Silk Road Test 1

8/12/2019 Silk Road Test 1

1/7

SILK ROAD TEST 1:

Section A:

1. Landformsa. Deserts: (Gobi, Karakorum, Taklamakan, Arabian) Major barriers, although some trade

routes went through them, following the oasiss. Had a part in nomadism in certainareas such as Arabia.

b. Mountains: (Himalayas, Urals, Caucasus, Alps) Could be barriers, or provide water for anentire subcontinent, or be a home for groups of people.

c. Tundra: (Siberia) Not much I assume in terms of trade, although there are the nativepeoples of this land, probably still keeping original hunter-gatherer ways of life or

participating in some form of raising livestock. Other than that, I cant see tundras as

being major places of interest in the past, though there might be some natural

resources that the modern world requires present.

d. Taiga Forest: (Siberia Again) Covers massive swaths of land in the northe. Steppes: (Ukrainian, Russian, Xinjiang, Kazakh, etc. Steppes) Home of the nomadic

horsemen, arid and not useful for much farming. Main economic activity was probablypastoralism for most of the time humans inhabited these areas. Has connections to

most of Eurasia and because of the majority of the worlds trading routes running

through them, were hotspots of trade, power, war, etc. The horse originated from here,

and it was also the homeland of some of the greatest empires on earth.

2. Geographical Termsa. Western Asia: The most western part of Asia, nearest to Europe.b. Europe: Generally (in the geographic sense) describes the region west of the Ural

Mountains although the border may be culturally considered farther west by certain

groups.

c. Inner/Central Asia: Huge and resource filled. Home of the pastoralist nomads. Given thename Central Asia because thats what it is really, the landlocked center of the Asian

continent. Maybe also named so because it was central to the worlds development

because of its trade routes.

d. Middle/Near East/Orient: Region in the south of Western Asia. The name Orientoriginated from the railway that started in Europe and ended in the region, called the

Orient Express.

e. Eastern Asia/Far East: As the name describes, the farthest eastern reaches of Eurasia.3. Heartland Theory: If you control an area with high value (wanted or needed) resources, you

control the resources and all that value them. Originated with nomads controlling China and its

silk supply, and therefore anyone who wanted silk (i.e. almost everyone!). Today the heartland

for the WORLD will be Central Asia because it has the resources that everyone wants: gold, oil,gas, etc. It also has many routes going through it that allow easier movement of these resources

and goods. So it is a very valuable area for the modern world.

4. The U.S must maintain its presence over the worlds Heartland because of its natural resourcesand overland access routes. If the US wants to remain on top in the coming future, it must have

some authority over this region. Without controlling the supplies that itself and the world


2/7

needs, there isnt much else to base power on. The world wont cater to the US anymore if they

have nothing to gain from it.

5. Scarcity: Demand and Supply Induced Scarcity are dependent on factors like population growth,supply fluctuation, GDP changes, etc. This means that they are pretty much uncontrollable,

unlike Structural-Scarcity which has at least some control by not focusing on the supply and

demand so much as control of the path between them, analogous to damning a river. An

example of structural scarcity is the control over the supply of Chinese silk by the nomads. These

nomads got rich by taking it off the Chinese and selling it at their whim to the rest of the world.

One for the demand and supply induced scarcity would be water for the ancient cities that

where overtook by encroaching deserts.

6. Molecular Genealogy: There is no bias in this resource because all it does is present raw geneticinformation linking things like movement of populations, genetic lineage, etc. It is just like math,

two plus two equals four, it doesnt lie. How the information is presentedis the biased part. It is

useful because it can cut past centuries of false information and can bring back information lost

for centuries. The false information built up over the ages can come from oral tradition,

artifacts, long-standing beliefs, etc. It may or may not be true. An example is the Hazara peopleof Pakistan who have been claiming their direct descent from Genghis Khan for a long time. And

for a long time, everyone has scoffed. Then their genetics where tested, and it was proved that

they are Genghis Khans descendants! Another one is the fact that the Mongols were raping

Europeans during their centuries of occupied rule, yet no one in Europe has Mongolian genes!

7. Genetic Dataa. Autosomal/Nuclear: The high majority of your genetic data (about 99% of it). Good for

relatives throughlinks within a few generations of separation, although there may be

some very general small links that go back farther. A short term data type.

b. Y-Chromosome: Used to trace male lineages, can show origins, migrations, diseases,mixings, etc. Extremely accurate with links. Very long term, goes back to our origins. Thedata is almost exactly the same through the paternal generations, so it is hard to

pinpoint specific groups or peoples with it, since many will have similar or same data,

even if they are not really related. Best for testing links in groups, not individuals.

c. Mitochondrial: Used to trace female lineages, can show distant origins, migrations,diseases, mixings, etc. Extremely accurate with links. Very long term, goes back to our

origins. Easier to recover than Autosomal DNA in degraded samples because of higher

amounts of mitochondria than nuclei in each cell, but like the Y-chromosome data, is

not able to be a unique identifier for individuals.

8. Altaic: (Gold-Mountain) Named after the origin of the languages, the Altaic Mountains ofCentral Asia.

a. Turkishb. Uzbekc. Kazakhd. Uighur

9. Phenotype-Differences: Slight, superficial differences in the physical makeup of groups. Can beidentifying characteristics of these groups, but other completely different groups may share this

phenotype. They are also not take-all characteristics. A people knownfor their light skin may


3/7

have some very dark skinned people within their group. Even though the true differences

between people are small, they still allow for others to clump together groups of people,

whether they have anything to do with one another or not. It makes it easy, with only a first

glance, to view others as the same and therefore carrying over each others traits to one

another. DNA can help clear this up by showing who is truly more closely related to whom.

There may be a group with one set of characteristics who hate two other groups that have

similar characteristics with each other; yet one of those two groups may be more closely related

to the haters than the other hated group.

10.Language Groupsa. Altaic: Highly agglutinative, widespread absence of non-personal verbs, and SOV

(subject-object-verb) word order.

b. Indo-European: Inflective- uses internal structure changes in words to give grammaticalinformation, think of it as welding together words of an agglutinative language to

shorten it. Usually SOV.

c. Semitic: Words based on a trililteral system, with a meaning having a 3-constonantcomposition, with different fillers to creategrammatical meaning. A non-real-world

example: The triliteral root word has the form of ztlto mean fly. To change it, fill it into make zatoola as in flying or zamtanglenas in flew.

d. Uralic: Also highly agglutinative, lots of grammatical cases. Some sharing cognates withsome nearby Indo-European languages.

e. Sino-Tibetan: Highly tonal languages to make up for their monosyllabic side, meaningthere is also a very limited amount of syllables to be used. Many words may have similar

or same structure and sound, so more than one word of the intended meaning may be

used to clarify.

11.Transitional Writing: Using pictures or other similarly recognized symbols to represent a word orsyllable when writing. For example, it is used in Chinese script to spell phonetically words of

non-Chinese origin like foreign names or objects. This may be in the form of using Chinese wordswith the needed syllables in conjunction with each other to form the new sounding word, or

assigning sets of syllables to a universal transition alphabet.

12.Agglutination: In agglutinative languages, there is no change of the root word, just a series ofmorphemes (small non-standing word) added on to the root word. Unlike a non-agglutinative

language like English where the meaning to be can have different words, in an agglutinative

language like Turkish, the meaning is changed just by adding on different morphemes but still

keeping the original word. Agglutinative language group example: Altaic Languages

Section B:

1. Annals of Human Genetics Response: The article discusses how in Iran, with a few examplesaround the rest of Eurasia and a bit beyond, there are two different groups who speak

completely different languages and say they have nothing to do with one another. One of the

two groups is a Semitic-Arab speaking group, while the other is an Indo-European speaking

group. As far as you can tell by first look, they are two separate groups with no commonalities.

But with closer inspection you find out that they are basically family! In spite of all their cultural

differences they share such a large amount of genetic information; they may as well be the


4/7

same group. Yet there are others like the Kalmyks, who speak a type of Mongolian language,

that have been surrounded by Russians for hundreds of years, yet share no linguistic or genetic

similarities despite their geographic proximity to one another. Thats a stark contrast between

them and the Iranians. The rest of the article basically goes on and on about mtDNA and Y-

Chromosome haplotypes and AMOVA tests, somewhat beyond my ability to write about. But as

far as I could tell it was giving details to support genetic similarities between the two Iranian

groups (they are called the Bakhtiari and Arabs) and also with the other groups in the immediate

geographic area. Another point that is drawn in is how there is very little genetic similarity

between the Iranian Semitic-speaking Arabs and the North African Semitic-speaking Arabs. In

the end it comes to the conclusion, that at least in this part of the world, geographic closeness

may have meant more than cultural or linguistic similarities.

And as the article ends, it asks the question: how can groups so close to each other that

have no apparent contact be so closely related genetically, while others are the complete

opposite of their neighbors?

With the Iranians there may be a longstanding dislike of one another, whether it be

religious, based on some past event, economic, etc. But they live in such close proximity of each

other and may have needed one another at some, like a forced intermingling. There were

maybe even some Romeos and Juliets involved too for all we know. But anyway, they may viewthemselves as separate groups now, but maybe 60 years ago during British rule, they had a

common opponent. One that was big enough to not necessitate the smaller issues. So maybe

they did a lot of intermingling during those times and over time have gone back to or created

new cultural routes? I guess it could be possible they really are the same people genetically, just

differently cultured. Hundreds of years ago, before the introduction of Islam into Iran, the

people of the area were probably somewhat uniform culturally, linguistically, genetically. But

with the introduction of something like a major religion, new ideas, languages, people, and

culture will be brought in. Those who converted and those who resisted the new stuff may have

split back then, long ago. Long enough ago to change them into the distinct groups they are

today. And also, probably even more possible, is just generally under the hand mingling over the

years. Trade or conflict with each other for years may have been enough of a reason to dealwith each other; even in marriage dealings (The article did mention that there was an even

distribution of similarities between all the gene data types). Over time people could have just

been crossing between the two groups out of necessity, yet keeping the taboo of each other up

in order to remain distinct. Maybe their culture isnt as central as was assumed by everyone

else, and they just mixed because they are neighbors.

And on the other side are the Kalmyks who remain almost completely distinct from their

Russian neighbors. I assume this is because it is their RUSSIAN neighbors (haha), and also the

fact that the Russians are true outsiders. Maybe one side has superiority over the other and

looks down upon them. There is a lot less temptation from both sides to have anything to do

with one another in a situation like that I think. Or maybe it has to do with lifestyle. The Arabs

and Bakhtiaris most likely have a somewhat similar lifestyle, one that allows frequent normal

interaction. The Kalmyks if I remember right a more independent and nomadic group, especially

compared to their neighbors the Russians. There is very little chance or desire Im sure for them

to want to have anything to do with each other, both sides I assume have very little to offer

each other. They are not just apples and oranges like the Iranians in my opinion, they are like

cabbages and sheep. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum, too different to really interact

throughout history, so therefore they remain autonomous in most aspects of their lives.


5/7


6/7

realized. Who knows what else is left from the past, more than just Latin and philosophy Im

sure. It kind of helps bring the world around into a better perspective.

3. Silk Road in Ruin Response: Tajiks dontlive in Tajikistan starts out by talking about how theSoviet Union started dividing up the land and people into exaggerated distinct, separate

groupings; even though they are very similar in both culture and ethnicity. Similar, in fact, that

dividing them up into their own individual tribes and communities is just plain pointless, and

when they were divided up they were often intentionally put into an area that they had no

connection to. The divisions were arbitrarily decided by Stalin in order to promote an image of

ethnic homelands so that people would leave their nomadic ways and settle down to work for

the good of the Motherland. He considered a nation to be built upon language, community,

territory, etc. The ideal of a communal and territorial based nation ideal obviously doesnt get

along well with the lifestyle of nomadism, just as Stalin realized, and it would be expected that it

wouldnt get along with nomads. But the funny thing is, it actually worked. Many of the modern

people consider themselves to be these distinct tribes. It goes on to say how the borders were

based upon linguistic variation, again exaggerated greatly for this purpose, and were veryclumsily drawn by the Soviet planners during the 1920s. To make matters worse, Russians and

immigrants from other nation states flooded the area, making things even more confusing. In

the end, all the different ethnic groups were separated into five republics that had to compete

for Moscows favor while dealing with the ethnic tensions between them, making them unable

to do much else but try and keep their heads above water. This basically left Moscow in a nice

comfy position of control.

The next part of the article talks about the various tribes. You learn anything ranging

from history and language to what other people think of these groups. Honestly all very

interesting, but more of a kind of layman field guide to the tribes, not much to write about as far

as I can tell.

It goes on to talk about the plight of the Uighurs of western China, in the Xianjing

province. They are the Turkic Muslim population of modern China who went from never really

being rule to now being subject to all forms of mistreatment, ranging from targeted economic

discrimination, being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for joining a protest movement, to just

being plain old-fashioned arrested and shot. Mosques are shut down, protestors are publicly

executed, imams jailed; the list goes on and on. The motivation behind this is Chinas desire to

control their newly discovered oil heartland. Formerly it was a pipeline route, but now with

the discovery of more than 1 billion tons of oil, the stakes have risen. Besides brutalizing the

Uighurs, there has been a policy of moving thousands of Han into the area to settle it and to put

it bluntly, replace the Uighurs and gain complete control of the region. The Uighurs are now

outnumbered in their own homeland. They hoped that the world, specifically the US, would

learn about their problems and would come in to help and support them. Today few people

even know who they are. They have been swept under the rug so that nations, especially the US,

can continue to be in favor with China and keep their dealings with it going. The rapidly

vanishing people, who were originally very pro-Western and idealized, now resort to groups

such as the Taliban over in the nearby country of Afghanistan to help them fight back. And

because of this, to make matters worse the US has declared their resistance organization (East

Turkestan Independence Movement) a terrorist group and therefore threat. Because of this the


7/7

Chinese now have very little opposition in dealing with the Uighurs as they see fit, which is not

good for the Uighurs at all. To hit things even harder home for them, while the rest of China is

now generally free to practice their beliefs as they see fit, the Uighurs are subject to the outlaw

of their faith. In the article, it says Chinese officials encourage students to report if any of their

fellow classmates are even observing Ramadan. And on the subject of Ramadan, it says officials

have a duty to keep nightlife going throughout the year (especially restaurants) just to spite the

Uighurs during Ramadan. Remember, this is a frontier region, so its not a hotspot of fun. There

is not really any other reason to have this as policy other than to demoralize Uighurs.

All in all its very sad and disheartening. What few friends in the Muslim world the US

seemed to have these days, have again been lost to greed and disgrace. But I guess this kind of

thing isnt that new, and maybe in the future it will be looked upon in a positive way, just like we

do with outlaws of the west and empires that killed millions. But the world goes on.

All these groups, no matter how scattered or unknown they are to us, will be very

important factors in the future. The luckily, or unluckily, live in an area with huge amounts of

largely untapped natural resource reserves. Our actions and theirs will have major repercussions

in the future, and it seems the nomads will be brought back again to the worlds center stage,but this time as the invaded.

Section C:

1. About the 4thmillennium BC, in the Central Asia.2. About the 3rdmillennium BC, by the Sumerians.3. The 4thCentury BC (Im not sure if that is correct, I assume that is what you call 325 BC)4. 2ndCentury BC5. August 26, 10716. 11thCentury (1163 AD)7. 13thCentury (1336 AD)8. May 29, 14539. July 28, 191410.November 7, 1917

Documents

Silk Road Test 1