Via Saraceni, the Hsiong-Nu are sequenced. "Xiongnu" over there. But who knows what they called themselves; they were illiterate, like Comanche (and unlike the later greater Khans).
First came the Yamnaya, para-Tocharian. They do not survive; they probably didn't even contribute to the Tocharoi, whose language also doesn't survive, except in archaeology. The Sintashta - Aryans - had a hand in replacing them, about 2000 BC when there was a famously bad weather-pattern. Later came a revolution in steppe technology: riding-pants, saddles. This was 1200 BC, coincidentally (more likely - not) when the whole Bronze Age world changed. Soon to become the Iron Age.
Sintashta did not, however, wipe out all the steppes' other tribes - by now, races. Mongols resisted where the Yamnaya abroad didn't. Native Americans will tell us clearly that Apache and Comanche are not "tribes", that this is Western (and Asian) condescension. So let us neither condescend to the Eurasians: much daylight shone between Aryans and Mongols. It was the Hsiong-Nu, we now learn, who united these races into the same enterprise. The Comanche did not know about them; but they assuredly played the same playbook.
Xiongnu as noted didn't read. But they traded with many nations who did. Their story will be told someday, perhaps by a Buddhist monk. Until then, the genetics are doing well telling the real story behind it.
No comments:
Post a Comment