AHC/WI:'White' Central Asia,West and Central China,Parts of East Asia and India

Albert.Nik

Banned
Is there any proof that these groups looked different than the current inhabitants ?
Scythians,Tocharians,Caucasian and Finno-Ugric people lived in the West Central Asia then. Do you want proofs that they looked "different" from the present inhabitants?

Altaic people were then mostly in the East of Altai mountains and the Tarim Basin which I call the East Central Asia.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
As per my understanding goes,West Central Asia was mostly empty except some small unrelated and diverse groups that existed here and there. Then came the West Eurasians or Europeans or Indo-Europeans as the Indo-Iranians through Sintashta and Andronavo cultures and the Tocharians through the Afanasevo Culture. Both were Nomadic AFAIK. These populations might have even spread into the Xiongnu as archeology says that this confederation was close to 15-20% European. Xiongnu is said to be a large and diverse confederation containing Huns,Turks,Iranian peoples and possibly Tocharians and Uralic peoples too. Xiongnu however was limited to the East Central Asia until the Turkic expansions from what I know. So West-Central Asia(containing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Volga Basin, Pontic Steppes, Caucasus,Tarim Basin, Tajikistan(Sogdia)) was mostly Indo-European,Indo-Iranian,Uralic,Caucasian,etc.

That said,I don't think this region can have any shift from OTL unless almost all the Nomadic groups in the East and the West prosper early by giving up Nomadism and get down to Agriculture. It could begin on one of the either side and then be taken to the other group by a small number of migrants or visitors. This could facilitate stable settled empires on both sides. Quite interesting.
To go ahead,we would need a few maps.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
As for Parts of Indian subcontinent in this timeline(I included it just because I have it in the Title),the population shift could be mostly as a result of Spillover. More settled and Advanced empires in West Central Asia means direct influence on Indian subcontinent as it borders the South of this region. The influence would be felt early on as Indian and Hindu society and culture has deep roots in Central Asia. Population,society, religion and culture shifts would be more notable in the Northern regions of Indian subcontinent firstly but not limited to these regions. Hinduism may not even exist as recognisable to OTL's. Iran would be similarly affected. All of Asia and their cultures could be more connected as the settled empires here would have more exchanges with each other. This in turn could send waves on Europe and ME as well.
All groups would automatically prosper if Agriculture begins in this region effectively. However,beginning that is the challenge.

So overall,you could see Eurasia like this.
West Central Asia would have Scythian,Iranian,Aryan,Uralic and Tocharian civilizations and nations with exchanges and close cultural relations with Turkic civilizations.
East Central Asia would have stronger and richer than OTL Mongolian,Turkic and some Uralo-Turkic,Hunno-Iranian,Hunno-Uralic,Tochario-Turkic,Turko-Iranian states,civilizations and nations way richer than OTL along with a more stable and prosperous China. Indian subcontinent would have Tocharian,Turkic,Eastern Iranian influence and populations in different proportions in the Northern regions. Religion would be different as I said. Persia could be probably more stable and open and would also have Scythian,Greek,Tocharian,Anatolian,Caucasian,Aryan,Turkic,Uralic influences. India would have everybody in these populations in different proportions living in a unique unity in diversity in the Northern regions of Punjab,Kashmir,today's KPK region,Gandhara,etc. Overall,a rich cultural,intellectual,philosophical,humanitarian and scientific golden age would unfold in these United but diverse vast regions.
Han dominated China would be ultra rich,bit more diverse and a huge powerhouse for this union.
 
Last edited:

Albert.Nik

Banned
It seems like you were implying that Altaics had killed off or drive off those groups.
Extensive Killings happened with the Mongols and not Turks. Turks probably assimilated them after defeating. Yet,I can't rule out of killings could have happened here and there. Also,some Central Asian Turkic people and Hunnic descendants in Europe look like their ancient ancestors. For example,Tatars who are descended from Scythian,Hungarians who are descended from Caucasians,Uralic and Sarmatians,Chuvash who are descended from Uralic+Iranian with minority Turkic,etc. Only in Tarim Basin,I see the disconnect.
 
Honestly, you could just create another thread to avoid the controversy that this one created before, or just revive one of the other, relatively less controversial, threads you made.

In any case I think what needs to be done is accelerate the development of large nomadic confederations in the West while hindering those in the East, the 2 things needed would be to have either an Achaemenid-style Persian empire or a more resilient Greek state in the region of south Central Asia able to repel and maintain the frontier against the nomads, thus having the nomads confront with a large state apparatus and having them react by consolidating better.
Also having the Greek, Celt-Dacians stop the Sarmatian expansion into Scythian territory might help that as well.

After you have the conditions to foster such confederation you would need to avoid the Xiongnu from becoming so strong, I guess not having a united China in the medium term would avoid having the same circumstances that lead the Xiongnu to become so dominant, from there I think things would follow slowly their course, obviously it took long for the Turks to properly get into Europe(ignoring the Huns as they relied largely on local peoples to begin with and were not Turk by identity) so I think it might take centuries and a push factors to have some sort of West-to-East expansion of nomadic confederacies.

Although my scenario includes also an eventually Scythian dominated Mongolia, given the trends we saw IOTL being flipped, if you just want a survival of the ancient groups that already existed there it would be even easier, you would just need to avoid the Huns from succeeding or appearing, and this ties easily with pods from the Xiongnu.


It seems like you were implying that Altaics had killed off or drive off those groups.
Well written sources do make the situation seem like that too, I don't think taking a literalist approach is the correct way to go about it, but nomadic territories often had small population densities and more possibilities of population movement, but "Altaics" were mixed themselves and genetics don't match linguistics so intermixing between different groups was present since before settled people started writing about them.

These populations might have even spread into the Xiongnu as archeology says that this confederation was close to 15-20% European.

Xiongnu is said to be a large and diverse confederation containing Huns,Turks,Iranian peoples and possibly Tocharians and Uralic peoples too.

Xiongnu however was limited to the East Central Asia until the Turkic expansions from what I know

That said,I don't think this region can have any shift from OTL unless almost all the Nomadic groups in the East and the West prosper early by giving up Nomadism and get down to Agriculture. It could begin on one of the either side and then be taken to the other group by a small number of migrants or visitors. This could facilitate stable settled empires on both sides. Quite interesting.
To go ahead,we would need a few maps.
You mean West Eurasian?

Actually some recent research suggests that the core Xiongnu elite was Yeniseian speaking and that's were some of the terms like "Chanyu" come from AFAIK.

The Xiongnu fled and eventually became the Huns according to some, this was caused by Han victory against them.

I think the best way to have that would be to corner the nomadic region early on but this can't be done just form internal shift, I think a state like the Seleucids or Achaemenids could achieve something like that in Southern Central Asia, but according to my scenario above this would trigger a escalation of nomadic political organizations, so it wouldn't exactly change the dynamic in the region as a whole.
Same goes for the European steppe, you could have Uralic and Slavic people move in and establish permanent agriculture early on or you could have a change by proxy with a mediterranean state(AFAIK the area of Ukraine did grow grain for Rome too) but you really need to avoid nomadic empires from forming as they would easily sweep away any developing agricultural societies without enough backing.
 

Vuu

Banned
Is there any proof that these groups looked different than the current inhabitants ?
Certain things are unprovable

It's very possible - back then, people's weren't so nice, especially not nomads. The area had (and still has) a very low population density. Any concentrated effort of one big group of people (like a migrating nation) and bam all trace of previous inhabitants is prety much gone

What's clear is that there definitely was contact over a wide area - even some Uyghurs look pretty European. This implies that either Europeans or Asians were prevalent in the entire area, and that there was a massive wave that resulted in the current Eurasian phenotypes. Who was there first, is up for discussion. Very possible that such a process happened back and forth for quite some time.


But anyways, the best way is to have someone nearby figure out the heavy plough. Eastern Europe hasn't even reached half of it's carrying capacity (Russia alone can support up to 1 billion people, especially when global warming starts becoming more noticeable, the Ukraine can support like 300 million. Chernozem is no joke). It's a perfect base of operations, and it allows the conversion of some of the pastureland to cropland (a big issue is the local climate, rain patterns are simply at the wrong time, which is why the Soviet attempt to increase agricultural productivity failed at first). You're still extremely vulnerable to the nomads tho (see why Russia basically went all the way to the Pacific? Eternal raids.)
 
It seems like you were implying that Altaics had killed off or drive off those groups.

This is certainly true in this case. At least in the case of Tocharia whose cities seemingly were devastated and then their populations replaced and or what remained, assimilated and this was in essence an exchange of the indigenous populace for a new populace. And assimilation is little different from killing in the historical mindset, what matters is the change, how the Indo-European Persians assimilated Elam matters little, what matters is that Elam became no more.

The amount of change in Tocharia mind you, is enormous. In general, the eventual Turkic replacement of Tocharian cities and urban culture, was a final symptom of the death of the Silk Road.
 
Honestly, you could just create another thread to avoid the controversy that this one created before, or just revive one of the other, relatively less controversial, threads you made.

In any case I think what needs to be done is accelerate the development of large nomadic confederations in the West while hindering those in the East, the 2 things needed would be to have either an Achaemenid-style Persian empire or a more resilient Greek state in the region of south Central Asia able to repel and maintain the frontier against the nomads, thus having the nomads confront with a large state apparatus and having them react by consolidating better.
Also having the Greek, Celt-Dacians stop the Sarmatian expansion into Scythian territory might help that as well.

After you have the conditions to foster such confederation you would need to avoid the Xiongnu from becoming so strong, I guess not having a united China in the medium term would avoid having the same circumstances that lead the Xiongnu to become so dominant, from there I think things would follow slowly their course, obviously it took long for the Turks to properly get into Europe(ignoring the Huns as they relied largely on local peoples to begin with and were not Turk by identity) so I think it might take centuries and a push factors to have some sort of West-to-East expansion of nomadic confederacies.

Although my scenario includes also an eventually Scythian dominated Mongolia, given the trends we saw IOTL being flipped, if you just want a survival of the ancient groups that already existed there it would be even easier, you would just need to avoid the Huns from succeeding or appearing, and this ties easily with pods from the Xiongnu.



Well written sources do make the situation seem like that too, I don't think taking a literalist approach is the correct way to go about it, but nomadic territories often had small population densities and more possibilities of population movement, but "Altaics" were mixed themselves and genetics don't match linguistics so intermixing between different groups was present since before settled people started writing about them.


You mean West Eurasian?

Actually some recent research suggests that the core Xiongnu elite was Yeniseian speaking and that's were some of the terms like "Chanyu" come from AFAIK.

The Xiongnu fled and eventually became the Huns according to some, this was caused by Han victory against them.

I think the best way to have that would be to corner the nomadic region early on but this can't be done just form internal shift, I think a state like the Seleucids or Achaemenids could achieve something like that in Southern Central Asia, but according to my scenario above this would trigger a escalation of nomadic political organizations, so it wouldn't exactly change the dynamic in the region as a whole.
Same goes for the European steppe, you could have Uralic and Slavic people move in and establish permanent agriculture early on or you could have a change by proxy with a mediterranean state(AFAIK the area of Ukraine did grow grain for Rome too) but you really need to avoid nomadic empires from forming as they would easily sweep away any developing agricultural societies without enough backing.

This is very major. Achaemenids for instance had the power to push against the steppe for a time. But as was shown in China, when sedentary peoples push forward against the steppe, this accelerates the creation of nomadic empires and a military culture as opposed to one previously based upon herding. Once this nomadic empire forms, the sedentary states became disadvantaged as they will generally have less able bodied fighting men who are trained in war and their need to defend large realms, makes them targets to attacks by those with movement. Further, as we see, most countries and powers decline over time and hegemonies rarely have lasting power beyond 400 years. Thus, the Achaemenids could tame the steppe for a time, but only a time. Who would tame it afterwards?

My opinion would be that the best way to maintain this situation @Albert.Nik wishes is someway to keep Tocharian-Scythian Kushanshah like empires consistently dominating Central Asia and having connections to both Hindustan and the Far East. To begin, the state is semi nomadic as the Kushanshah were, but over time, they mold into a more cohesive semi agricultural and urban ensemble with steppe contingents for military purpose. They then do as the Abbasids did, take slaves of the Altaic peoples and force them in directions northwestward into the Pontic steppe.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
@John7755 يوحنا
What I have in mind is that a small group of Indo-European farmers or somebody who were farming on a greener terrain westward could migrate in small numbers into the Altaic regions and hence spread sedentary Agriculture earlier to them too. Of course,this Agriculture needs to adopt to the dry lands in the Central Asia. Then you could have Altaic(Turkic and Mongol) Agricultural Empires in the East Central Asia whereas the West Central Asia would see Tocharian,Scythian and Sogdian empires.

Another way is to have a stronger Kushan Empire who establish ties with the Altaic peoples and get them settle in their regions as Farmers initially. Eventually,the Kushans could conquer the East Central Asia and have a few Altaic provinces there and then share power with both Altaic and Tocharian(Kushans) dynasties. This could work out. But yes,the former timeline could work out better.
 
Last edited:
Top