3 ms·

That's certainly a take. There have been nomadic pastoralists living alongside partially and fully sedentary agriculturalists in Central Asia for thousands of

That's certainly a take. There have been nomadic pastoralists living alongside partially and fully sedentary agriculturalists in Central Asia for thousands of years. The parts of the continent that are inhabited solely by nomads are those areas that are largely unsuitable for sedentary life and were adapted into environments suitable for pastoralists instead. The idea of nomad communities that subsist solely on raiding poor sedentary farmers is one that gets a lot of play in historical documents (conveniently written almost exclusively by people living in sedentary communities), but it's not a narrative that's well supported as the historical norm by the archaeology in most areas. Instead, much of what we see is produced by complex economic systems involving mutually beneficial trade between these groups. You might have heard these kinds of systems called "silk roads", for example.

koheripbal 3y ago
In many of those cases the settled peoples they coexisted with are the settled descendents of those same nomadic raiders. That shared ethnicity, language, trade, and intermarriage is what protected them. The nation of Turkey is a strong historically recent and well documented example of that, with Turkic tribes displacing Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks, not coexisting with them (long term). In short periods, of course there were some cases of peaceful coexistence, but power politics always finds a way to capitalize on ethnic divisions through violence. Bulgaria and Hungary are much earlier era examples (still visible in genetic testing) . The displaced Slavic and Germanic tribes refugee crisis brought upon various Roman crises in multiple waves, ultimately driving the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> conveniently written almost exclusively by people living in sedentary communities This is false. The Turkic and Mongolic peoples of the steppe have a well-developed epic tradition that goes back centuries. And that epic tradition celebrates raids on sedentary communities for plunder and as a display of bravery and political leadership.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Epics were not written down until quite recently. There is some medieval Mongolian literature (e.g. the secret history), but it's fairly limited. Most study of mongolians using historical literature is done from Chinese and other sources. Same issue with Turkic sources. Even Timur is known from only a few contemporaneous sources, with most of the extant historical sources being written after his death. You also shouldn't take stories as necessarily accurate portrayals of daily life. Killing dragons and other monsters wasn't a viable route to power due to their rarity, but it's a popular legitimizing myth that shows up all over the place in early medieval European literature. Similarly, while early modern Spain did have "explorers" charting strange new lands and ahem, "romancing" women like their early modern literature (often inspired by that same literature), it was not a typical career for most Spaniards. Raiding happened, but it was not the sole or even necessarily a primary means of economic subsistence depending on where and when.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    > was not the sole or even necessarily a primary means of economic subsistence Because peasants were good at hiding and plain out avoided living where they would be an easy raiding target. Which is my point exactly.

koheripbal 3y ago

In many of those cases the settled peoples they coexisted with are the settled descendents of those same nomadic raiders. That shared ethnicity, language, trade, and intermarriage is what protected them. The nation of Turkey is a strong historically recent and well documented example of that, with Turkic tribes displacing Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks, not coexisting with them (long term). In short periods, of course there were some cases of peaceful coexistence, but power politics always finds a way to capitalize on ethnic divisions through violence. Bulgaria and Hungary are much earlier era examples (still visible in genetic testing) . The displaced Slavic and Germanic tribes refugee crisis brought upon various Roman crises in multiple waves, ultimately driving the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> conveniently written almost exclusively by people living in sedentary communities This is false. The Turkic and Mongolic peoples of the steppe have a well-developed epic tradition that goes back centuries. And that epic tradition celebrates raids on sedentary communities for plunder and as a display of bravery and political leadership.

AlotOfReading 3y ago
Epics were not written down until quite recently. There is some medieval Mongolian literature (e.g. the secret history), but it's fairly limited. Most study of mongolians using historical literature is done from Chinese and other sources. Same issue with Turkic sources. Even Timur is known from only a few contemporaneous sources, with most of the extant historical sources being written after his death. You also shouldn't take stories as necessarily accurate portrayals of daily life. Killing dragons and other monsters wasn't a viable route to power due to their rarity, but it's a popular legitimizing myth that shows up all over the place in early medieval European literature. Similarly, while early modern Spain did have "explorers" charting strange new lands and ahem, "romancing" women like their early modern literature (often inspired by that same literature), it was not a typical career for most Spaniards. Raiding happened, but it was not the sole or even necessarily a primary means of economic subsistence depending on where and when.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  > was not the sole or even necessarily a primary means of economic subsistence Because peasants were good at hiding and plain out avoided living where they would be an easy raiding target. Which is my point exactly.