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Post by lancer on Feb 24, 2015 15:29:00 GMT 3
Not modern ones obviously lol.
I presume there must have been small settlements of farmers inhabiting land that was also shared by horse nomads. How did they do it, and are there any examples that we know of from history? How did the farmers cope with the climate and any food/water shortage problems?
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Feb 26, 2015 12:07:22 GMT 3
Farmlands in the Mongolian steppes existed in the pre-modern period as early as the Hunnic (Xiongnu) period. There is a record in the Hanshu's Xiongnu Monography which says that the Huns were using Chinese prisoners as farm slaves near a river located in modern Mongolia. During the 8th century, the Gokturks (Tujue) asked agricultural implements from the Tang Dynasty of China. During the 820s, the Arabic emissary Tamim ibn Bahr described villages, towns and farmlands outside the Uyghur capital of Ordu Balyq (Qara Balghasun) located near the site of later Mongol capital Qara Qorum. Settled life and farming was more widespread among the Turks living in the steppes and riverlands located east of the Jaxartes (Sayhun) River in Turkestan during the 8th-13th centuries. Originally established as Soghdian colonies, towns such as Balasaghun, Talas (Atlakh), Farab, Isfijab, etc soon became important Turkic cities. Farming was of course easier to do in these river valleys which had a milder climate compared with the steppes of Mongolia. It is during this period and in that region where we see the sudden appearance and blossom of agricultural terms in Old Turkic, with a vocabulary of these terms all having Turkic etymologies instead of being borrowings from neighboring foreign languages. Some of these terms later passed to the Mongols in the 13th century; these words found their way into Mongolian either via the Uyghurs, who were famous merchants and farmers, or these were already in use among Turko-Mongolian nomads in the Mongolian steppes before the establishment of the Mongol Empire in the early 13th century (however, agricultural terms are usually not recorded in the 8th century Turkic inscriptions of Gokturks and Uyghurs in Mongolia).
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Post by snafu on Aug 28, 2015 11:45:08 GMT 3
The Khitans had a few border towns inside Mongolia (probably built on the sites of earlier places Ihsan mentioned), the most famous being Kedun/K'o-tun. According to what's written about it, it was the capital of an area comprising three prefectures. It was populated by 700 families (mainly exiles from China), and had a garrison of 20,000 warriors, many of whom were probably local tribesmen. There was a beacon for travelers on a nearby hill and at least four fortresses located nearby for extra defense. There was a suburb outside the western wall of the city, pottery kilns outside the south gate, and a herd of 10,000 imperial Khitan horses that were bred on nearby pastures. It was also a waystation for merchants coming to and from China. By the sound of it the town did well, so the climate probably wasn't a major problem. They probably grew millet, wheat, or some other crop that was suitable for the area, and they got their water from a nearby major river (in this case the Tuul river). Here's a map of the town based on the ruins.
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Post by Temüjin on Jan 10, 2016 3:13:10 GMT 3
the earliest still extant known town in the Eastern Steppe I'm aware of is Tongwancheng, established by the Southern Xiongnu ruler Helian Bobo: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongwanchengother still extant ruined steppe cities I'm aware of are Qara-Qoto built by the Tanguts ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khara-Khoto ), the Supreme Capital and the Central Capital of Liao (the latter of which also was the Northern Capital of the subsequent Jin dynasty), as well as Shangdu, the first captial of the Mongol Yuan dynasty ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangdu ). there are a couple of other still extant ruined cities in China, most of which are more oasis towns of the Tarim basin, the northernmost bordering the Steppe are worthy of mention: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaohe_Ruinsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaochangin Mongolia, there are several ruined sites, some of which are not properly identified yet. most famously, the ruins of the first Uyghur capital of Ordu-Baliq ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordu-Baliq ) and the original Mongol capital of Karakorum ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakorum ) in the orkhon valley. further east, there are the ruins of the Khar Bukh fortress and the city of Kedun (picture above) dating to the Khitans. so are the ruins of Kherlen Bars in eastern Mongolia. in the Tuva Repuplic is the Por bazhyn fortress of note, but i'm not sure if it has conclusively dated yet to a certain time or state. in Central Asia, most places still extant are from the Muslim period AFAIK, and mostly qualify as oasis towns, ratehr than Steppe towns. also, the Eastern Steppe proprotionally saw more Steppe Empires compared to Central Asia and the Western Steppe region in Europe, so naturally there would be more and larger towns in the east, as empries required a bureaucratic apparatus to run a state, especially those influenced by Chinese bureacracy. plus i've recently been more interested in the archaology of the Eastern Steppe. anyways, two sites immediately coem to mind. one is Nisa, the first capital of the Parthian Empire ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisa,_Turkmenistan ) and Balasagun, founded by the Soghdians ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balasagun ). the next problem is, most archaeology in the Western Steppe and Central Asia was and still is done mostly by Russian archaeological teams, which means that in most cases their works are not available in languages other than Russian. the only site i'm aware of in Kazakhstan is Bas-Kamyr.
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