2001/09/01 by Xinru Liu · 6 citations
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Chinese history and philosophy #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Barbarian #Steppe #Pastoralism #Geography #China #Civilization #Settlement (finance) #Human settlement #History #Ancient history #Ethnology #Economy #Archaeology #Livestock
paper · doi:10.1353/jwh.2001.0034
openalex publication_date 2001/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/05
Our general image of ancient civilizations is formed by the great agricultural empires of Eurasia. Nomadic pastoralists are most often regarded as predators to the sedentary-agricultural societies. Histories of many modern countries, however, not only retain signs of conflicts with the encroaching nomads, but also of "barbarian" impact on their culture. The interactions and interdependence between nomads and agriculturalists is an important topic of world history. Our knowledge of the phenomenon, though, is very much hindered by the dearth of information on nomads, especially those in early history, who left few literary sources and often very shallow archaeological remains for historians to explore. Luckily, neighboring sedentary societies did provide information about them, as those agricultural empires or states constantly engaged in military conflicts as well as diplomatic, commercial, marital, and other interactions with them. The Yuezhi people, who early resided near the border of the agricultural part of China and later migrated on the Eurasian steppe all the way to north India, eventually becoming the rulers of the vast agricultural-trading Kushan empire, comprised one of the nomadic groups better known by the sedentary societies of that time. Thus, to trace the migration and settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan people may be [End Page 261] productive in understanding the contributions of nomadic people to world civilizations, or more specifically, the civilizations of China, India, the Eurasian steppe, and to a certain extent, that of West Asia and Europe.