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Within Afrikan history (Pastorialism) the keeping and herding of domestic animals such as sheep, goats, camels and cattle led to advantages in community building. Since animals were a great source of protein for children and adults and milk for infants meant that the families could sustain themselves on their herds as well as farms. They would of course need to move in search of new pastures as one place became overgrazed. This did not seem to be an obstacle for early Afrikan dwellers for example along the banks of the Nile River inasmuch as there were many pastures that had never been grazed by domesticated animals.

By using their animals as transportation they could move quite far over land. The search for seasonal pastures became so ordinary, regular and customary that after a while the pastoralists came to expect to move. Here we have the beginnings and meaning of the nomadic way of life. For some families, who simply packed all of their mats, poles, water bottles and tools and moved to another place. On the other hand, those who were sedentary, that is non-pastoralists, had settled into their routine of waiting for the next planting season. And so it was along the Nile Valley (as one example) and its environs that human beings started to develop the patterns that would result in the complex societies that we now know.