5. Eurasian Nomads. 2001. The Encyclopedia of World History

The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.


5. Eurasian Nomads

To the east, the rolling grasslands from the Ukraine to China were unable to support high population densities. Nomadic herders settled there at an unknown date, domesticating the horse as early as 4000 B.C.E. They lived in felt tents and subsisted mostly on horse milk and cheese, also off game and plant foods. The Pazyryk burial mounds in Siberia contain the bodies of elaborately tattooed chiefs, who wore leather and woolen clothing and traveled in beautifully decorated horse-drawn chariots.	1
Scythian nomads, descended from these earlier groups, menaced the northern frontiers of the Mediterranean world for many centuries, as sedentary colonists impinged on their lands and threatened a lifeway that required enormous areas of land for survival. Eurasian nomads continued to flourish during the closing centuries of prehistory.	2


The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.