Medieval Tibet: Changzhug Monastery, Tibet (600s AD) Where is Tibet? Tibet lies between India and China, just north of the Himalaya Mountains. People have been living in Tibet since about [...]
Genghis Khan Mongol and Turkic people take power By 1200 AD, the Mongol and Turkic people of Central Asia had pretty much finished pushing the Indo-Europeans out of power in [...]
Tash Rabat, Kyrgyzstan - a stop on the Silk Road (thanks Lonely Planet) Where are the Kyrgyz from? By about 200 BC, the Kyrgyz people were living north of China, [...]
Coin of Toregene Toregene ruled the Mongol Empire for five years. By then she was not in good health - she was about 55 years old. She passed on her [...]
Khitan history - a Khitan woman, ca. 1000 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Who are the Khitan? The Khitan are part of the big group of Turkic and Altaic language speakers [...]
Jurchen history: A pottery vase from the Jin Dynasty, ca. 1200 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Where did the Jurchen come from? Unlike most of the people living in north Asia, [...]
The Mongol court (1200s AD) Starting around 300 AD the Indo-Europeans in Central Asia began to lose ground to the Altaic people. The Altaic people divided into the Mongols and the [...]
Scythian comb,about 400 BC (Metropolitan Museum, New York) Most early Central Asian people were Indo-European, or Yamnaya. The biggest group may have been the Scythians. Until about 500 BC, the Scythians lived [...]
Dried sour yogurt balls in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (thanks to Jeff and Becca Zanatta) Central Asian meat and dairy The nomads who lived in Central Asia, like the Scythians, the Mongols and [...]
Mongol herdsman Hunting wild animals The first people moved into Central Asia about 50,000 BC. They were probably following the big animals that they hunted for food and leather skins [...]
