Ancient Nomadic Tribes

The first significant recorded appearance of nomads came late in the third century B.C. Then various proto-Mongolian tribes such as the Xiongnu. Dunhu, Hun yi and Di lived on the present territory of Mongolia. These nomadic people, in the steppes north of the Gobi, were so warlike that they caused the Chinese to build a 2,300 km Great Wall long their northern border as a barrier to further incursions.

In 209 B.C. the Huns, who were descendants of these ancient nomadic tribes, set up the first State in central Asia. The Hun State was equal in power to the Chinese states of Tsin and Khan. The territory of the Huns was vast and extended to the Great Wall in the South, Lake Baikal to the North, the Khingan mountains to the Hast and the Erchis river to the West.
During the Hun period, developments in the ethnic culture of Mongolian tribes, their arts, music, astronomy and astrology were greatly promoted and a twelve-month lunar calendar introduced. The state maintained wide diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with neighboring countries.

However, the mighty empire of the nomads did not last long. After a fierce internal struggle, in 53-55B.C. it was broken into the Southern and Northern Huns. In 93A.D. the Northern Huns ceased to exist as an independent state. Some of them drifted away from their native territory to the Caspian steppes and others moved on further west to the Danube-Carpathian valleys, where they settled down and formed a sizable nomadic state under the leadership of Attila, one of the most successful invaders of the Roman Empire.

Successors of the Hun state were Sumbe and Nirun. The fate of the Nirun state was rather different. During the 4-th century AD thousands of Turkic people had migrated into the region, crossing the Altai Mountains, and originally employed by the Nirun as blacksmiths and iron forgers. The Turkic people rebelled against the Nirun and won control in 552AD creating the Turkey state (Turk Khanate).

Control passed to the Uigur tribe, and the Uigur State became the most powerful in Central Asia, but had not controlled all of Mongolia. It was the Kidan tribe, who took control of all Mongolia in 907AD. The economic and social development of the Kidan state influenced many other nomadic tribes, and occurred before the Mongolian aimags and khanligs formed.