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The story researchers have pieced together from these artifacts contains plenty of surprises. Says Kessler: "From our knowledge of Genghis Khan and the Mongols, we had assumed tribes in this region spent most of their time on horseback. But archaeology is beginning to show that from 6000 B.C. on, these were agrarian societies." The northern peoples had much in common with the Chinese to the south:stone altars and pieces of jade carved into dragons suggest there was a common origin for the two groups' important beliefs, rituals and religious concepts. In addition, recent excavations have uncovered the remains of more than 100 walled cities dating to the 3rd millennium B.C., none of which were mentioned in ancient Chinese records.
Around 1500 B.C, Mongolia's climate became colder and drier, prompting a shift from a crop-based to a livestock-centered society. And by about 200 B.C., a warlike people called the Xiongnu had overrun a large part of the region. As part of a peace agreement with China's Han dynasty, the Xiongnu demanded annual tributes of silk, wine, rice, concubines and other luxuries. According to Kessler, the transport of these goods to central Asia marked the earliest full-scale use of the Silk Road, the fabled network of trade routes that ultimately stretched to the Mediterranean Sea; on the Silk Road, bolts of Chinese silk were carried all the way to the Roman Empire.
The Xiongnu empire finally collapsed during the 1st century A.D., primarily because of disputes over succession rights. Some 800 years later, another clan, the Qidan, conquered much of northeast China and amassed a formidable empire stretching from central Asia to the Sea of Japan. During the Liao dynasty they founded, the Qidan built several hundred cities.
The Qidan produced exquisite ceramics, which were commissioned from skilled artisans in conquered Chinese states. They also developed elaborate funerary trappings, including yurt-shape urns, gold burial masks, painted wooden coffins and tomb guardians, that seem to indicate a melding of the region's major religions: Taoism, Buddhism and shamanism.
In the early 12th century, the Qidan were conquered by a northern tribe that founded the Jin dynasty and evidently had many contacts with other empires. Specimens of southern Chinese blue-and-white porcelain found in Jin settlements -- a surprise, since these wares are believed to be a 14th century invention -- may have been gifts from visiting diplomats.
By the time Temujen, the future Genghis Khan, was born in the 1160s, the Jin were in decline, and the tribes of the steppe were once again at war with one another. When Temujen was nine, his father, a clan leader, was poisoned by Tatars; the clan then abandoned the rest of the family. Isolated and impoverished, mother and children were forced to eat rats and insects to survive. Temujen eventually reclaimed his hereditary right to be clan leader, and by means of powerful alliances, marriage and a series of battles, he began to annex rival tribes. In 1206 tribal leaders declared Temujen ruler of all the steppe peoples and gave him the title Genghis Khan.