Horse archer civilizations

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Horse archer civilizations is the term used to describe the society and culture of the bow wielding, horse riding, nomad peoples of the Euro-Asian Steppe. These Eurasian nomads have created migrating civilizations quite different from those of the settled world. Some of the Horse people created vast empires. The horse archer empires were usually considered quite awesome by people of the settled world but suffered from structural weaknesses.

Contents

[edit] Main charactaristics

[edit] Horse and bow

[edit] Livestock

[edit] Diet

The Mongols were known to use Horse blood and milk as well as Camel milk in their conquest of Eurasia. Many soldiers would ride with several horses, so as to use some for battle and some to provide food. Due to their nomadic nature, vegetables were eaten when they could be found or some may have been grown in small amounts though they were more nomadic then semi-sedentary. Their reliance on their mounts for food allowed the Mongols to campaign with great speed and lack of supply lines, surpassing their foes in military logistics.

Other Steppe peoples such as the Aryans who conquered India valued their Cattle which they relied upon and eventually this reveration of cows may have come into Hindu religion through this path.

[edit] War

[edit] Horse archer civilizations

[edit] Horse archer empires

[edit] Bibliography

  • Amitai, Reuven; Biran, Michal (editors). Mongols, Turks, and others: Eurasian nomads and the sedentary world (Brill's Inner Asian Library, 11). Leiden: Brill, 2005 (ISBN 90-04-14096-4).
  • Barthold, W., Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, T. Minorsky, (tr.), New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1992.
  • Drews, Robert. Early riders: The beginnings of mounted warfare in Asia and Europe. N.Y.: Routledge, 2004 (ISBN 0-415-32624-9).
  • Fletcher, Joseph F., Studies on Chinese and Islamic Inner Asia, Beatrice Forbes Manz, (ed.), Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1995, IX.
  • Golden, Peter B. Nomads and their neighbours in the Russian Steppe: Turks, Khazars and Qipchaqs (Variorum Collected Studies). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003 (ISBN 0-86078-885-7).
  • Grousset, Rene, The Empire of the Steppes: a History of Central Asia, Naomi Walford, (tr.), New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970.
  • Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the steppe: A military history of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700. New York: Sarpedon Publishers, 1997 (hardcover, ISBN 1-885119-43-7); Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001(paperback, ISBN 0-306-81065-4).
  • Krader, Lawrence, "Ecology of Central Asian Pastoralism," Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 4, (1955), pp. 301-326.
  • Lattimore, Owen, "The Geographical Factor in Mongol History," in Owen Lattimore, (ed.), Studies in Frontier History: Collected Papers 1928-1958, London: Oxford University Press, 1962, pp. 241-258.
  • Littauer, Mary A.; Crouwel, Joost H.; Raulwing, Peter (Editor). Selected writings on chariots and other early vehicles, riding and harness (Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 6). Leiden: Brill, 2002 (ISBN 90-04-11799-7).
  • Shippey, Thomas "Tom" A. Goths and Huns: The rediscovery of Northern culture in the nineteenth century, in The Medieval legacy: A symposium. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 1981 (ISBN 87-7492-393-5), pp. 51–69.
  • Sinor, Denis, "The Inner Asian Warrior," in Denis Sinor, (Collected Studies Series), Studies in Medieval Inner Asia, Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, Variorum, 1997, XIII.
  • Sinor, Denis, "Horse and Pasture in Inner Asian History," in Denis Sinor, (Collected Studies Series), Inner Asia and its Contacts with Medieval Europe, London: Variorum, 1977, II.

[edit] See also


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