History of Steppe Cultures: Overview — Erik Learns Horse Lords; Part 1
A brief look at the awesome Eurasian steppe cultures; from the Scythians to the Mongols!
I adore me some history, especially cultures whose lifestyles and beliefs I could never comprehend. As someone that’s never even ridden a horse, let alone conquered a kingdom on one, what better place to start than with one of the wildest of historical phenomena, the horse lords!
There are so many amazing cultures, achievements and people that have made the Eurasian steppes their home; with a ton of cultural, religious and physical diversity over thousands of years of history. I won’t be able to accurately portray the wide berth that makes up these peoples and their history, but y’know what? I’m going to try anyway!
In part one of this fun series, I’m going to give you a rundown of what exactly makes a “horse lord” culture. What they did, where they lived, who they were and how they acted. In future parts I’ll be going over specific cultures, so be sure to stick around for more!
Horse lord cultures go by a lot of names: hordes, steppe peoples, Turkic peoples, horse nomads, khaganates, Hunnic cultures, Mongols, Scythian descendants and I’m sure countless more. At the end of the day they all describe a group of cultures who lived primarily nomadic lifestyles, engaged in little farming, but a lot of warring in the great plains throughout Eurasia.
The vast majority of these cultures were/are located in west-central Asia and Eastern Europe, in what is now modern day Mongolia, Russia, Ukraine, Northern China, Khazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc. What made these places ideal for these cultures was the massive amount of pasture land, vast open spaces and little resources to go around.
Like most warring/raiding/violent cultures, a lot of what pushed these cultures to live so aggressively was depravation combined with normalization through ritual and tradition. Overall, horse lord cultures had a harsh, brutal lifestyle, which when combined with a unique landscape, very specific resources and a dependance on animals created a unique anthropological slice of humanity.
It’s also worth noting that horse lord cultures do still exist, though are much more modernized. Pack animals have replaced by trucks, fermented horse milk replaced by vodka, raiding replaced with TV watching and motorbiking; but for the most part their cultural pillars still exist centuries later. Go see for yourself with a trip to Mongolia or Siberia!
An Attempt at a Brief Historical Overview
The original horse lord culture arrived on the scene with the Scythians, an Iranian people who moved into the steppe around 900 BCE, and spread quickly.
They were raiders and conquerors, displacing an untold number of pre-historic nations, incorporating ideas and beliefs, but maintaining their own unique way of life. They established a lot of the cultural norms that would define the steppes cultures for millennia: yurts, raiding, cultural rituals and some religious principles such as the worship of trees and horses, and the use of totemic sites called “kurgans”.
They fought against other huge powers of the time, which is how we know about them. Folks like the ancient Greeks, Persians and pre-Imperial China.
The Scythians, after lots of warring both internally and externally are considered to have ended around 200 BCE. In their wake lots of similar cultures popped up, but for the most part the two big factions that arose were the Sarmatians and Xiongnu cultures who made up the Western and Eastern halves of the steppes respectively.
The Sarmatians had poor timing and found themselves fighting against some of the most powerful empires in ancient history; the Macedonians, the Persians and the Romans. Necessity led them to assimilate with a lot of the other smaller states at the time. They formed whole new cultures, combining the settler lifestyle of their neighbours with the Sarmatians’ love for raiding. These cultures, namely the Alans, Avars, Vandals and Goths would eventually play a pivotal role in the fall of Rome.
Unlike the Sarmatians, the Xiongnu had a lot more freedom to do their own thing with a lack of imperial neighbours. The Xiongnu, which essentially meant “dangerous hillbilly” in Chinese, dominated the Asian steppes, conquering all the smaller tribes in the area.
So much of what would come to define the Mongol, Hunnic and Turkic cultures originated amongst the Xiongnu. It’s very hard to trace the exact origin of a lot of these beliefs, but from what historians can tell, Tengrism, the dominant religion of the steppes for a millennium, originated with the Xiongnu, as well as the sacred beliefs towards birds of prey, wolves, reincarnation and sport.
The Xiongnu were also the first full-fledged empire amongst the horse lords, with a defined imperial power, taxation and (kinda) regulated laws.
Unfortunately, like many empires, the Xiongnu were prone to infighting, leading to their destruction at the hands of the Chinese around the year 300.
As the Chinese are gaining a stronger foothold, the Romans are falling apart. So enters the first of the famous steppe cultures; the Scourge of God themselves, the Huns.
The Huns arrive on the Roman scene “out of nowhere” in 370. In reality, they were part of the former Xiongnu empire; fleeing west from the Chinese and their own civil wars. The Romans however had no idea about what was going on in the east, and were overwhelmed by a type of culture they hadn’t seen in centuries.
The settled cultures had no clue how to defend themselves from this new threat. The Goths, Alans, Avars and Vandals remembered their Sarmatian heritage though, and knew exactly what to do. They combined (kinda) and destroyed the Romans.
The Huns were victims of their own success however, and after the death of the god-king Attila, they were doomed to a quick collapse in a foreign land that they didn’t understand. This led to the creation of even more states when combined with their Turkic cousins, cultures like the Cumans, Magyars and Bulgars; all of whom to this very day are immensely proud of their Hunnic heritage. The Magyars would even go on to name their settled nation “Hungary” in their honour.
As the Huns conquered the west, the post-Xiongnu states in the east weren’t going down without a fight. The Rourans (AKA the Eastern Huns, or the bad guys from “Mulan”) are most famous for being the group that led a particularly brutal campaign against China and proved that building the Great Wall may have been worth it all in the end.
Either way though, they were the culture that truly defined Mongol tradition. They were also the first people to incorporate the all-important term of “Khan”, making their empire the first true “Khaganate”.
Now enter the Turks! An ethnic group of Hunnic descent that rose following the shattering of Xiongnu empire. Originally a labour/slave caste, the Turkic peoples eventually found power of their own and formed an identity similar to, but different from the more Mongol Rouran. By the time the Turkic nations found their foothold they were in an ideal situation.
All the Hunnic nations east and west had collapsed and were primed for someone to come in and enforce imperial culture. They moved West and founded the Magyars, Bulgars and Cumans (and many more). They settled in the east and founded the massive Göktürk Empire, which following its collapse would make a bunch of off-shoots like the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Khazars.
There is so much to cover on the Turkic peoples, with so many distinct cultures, ideologies and beliefs that each deserves their own coverage. However, for the sake of my sanity and your attention span, I’m going to look at them from the comparative lens of their eastern cultural cousins, the Mongols.
The Turks’ proximity to the culturally influential nations around them had massive influences on their beliefs and traditions. They soon adopted more powerful (in a political sense) religious beliefs, engaged in less direct raiding and more paid mercenary work, embraced trade, banking and taxation, and even mixed up military tactics, incorporating more foot soldiers, siege weaponry and armoured forces. Arts reworked themselves to incorporate surrounding practices, and they were quite cosmopolitan by medieval standards. This is in direct contract to easily the most famous, and infamous of all the horse lord cultures, the Mongols.
Mongol cultures have been around since the days of the Xiongnu, culturally and ethnically they were very similar to the Turkic peoples until the fall of the Göktürk Empire, when the differences became more defined. The Turks were the leading/royal class whereas the Mongols’ place in the empire was less defined, they kind of just did their own thing within the framework of the empire.
Now with practice in diplomacy, the Turks embraced a more worldly perspective after the fall of the Göktürk empire, whereas the Mongols continued to stick to themselves. This was due in big part to the fact that the land the Mongols lived on was very resource poor. Essentially it wasn’t really worth conquering, so for a long time the Mongols just fought amongst themselves, poking at the Chinese and Slavs with raids now and then, but staying quite stagnant, especially from a technological point of view. They were, for lack of a better term, forgotten about.
And since they had so much time to themselves they got extremely good at the thing they loved doing, war. Like a fine wine they were just left fermenting for centuries, until an ambitious man came along to pop that cork and make what may have been the greatest military power in history. That man was Genghis Khan, or Temujin, Lord Tengri made flesh, history’s most terrifying general.
Genghis Khan conquered, and he did so faster and more brutally than anyone had ever seen, or could’ve even imagined. Over the course of 20 years he took what might have been the least relevant nation on earth to an empire that overtook the entirety of Asia and about 60% of Europe.
After his death, the empire split apart; most of it settled into smaller Mongol states, abandoning their nomadic lifestyles. For the most part the distinct horse lord culture was no more. The vestiges that stuck to tradition were generally undefined as states and got relegated to some of the most resource poor parts of the world, continuing their beloved lifestyle in peace to this very day.
And that is my attempt to briefly summarize all the wonderful, nearly 3000 years of history amongst the nomadic steppe cultures. I gotta say, I’m pretty proud of my editing in this one, haha!
A big thanks goes out to the great resources at the St. Catharines Public Library, the lovely YouTube channel Khan’s Den, the many books that I’ve read over the years and have sadly forgotten, the amazing contributors to Wikipedia and of course my best pal, Jessa for simply being so gosh dang great.
Stick around for part 2 where I‘ll be learning about some of the more spiritual elements of these cultures. Like, how a khagan is essentially a weird war-pope. As well as the religious beliefs and rituals of Tengrism, like how they encourage raiding and mass violence, but have strict rules on hunting and gender equality. It’s gonna be a great one!
