contributed to the improvement of demographic conditions, in particular, now a much larger number of children had a chance to survive and grow up.

In the meantime, other mechanisms were also developing that were only indirectly related to agriculture. It's about the ownership system.

if the mechanisms that existed before the beginning of the Neolithic revolution were based on the gift economy, now private property has taken their place. It turns out that certain benefits and resources - land, crops and livestock - were simply privatized by the new "owners".

Thus, the transition to agriculture occurred precisely due to the fact that many people approached the problem of owning something differently and decided to use new, but at that time not very proven technologies.

It is worth noting that all this did not happen immediately: the notorious transition took from 2 to 4.5 thousand years. For such a solid period of time, gatherers and hunters finally lost their leading positions - the emerging mechanisms of family farming contributed to the development and establishment of the institution of private property.

However, it must be clarified that the transition to agriculture was not only long, but sometimes bloody. For example, this happened in the Middle East.

Here is how Professor Samuel Bowles explained this process to Gazeta.Ru: “People switched to agriculture and a settled way of life, not because circumstances so required.”

This happened due to banal human greed: people saw that now, growing plants and taming animals, they may well not depend on anyone but their loved ones, the professor explains.

Over time, a person already owned a sufficient number of seeds, knew firsthand how, what and in what quantity to grow. The Neolithic revolution was accomplished, and with it the institution of private property and a new way of life appeared.

There are things in historical science that lead people into a stupor. They are said to be intuitive, do not require decoding. It doesn't make it any easier for pupils and students. For example, what is a “settled way of life”? What image should arise in the head when this expression is used in relation to peoples? Do not know? Let's figure it out.

Settled lifestyle: definition

It must be said at once that our expression concerns (so far) history and the natural world. Remember what characterized the society of the past, what do you know about the ancient tribes? People of old moved for their prey. Such behavior was then natural, since the opposite left people without food. But as a result of the progress of that time, man learned to produce the necessary product himself. This is the reason for the transition to a settled way. That is, people stopped wandering, began to build houses, take care of the land, grow plants and raise livestock. Previously, they had to follow the animals with their whole family, to move to where the fruits ripened. That is the difference between nomadic and settled way of life. In the first case, the people do not have permanent stationary houses (all sorts of huts and yurts are not considered), cultivated land, well-maintained enterprises, and similar useful things. The sedentary way of life contains all of the above, or rather it consists of it. People begin to equip the territory that they consider their own. In addition, they also protect her from aliens.

Animal world

We have dealt with people in principle, let's look at nature. The animal world is also divided into those who live in one place and move after food. The most obvious example is birds. In autumn, some species fly south from the northern latitudes, and in the spring they travel back. or migratory birds. Other species prefer settled life. That is, no rich overseas countries attract them, and it's good at home. Our city sparrows and pigeons live permanently in one specific area. They build nests, lay eggs, feed and breed. They divide the territory into small zones of influence, where strangers are not allowed, and so on. Animals also prefer settled life, although their behavior depends on their habitats. Animals go where there is food. What makes them lead a sedentary lifestyle? In winter, for example, there are not enough stocks, therefore, you have to vegetate from hand to mouth. So their instincts, transmitted by blood, command. Animals define and defend their territory, in which everything "belongs" to them.

Movement of peoples and settled way of life

Don't confuse nomads with settlers. Settlement refers to the principle of life, and not to any particular event. For example, peoples in history often moved from one territory to another. Thus, they won new zones of influence from nature or competitors to their society. But such things are fundamentally different from nomadism. Moving to a new place, people equipped and improved it as best they could. That is, they built houses and cultivated the land. Nomads don't do that. Their principle is to be in harmony (by and large) with nature. She gave birth - people took advantage. They have little effect on her world. Settled tribes build their lives differently. They prefer to influence the natural world, adjusting it for themselves. This is the fundamental, fundamental difference between lifestyles. We are all settled now. There are, of course, separate tribes that live according to the precepts of their ancestors. They do not affect civilization as a whole. And most of humanity consciously came to settled way of life, as a principle of interaction with the outside world. This is a consolidated solution.

Will the sedentary lifestyle continue?

Let's try to look into the distant future. But let's start by repeating the past. People chose settled way of life because such a way of life made it possible to produce more products, that is, it turned out to be more efficient. We look at the present: we are consuming the resources of the planet at such a rate that they do not have time to reproduce, and there is practically no such possibility, everywhere human influence dominates. What's next? Eat the whole earth and die? Now we are talking about nature-like technologies. That is, progressive thinkers understand that we live only at the expense of the forces of nature, which we use excessively. Will the solution of this problem lead to the rejection of the settled way of life as a principle? What do you think?