Steppe Out into New Horizons Part 2

The so-called Barbarians

This is part of a post series. Check out part 1 linked below

We base our history on the rise and fall of civilizations. However, the civilizations we focus on are entirely based on what they were able to build. The edifices they literally build. We learn early on that these are the marks of a great society. But what of those that didn’t focus on the physical structures they left behind? Still, their legacy is with us today even if we don’t discuss it. Without keeping that memory we eventually forgot who they were and what they gave us. However, as I mentioned in part one of this series, nothing is ever truly erased from history as much as some would like to try. Why don’t we celebrate these legacies as the human collective? Of our journey as a species— our collective story. Perhaps it harkens back to historical perspective. Is our narrative that only sedentary civilizations have given rise to today’s world? When I say sedentary, I don’t mean the desk-ridden, couch lounging society most of us live in now, with all our modern conveniences. No, I mean the societies built on permanent settlements. Think about it— the Egyptian pyramids and Sphinx; the Minoan ruins of Knossos; the Greek Acropolis, and Parthenon; the Persepolis ruins of the Achaemenid empire; the ancient city of Petra; the Great Wall of China; the Roman colosseums, roads, and aqueducts. These are just a few examples of well-known ancient civilizations that have left physical legacies. Some ruins we don’t even understand their purpose or the people who built them, yet we flock to these sites and tour the remains. We stand on long ago built places and tell each other— can you believe we are standing where someone stood blah blah years ago. We all do it. Some of us are more amazed than others, but we all do it including me. That is until I started looking into the history of the steppes and adjusted my definition of a great civilization.  

Once I started delving into the history of the steppes I was confronted with an alternative world history. One that is more inclusive to the players that shaped our world today.  These people were not defined by their physical structures but by their cultural legacy. These are the nomadic peoples. And in this case, I am not talking about the van lifers or digital nomads. They were not nomads that lived between settled cities but people who lived off the land and traveled to best use what was naturally around them and along the way they traded. Whereas sedentary societies distinguish themselves by their location first and then the customs and norms which stemmed from their surroundings; nomadic societies shared customs and norms first and were not defined by a location but by the people who travel together. Somehow this difference in lifestyle and worldview had led to a wording quagmire. Historically the nomadic peoples of the steppes have been labeled as barbaric which has evolved to mean something far different than its initial meaning. In Roman times it merely meant not Roman. Likewise in Chinese text what became synonymous with barbarian merely meant not Chinese.  In whichever language the term was a label for foreigners. Which I know can also have a negative intent as well, but not in its straightforward meaning. Yet in today’s understanding, barbaric is synonymous with uncivilized. To be civilized is to be knowledgeable and accomplished. And there’s the quagmire because we have been taught that these two things— barbarians and culture— are mutually exclusive.

Nomadic people were not what we came to describe as barbarians, devoid of norms and culture. They had their own social hierarchy, customs, beliefs system, laws, and art. We have been learning about nomadic peoples, if at all, from the outsider’s perspective. Not the perspective to understand and really know them but as the enemy of the status quo. The harbingers of chaos to the structure of sedentary society. We can look at these ancient cultures committing the same error made throughout history, which is to deride that which is different— unwilling to expand their view and understanding of others. That doesn’t mean we have to make the same mistakes as them. We can now look at the historical records and see a different narrative between the lines. A narrative that is helped by archeology and shows the rich culture and legacy of these nomads that has shaped our world today just as much as the sedentary civilizations we exalt.

What we have forgotten

We all started as nomads. Somewhere along the way after food cultivation, there was a schism between those that stayed to tend to the crops and those that continued to hunt and gather, remaining nomadic. But even among nomads, there was a progression in society to not just follow the natural herds of animals. They also became pastoralist and animal breeders. One could say instead of cultivators of crops they became cultivators of animals. And here is one great contribution of ancient nomads— the horse. We know through fossils that horses had already become extinct by the time Europeans came to North and South America. And horse lineages in the western hemisphere are due to importation from Eurasia. Though the lineage of horses in Eurasia today is still a topic of debate and continued research, what is known is that not all horses were created equal. Horses in general were not very populous outside of the steppes. In areas where sedentary societies flourished horses were either non-existent or were too small to ride or use for work. But the cultures along the steppes were centered around the horse. The nomads of the steppes selectively bred them to create stronger, sturdier horses. To see a human on horseback in the early days was not commonplace in sedentary civilizations until nomads of the steppes introduced them to it. Can you imagine sedentary ancient people when they encountered nomads on horseback? When horse riding was just simply not done, they must have been imposing figures to look upon. As the hoofs beat down on the ground, trembling the earth as these tall figures approached them en masse. Imagine facing them in battle in a time when warfare was an infantry affair, a hand-to-hand or sword and spear combat. Standing there facing them they must have felt like they just came to the party wholly underdressed and unprepared. These barbarians fought through what we now call cavalry not infantry. As these two clashed and battled, the armies of cities were repeatedly outmaneuvered by nomadic cavalry tactics. Realizing the advantage these horses provided, civilizations started bartering with nomadic peoples to attain not only these horses but their knowledge of breeding and of keeping them.  And of course, the knowledge of cavalries was also a point of interest to sedentary cities.

Once horses were incorporated in the life of sedentary societies, they found other uses for them. Farm work became a horse’s job instead of the oxen. Horses became cart pullers instead of oxen and mules. Speaking of things horses pulled, the light chariot with spoked wheels was also a nomadic invention assimilated into sedentary societies. For the nomads, the light chariots were needed to ease the load the horse pulled as these nomads packed their belongings and moved across the steppes. For sedentary peoples, it became the chariot of warfare which we see displayed painted on urns and walls; sculpted onto ancient structures. As the demand of horses in sedentary society grew so did the horses’ population and its selective breeding.

From antiquity through the Middle Ages, horse breeding and the selling of horses was a major commodity for nomadic peoples. Pretty much anything to do with equine culture was developed by the nomads then introduced to sedentary peoples in antiquity such as the invention of saddles and stirrups. Had it not been for steppe nomads who introduced their powerful horses to people outside the steppes, would the world have progressed differently? Would agriculture and its tools powered by horses developed differently? Would warfare and conquest be the same had it not been for the horse? How different would transportation have evolved? If it were not for the horse’s great role in the evolution of human transportation, would we measure car engine power by something else instead of horsepower? Could we imagine a world where the majestic horse did not adorn the countryside?   

Even the evolution of fashion was influenced by nomadic traditions and equine culture. In ancient cultures what you wore was an indication of which lifestyle you belonged to. All ancient Eurasian cultures that were sedentary— Greeks, Romans, Persians, Chinese, and Germanic tribes—wore some sort of skirt, toga, or robe regardless of gender. Whereas all nomadic cultures wore the more functional trousers for a life spent on horseback or camelback, regardless of gender. It was usually hairstyles and accessories that differentiated gender fashion for both lifestyles. As horses were assimilated into sedentary civilizations so were trousers. Sedentary people saw the functionality of what they at what point deemed strange barbaric attire. However, in sedentary society in which males were the ones on horseback and women were not, then the trousers became the article of clothing for men and not women. I like to reflect on this one point since in recent years much hubbub has been made of wearing clothing that is assigned to the other gender. There was a time when we all wore non-gendered clothing, the difference was on the society one lived in not the gender. Gendered clothing was, one can say, merely a manifestation of the strictly gendered patriarchal structure of sedentary civilizations.

All was not fair in war…

A nomads’ horse riding skill was not all that impressed or terrorized the sedentary people. It was also the weapons these barbarians used and how they used them. Not only did nomads fight on horseback but they build weapons that were specifically made to be used while on horseback. The horse was not simply a tool to get into the battle scene. They could fight at a distance from horseback and move in and retreat with speed thanks to the horse and the composite bow. Sedentary people had single material bows whereas nomads had created a bow made of different materials, a composite of different types of wood, horn, or bone glued together. This allowed smaller bows with greater flexibility, maneuverability, and range. This maneuverability gave us horse-mounted archers.  Again, these served as a tactical advantage against sedentary warfare tactics further explaining why they found nomad warriors so threatening. They simply had better technology than sedentary people and skillsets sedentary people could not master as they did. This is why sedentary civilizations in the ancient world would be allied with nomads and hire them as cavalry in wars between sedentary civilizations.  

While sedentary civilizations coveted their tools of warfare, this was not their only legacy. I don’t want to perpetuate a narrative that there were bloodthirsty people as has been recorded in the histories of sedentary civilizations. Their threat to sedentary civilizations made them into the enemy they love to hate when they were at odds and loved to use when it befitted them. So it is easy to see why they were not painted in a favorable light. The reality is that many of these tools that were advantageous for warfare were created in the pursuit to improve their own nomadic lifestyle. Tools and weapons to improve hunting, innovations to help move and carry loads by horse, techniques in herding that were easily applied to calvary tactics. The inclusive narrative tells us they fought when they saw it necessary, not as a sport or way of life. Many were simply traders and both civilizations, sedentary and nomadic, equally benefited from each other. This is a narrative that is not generally discussed in history class.

Many nomads were pastoral and would herd sheep, goats, camels, and yak. They would sell wool, hides, leather goods, and dairy products such as cheese, yogurts, and fermented milk. These were all products that were bought by the people of sedentary societies. Likewise, nomads bought cultivated crops and textiles from sedentary societies. They both saw the benefit each had to offer otherwise they would have stayed isolated one from another. Or better yet there would be no record of interaction besides warfare. Yet the record of interaction is found in burial sites. Nomads buried with products only made in sedentary civilizations sometimes from thousands of miles away. Currency of different sedentary civilizations has also been found in nomadic burial sites. Likewise, goods of nomadic people and faraway places can be found in burial sites of sedentary societies.

The truth is the world of antiquity through the 16^th century in Eurasia and northern Africa was a story of two interactive yet different societies, that of the nomadic tribes and of the sedentary states. When disagreements arose and diplomacy failed, wars and violence erupted. These, we are taught were aggressions by the nomads. However, further review of what was occurring contemporaneously tells a different story. Placing context to the events, the aggressive behavior by nomads was based on land occupation, displacement, and trade disputes. Really no different than disputes by two sovereign states then or now. These were societies that lived interdependent of each other’s economies. Had trade not occurred, then the narrative of these uncivilized, war thirsty barbarians that we learned off would have been true. But trade did happen, and the goods exchanged are found recorded in official texts in ancient Greece, Persia, and China. With trade came knowledge of faraway places the nomads had visited. It is why texts from ancient China referenced the Romans. It is why before Marco Polo went to China they knew of a kingdom in the east and stories that inspired explorers…well to explore. These explorers from both ends—east and west—ventured to these faraway lands using the routes already established by the nomads. Along the way different ideas exchanged, not just goods. The nomads were instrumental in bridging the distances between places and ideas. In Eurasia this was the beginning of the famed Silk Road.