Long hidden in the shadows of history, the world’s first nomadic empire, the Xiongnu, is coming back to life thanks to painstaking archaeological excavations and new techniques that analyze evidence of ancient DNA unearthed.
Rising from the endless Mongolian steppe 1,500 years before the hordes of Chinggis Khan, the Xiongnu Empire grew and grew to become one of the most powerful Iron Age political forces in Asia. So powerful did it become that it even extended its reach and influence from Egypt to Rome and Imperial China.
With an economic base based on animal husbandry and dairying, the Xiongnu were famously nomadic and built their empire on horseback. Their skill in mounted warfare made them swift and formidable foes. It was his legendary conflicts with China that ultimately led to the construction of the Great Wall.
Unlike their neighbors, however, the Xiongnu never developed a writing system, and consequently the historical records about their culture have been passed down almost entirely by their rivals and enemies. These accounts, largely recorded by chroniclers of the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), provide little information about the Xiongnu’s origins, political rise, or social organization.
Some recent archaeogenetic studies have traced the origins of this people to around 200 BC, when a mixture of nomadic groups from northern Mongolia gave the Xiongnu people a political entity. To learn more about them, researchers from Germany, the United States, and South Korea studied two cemeteries belonging to the elite of this empire. Both were located along the western border, at Takhiltyn Khotgor and at Shombuuzyn Belchir.
The results of their research confirm, as they explain in an article published in the journal Science Advances, that the Xiongnu “had a high degree of genetic diversity,” Juhyeon Lee, a student at Seoul National University and lead author of the study, said in a statement. study.
The experts found that the individuals tested exhibited extremely high genetic diversity, to a degree comparable to that found throughout the Xiongnu Empire. This characteristic was reproduced at all levels: at the imperial level, within communities and even in families.
Much of this diversity, however, was stratified. People of lower status (buried as satellites of the elites, likely reflecting that they were servants) exhibited the greatest genetic diversity and heterogeneity, suggesting that these individuals originated from remote parts of the Xiongnu Empire or beyond.
In contrast, local and aristocratic elites buried in wood-plank coffins within square and circular stone tombs exhibited lower genetic diversity and harbored higher proportions of East Eurasian ancestry, suggesting that status and power of the elite were concentrated in specific groups.
Still, even the families of this elite seem to have used marriage to cement ties with the newly incorporated groups, especially in Shombuuzyn Belchir. “The Xiongnu expanded their empire by incorporating disparate groups and made the most of marriage and kinship,” says Dr. Choongwon Jeong.
The research team made a second interesting finding. The high-status burials of the Xiongnu and the grave goods of their elite were disproportionately associated with women, corroborating textual and archaeological evidence that females played an especially prominent political role in the expansion and integration of new territories throughout the Xiongnu. the border of the empire.
At the Takhiltyn Khotgor cemetery, archaeologists discovered that monumental tombs had been built for women, with the most prominent flanked by throngs of commoner men buried in simple graves. They had been buried in elaborate coffins, decorated with the emblems of the sun and moon, representations of Xiongnu imperial power. One tomb even contained six horses and a partial chariot.
In the nearby Shombuuzyn Belchir cemetery, women also occupied the richest and most elaborate graves. Her grave goods were worthy of queens: wooden coffins, golden emblems and objects, glass beads and faience (handcrafted ceramic with a glassy finish), Chinese mirrors, a bronze cauldron, silk clothing, carriages, and more than a dozen cattle.
Three objects usually associated with male warriors on horseback were also found: a Chinese lacquer cup, a gilt iron belt clasp, and horse fittings. Such objects and their symbolism convey the great political power of women, specialists say.
“Women were enormously important agents of the Xiongnu imperial state along the border, often holding exclusive noble ranks, charged with upholding traditions and participating in both steppe political relations and so-called land exchange networks.” Silk Road,” says Dr. Bryan Millar, an archaeologist at the University of Michigan.
The genetic analysis also provided details about the children’s social roles. “They received differential mortuary treatment according to age and sex, which gives clues to the ages at which gender and status were attributed in Xiongnu society,” adds Dr. Christina Warinner of the Max Planck Institute.
Although adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 12 were buried with a bow and arrows, in a similar fashion to adult men, younger boys did not receive the same treatment. This suggests that the social gender roles of hunter and warrior were not ascribed to boys until late childhood or early adolescence.
The Xiongnu empire finally disintegrated at the end of the first century AD, but its social and cultural legacy lived on. “Our results confirm the nomadic tradition in which elite princesses play a fundamental role in the political and economic life of empires, especially in peripheral regions,” the experts explain.
“This tradition began with the Xiongnu and continued more than a thousand years later, under the Mongol Empire,†says Dr. Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan. “Although history has sometimes cast nomadic empires as fragile and brief, their strong traditions have never been broken.†, he concludes.
