Five thousand years ago, on the rolling grassy sea of Saskatchewan, the Blackfoot people and other northern Plains tribes developed a culture based exquisitely on movement. Traveling much of the year, following bison and other game, they kept only what they could carry. Their clothing and headwear, festooned with beads and feathers, were also lightweight and sturdy. Like the Indians of spaghetti westerns, they lived in tepees, but they had no horses, only dogs. At the height of their civilization, they numbered almost two hundred thousand.

So what? you may be thinking. Perhaps you’re not in the mood for an anthropology lesson. But here’s something new: On the far side of the globe, in the Samara region of Russia, other tribes were living parallel lives. There are differences between the Saskatchewan prairie and the Samara steppes, but the overall feel of the land is the same: broad horizons and undulating, treeless sweeps, with grasses lush in summer, sere in winter. And as it turns out, the prehistoric tribes in the two regions were remarkably and similarly self-sufficient. They lived in family groups of twenty to fifty people and engaged in some trade. They venerated their warriors and fought frequent battles with their neighbors. They were deeply spiritual. In time the steppe tribes bumped up against the Indo-Iranian and Chinese civilizations, so they learned how to build vehicles with wheels and, under Genghis Khan, how to build empires. The Saskatchewan nomads remained isolated and traveled on foot.

There’s one last similarity between the two cultures, and it is arguably the most important. They died. They died shortly after the arrival of widespread agriculture made it possible for people to lead sedentary lives. As an exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Quebec put it, “The end of the nomadic era came around the same time for both groups when Europeans and Euro-Americans invaded their territories and brought with them the fivefold threat of disease, firearms, immigration, agriculture, and formidable administration.” It’s a familiar story, with long-term implications. The disintegration of nomadic tribes around the globe set in motion what may turn out to be, twenty or so generations from now, one of the most profound evolutionary shifts in the history of the human race.

To read the rest of this article, please visit our online store to purchase a copy of the issue or order a subscription.