About the origin of the Avars

[IsadorBG]

Ok it is understandable that e.g. a Roman general would rather choose the option of a civil war than expanding into the Sahara / Scandinavia if he has to deal with the problems related to overpopulation. And in the case of the defeated Roman general it is also understandable that he did not fled to those regions as they were unable to support his army.

But unless the Eastern Steppes are fundamentally different than the Western ones, the losing side of a Western Steppe civil war could have fled to the East. But it seems to be rarely the case.

Well no offense, but them being different is the point.

 

[Semper Victor]

It is often overlooked how intimately linked the empires of the Eastern Steppe were with China. Since the first unification of China, the North China Plain was more often ruled by nomads than by members of the sedentary Han Chinese population. In turn, these nomads became quickly Sinicized, and many Chinese ideas and technologies were picked up by them. The Tang themselves were of partly Turkic descent, and “Turkic” modes, including the use of the Turkic language, were one of the strongest features of the court of the Early Tang. The Chin were also the most heavily steppe-influence of the warring states, and their use of steppe nomads as mercenaries was one of the key reasons for the success of Shi Huangdi.

The Xiongnu themselves were very familiar with Chinese ways, as they originally stemmed from the Ordos Steppe before Shi Huangdi expelled them from there, and one of the reasons their empire became so powerful was that they forced the Early Han to pay tribute to them for sixty years. That put in the hands of the Chanyu of the Xiongnu an amount of wealth that enabled him to build up a huge web of patronage and alliances. If the Chinese refused to pay (which finally happened with Han Wudi) then it was either see their empire crumble, or take it by force.

In the West, there was not a source of wealth nearby to the Steppes remotely comparable to what China could offer, just next door.

 

[IsadorBG]

Khazars were famously wealthy for their central location in the middle of multiple trade routes. And of course, "looting" their neighbors could help altough I never liked that stereotype for Nomadic empires. If the vikings could rid themselves of this simplistic view, then it is mighty time to do the same with steppe nomads.

And obviously empires that predated and followed the fall of Khazaria tapped into what made the wealth of the Khazars. Some were more sucessfull than others.

Transoxiana is famous for being disputed between nomads and settled people for aeons. And was home to quite a few sophisticated nomadic or semi-nomadic empires.

Perhaps China was wealthier than the middle east or Europe, but it is wrong to assume that nothing comparable existed when we have multiple example of such elsewhere.

You give empires that actually conquered and settled in China. How were the multiple Turkish empires who did the same in the middle east different? In what way was the Seljuk, or Timurid Empire not remotely comparable in wealth than Jin or Lao? Because at this point we are no longer discussing nomads. But post-nomads empires.
And yet, it is amusing to see how successor empires also share that pattern of moving forever westward. As long as they are still somewhat nomadic. Indeed the movement of Turks east to west is pretty well documented and played a major role in the Turkification of Azerbaijan and Anatolia among others.

And centuries before the rise of the Xiongnu, we had the mighty Scythian Empire. Rivalling the Acheamenid in might and extracting tribute from India all the way to Europe. Surely at least remotely comparable to Spring and Autumn China?
So again, I find the wealth argument to be deeply unconvincing. If anything, if the East was indeed wealthier then they. would be the ones attracting westernlings, instead of easternling migrating west.

Which brings another thing: not all migration west were forced. Or rather the consequence of a disastrous defeat and a fight for survival. Many tribes migrated west in a far less dramatic fashion.

Why is that if living east is better?

 

[Barsoom]

And I gave my opinion: geography.



It is. And remains so.

The western part of the steppe from the Volga to the Danube is one of the most fertile place on earth. Mongolia and Uyghurstan? Not so much.

And so it is understandable that the movement went from east to west. There were not incentive for the western tribes to move east.




I think your logic is backward. Invader do not need to be richer to be successful. In fact this logic make little sense when we are talking about defeated tribe that are forced to flee their homeland like the Avars or the Xiongnu/Huns. Those tribes are literally fleeing to survive. How wealthy are they really? And why does it even matter?

Are they subjugating the western tribes with their money? No.

Rather think of it like that: Why Scandinavians pushed West/South instead of North (until almost the modern age)? And why Scandinavia was never invaded by Southernling? Because it was richer?

Or tribes in the Sahara/Arabian desert pressuring the arable land.

Why did they pushed at all? And why they were rarely if ever pushed back?

For me the same logic applies to the steppes. The western part is not only far larger and more fertile but also really easy to invade. As a side note it also was the first part to be conquered and colonized by settled people. Coincidence? I think not.
Meanwhile the Eastern steppes are surrounded North and West by mountains. South by the Gobi desert and East by the Pacific Ocean. And the whole land is hilly and arid. No so easy to subjugate.

And while I do believe China did play a role in providing stability to the Eastern Khaganate. It was thanks to the tributes and the silk road rather than plunder. And still it does not explain why western Khaganate such as the Avars, Bolghars, or Pechenegs fell to their eastern neighbors.

In what way where they "less wealthy"? Surely plundering their settled neighbors should have given them the upperhand since their vanquisher did not exactly come from China?

Also the east to west movement largely predates the existence of Imperial China. We have evidence of such migrations since at least the bronze age. And even further beyond if we suscribe to the nomadic origins of indo-euopeans.
Even with the most generous interpretation of their movements, they never seems to have expanded beyond the westernmost edges of the eastern steppes. Seemingly stopped by something. Or someones. Whatever the reason, I do not think the answer was China. No, most likely again geography.

Please excuse me if my replies are too short, I'm away from my computer for a few days and I'm too old to be comfortable typing on a cell phone.

It seems to me that this post and your last one paint a different picture of the eastern steppe. Is it surrounded by natural obstacles or are they also in the interior? If they aren't, then I don't see how they would impede conquest from west to east more than the reverse? If they are, then wouldn't they also make it easier for forest zone semi-nomads to transition?

The eastern edge, by the way, is a forest zone, the steppe doesn't reach all the way to the Pacific.

The east to west movement starts with Xiongnu, whose rise is almost exactly parallel to the establishment of the Han empire.

Tributes are a derivative of plunder in the sense that one gets the former by credibly threatening the latter.

If the western steppe is richer, then how do you explain the frequent victory of the weaker side? The pattern we're talking about is, after all, not the repeated success of western steppe peoples at fending off their neighbors. The Scandinavia example us nice but you don't give us an equivalent to the naval techniques that provided the vikings with their crucial mobility advantage. Horsemanship works for confrontations between steppe peoples and their settled neighbors but not for intra-steppe conflicts. So what is the x factor?

 

[IsadorBG]

Please excuse me if my replies are too short, I'm away from my computer for a few days and I'm too old to be comfortable typing on a cell phone.

It seems to me that this post and your last one paint a different picture of the eastern steppe. Is it surrounded by natural obstacles or are they also in the interior? If they aren't, then I don't see how they would impede conquest from west to east more than the reverse? If they are, then wouldn't they also make it easier for forest zone semi-nomads to transition?

There's mountains inside Mongolia yes. Not as high as the Altai themselves but still significant. Here's a map of the country:

Not obviously they are flat valley in between where nomads dwells but the geography is quite different from the vast western plains.

The Tarim basin is even worse with steeper mountain range and an even more arid climate.

The eastern edge, by the way, is a forest zone, the steppe doesn't reach all the way to the Pacific.

There's another mountain range that separate the Manchurian forest from the Mongolian steppe but otherwise, yes you are correct.

The east to west movement starts with Xiongnu, whose rise is almost exactly parallel to the establishment of the Han empire.

Arguable. The Tocharians started migrating westward before the Xiongnu. Some say because of the pressure of the Xiongnu but they moved to the tarim basin and to Transioxana before the rise of the Xiongnu.

Tributes are a derivative of plunder in the sense that one gets the former by credibly threatening the latter.

Let's just agree to disagree. I don't feel like arguing tonight.

If the western steppe is richer, then how do you explain the frequent victory of the weaker side? The pattern we're talking about is, after all, not the repeated success of western steppe peoples at fending off their neighbors. The Scandinavia example us nice but you don't give us an equivalent to the naval techniques that provided the vikings with their crucial mobility advantage. Horsemanship works for confrontations between steppe peoples and their settled neighbors but not for intra-steppe conflicts. So what is the x factor?

Actually the effectiveness of the Huns/Turks/Mongols are often attributed to innovation in their way of conducting war. But as this is a field I am not confident in, I won't argue it further.

The thing I am more interested is the argument that victories where frequent. In which I have to disagree. I am sure that if you start counting the number of invasions from the east you will be barely find a few. For literally millenias (plural) of history.

Contrast this with the number of "barbarian" invasions we know of in a few centuries of Roman history (most also coming from the east funnily enough)? Or in the dark ages?

No, what actually stand out is how rare those actually rare. The Turkish/Mongols invasion may have been dramatically effective but how many failed coup have never been chronicled? History is written by the winners afterall and while Romans were quick to boast about the dozens of people they crushed, we do not know how many tribes migrated westward and were just absorbed or crushed by those already present.

The case of the Avars and the Huns is particularly interesting in how different they were. The Avars resettlement and conquest was dramatically fast. The Xiongnu/Huns? Not so much. It took centuries from the collapse of their empire to them appearing in the doorstep of Rome. What happened in between? Difficult to ascertain.

And in the case of the Avar, they really did not subjugate any of the western nomadic realms. The Turks did yes but not the Avars. They subjugated a lot of settled europeans tribes and weaker nomadic tribe but I don't remember any major conflict recorded before they started fighting the Roman Empire. To be fair the steppes was still in flux after the collapse of the Huns but yes. Interesting fact nonetheless.

 

[Grandpa Maur]

But unless the Eastern Steppes are fundamentally different than the Western ones, the losing side of a Western Steppe civil war could have fled to the East. But it seems to be rarely the case.

The losing side of the Eastern part (east of Altai) of Great Steppe fleeing east means fleeing to, idk, Manchuria? Which is in very nice reach of victorious side and is thus not an option. The west gives opportunity to espace really long way and the south gives the opportunity to escape under protection of Chinese Empire (both things happened).

In case of Gokturks, who are from Altai, Manchuria might seem far away, but the whole eastern part of the steppe is one continguous area in the sense if a polity gets created it encompasses whole of it, and Manchuria borders it.

It raises some interesting questions about the power dynamics: if peoples defeated in the east could gain power in the west, the eastern steppe must have been much richer or more conducive to forming powerful political systems. Why didn't those powerful eastern peoples take over the western steppes before their defeats? There is one prominent example where they did do so, the Mongols. But even they, on succession, devolved their western parts to junior branches. There was probably more to be gained from interactions with China.

It's the later. The eastern steppe pastoralism requires wintering in large group, while western style pastoralism winters in smallish valleys. (it's not a style, geography demands it). I don't remember the exact circumstances... the east has less snow and animals can graze through it while in the west you need to go to sheltered mountain valleys?

The effect is, as you guessed, the eastern part makes political systems develop differently and stronger polities emerge with regularity.

As for whether the eastern steppe polities didn't (always) take over the west, it's probably because it already big, the distance is enormous, the habitat different, there is a barrier of Altai.

In fact, Manchuria was rarely incorporated, too, as well as southern parts of the area (Kashgar, Dzhungaria - at least fully).

 

[j_ann42]

I'm here to learn more about my ancestor. He was of the Avars people. He lived in Hungary around 700 A.D. I would like to know more about his daily life, and what he might have looked like?

 

[Gurkhal]

I'm here to learn more about my ancestor. He was of the Avars people. He lived in Hungary around 700 A.D. I would like to know more about his daily life, and what he might have looked like?

Reading is your path to knowledge.

The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567–822: Pohl, Walter: 9780801442100: Amazon.com: Books

The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567–822 [Pohl, Walter] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Avars: A Steppe Empire in Central Europe, 567–822

www.amazon.com

The Avars, Byzantium and Italy: A Study in Chronology and Cultural History (Varia Archaeologica Hungarica): Bálint, Dr Csanád: 9786155766237: Amazon.com: Books

The Avars, Byzantium and Italy: A Study in Chronology and Cultural History (Varia Archaeologica Hungarica) [Bálint, Dr Csanád] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Avars, Byzantium and Italy: A Study in Chronology and Cultural History (Varia Archaeologica Hungarica)

www.amazon.com

Two more where the images didn't want to play ball with me.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com: The Avar Siege of Constantinople in 626: History and Legend (New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture) eBook : Hurbanič, Martin: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: The Avar Siege of Constantinople in 626: History and Legend (New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture) eBook : Hurbanič, Martin: Kindle Store

www.amazon.com

 

[Omogoy]

I'm here to learn more about my ancestor. He was of the Avars people. He lived in Hungary around 700 A.D. I would like to know more about his daily life, and what he might have looked like?

Reconstruction of a woman of the Sintashta culture (as one of the Andronovo variants). The Middle Bronze Age (from the end of III - the beginning of II millennium BC), the modern Chelyabinsk region. Anthropological type: Nordic with a slight Ural admixture.

 

[Barsoom]

Reconstruction of a woman of the Sintashta culture (as one of the Andronovo variants). The Middle Bronze Age (from the end of III - the beginning of II millennium BC), the modern Chelyabinsk region. Anthropological type: Nordic with a slight Ural admixture.

View attachment 860340

That culture existed 2500 years before the Avars. How exactly is this helpful?