A Scythian culture, it was identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans, such as the Siberian Ice Princess, found in the Siberian permafrost, in the Altay Mountains, Kazakhstan and nearby Mongolia. To the west, the Pazyryk culture (6th-3rd century BC) immediately preceded the formation of the Xiongnus. Thereafter the task of dealing with the northern tribes was left to their vassal, the Qin state. The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital of Haojing and killing the last Western Zhou king You. Archaeologically, the Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the Siwa culture. These tribes are recorded as harassing Zhou territory, but at the time the Zhou were expanding northwards, encroaching on their traditional lands, especially into the Wei River valley. ĭuring the Western Zhou (1045-771 BC), there were numerous conflicts with nomadic tribes from the north and the northwest, variously known as the Xianyun, Guifang, or various "Rong" tribes, such as the Xirong, Shanrong or Quanrong. Genetic research indicates that the Slab Grave people were the primary ancestors of the Xiongnu, and that the Xiongnu formed through substantial and complex admixture with West Eurasians. The territories associated with the Xiongnu in central/east Mongolia were previously inhabited by the Slab Grave Culture ( Ancient Northeast Asian origin), which persisted until the 3rd century BC. HistoryĮarly Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes and across Central Asia, and encounter with Ancient Northeast Asian populations. Atwood (2015) to reconstruct * Xoŋai, which he derives from the Ongi River ( Mongolian: Онги гол) in Mongolia and suggests that it was originally a dynastic name rather than an ethnic name. However, the same medial -ŋ- prompts Christopher P. 318 BCE) and as * hɨoŋ-nɑ in Eastern Han Chinese citing other Chinese transcriptions wherein the velar nasal medial -ŋ-, after a short vowel, seemingly played the role of a general nasal – sometimes equivalent to n or m –, Schuessler proposes that 匈奴 Xiongnu < * hɨoŋ-nɑ < * hoŋ-nâ might be a Chinese rendition, Han or even pre-Han, of foreign * Hŏna or * Hŭna, which Schuessler compares to Huns and Sanskrit Hūṇā. Sinologist Axel Schuessler (2014) reconstructs the pronunciations of 匈奴 as * hoŋ-nâ in Late Old Chinese (c. The Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as * xiuoŋ-na or * qhoŋna. The pronunciation of 匈奴 as Xiōngnú is the modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, from the Mandarin dialect spoken now in Beijing, which came into existence less than 1,000 years ago. The Chinese name for the Xiongnu is a pejorative term in itself, as the characters (匈奴) have the literal meaning of "fierce slave". Other linguistic links-all of them also controversial-proposed by scholars include Turkic, Iranian, Mongolic, Uralic, Yeniseian, or multi-ethnic. The name Xiongnu may be cognate with that of the Huns and/or the Huna, although this is disputed. The identity of the ethnic core of Xiongnu has been a subject of varied hypotheses, because only a few words, mainly titles and personal names, were preserved in the Chinese sources. However, archaeogenetics has confirmed their interaction with the Xiongnu, and also their relation to the Huns. During the Sixteen Kingdoms era, as one of the " Five Barbarians", they founded the dynastic states of Han-Zhao, Northern Liang and Hu Xia in northern China.Īttempts to associate the Xiongnu with the nearby Sakas and Sarmatians were once controversial. Ultimately, the Xiongnu were defeated by the Han dynasty in a centuries-long conflict, which led to the confederation splitting in two, and forcible resettlement of large numbers of Xiongnu within Han borders. Their relations with adjacent Chinese dynasties to the south-east were complex-alternating between various periods of peace, war, and subjugation. The Xiongnu were also active in areas now part of Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang. Īfter overthrowing their previous overlords, the Yuezhi, the Xiongnu became the dominant power on the steppes of East Asia, centred on the Mongolian Plateau. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire. The Xiongnu ( Chinese: 匈奴 pinyin: Xiōngnú, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD.
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