A gold vessel from an Avar tombKHM-MUSEUMSVERBAND
Posted on 04/05/2022 6:33:44 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Avars, mysterious horse-riding warriors who helped hasten the end of the Roman Empire, dominated the plains between Vienna and Belgrade, Serbia, for more than 2 centuries. Then, they vanished without a trace...
The Avars had no written records. Grave goods and historical accounts suggest they dominated the plains of modern-day Hungary soon after their arrival in Europe about 1500 years ago. They interred their elites in massive burial mounds, surrounded by weapons, and finely decorated gold and silver vessels. They were often buried with horses and riding equipment. (The earliest stirrups in Europe are from Avar graves.)...
The first Avar burials were a near-identical match for an individual buried just a few decades earlier in eastern Mongolia, showing the first Avars in Europe probably made the journey of almost 7000 kilometers themselves. They likely capitalized on their nomadic lifestyle, trade networks stretching across the vast steppe, and horse-riding prowess to move quickly across the grasslands of Eurasia. “The DNA is so close it’s got to be within one generation, or less,” Jeong says.
That genetic data backs up two historical accounts of the Avar’s origins. One sixth century Chinese source describes an enigmatic steppe people called the Rouran, one of many horse-riding nomadic groups that swept out of the Mongolian steppes to attack their northern borders. The Rouran’s grassland empire was reportedly defeated by rival nomads in 552 C.E.
A continent away, and just 15 years later, diplomats from Byzantium, the eastern remnants of the once-mighty Roman Empire, reported the arrival of a new group from the east on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The newcomers called themselves the Avars, and claimed to be related to a far-off people known as the Rouran. But was their origin story true, or just a boast?
(Excerpt) Read more at science.org ...
IF the image doesn't load, try opening it in a new tab from the original article location.
Dude, you are on a roll tonight!
And I am loving it.
Sounds like they did know how to do one thing well though.
My pleasure.
Relation to the Huns?
Why do so many invasions come from Central Eurasia? The Mongols, the Huns, the Magyars, the Caucasians? They just seem to go nuts from time to time. Is it because a continental climate changes so often?
Very difficult to write or text while riding horses, may explain why the Avars have no written records.
It’s the geography in large part — North America has the Great Plains running from north to south, Asia has the steppe running from east to west. And during the 100% natural climate cycle, there’s better conditions for at least a few hundred years, then a rapid falloff, producing pulses of immigration outward to the east, west, and south.
Yeah, that's common with mobile or hunter-gatherer cultures.
I wondered about it, but didn’t follow up. There is or was an attribution of origin to the Huns for Hungary, but scholars don’t take it seriously apparently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avar
I was just checking out gold Scythian art, and it was noted that the Scythians “just disappeared” in 200-AD.
The warriors of the steppes moved fast on their horses.
Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to A.D. 1700 Paperback – November 6, 2001
https://www.amazon.com/Warriors-Steppe-Military-History-D/dp/0306810654
Probably there were never very many of these nomadic peoples. They were herdsmen and horsemen and required large grasslands to support those herds. I saw a Joe Rogan podcast with S.C Gwynne about the Comanche empire which sprawled throughout much of the US Southwest. The author maintained that there were probably fewer than 12K Comanche living in relatively small bands. Then he compared that number to the seating capacity along the third base line at Yankee Stadium.
You have to wonder about the military capacity of such a small number. Even if they could put slightly more than half their numbers into their military establishment that’s still not a lot. If there are several groups with common cultural bonds orbiting around a large grassland area, it’s not hard to imaging a drought combined with warfare driving 1 of them to exit the area to prey on a farmed border area.
Early “Snowbirds”...
North America has the Great Plains running from north to southHow dare you, you geographic determinist! LOL
:^) There are still those who think the Dust Bowl had an artificial cause.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
