Editing Xiongnu (section)

=== Predecessors===
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{{Annotation|260|15|[[Afanasievo culture|{{ubl|Afanasievo | culture}}]]|text-align=center|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=7|color=#FF4500}}
{{Annotation|315|35|[[Ancient Northeast Asian|<span style="color:#4F311CFF">'''''{{ubl|Ancient Northeast|Asians}}'''''</span>]]|text-align=center|font-weight=bold|font-style=normal|font-size=7|color=#000000}}
| caption=Early [[Indo-European migrations]] from the [[Pontic steppes]] and across Central Asia, and encounter with [[Ancient Northeast Asian]] populations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Narasimhan |first1=Vagheesh M. |last2=Patterson |first2=Nick |last3=Moorjani |first3=Priya |last4=Rohland |first4=Nadin |last5=Bernardos |first5=Rebecca |title=The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia |journal=Science |date=6 September 2019 |volume=365 |issue=6457 |issn=0036-8075 |doi=10.1126/science.aat7487 |pmid=31488661 |pmc=6822619 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
}}
The territories associated with the Xiongnu in central/east Mongolia were previously inhabited by the [[Slab Grave Culture]] ([[Ancient Northeast Asian]] origin), which persisted until the 3rd century BC.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Khenzykhenova |first1=Fedora I. |last2=Kradin |first2=Nikolai N. |last3=Danukalova |first3=Guzel A. |last4=Shchetnikov |first4=Alexander A. |last5=Osipova |first5=Eugenia M. |last6=Matveev |first6=Arkady N. |last7=Yuriev |first7=Anatoly L. |last8=Namzalova |first8=Oyuna D. -Ts |last9=Prokopets |first9=Stanislav D. |last10=Lyashchevskaya |first10=Marina A. |last11=Schepina |first11=Natalia A. |last12=Namsaraeva |first12=Solonga B. |last13=Martynovich |first13=Nikolai V. |title=The human environment of the Xiongnu Ivolga Fortress (West Trans-Baikal area, Russia): Initial data |journal=Quaternary International |date=30 April 2020 |volume=546 |pages=216–228 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2019.09.041 |bibcode=2020QuInt.546..216K |s2cid=210787385 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618219307918 |language=en |issn=1040-6182}} "The slab graves culture existed in this territory prior to the Xiongnu empire. Sites of this culture dating back to approximately 1100-400/300 BC are common in Mongolia and the Trans-Baikal area. The earliest calibrated dates are prior to 1500 BC (Miyamoto et al., 2016). Later dates are usually 100–200 years earlier than the Xiongnu culture. Therefore, it is customarily considered that the slab grave culture preceded the Xiongnu culture. There is only one case, reported by Miyamoto et al. (2016), in which the date of the slab grave corresponds to the time of the making of the Xiongnu Empire."</ref> Genetic research indicates that the Slab Grave people were the primary ancestors of the Xiongnu, and that the Xiongnu formed through substantial and complex mixture with West Eurasians.<ref>{{harvnb|Rogers|Kaestle|2022}}</ref>

During the [[Western Zhou]] (1045–771 BC), there were numerous conflicts with nomadic tribes from the north and the northwest, variously known as the [[Xianyun]], [[Guifang]], or various "Rong" tribes, such as the [[Xirong]], [[Shanrong]] or [[Quanrong]].<ref name="WT"/> These tribes are recorded as harassing Zhou territory, but at the time the Zhou were expanding northwards, encroaching on their traditional lands, especially into the [[Wei River|Wei River valley]]. Archaeologically, the Zhou expanded to the north and the northwest at the expense of the [[Siwa culture]].<ref name="WT">{{cite book |last1=Tse |first1=Wicky W. K. |title=The Collapse of China's Later Han Dynasty, 25-220 CE: The Northwest Borderlands and the Edge of Empire |date=27 June 2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-53231-8 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=-y9iDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45 45–46], [https://books.google.com/books?id=-y9iDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63 63 note 40] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-y9iDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45 |language=en}}</ref> The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital of [[Haojing]] and killing the last Western Zhou king [[King You of Zhou|You]].<ref name="WT"/> Thereafter the task of dealing with the northern tribes was left to their vassal, the [[Qin (state)|Qin state]].<ref name="WT"/>

To the west, the [[Pazyryk culture]] (6th–3rd century BC) immediately preceded the formation of the Xiongnus.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Linduff |first1=Katheryn M. |last2=Rubinson |first2=Karen S. |title=Pazyryk Culture Up in the Altai |date=2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-85153-7 |page=69 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RAdUEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT69 |quote="The rise of the confederation of the Xiongnu, in addition, clearly affected this region as it did most regions of the Altai"}}</ref> A [[Scythian cultures|Scythian]] culture,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Pazyryk |title=Pazyryk {{pipe}} archaeological site, Kazakhstan |publisher=Britannica.com |date=11 September 2001 |access-date=5 March 2019}}</ref> it was identified by excavated artifacts and mummified humans, such as the [[Siberian Ice Maiden]], found in the [[Siberia]]n [[permafrost]], in the [[Altai Mountains]], [[Kazakhstan]] and nearby [[Mongolia]].<ref>{{harvnb|State Hermitage Museum|2007}}</ref> To the south, the [[Ordos culture]] had developed in the [[Ordos Loop]] (modern [[Inner Mongolia]], [[China]]) during the [[Bronze Age|Bronze]] and early [[Iron Age]] from the 6th to 2nd centuries BC. Of unknown ethno-linguistic origin, it is thought to represent the easternmost extension of Indo-European-speakers.<ref>{{harvnb|Whitehouse|2016|p=369}}: "From that time until the HAN dynasty the Ordos steppe was the home of semi-nomadic Indo-European peoples whose culture can be regarded as an eastern province of a vast Eurasian continuum of Scytho-Siberian cultures."</ref><ref name="Harmatta348">{{harvnb|Harmatta|1992|p=348}}: "From the first millennium b.c., we have abundant historical, archaeological and linguistic sources for the location of the territory inhabited by the Iranian peoples. In this period the territory of the northern Iranians, they being equestrian nomads, extended over the whole zone of the steppes and the wooded steppes and even the semi-deserts from the Great Hungarian Plain to the Ordos in northern China."</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Unterländer |first1=Martina |last2=Palstra |first2=Friso |last3=Lazaridis |first3=Iosif |last4=Pilipenko |first4=Aleksandr |last5=Hofmanová |first5=Zuzana |last6=Groß |first6=Melanie |last7=Sell |first7=Christian |last8=Blöcher |first8=Jens |last9=Kirsanow |first9=Karola |last10=Rohland |first10=Nadin |last11=Rieger |first11=Benjamin |date=3 March 2017 |title=Ancestry and demography and descendants of Iron Age nomads of the Eurasian Steppe |journal=[[Nature Communications]] |volume=8 |page=14615 |issn=2041-1723 |doi=10.1038/ncomms14615 |pmc=5337992 |pmid=28256537 |bibcode=2017NatCo...814615U}}</ref> The [[Yuezhi]] were displaced by the Xiongnu expansion in the 2nd century BC, and had to migrate to Central and Southern Asia.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Benjamin |first1=Craig |title=The Yuezhi |url=https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277727-e-49 |website=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.49 |date=29 March 2017 |isbn=978-0-19-027772-7 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bang |first1=Peter Fibiger |last2=Bayly |first2=C. A. |last3=Scheidel |first3=Walter |title=The Oxford World History of Empire: Volume Two: The History of Empires |date=2 December 2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-753278-2 |page=330 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6GkLEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA330 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>