The Mongolian Xiongnu and their nomadic empire, the first in the world, are now coming more into the story thanks to careful archaeological excavations and new DNA evidence. The Xiongnu Empire, which originated in the Mongolian steppe more than 1,000 years before Genghis Khan, grew into one of the most powerful political forces in Iron Age Asia, stretching from Egypt to Rome to the Chinese Empire. The Xiongnu lived from animal husbandry and dairy farming. They were nomads and built their empire on horseback. Their skills in mounted warfare made them swift and formidable opponents, and their legendary clashes with Imperial China eventually led to the building of the Great Wall.
Unlike their neighbors, however, the Xiongnu never developed a writing system, so historical records of them come almost exclusively from rivals and enemies. These accounts, largely recorded by Han Dynasty chroniclers, provide little useful information about the Xiongnu’s origins, political rise, or social structure. Recent archaeogenetic studies, which trace the origins of the Xiongnu as a political entity to a sudden migration and intermingling of various nomadic groups in northern Mongolia around 200 BCE, have raised more questions than answered.
To better understand what the Xiongnu Empire was like at its core, led an international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Seoul National University, the University of Michigan and Harvard University conducted an in-depth genetic study of the burials of two imperial Xiongnu elite cemeteries on the western frontier of the nomadic empire: an elite aristocratic cemetery at Takhiltyn Khotgor and a local elite cemetery at Shombuuzyn Belchir. “We already knew that the Xiongnu were characterized by high levels of genetic diversity. However, due to a lack of community-level genomic data, it remained unclear whether this diversity arose from a heterogeneous patchwork of local homogeneous communities or whether the local communities themselves were genetically diverse.” , explains lead author Juhyeon Lee, a PhD student at Seoul National University. “We wanted to know how this genetic diversity was structured at different social and political levels, as well as in terms of power, wealth and gender.”
The researchers found that the people buried in the two cemeteries had extremely high genetic diversity, comparable to the diversity of the Xiongnu Empire. In fact, there was high genetic diversity and heterogeneity at all levels: across the empire, within individual communities, and even within individual families. Much of this diversity, however, was due to social status. People of the lowest status, buried in elite satellite graves and thus arguably considered servants, showed the greatest genetic diversity and heterogeneity. So, these people appear to have come from distant parts of the Xiongnu Empire or beyond.
In contrast, local and aristocratic elites buried in wooden plank coffins in square graves and stone ring graves had lower overall genetic diversity and a higher proportion of East Eurasian ancestry. Thus, elite status and power may have been concentrated in certain genetic subgroups of the Xiongnu population. Nonetheless, even elite families seem to have used marriage to cement ties with newly incorporated groups, particularly in Shombuuzyn Belchir.
We now have a better idea of how the Xiongnu expanded their empire, such as incorporating different groups and using marriage and kinship to increase power and influence
Choongwon Jeong, Seoul National University
A second important finding was that high-level Xiongnu burials and elite grave goods can be attributed disproportionately to women. This is consistent with historical records and archaeological evidence that Xiongnu women played a particularly important political role in the expansion of the empire and the integration of new territories along its borders. In the aristocratic elite cemetery of Takhiltyn Khotgor, monumental elite tombs were erected for these women – each of these women was flanked by a crowd of common men buried in plain tombs. The women were buried in ornate coffins bearing the golden sun and moon symbols of Xiongnu imperial power. One such tomb even contained a team of six horses and part of a chariot.
At the nearby local elite cemetery of Shombuuzyn Belchir, women also occupied the richest and most elaborately designed graves. The grave goods consisted of wooden coffins, gold emblems and gilded objects, glass and faience beads, Chinese mirrors, a bronze cauldron, silk clothing, wooden carts and more than a dozen farm animals, as well as three items commonly associated with male cavalry warriors: a Chinese lacquer cup, a gilded iron belt buckle and horse harness. These objects and their symbolism testify to the great political power of women.
Women held great power along the border as representatives of the Xiongnu Empire. They often held exclusive ranks of nobility, upheld the traditions of the Xiongnu, and participated in both the politics of the steppe powers and the so-called Silk Road networks.
Bryan Miller, University of Michigan.
Genetic analysis also provided insights into the role children played in Xiongnu society. “Children were buried differently depending on age and gender. This tells us at what age a child was assigned gender-specific roles and status in Xiongnu society,” says co-last author Christina Warinner from Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology in Leipzig. For example, the researchers found that adolescent Xiongnu boys aged 11 to 12 were buried with bows and arrows, similar to adult males, but younger boys were not. The gender-specific roles of hunter and warrior were probably only ascribed to boys in late childhood or early adolescence.
Although the Xiongnu Empire eventually disintegrated in the late 1st century CE, the study’s findings demonstrate a long-lasting social and cultural legacy. “Our results confirm the long-standing nomadic tradition that elite princesses played a crucial role in the political and economic life of the great empires, particularly in the outlying areas – a tradition that began with the Xiongnu and continued more than a thousand years later in the Mongol Empire,” says archaeologist Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan, who directs and coordinates the Mongolian Archeology Project: Surveying the Steppes at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena. “While history has sometimes dismissed nomadic empires as fragile and short-lived, their traditions have endured to this day.”