In Religion Explained Pascal Boyer weaves Cognitive Science of Religion theories together to offer insights into some species-level processes by which things religious are generated. He writes, 

[We] should abandon the search for a historical origin of religion in the sense of a point in time (however long ago) when people created religion where there was none. All scenarios that describe people sitting around and inventing religion are dubious. Even the ones that see religion as slowly emerging out of confused thoughts have this problem…religion emerges (has its origins, if you want) in the selection of concepts and the selection of memories. Does this mean that at some point in history people had lots of possible versions of religion and that somehow one of them proved more successful? Not at all. What it means is that, at all times and all the time, indefinite many variants of religious notions were and are created inside individual minds. Not all these variants are equally successful in cultural transmission. What we call a cultural phenomenon is the result of a selection that is taking place all the time and everywhere.¹

Boyer’s comments point to a significant reality underlying the adaptability and responsiveness of mobile pastoralist societies: human creativity and ingenuity. The innovative strength of the strategic “Environmental Pragmatism” described by Frachetti relies on, to adapt Boyer, the “variants of [social,] [political,] [economic,] [cultural, and] religious notions [that] were and are created inside individual minds.” Processes of biological and cultural evolution might be said to “sort through” these various ideas by selecting for fitness in social or natural environmental niches. The religions of YHWH and Ahura Mazda were once small ideas that proved fit for survival in their respective originating contexts. 

Three themes emerged from the comparison of Judaism and Zoroastrianism in the last chapter: survival, change, and mobility. First, these modern religions are evidence of the millennia-long survival of the worship of YHWH and Ahura Mazda, respectively. Second, although certain building blocks appear to have lasted, these religions have undergone significant changes throughout these thousands of years. Third, the religions of Ahura Mazda and YHWH have spread across geographic and social boundaries to include adherents whose languages and “ethnic” identities do not resemble those of “original” worshippers. Taken together, these themes appear to summarize the major points of mobile pastoralist societies described by Frachetti’s theory. “Environmental Pragmatism” is not merely embracing change, but instigating it, strategically, for purposes of survival. The diversity of mobile pastoralist societies, highlighted by Salzman and Frachetti, emphasizes that physical movement (of humans and herds) is integral to maintaining the flexibility required to adjust to any natural or social circumstances. It is not unreasonable to assume that religions originating in mobile, strategically responsive societies, would be shaped by such contexts. It does not appear coincidental that these religions deemed monotheistic, historically notable for their social and geographic mobility and capacity to endure despite adversity (a sort of chronological mobility, perhaps), would seem to have originated in societies belonging to a category defined by the very same characteristics.

Salzman offers a number of “general observations,” drawn from his appraisal of ethnographic work on “nomadism”, that emphasize the importance these themes to the category of mobile pastoralism. The significance of mobility to survival can be found in both the provision of access to sparse resources, as well as in escape, “opportunistic ‘rapid response’ to the sudden and temporary availability of irregular and unpredictable resources.”² Galaty writes, “Students of pastoral societies have often pointed out the impunity with which pastoralists cross national boundaries, or, put simply, how little ranch boundaries influence their stock movements. While true, it is often left unstated that nomadic pastoralists know when they are crossing frontiers and boundaries and, hence, they calculate their degrees of freedom.”³ This is not the mobility of a wind-blown leaf in water, but rather the deliberate use of mobile strategies toward particular ends. Salzman observes, “Nomadism is not ‘wandering off’ in the sense of purposeless or directionless movement. Nomadic movement is highly purposeful, oriented toward achieving specific production (or other) goals. Nomads continually discuss where and when to move and why, and they are constantly searching for, assessing, and reassessing relevant information from direct experience and secondary sources in order to make good decisions about migration.”⁴ Salzman’s comments point to a significant feature of mobile pastoralist societies: they are held together by mutual interest and consensus.