Mongolia in the Ancient World

Date: 2000-700 b.c.e.

Locale: Northern Asia between China and Russia with the Gobi Desert in the southeast

Mongolia in the Ancient World

The ancestors of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire in the 1300’s, were among the first modern humans to migrate successfully to some of Earth’s harshest lands with their long, cold, and arid winters. His nomadic predecessors also settled Siberia, traveled across the Bering Strait into the Americas, and navigated across the Pacific Ocean to settle the Pacific Islands and Australia.

The Mongols originated in the region around Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world and a natural boundary between Siberia and present-day Mongolia (mahn-GOHL-yuh). Archaeologists have discovered 50,000-year-old hand axes and other stone implements that are the remains of Mongolia’s earliest inhabitants, predecessors of the Neanderthal. Stone Age humans were living in the southern Gobi Desert region between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.

According to The Secret History of the Mongols, the official literary account of Genghis Khan’s reign, the Mongol people date to an ancient time when heaven mandated that a blue-gray wolf and his wife, a fallow deer, mate. Their son, Batachikan, was the first human ancestor of Genghis Khan. The first nonmythical mention of a people living on the steppe lands north of Chinese civilization dates to the eighth century b.c.e. However, the Chinese sources do not identify the people by name until the third century b.c.e.

The Mongol people did not exist as a political entity until the creation of the Mongol Empire by Genghis Khan in the 1300’s. Before the creation of the Mongol Empire, large, loosely organized Mongol, Tungus, and Turkic tribes inhabited the steppes. These tribes were continually at war with other nomadic tribes and sedentary peoples whose civilizations were based on agriculture rather than pastoralism. The ambitions that drove these tribes to war included the desire to achieve military or political superiority and even greater wealth and political influence.

The earliest of the great pastoralist empires in Inner Eurasia, the Xiongnu, existed in this area from 200 to 133 b.c.e. Under the command of Maodun, who ruled from 209 to 174 b.c.e., the Xiongnu federation expanded imperial power and wealth to include the Gobi Desert and the rest of Mongolia. The Xiongnu were probably the builders of the first state in Central Asia. They were the first people of the Mongol lands to pose a serious threat to the sedentary peoples of the Chinese kingdoms. The Xiongnu Empire was the first of the many empires to follow that was founded by a great military commander who established a unified kingdom and that later fell apart because of intratribal warfare over wealth and power.

Following a disastrous attempt to conquer the Xiongnu, Han China agreed to treat them as diplomatic equals and to provide regular gifts to Maodun so he would not attack China. Maodun financed the growth of his empire through conquests that supplied it with the food, raw materials, and additional soldiers his nomadic people needed. Among Maodun’s achievements was the creation of a stable relationship between his nomadic tribesmen and the agrarian Chinese Empire.

In 133 b.c.e., the great Han emperor Wudi (r. 141-87 b.c.e.) rebelled at the system of paying tribute to the Huns and waged a relatively successful war to stop the payments. As the power of Maodun’s successors declined, Mongolia once again became a region of independent tribes engaged in continuous struggles for wealth and power. Some refugees from the Xiongnu Empire migrated west. Historians believe some of these refugees eventually became parts of the troops of Attila, king of the Huns.

During the third and fourth centuries c.e., two barbarian empires—the T’o-pa (386-534 c.e.) and the Juan-Juan (350-555 c.e.)—fought to unite the independent tribes into a powerful and wealthy federation that controlled far-flung territories.

By the mid-sixth century c.e., a federation of predominantly Turkish-speaking tribes from the Altay region expanded the territories once controlled by the Juan-Juan. The Turkish empires that followed fell apart for many of the same reasons that the earlier steppe federations had—strong and successful leadership disappeared, as did the sources of wealth, including the tribute that China paid and the markets and foodstuffs it provided.

The Uighur tribes evolved into the next major steppe power, reigning from 744 to 840 c.e. Their military power, political influence, and wealth exceeded those of predecessor states. The Uighurs helped a disgruntled Tang general, An Lushan, overthrow the Chinese emperor. A grateful new emperor richly rewarded his Uighur allies with gifts, diplomatic recognition, and ready access to Chinese markets.

The Uighur built permanent palaces and fortresses. They also developed their own written language, which many captured tribes, including the Mongols, adopted. Once again, civil warfare and vassal tribal resistance led to a Central Asian empire’s disintegration. A confederation of Mongol, Siberian, and Turkic tribes contributed to the decline and fall of the Uighur Empire. The Kirghiz gained control after the Uighur, but they failed to establish their own commercial or military empire and soon fell out of power.

Tribes from Manchuria and people from China attempted to fill the military and political vacuum that developed with the decline of the Kirghiz. During this period, Mongolian replaced the Turkic languages as the dominant language. Mongolia reverted to a land of regional powers unable to threaten north China or control trade along the Silk Road.

Genghis Khan and his successors built the largest land-based empire ever. That empire ruled much of modern-day China, Korea, the Middle East, and Russia. In some cases, this rule lasted more than one hundred years. The empires of Mongolia thus played a significant role in human history.

Bibliography

Christian, David. Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire. Vol. 1 in A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1998.

Derev’anko, Anatoliy P., ed. and comp. The Paleolithic of Siberia: New Discoveries and Interpretations. Edited by Demitri B. Shimkin and W. Roger Powers, translated by Inna P. Laricheva. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

Fairservis, Walter A., Jr. Archeology of the Southern Gobi of Mongolia. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1993.

Sinor, Denis. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of the Mongols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.