Origin of the Alans

[Alanus]

Hi, Michael

I believe we're beginning to visualize the actual size of these Saka tribes; and the Yuezhi, Wusun, and Sai, were all Saka, as were the so-called Massagetae who may have actually been the Saka haumavarga. General historians tend to think of steppe peoples in the same way they view sedentary Western tribes, not realizing the great amount of territory required for summer and winter pasturing of massive horse, cattle, and sheep herds. The Pazyryk and Ukok tribes used the Altai locations for summer pasturing only. We don't even know where they lived in the winter.

Thus we have the Wusun not in just the Illi, Chu, and Issyk areas, but right across the entire Seven Rivers region. At this same time-- due to constant warfare with the Xiongnu, deadly sibling coups, bridal trading from one tribe to another, and perhaps internal weakness of the Sai-- tribal structures were disintegrating. We find what can only be described as defections, even if seemingly involuntary. "When the Kunmo of the Wusun attacked and defeated the Da Yuezhi, the Da Yuezhi moved to the west and subjugated the Daxia [Sakaruli]; and the Kunmo of the Wusun took up his residence there. It is said: thus the Wusun contain people of the Sai race and the Da Yuezhi race." (the Hanshu, ch. 96B)

As you mentioned, the Yuezhi-- a far larger tribe than the Wusun-- controlled a huge area of the steppe after their migration. They took over Daxia, driving the Saka and Tochari across the Kush into Hellenistic India. About 10 years later, they proceeded south themselves and formed the Kushan state. Important for us (in our search for the earliest Alans), is their relationship with the Kangju (Sogdians). The Yuezhi didn't destroy the Kangju infrastructure but strong-armed a society expert in trade. The Shiji mentions Kangju paying tribute to both the Yuezhi and Xiongnu.

You've pointed out the possibilities of an eventual Red Sea exchange with Rome in the reign of Clodius. That's a possibility. But we also have Strabo's comments on camel trains coming north to the Aorsi. This fits well even in the slightly earlier period of the Yancai. If so, the trade route came up from Gandara, through Kangju, and then northwest following the Oxus (Amu Darya) to Yancai (later called "Alan"), to finally reach Graeco-Roman marts on the north Pontic. This route, straight from Kangju, also eliminates the Parthian problem and is recorded less than a century later. Here's a rough idea of the route:

   
The Amu Darya starts near Samarkand, flows through the Karakum desert, and ends as the Shiji's "shoreless sea" (Aral). This would be the initial portion of the route as followed by camel caravans. The present cities of Khiva and Qunghirot lie in what was the ancient state of Yancai-Alan, and I have a hunch this is the exact area where the Aorsi were "born."

Here is another map, this time showing the final connection to Rome, the route shown as a blue line.
   

Early Western historians couldn't understand pastoral traditions; they painted steppe cultures as the crudest people on earth, never realizing Chinese silks and Indic gems were supplied by these same "ignorant" tribes.

At this point in history (1st Century BC), I believe we are witnessing the products of fragmentation and tribal restructuring. Identifying gravesites to specific tribes becomes blurry even to archaeologists. Tombs in the Ili Valley and Ferghana are not from a single culture, some being Saka and Wusun (pit graves) while others are Yuezhi catacombs (specifically "podboi" construction). When we get to the Kuban and Crimea, early Alan territory, we find the same variances of pit and catacomb graves. I'm fairly sure the Alans were an admixture of Sakaruli, Yuezhi, and Wusun, who migrated to new pastures.

History repeats itself. Our itinerant explorer Aristeas wrote a great epic of how the Arimaspi attacked the Issedones, who in turn attacked the Scythians, who attacked the Cimmerians, all in a westward direction. That was sometime around 800-700 BC. Then it happened again, as you recounted-- Modun the Xiongnu Shanyu became powerful enough to attack the Yuezhi (ironically the Arimaspi) in 177 BC. The domino effect began again, starting what Western historians termed "The Migration Period," yet not fully realizing when and where it actually began.