A 🧵returning to some themes relating to Altaic Khaganates. For a general background one can read this summary we wrote (Huns, Uralics, and empires of the steppe) recently.
One development that has happened since is the publication of another paper on multiple genomes from the Avar Khagnate. I began my first serious foray into Altaic history by reading René Grousset’s “Empire of the steppes” and Chingiz Khan. It is fashionable these days, even though they have written no sweeping history like his, for modern Altaic scholar to crap on Grousset as otiose. Whatever our current improvements in understanding, I still feel it is important to read & appreciate the pUrvAchArya-s. The thrill of reading Grousset cover to cover as a kid is 1 of those indelible feelings – it was followed by many an afternoon of wandering as though on horseback thinking about the various hypothesis of the ethnogenesis, warfare & cultural achievements of the people of the steppe going back to our own Aryan ancestors.
That nostalgic flourish apart, 1 thing that struck us from Grousset’s work was that there were 2 Hun Khaganates, which temporally sandwiched the Xianbei “Khaganate” between them. Now the aDNA results strongly support this idea. The historical course of these Khaganates was also rather parallel – both expanded westerwards and invaded Europe founding states therein. The latest paper: cell.com/action/showPdf… establishes that Avar Khaganate was an offshoot of the Khaganate known as “Ruan-Ruan” in the chIna tradition, even as the earlier western Eurasian Hun states were offshoots of the Xiongnu Khaganate.
When we later read the letter of Chingiz Khan where he referred to the old days of the Shanyu as the legitimate ruler of the Mongols, it became clear to us that the Chingizid Mongols likely saw themselves as linked to these early Hun Khaganates with the Turkic interludes as “illegitimate” rulers of Mongol lands. Among other things it seems to have been the motivation for Chingiz Khan to decisively make Mongolia for the Mongols.
This raises the question of what about the Khitans & the Xianbei? Here again from a much later time we see Chingiz Khan having some leniency &even tacit expression of kinship with the Khitan who had earlier established an empire in China. As we noted in the above article the Khitan language has been only partly deciphered. What can be read suggests that it is clearly para-Mongolic but quite distant from Chingizid Mongolian. In light of this we have to return to famous brAhmI script Khüis Tolgoi inscription deciphered by Vovin as a Mongolic language closer to Chingizid Mongolian that any other; for more see thread.
This, along with the aDNA data suggests that the Avar elite indeed spoke a Mongolic language & were more closely related to the Chingizid Mongols than the Khitan. Thus, we could say that the succession on the steppe interleaved Mongolic with the para-Mongolic Xianbei and Khitans:
- Afanasievo: IE
- Aran: Indo-Iranian
- Hun/Xiongnu: Mon
- Xianbei: Para-Mon
- Avar/Rouran: Mon
- Gok Turk: Turk
- Uighur: Turk
- Kirghiz: Turk
- Khitan/Liao: Para-Mon
- Tangut elite: Para-Mon
- Tangut general: Tibetan
- Jurchen: Tungusic Chingizid: Mon Manchu: Tungusic
xiongnu + xianbei/serbi
Source: TW
In some parts of the world aDNA studies have become a matter of fact tool for reconstructing lost history like this massive study of the Avar Khaghanate individuals from Hungary. Like the earlier study it shows the tale of “Mongols” before the Chingizids
Network of large pedigrees reveals social practices of Avar communities - Nature
It seems the East Asian component of the Avars in the west
can be modeled best with Late Xiongnu & certain Xianbei (Serbi) individuals.
We take the Xiongnu to be early members of the Mongolic branch,
while as Shimunek demonstrated Xianbei to be early members of the Serbi branch of Serbi-Mongolian (Serbi = para-Mongolic).
When the Serib Khaghanate rose
it incorporated several elements of the Xiongnu Hun Shanyuate into it.
The Rouran Khaghanate that arose upon the disintegration of the Serbi,
it was likely led by a Mongolic group.
Even the name Mongol might have emerged with a group of the Rouran – recorded as maMkhuya who invaded Khotan.
The western branch of this Rouran horde founded the Avar potentate in Europe.
In this work the clear admixture over time of the Mongolic people with Iranic & Germanic peoples can be seen.
Finally – we have evidence that even a brAhmaNa was incorporated & his family married into the Rouran Khaghanate.(5) I wonder if someday in central Asia we might find evidence for such admixtures.
Location
Source: TW
The Hou Han Shu states that the old domain of the Avar Khaghanate was southwest of the Ding-ling. Based on archaeology, the Ding-ling can be associated with the Tagar culture centered in the Minusinsk region in Siberia, associated with massive bronze production facilities. Based on archaeogenetics, it now known that these peoples had a dominant Sintashta-derived ancestry admixed with smaller the Baikal bronze age and BMAC components (the latter was swept up during the Sintashta-derived eastward expansion via central Asia).
The same chIna text states that the Avars were to the northeast of the Wu-sun (=ashvin as per Beckwith). We have previously argued that these were steppe Indo-Aryans rather than Iranians (contrast with arimAspa). Thus, the Avars were in what is Mongolia today, sandwiched between two I-Ir groups. Hence, the ethnogenesis of the early Serbi-Mongolic people was closely associated with the Indo-Iranians, as supported by the genetic evidence.
At that time, the Serbi (the ancestors of the later Serbi (Xianbei) and Khitan Khaghanates) were geographically east of the Avar in the direction of Manchuria. The I-Ir groups in the region were in part wiped out first with the Hun (Xiongnu) expansion under Bagatur. In this conflict, the ashvin seemed to have joined forces with the Huns against the proto-kuShANa-s.
Further, the above suggests that prior to 250 BCE, apart from the Para-Mongolic (Serbi) split, the Mongolic groups had already diversified into the precursor of the later Avar Khaghanate and the Xiongnu.
It is rather exciting that we live in an age where archaeogenetics has come together with linguistics and Chinese philology to offer a picture of the early Serbi-Mongol history that we only dreamed of as a kid.