This also brings to mind how, say, the mongols weren’t just pastoralist nomad warrior-merchants, they were a broader civilization that included sedentary agricultural populations with which there was considerable back and forth movement and the divide between them was more about class than these being two distinct cultures. Like Genghis Khan spent his early life in the sedentary, agricultural class of that civilization before his fortunes turned around and he began his meteoric rise as a warrior and warlord. Being able to own the livestock and gear required for pastoralist life and having the status to be part of their ranks was a prestigious and aspirational thing for that civilization because they were broadly an elite warrior and merchant class.

One can almost wonder if there wasn’t sometimes a similar dynamic during that gradual transition from hunting and gathering to horticulture and agriculture, with having the support structure, knowledge, tools, and ability to rove around being a more prestigious and exclusionary role within a broader civilization that also had people starting to settle down and eke out their survival with more limited resources but constant, secure shelter. There’s also the fact that I believe the consensus is shifting towards hunter gatherers around that time not merely exploiting natural resources but maintaining and tailoring wide stretches of land to better accommodate themselves, albeit in a more limited fashion than what agrarian civilizations would later do, so the groups that are moving around more could well still be planting and harvesting certain crops albeit ones that don’t require as much tending or squeeze as much utility out of a given stretch of land.