Research Topics: Mongolia ancient

Image via WikipediaModu Shany u, the founder of the Xiongu Empire in 209 BCE

Prehistory

Important prehistoric sites are the paleolithic cave drawings of the Khoid Tsenkheriin Agui (Northern Cave of Blue) in Khovd Province (see)
A neolithic farming settlement has been found in Dornod Province (see)
The population during the Copper Age has been described as paleomongolid in the east of what is now Mongolia, and as europid in the west (see)
In the 2nd millennium B.C, during the bronze age, western Mongolia was under the influence of the Karasuk culture (see). The Karasuk culture describes a group of Bronze Age societies who ranged from the Aral Sea or the Volga River to the upper Yenisei catchment, ca. 1500-800 BC. See also the Andronovo culture, the Afanasevo culture and the Okunev culture.
A vast iron-age burial complex from the 5th-3rd century, later also used by the Xiongnu, has been unearthed near Ulaangom (see).
Mongolia only became politically important after iron weapons entered the area in the 3rd century BC... [nomads] usually herded animals, traded with and raided more agricultural peoples and each other. However, every now and then, large nomadic confederations formed that threatened China, and sometimes the Middle East, Europe, and beyond (see).
Donghu was the name of a nomadic tribal confederation that was first recorded from the 7th century BCE and was destroyed by the Xiongnu in 150 BCE.... in modern linguistic terminology, they are classified as a proto-Mongolic nomadic ethnic group.

Xiongnu Period from 3rd century BCE

The establishment of the Xiongnu state in Mongolia in the 3rd century BCE marks the beginning of statehood on the territory of Mongolia (see). They formed a Hunic empire. In 200 BCE the Han Dynasty of China launched a military campaign into the territory attempting to subjugate the Huns.
Modu Chanyu was born c. 234 BCE and became the founder of the Xiongnu Empire after he killed his father in 209 BCE.
The Chinese began to build the Great Wall of China as a defense against intrusions by nomadic tribes since the 5th century BCE. One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
See this map for the world of Europe and Asia in ca 200 BCE
In 48 CE, the Hunic empire was weakened as it was divided into the southern and northern Huns. The northern Huns migrated to the west. Their descendants, together with the members of other tribes, appeared in Europe in the 5th century as the Huns of Attila (see). See also the Great Migration (AD 300–700 in Europe).
The Xianbei that were under the Xiongnu rebelled in 93 BCE ending the Xiongnu domination in Mongolia.
A hypothesis exists that the Xiongnu had relations with the Greco-Roman world 2000 years ago (see and see).

Notes

In the first century BCE the Mongols split in a Western part, who became the descendants of the Huns, and an eastern part, the Xianbei, who established extensive presence in China
In the centuries before BCE the Chinese built the Great Wall to prevent the Mongols, seen as 'barbarians' by the Chinese, from invading
In the centuries before 0 BCE the Chinese Han had to pay tribute to the Mongols. 2,000 later the Chinese came under communist control.
Already over 2,000 years ago there was trade between the Middle East and Asia over the Silk Road.

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