Page 60 - Mongolia & the Gobi Desert

Human habitation in Mongolia stretches back a surprisingly long time. The earliest traces date
from 800,000 years ago, when Homo erectus lived in caves in the southwest. Modern man
(Homo sapiens) arrived much later—only 40,000 years ago. These early ancestors left striking
cave paintings, carvings out of ivory and bone, and stone tools in their cave dwellings. Over
time, they began to leave the caves and settle in agricultural villages. But it was in the Copper
and Bronze Ages that a key development of Mongolian culture came into being—horseback
riding. With this development many of the local tribes turned away from farming, and took up
a nomadic existence instead. As a result, horses, horseback riding, and a nomadic way of life
were to become hallmarks of Mongolian culture for thousands of years.

Early History

For the next 2,000-3,000 years, the Mongolian tribes continued to be generally independent
of each other. Although some groups—the Okunev, the Andronovo, and the Karasuk—seem
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under a single head—King Modu Chanyu of the Xiongnu tribe. His military force soon emerged
as the greatest threat to the Chinese kingdom, and prompted the Chinese emperor to build a
very large defensive wall. (Today it’s known as the Great Wall of China.)

The Wall may have helped keep the raiders out, but it didn’t stop the rise of the Xiongnu
Dynasty within Mongolia. From 209 B.C. to 93 A.D. they ran an empire that was larger than
modern-day Mongolia. Subsequent dynasties, such as the Xianbei (93-234 A.D.), the Rouran
(330-555), and the Gokturks (555-745) continued to enlarge the empire’s holdings. It was
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and “Khagan” meaning “emperor”.

The Age of the Khaganates

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woman, there were “Khatun”)—could hold such a large territory, each region or tribe tended
to have it’s own leader, equivalent in rank to a king. The Khagan, or emperor, was typically
the strongest of these kings, and the one who would lead the others in military campaigns.
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dominated the others militarily. But when more than one strong king rose to power, the title
of emperor was up for grabs. Such a situation occurred in 745, when the Uyghur, Karluk, and
Basmyl tribes all rebelled against the ruling Gokturks. In the resulting power vacuum, the
Uyghurs dominated the other tribes, and formed their own empire.

In fact, the Uyghurs were so successful and powerful that in 756 they formed an alliance with
the Tang Dynasty in China. Although ultimately defeated by the Kyrgyz (the ancestors of
modern-day Kyrgyzstan), the Uyghurs left a strong cultural legacy—it was their script that
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Genghis, or How to Rule a Large Chunk of the World

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