In the conclusion of the last chapter, the language of a “fight” was used to describe a general pattern (and perhaps result) of building blocks associated with religions deemed monotheistic. Salzman’s description of the role violence plays in the biological and cultural evolutionary competition for survival among mobile pastoral societies highlights the significance of social and natural environmental contexts to the development of these religions. In her introduction to Warfare in Inner Asian History (500-1800), Nicola Di Cosmo explains that the association of natural environmental conditions and the development of militarily capable mobile pastoralists was observed by ancient sources.¹ She writes, 

Ancient theories associated physical and psychological traits with characteristics of the environment, especially in relation to temperature, available food, and vulnerability to the elements. Peoples living in the steppes, exposed to a harsher climate and a less varied diet, were regarded as braver than the people from warmer climates, afflicted by a softer temperament. From the earliest accounts of nomadic societies, it was the barren, arid, prohibitively cold steppe environment that was responsible for making a special sort of individual. Their peculiar nomadic wandering was another molding feature. The consuming attention required by the animals, the lack of fixed abode, and the constant threat of enemy attacks, made the nomad’s life, in the eyes of Europeans, Chinese, and other chroniclers, poor, dangerous, and uninspiring.²

Di Cosmo’s remarks point to an awareness on the part of ancient observers regarding the ultimate significance of the environmental reality of survival on the development of human individuals and groups. 

The societies in which the religions of Ahura Mazda and YHWH originated were comprised of pragmatic strategists engaged with continuously challenging human and natural environmental landscapes that offered limits and opportunities for innovation, creativity, and competition. It is no surprise to find that processes of biological and cultural evolution selecting for the best “fighters” in physical, social, and religious senses of meaning. The particular fitness of building blocks, of the religions of YHWH and Ahura Mazda, for survival is proven in two important ways: first, by the survival of these blocks and other aspects of the worship of these deities into the 21^stcentury; second, by the incorporation of the blocks (or versions thereof) into the development of other religions deemed monotheistic. The origination of these religious building blocks, and their respective roles in defining the worship of YHWH and Ahura Mazda, in mobile pastoralist social contexts explains and supports the historical evidence for the development of the religions that would become Judaism and Zoroastrianism respectively. The influence of agriculturally marginal landscapes on the development of these societies and their religions is complex and paramount in “setting the scene” for the emergence of this category of religions.