I don't know about pastoralists, but hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers in many societies actually need to keep their populations LOW!
Pastoralists have a bit more carrying capacity on their travels than hunter-gatherers because they have beasts of burden, but still--it sounds to me like societies that've sustained themselves actually practiced birth control, infanticide, abstinence, abortions, etc. more than they practiced "keeping population levels 'high enough.'"
Check out Guns, Germs, & Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Make FEWER babies
Date: 2006-09-28 06:15 pm (UTC)Pastoralists have a bit more carrying capacity on their travels than hunter-gatherers because they have beasts of burden, but still--it sounds to me like societies that've sustained themselves actually practiced birth control, infanticide, abstinence, abortions, etc. more than they practiced "keeping population levels 'high enough.'"
Check out Guns, Germs, & Steel and Collapse by Jared Diamond.