Lev Gumilyov Complete Works part 1/3

This partial excerpt is a revelation how the History and Ethos Scientist thinks and works. It is a study of his scientific methodology. It is quite thorough and informative.

An introductory fragment until page 90 of the original book.  47,000 words here, in 3 parts. I edited but did not translate this book. I found this Translation from the Russian by the Library for Conciliation, 2023

© L.N. Gumilev, Heirs, 2018 © LLC "Publishing house AST", 2018 UDC 94 BBC 63.3(0) ISBN 978-5-17-105299-7

The book includes the most important works of L. N. Gumilev: "From Rus' to Russia", "The end and the beginning again", "Ethnogenesis and the biosphere of the Earth".  It explains how Gumilev, a historian and anthropologist works.  What are the parameters of history and the Ethnos, and what are the mistaken assumptions through the ages.  Much of the topics are used to demonstrate that these previous parameters cannot explain the full phenomenon.

If there is a difficulty with Gumilev, it is that he is so informed about ancient Asian and world history, that his examples include scores upon scores of tribes, cultures and civilizations that a normal student has never heard of.  So, it becomes quite difficult to keep it all straight in the mind, and really impossible to fully absorb it.  This part you have to “take-it-on-faith”, and digging further into Gumilev, you will see all these names again and again.

In the first book, the famous Russian historian and geographer examines the history of Russia, which is closely intertwined with the history of neighboring nations and tribes. The combination of traditional methods of historical research with deep geographical analysis allowed the author to create a comprehensive picture of the development of the Russian state in the context of world history.

"The end and the beginning again" is a series of lectures on national studies, delivered by the author in the 1980s.  The provisions of the unique theory of passionarity, created by the scientist, are presented in an entertaining form and illustrated with examples from the lives of the peoples of Antiquity and the Middle Ages. (There is a fragment of this book here in our library, and I intend to upload the full version.)

And the study "Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth" is dedicated to identifying patterns of interaction between ethnic groups and landscapes in history. Each of the readers will find in the monumental work of the brilliant Russian historian, geographer and philosopher L.N. Gumilev something that will be of interest to him. The publisher's layout is preserved in a4.pdf format. (This one is a huge book, if I ever translate it?)

Contents 

(these page numbers are from the Russian version, not relevant here.)

Ethnogenesis and biosphere of the Earth 8, Introduction. What we shall speak about and why it is important 8, Fear of disappointment 8, Ethnoses as form of Homo Sapiens existence 9, Study subject 10, Excursus to philosophy 12, Mankind as Homo Sapiens species 12, Definitions of ethnos 13,

Part one. On the Visible and the Invisible 16, I. On the usefulness of ethnography 16, The dissimilarity of ethnoses 16, The confusion of applied terminology 17, Generalizations and scrupulosities 19, Frames 21, The historian without geography meets "punctuation" 23, II. Nature and History 24, Combining Natural History and History 24, Formations and Ethnicities 26, Can One Believe Historical Sources? 27, Can we trust monuments? 29, III. Is There an Ethnos? 31, There is no criterion for determining ethnos 31, Ethnos is not society 32, Language 33, Ideology and culture 35, Descent from one ancestor 37, Ethnos as an illusion 39, Between the West and the East 40, Country and people without names 42, "Ethnos" - a work by S.M. Shirokoev 46, "States" and "processes" 47,

Part Two. The Properties of Ethnos 49, IV. Ethnos and Ethnonym 49, Names are Deceptive 49, Examples of Camouflage 50, The Powerlessness of Philology in History 51, V. Mosaicity as a property of ethnos 52, It is possible to do without patrimonial system 52, What do they replace patrimonial system 53, Formation of subethnic groups 55, Variants of ethnic contacts 56, Role of exogamy 58, Experience of interpretation 60, VI. Ethnic stereotypes of behavior 60, Dissimilarity as a principle 60, Variability of behavior stereotypes 62, Ethnos and the four senses of time 63, VII. Ethnos as a system 66, "System" in popular explanation 66, "System" in ethnology 67, Levels and types of ethnic systems 68, VIII. Sub-ethnos 71, Structure of ethnos 71, Self-regulation of ethnos 72, Consortia and Convictions 73, IX. Super-ethnos 73, Reality of super-ethnos - "Franks" 73, Birth of super-ethnos - Byzantium 74, Super-ethnos' overthrow - Arabs in VII-X centuries 76, X. Algorithm of ethnogenesis 78, Ethnic relics 78, End of introductory fragment. 80.

Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth Introduction.

What will be discussed and why is it important?

In which the necessity of ethnology is substantiated and the author's view of ethnogenesis is presented, without argumentation, to which the rest of the treatise is devoted, where the author leads the reader through a labyrinth of contradictions.

Fear of Disillusionment

When the reader of our time buys and opens a new book on history or ethnography, he is not sure that he will read it even to the middle. He may find the book boring, meaningless, or simply not to his taste. But the reader is fine: he simply lost two or three rubles, but how does the author feel? Gathering information. Setting the task. Decades of searching for a solution. Years at my desk. Explanations with reviewers. Struggles with the editor. And suddenly it's all for nothing - the book isn't interesting! It lies in libraries... and nobody takes it. It means that life has been wasted.

It's so frightening, that you have to do everything you can to avoid this outcome. But which ones? During university and graduate school, the future author is often inculcated with the idea that his task is to write out as many quotations from the sources as possible, put them together in some order, and draw a conclusion: in antiquity, there were slave owners and slaves. Slave owners were bad, but they were good; slaves were good, but they were bad. And the peasants had it worse.

All this, of course, is correct, but the trouble is that no one wants to read about it, not even the author himself. Firstly, because it is already known, and secondly, because it does not explain, for example, why some armies were victorious and others were defeated, and why some countries were stronger and others weaker. And, finally, why mighty ethnic groups arose and where they disappeared, although their members did not die out completely.

All of these questions are entirely relevant to the topic we have chosen - the sudden strengthening of this or that nation and its subsequent disappearance. A striking example of this is the Mongols of the 12th-17th centuries, but other peoples also obeyed the same pattern. The late academician B.Ya. Vladimirtsov clearly formulated the problem: "I want to understand how and why all this happened," but he did not give an answer, as did other researchers. But we return to this story again and again, firmly believing that the reader will not close the book on the second page.

It is quite clear that in order to solve the problem we must first study the methodology of research itself. Otherwise, the problem would have been solved long ago, because the quantity of facts is so volumenous that it is not a question of adding to them, but of selecting those that are relevant. Even contemporary chroniclers were drowning in a sea of information, which did not bring them any closer to understanding the problem. During the last centuries, archaeologists have amassed a wealth of information; chronicles have been collected, published, and annotated, and the Orientalists have added to their knowledge, codifying sources from China, Persia, Latin, Greek, Armenian, and Arabic. The quantity of information grew, but did not acquire a new quality. It remained unclear how a small tribe sometimes became the hegemon of the half-world, then increased in number and then disappeared.

The author of this book questioned the extent of our knowledge, or rather our ignorance, of the subject matter to which the study is devoted. What at first glance is simple and easy, when one tries to master the subjects that interest the reader, becomes a mystery. This is why a thorough book must be written. Unfortunately, we can't give precise definitions right away (which I think is a little difficult).

But at least we have an opportunity to make initial generalizations. Even if they do not exhaust the complexity of the problem, but as a first approximation, the results will be quite suitable for the interpretation of ethnic history, which has yet to be written. Well, if there is a fastidious reviewer who demands a clear definition of "ethnos" at the beginning of the book, one could say so:

Ethnos is a biosphere phenomenon, a systemic integrity of a discrete type, working with geo/bio/chemical energy of living matter, in accordance with the second principle of thermodynamics, which is confirmed by the diachronic sequence of historical events. If this is sufficient for understanding; the book needs be read no further.

Ethnoses as a form of Homo Sapiens existence

For more than a century there has been a debate as to whether the species Homo sapiens is changing or whether social patterns have completely superseded the speciation mechanism. What is common to Homo sapiens and all other creatures is the need to exchange matter and energy with the environment, but what makes this species different is that it has to work to obtain almost all the resources necessary for its existence, interacting with nature not only as a biological, but primarily as a social being.   The conditions and means, the productive forces, and the relations of production corresponding to them are constantly evolving. The laws of this development are investigated by Marxist political economy and sociology.

But the social laws of human development do not "abolish" biological laws, such as mutations,1 and they must be studied in order to avoid theoretical unilateralism and the practical harm we do to ourselves by ignoring or deliberately denying our subordination not only to the social but also to the more general laws of development.

Methodologically, we can begin such a study by deliberately abstracting from concrete modes of production. Such an abstraction seems justified, in particular because the nature of ethnogenesis differs significantly from the rhythms of development in the social history of humanity. In this way of thinking, we hope the contours of the mechanism of humanity's interaction with nature become clearer.

No matter how advanced technology is, people get everything they need to sustain life from nature. So, they are part of the trophic chain, as the upper, concluding link in the biocenosis of the region they inhabit. And if so, they are elements of structural-systemic units, including, along with people, domesticated animals and cultivated plants, landscapes both human-made and virgin, natural resources, friendly or hostile relations with neighbors, one or another dynamic of social development, and this or another combination of languages, as well as elements of material and spiritual culture.

This dynamic system can be called an ethnocenosis. It emerges and disintegrates in historical time, leaving behind monuments of human activity devoid of self-development and capable only of destruction, and ethnic relics that have reached the phase of homeostasis. But every process of ethnogenesis leaves indelible traces on the earth's surface that allow us to establish the general patterns of ethnic history. И

1 "In the person of modern man the process of biological evolution has created the possessor of such species properties, which led to the attenuation of further evolution". [Roginsky Ya.Ya., Levin M.G. Fundamentals of Anthropology. M., 1955. P. 314]; "The absence of natural selection was tantamount to the cessation of one of the factors of evolution... and human biological evolution had to stop" [Bystrov A.P. Protolution, Moscow, 1955, p. 31]. [Bystrov A.P. The past, the present and the future of man. L., 1957. P. 299]; Debets G.F. On some trends of changes in the structure of modern man // Soviet ethnography. 1961. No 2. С. 16.

Now that saving nature from destructive anthropogenic influences has become the main problem of science, it is necessary to understand what aspects of human activity have been destructive for the landscapes that house ethnic groups. After all, the destruction of nature with disastrous consequences for people is not only the misfortune of our time, and it is not always associated with the development of culture, as well as with population growth.

When we ask the question about the interaction between the two forms of development, we have to consider the aspect. It can be either the development of the biosphere in connection with human activity, or the development of humanity in connection with the formation of the natural environment: the biosphere and the other Earth's shells - the lithosphere and the troposphere. Humanity's interaction with nature is constant, but highly variable both in space and time. However, behind the apparent diversity there is a single principal characteristic of all observed phenomena. So, let's put the question this way!

Earth's nature is very diverse; humanity, unlike other mammalian species, is also diverse, because humans do not have a natural range, but have been distributed, since the Upper Paleolithic, over the entire landmass of the planet. The adaptive capacity of humans is an order of magnitude greater than that of other animals. Thus, humans and natural complexes (landscapes and geo/bio/cenoses) interact differently in different geographical regions and epochs. This conclusion is hopeless in itself, as the kaleidoscope is unexplainable, but let's try to classify the problem... and things will be different. There is a constant correlation between the laws of nature and the social form of matter movement. But what is its mechanism, and where is the point of contact between nature and society? And this point is there, otherwise there would be no question of nature's protection from man.

S.V. Kalesnik proposed to divide geography into: 1) economic, which studies human creations, and 2) physical, which studies the Earth's natural envelopes, including the bio-sphere2. A very reasonable division. Nature creates what we cannot create: mountains and rivers, forests and steppes, new species of animals and plants.  And people build houses, build cars, sculpt statues, and write treatises. Nature cannot do this.

Is there a fundamental difference between the creations of nature and man? Yes! The elements of nature pass into each other... "This rock roared once; this ivy soared in the clouds." Nature lives forever, swelling with the energy it receives from the sun and the stars of our galaxy and the radio-decay in the depths of our planet. Planet Earth's biosphere overcomes global entropy through the biogenic migration of atoms which seek to expand3. Conversely, man-made objects can either be preserved or destroyed. The pyramids last a long time; the Eiffel Tower does not. But neither lasts forever. This is the fundamental difference between the biosphere and the technosphere, no matter how grandiose the latter has become.

Subject matter

A review of the current state of the science of ethnos should lead the reader into a state of inadequacy. All authors writing on the subject, including ethnographers, essentially substitute genuine ethnological characteristics for professional, class, etc., which, in fact, amounts to a denial of ethnos as a reality. All that is said about the existence of ethnos is that it is directly perceived by people as a phenomenon, but this is not proof. The poet said: "Both day and night the sun walks before us, but the stubborn Galileo."

2 Kalesnik S.V. 1) Some results of new discussion about "united" geography // Izvestiya VGO. 1965. No 3. С. 209-221; 2) Some words about geographical environment // Ibid. 1966. No 3. С. 247-248; 3) Problems of geographical environment // Vestnik LHU. 1968. No 12; 4) General geographical regularities of the Earth. М., 1970.

 3 Vernadsky V.I. Chemical Structure of the Earth Biosphere and its Environment. М., 1965. С. 283-285.

Indeed, the ethnologist has some grounds for pessimism, seemingly insurmountable at first glance.  Ethnology is an emerging science. It only became necessary in the second half of the 20th century, when it became clear that the mere accumulation of ethnographic collections and observations threatened to turn a problem-free science into a meaningless collectivism. So, we see the emergence of social science and ethnology - two disciplines that are interested in the same subject, humanity, but from completely different angles. And that is logical. Every human being is simultaneously a member of a society and an ethnos, which is not the same thing.

Likewise, ethnology as a science requires a definition. For now, let us say that ethnology is a science of impulses in the behavior of ethnic groups, similar to ethology, the science of animal behavior. Impulses can be conscious and emotional, dictated by personal will of an individual, tradition, coercive influence of the collective, influence of external environment, geographical environment, and even spontaneous development, the progressive course of history.

In order to understand such a complex issue, an appropriate methodology is needed. It can be either a traditional humanities methodology or a natural science methodology. Which methodology should be chosen for successfully overcoming the difficulties encountered by the scholar taking on a totally new field of study?

First of all, let us clarify the concept of "humanities". In the Christian world in the Middle Ages, the only two books that were absolutely authoritative sources of scientific information were the Bible and the writings of Aristotle. Science was reduced to commenting on quotations, which had to be given accurately because illiterate heresiarchs often invented supposedly quoted sayings of the prophets, Christ, and Aristotle.

From this arose a system of textual references that has held up to the present day. This level of scholarship was called scholasticism, and by the fifteenth century it was no longer satisfactory to scholars. Then the range of sources was expanded - works of other ancient authors, whose texts needed to be verified, were brought in. Thus, a human science (i.e. human, not divine) appeared - philology, differing from scholasticism in its critical approach to the texts. But the source was still the same - other people's words. After the Renaissance, the great naturalists contrasted the humanities with the natural sciences, based on observation and experimentation. The formulation of the question changed: instead of "what did the ancient authors say?" One tried to find out "what is real”? What has changed is not the subject, but the approach and thus the methodology.

The new methodology gained acceptance slowly and unevenly. As early as 1633, Galileo had to deny that the Earth rotated around the Sun, and his opponents appealed to the fact that such information was not available in the known literature. In the 18th century, at the meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier declared the report of a meteorite to be "anti-scientific": "Stones cannot fall from the sky, because there are no stones in the sky!"   It was not until the nineteenth century that geography was rid of legends of Amazons, hairy men, giant ship-drowning octopuses, and other fiction that readers on a commonplace level took literally. The hardest part was for the historians, who could neither set up an experiment nor repeat the observation. But here the monistic approach came to the rescue, allowing the source to be critiqued, both comparatively and internally.

Much painstaking research has produced indisputable fact codes with logical chronological references, and discarded some dubious evidence. This enormous wealth of knowledge can only be useful when it is applied to a particular object, be it a social community - a class - or a political entity - a state - or the ethnic groups we are interested in. In the latter case, the facts of history become an "information archive" and serve the purposes of ethnology, along with other information: geographic, has a distinctive geographical, biological, biophysical and biochemical character, which, when combined creatively, makes it possible to treat ethnology as a natural science, built on a sufficient number of reliable observations, documented during the accumulation of primary material.

And now back to the cardinal point:

Can we consider that ethnography, both descriptive and theoretical, has ceased to be the domain of geography, and that it belongs entirely to history? No, and again no! Such a position is, in our opinion, groundless and destructive. It leads science to impoverishment, i.e. to simplification by reducing the erudition of the researcher. It is easier for the researcher, of course, but his work loses perspective and ceases to be of interest to the reader.

I fear that persistent disagreement with the thesis posited here will lead not only to the compromise of historical methodology, applied not for the purpose for which it was developed, but also to the science of ethnography itself. There is only one way for it to develop, and that is to become ethnological, by not only collecting and describing material, but interpreting it according to the dictates of the problem.

A brief excursus into philosophy.

Here I must be very brief. Since we assume that ethnos in its formation is a natural phenomenon, its study can be based only on the philosophy of natural science, i.e. dialectical materialism. Historical materialism aims at revealing the laws of social development; that is, according to Marx, it refers to the history of people, not to the history of nature in people's bodies. Although both these "histories" are closely intertwined and interrelated, scientific analysis requires a more precise angle, that is, an aspect. The historical material we involve in, is our informational archive, nothing more. For the purposes of analysis this is necessary and sufficient. K. Marx was clear on this point: History itself is a real part of the history of nature, of the formation of nature by man. Subsequently, natural science will include the science of man in the same way as the science of man includes natural science: it will be one science. 4 At present, we are on the threshold of creating such a science.

When it comes to synthesis, the approach to the problem will change accordingly. But, as we know, analysis precedes synthesis, and there is no need to go ahead. Let us only say that even then the foundations of scientific materialistic natural science will remain unshaken. Having settled on the meaning of terms and the nature of methodology, let us move on to the formulation of the problem.

Humanity as a species Homo Sapiens

It is customary to say "Man and the Earth" or "Man and Nature", although even in high school they explain that this is elementary, primitive anthropocentrism inherited from the Middle Ages. Yes, of course, man created technology, which neither the dinosaur of the Mesozoic era nor the Machairodus of the Cenozoic era created. However, for all the achievements of the twentieth century, each of us carries within us nature, which constitutes the content of life, both individual and as the species. And no human being, other things being equal, would give up breathing and eating, avoiding death and protecting his offspring. Man has remained within the species, within the biosphere, one of the envelopes of the planet Earth. Man combines the laws of life inherent within him with the specific phenomena of technology and culture, which, while enriching him, have not deprived him of his communion with the element which created him.

 4 Marx K., Engels F. Opus, 2nd ed. Vol. 42. С. 124.

Humanity as a biological form is a single species with a huge number of variations that spread in the post-glacial epoch over the entire surface of the globe. The density of the species varies, but with the exception of polar ice, the entire Earth is a human habitat.   And we should not think that there is any "virgin" land where no man has set foot. Today's deserts and wilds are filled with traces of Paleolithic sites; the forests of the Amazon River grow on redeposited soil, once destroyed by the agriculture of the ancient inhabitants; even the cliffs of the Andes and the Himalayas show traces of structures we do not understand. In other words, Homo sapiens have repeatedly and continuously modified its distribution on Earth's surface over the course of its existence. Like any other species, it has sought to explore as much space as possible with the highest possible population density5.  Something, however, has hindered it and limited its possibilities. What is it?

Unlike most mammals, Homo sapiens is neither a herd, nor an individual animal. Man exists in a collective, which, depending on the angle of view, is seen either as a society or as an ethnos. It is truer to say that each person is both a member of society and a representative of a nation, but both of these concepts are incommensurable and lie on different planes, like length and weight or degree of heat and electric charge.

The social development of mankind is well studied, and its regularities are formulated by historical materialism. The spontaneous development of social forms through socio-economic formations is inherent only in man as a collective, and has nothing to do with man as a biological structure. This question is so clear that there is no point in dwelling on it. On the other hand, the question of nationalities, which we will refer to as ethnicities in order to avoid terminological confusion, is full of absurdities and extremely confusing. One thing is certain: there is no human being on earth outside of an ethnos. Every person will answer the question, "Who are you? - will answer: "Russian", "French", "Persian", "Maasai", etc., without thinking for a moment. Consequently, ethnicity is a universal phenomenon in the mind. But that is not all.

Definitions of Ethnicity

What meaning or, more importantly, what meaning does each person among those interviewed put into his or her answer? What does he call his people, nation, tribe, and what does he see as his difference from his neighbors - this is the unresolved problem of ethnic diagnosis to this day. It does not exist on a domestic level, just as the distinction between light and darkness, heat and cold, bitter and sweet does not need to be defined. In other words, the criterion is a sensation. For an ordinary life this is enough, but not enough for understanding. There is a need for a definition. But this is where it gets mixed up.

"Ethnos is a phenomenon defined by common origin"; "ethnos is the generation of culture on the basis of a common language"; "ethnos is a group of people who resemble each other"; "ethnos is an aggregation of people united by a common identity"; "ethnos is a conventional classification that generalizes people according to this or that formation" (this means that the category of ethnos is unreal); "ethnos is the generation of nature"; "ethnos is a social category".

Summarizing the views of Soviet scientists on the relationship between nature and social man, which vary in detail, three points of view can be distinguished: 1. "Unified" geography reduces all human activity to natural laws6.  2. Some historians and ethnographers consider all phenomena related to humanity to be social, making the exception only for anatomy and partly physiology7. 3. In anthropogenic processes we distinguish between pro-phenomena of social and complex natural (mechanical, physical, chemical and biological) forms of matter motion. The author considers the latter concept to be the only correct one.

5 Vernadsky V.I. Vernadsky, Collected Works: In 6 vols. Т. V.: Biosphere. MOSCOW; L., 1960. С. 24-31.

6 Nature and Society: Collected Articles / Edited by I.P. Gerasimov et al. М., 1968, 1969. Anuchin V.A. Theoretical problems of geography. М., 1972.

A special place holds the viewpoint of M.I. Artamonov, a renowned archaeologist and historian of the Khazars. According to his opinion, born as a result of long studies of archaeological, that is, dead cultures and monuments, devoid of self-development, but destroyed by the flow of time (see above), "ethnos, like class, is not a social organization”, but a state, and the dependence of man on nature is the less, the higher his cultural level; it is a common truth8.  It is difficult to agree.

Let us begin with this last point. The human body is part of the Earth's biosphere and contributes to the conversion of the biocenosis. No one can prove that a professor breathes differently than a bushman, or multiplies incompletely, or is insensitive to sulfuric acid on his skin, that he may not eat or may eat dinner for 40 people, or that the Earth's gravity acts differently on him.   And yet this is all a dependence on the nature of the very organism itself that acts and thinks, adapts to the changing environment and changes the environment, adapting it to its needs, uniting into collectives and within them creating states. The thinking individuality is one with the organism, and thus does not go beyond living nature, which is one of the envelopes of planet Earth.

But at the same time, man differs from other animals in that he makes tools, creating a qualitatively different stratum, the technosphere. The products of man's hands, both from the cosmic and living matter (tools, works of art, domestic animals, cultivated plants) fall out of the biocenosis conversion cycle. They can only be preserved or, if not conserved, destroyed. In the latter case, they return to the bosom of nature.

A sword, discarded in a field, rusts and turns to iron oxide. A ruined castle becomes a mound. A feral dog becomes a dingo, and a horse becomes a mustang. This is the death of things (technosphere), and nature's take-back of the material stolen from it.

The history of ancient civilizations shows that, although nature suffers damage from technology, it eventually takes its own, except, of course, for those objects that are so transformed that they have become irreversible. Such are the flint implements of the Paleolithic, the polished slabs at Baalbek, the concrete pads and plastic products. They are corpses, even mummies, which the biosphere cannot return to its bosom, but the processes of cosmic matter - chemical and thermal - can return them to their pristine state if our planet is struck by a cosmic catastrophe. Until then, they will be called monuments of civilization, for our technology will one day become a monument as well.

If we take the classification proposed by Kalesnik as the basis, we should find a place for the phenomenon of ethnicity in it. Running ahead, we should say that ethnoses is a phenomenon lying on the border between the biosphere and the sociosphere and having a very special purpose in the structure of the Earth's biosphere. Let it look like a declaration, but now the reader knows for what this book was written, the author of which did not simply strive to give a wording, but to show the whole way in which it has been achieved, and the grounds that convince us that it meets all the requirements for scientific hypotheses at the present level of science.

7 Tokarev S.A. The Problem of Types of Ethnic Communities // Problems of Philosophy. 1964. No 2, Agaev A.G. Nationality as a social community // Problems of Philosophy. 1965. No 2; Kozlov V.I. On the concept of ethnic community // Soviet ethnography. 1967. No 2; Cheboksarov N.N. Problems of typology of ethnic communities in the works of Soviet scholars // Soviet ethnography. 1967. No 4; Andrianov G.V. Problems of nationalities and nations formation in Africa // Voprosy of history. 1967. No 9; Brooke S.I., Cheboksarov N.N., Chesnov Y.V. Problems of ethnic development in the countries of foreign Asia // Voprosy Istorii. 1969. No 1; Bromley Y.V. 1) To characterize the concept of "ethnos" // Races and Peoples. The Modern Ethnic and Racial Problems: Yearbook / Edited by I.R. Grigulevich. M., 1971; 2) Experience of typologizing ethnic entities // Soviet Ethnography. 1972. No 5; 3) Ethnos and ethnography. M., 1973; Kozlov V.I., Pokshishevsky V.V. Ethnography and geography // Soviet ethnography. 1973. No 1.

8 Artamonov M.I. Again, "Hero" and "Crowd" // Nature. 1971. No 2. С. 75-77.

After this we can move on to the system of evidence.

Part One. On the Visible and the Invisible

Proving that superficial observation leads the researcher down a false path, and suggesting ways of self-monitoring and self-checking

I.  On the Usefulness of Ethnography the Dissimilarity of Ethnoses

When a people9 has lived peacefully and for a long time in its native land, it seems to them that their mode of life, mannerisms, conduct, tastes, opinions, and social relations - all that which is now called "stereotype behavior"-are the only possible and correct ones. And if there is any deviation, it is from "ignorance," which is simply being different from oneself. I remember when I was a kid and I was into Mein Ried, a very cultured lady said to me, "Negroes are just men like us, only black. It could not have occurred to her that a Melanesian witch from the coast of Malaita could have said with the same reasoning, "The English are bounty hunters like us, only white." Commonplace judgments sometimes seem internally logical, though based on ignoring reality. But they are immediately shattered when they come into contact with it.

For the medieval science of Western Europe, ethnography was irrelevant. European contact with other cultures was limited to the Mediterranean basin, on whose shores lived descendants of subjects of the Roman Empire, part of which were converted to Islam. This, of course, separated them from the "Franks" and "Latins," that is, the French and Italians, but the presence of common cultural roots made the difference not so great as to preclude mutual understanding. But that changed dramatically during the Age of Discovery. Even if one could call the Negroes, the Papuans and the North American Indians "savages", the same could not be said of the Chinese, the Indians, the Aztecs and the Incas. One had to look for other explanations.

In the 16th century, European travelers, discovering distant countries, unwittingly began to look for analogies with the forms of life they were accustomed to. The Spanish conquistadors began to give baptized cassicas the title "don," considering them Native American nobles. The heads of the Negro tribes were called "kings”. Tunguska shamans were considered priests, though they were simply doctors who saw disease as caused by evil "spirits" that were, however, as material as beasts or foreign tribesmen.

The misunderstanding was magnified by the certainty that there was nothing to understand, and then conflicts ensued, leading to the murder of Europeans who offended their sensitivities, with the English and French responding with brutal punitive expeditions. The civilized Australian Aboriginal Waipuldanha, or Philip Roberts, relays accounts of tragedies all the more gruesome because they occur for no apparent reason. For example, Aborigines killed a white man who smoked a cigarette, thinking him a spirit with fire in his body. Another was pierced with a spear for taking a watch out of his pocket and looking at the sun. The natives thought he was carrying the sun in his pocket.9

 А People, nation, tribe, clan union-all these concepts are referred to in ethnology by the term "ethnos," which is the subject of this book. Defining the meaning of any term is easy, but it does little more than provide a starting point for research. Defining a term is difficult, because it means showing the place of a phenomenon in nature and in history. When people say to me, "Tell me simply," I reply, "What is light? Tell me simply." No one has answered yet. That is why I ask the reader to forgive me the complexity of the presentation and to read the book from beginning to end without missing anything.

Such misunderstandings were followed by punitive expeditions leading to the extermination of entire tribes. And not only with whites, but also with the Malay, Australian Aborigines and Papuans of New Guinea often had tragic conflicts, especially complicated by the transmission of infection.10

On October 30, 1968, on the banks of the Manaus River, a tributary of the Amazon, the Atroari Indians murdered the missionary Cagliari and eight of his companions solely for their tactlessness, from their point of view. Thus, upon arriving in Atroari territory, the padre announced himself with shots, which, according to their customs, was indecent; entered a maloka hut, despite the protest of the owners; pulled out a child by the ear; and forbade him to take the pot of his soup. The only survivor of the party was the forester, who knew the customs of the Indians and left Padre Callari, who had not heeded his advice and had forgotten that the people on the banks of the Po are not like those who live on the banks of the Amazon.

It took a long time before the question was posed: would it not be better to apply to the natives than to exterminate them? But to do so, it was necessary to recognize that peoples of other cultures differ from Europeans, and from each other, not only in language and beliefs, but also in all "stereotypes of behavior", which it is advisable to study in order to avoid unnecessary quarrels. This is how ethnography, the science of differences between peoples, was born.  

Colonialism is receding under the blows of the national liberation movement, but inter-ethnic contacts remain and are expanding. Consequently, the problem of mutual understanding is becoming increasingly urgent, both on the global scale of world politics and on the microscopic, personal scale of encounters with people who are sympathetic but not like us. And then a new question arises, a theoretical one, despite its practical relevance: Why are we humans so different that we must "apply ourselves" to one another, learn other people's manners and customs, and seek acceptable ways of communicating instead of those that seem natural to us, which are adequate for intra-ethnic communication and satisfactory for contacts with our neighbors? In some cases, ethnic dissimilarity can be explained by the diversity of geographical conditions, but it also occurs where climates and landscapes are similar. Obviously, we can't do without history.

Indeed, different peoples emerged at different times and had different historical destinies, which leave traces as indelible as the personal biographies that shape the character of individuals. Of course, ethnicities are influenced by the geographical environment through daily interactions between humans and the nature that feeds them, but that is not all. Traditions inherited from ancestors play their part, customary enmity or friendship with neighbors (the ethnic environment) play theirs, cultural influences, and religion have theirs, but apart from all this, there is a law of development that applies to ethnic groups as to any natural phenomenon. Its manifestation in the diverse processes of the emergence and disappearance of peoples we call ethnogenesis. Without taking into account the peculiarities of this form of movement of matter, we cannot find the key to ethnopsychology in either practical or theoretical terms. We need both, but unexpected difficulties arise on the path we have chosen.

The complexity of the terminology used

The overabundance of primary information and poorly developed principles of systematization are particularly painful for history and ethnography. After all, the bibliography alone occupies volumes that are sometimes no easier to make sense of than the scientific issues themselves. The reader has the need to see the totality of events simultaneously (the principle of actualism) or all their ways of becoming (the principle of evolutionism), rather than through multiple views.

 10 Lockwood D. I am an aboriginal. М., 1971. С. 142-145.

11 Fesunenko I. With beads and a Geiger counter // Around the world. 1972. No 3. С. 14-17.

The works of the founders of Marxism contain a program of systematic approach to the understanding of historical processes, but it has not yet been applied to ethnogenesis.

It is true that in the ancient and partially forgotten historiography there are several attempts to introduce the systematic method into this field, but unlike representatives of the natural sciences, their authors met with neither understanding nor sympathy.

The concept of Polybius is now considered as an elegant rarity; Ibn Khaldun (14th century) is considered as a curiosity; Giambattista Vico is mentioned only in the history of science, and the grandiose, though perhaps unsuccessful, designs of N.Y. Danilevsky, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee became a reason to abandon the construction of historical models at all. The result of this process is unambiguous. Since it is impossible to memorize the totality of historical events, and since, in the absence of a system, there is no terminology and cannot be one, even communication between historians becomes more and more difficult every year.

By giving terms different shades and investing them with different contents, historians turn them into multivalued words. At the first stages of this process, it is still possible to understand the interlocutor on the basis of the context, intonation, the situation in which the dispute is taking place, but in subsequent phrases this (unsatisfactory) degree of understanding disappears as well. Thus, the word "clan" is usually applied to the concept of "clan system", but "clan of the boyars Shuisky" clearly does not apply here. Even worse in the translation: if a clan is a Celtic clan, then it is impossible to call so any Kazakh branch of the Middle and Younger Jus (ru) or Altaic "bone" (seok), because they are different in function and genesis. And all these, far from being similar phenomena are named equally and, moreover, on this basis are equated with each other. Willy-nilly, the historian does not study the subject, but the words have lost their meaning, while the real phenomena elude him.

And now let us assume that three historians are discussing a problem, and one puts into the concept of "clan" - a clan, the second - a seok, the third - a boyar family name. It is obvious that they simply do not understand not only each other but also what we are talking about.  Of course, one could argue that we can agree on terms, but the number of concepts grows in direct proportion to the accumulation of information, and new terms appear which, in the absence of a system, become multi-semantic and, consequently, unsuitable for the purposes of analysis and synthesis. But even here we can find a way out.

So far, we have talked about the conditions of research, but let us talk about its prospects. The study of any subject is of practical value only when it is possible to see the whole. The electrical engineer, for example, must understand, even if not to the same degree, the effects of ionization and thermal recoil, electromagnetic fields, etc.; the physical geographer, speaking of the Earth's layers, must remember the troposphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and even the biosphere. Likewise, a historian can only draw more powerful and interesting conclusions for the reader when he covers in a single discourse a wide range of interrelated events, while simultaneously agreeing on terminology. This is difficult, but not impossible. All that matters is that the conclusion be consistent with all the facts considered. If anyone comes up with a more elegant and persuasive explanation of the facts listed in this book, I will bow my head in respect for it. Conversely, if someone were to declare that my conclusions are definitive and not subject to revision or further development, I would disagree. Many books, alas, do not live longer than human beings, and the development of science is an immanent law of human development. So, I see my task as being; to do the best I can for the Beautiful Lady of History and her Wise Sister, Geography, which links humans to their foremother, the Biosphere of Planet Earth.12

Biosphere, a term introduced into science by Vernadsky, means one of the Earth's envelopes, including, in addition to the sum of living organisms, all the fruits of their former vital activity: soils, sedimentary rocks, free oxygen of the atmosphere. Thus, establishing a link between ethnogenesis and the biochemical processes of the biosphere is not "biologicalism," as some of my opponents believe, but rather "geographicalism," although even such a "label" is hardly appropriate; after all, everything that exists on generalizations and scrupuli.

The species Homo sapiens, spreading over all the land and a large part of the sea surface of the planet, has made such significant changes in its configuration that they can be equated with geological shifts of small scale.13 But this results in a special category of regularities - historical-geographical, which requires for consideration and study a special methodology, combining historical and geographical research methods. This in itself is not new, but the approach to the problem has so far been eclectic.

For example, Carbon 14 analysis for dating of archaeological sites, electrical prospecting (too laborious for practical use), methods of cybernetics in the study of "stone sculptures" (which gave the same results as the visual counting), etc. But the most important thing was overlooked! This "most important", in our opinion, is the ability to extract information from the silence of sources. The path of induction limits the historian to mere or critical retelling of others' words, with the limit of research being distrust of source data. But this result is negative and therefore not conclusive. The only positive outcome is the establishment of a certain number of undisputed facts, which, when detached from the source, can be put into a chronological table or placed on a historical map. In order to interpret them, one needs a philosophy, a postulate, and this violates the accepted principle of inductive inquiry. Dead end!

Right! But the geographer, geologist, zoologist, soil scientist never have enough data, and their sciences are evolving. This happens because instead of a philosophical postulate, natural scientists adopt an "empirical generalization" which has, according to Vernadsky, a validity equal to an observed fact14.  In other words, the natural sciences have overcome the silence of historians and have even benefited science by getting rid of the falsehoods always contained in the source, or brought to us by inadequate perception. So why give it up for historians? In engaging nature as a source, we must also engage the appropriate methodology of study, and this gives us a splendid perspective that allows us to lift the veil of Isis.

One of the tasks of science is to extract the most information from the fewest facts, to enable us to discern precise patterns that will permit us to understand, and later navigate the many different phenomena with a unified perspective. These patterns are invisible, but they are not invented; they are discovered by generalization. Here is an example taken from biology: "Stars and planets move across the sky. A balloon goes up, a stone falls over a cliff into an abyss. Rivers flow into the sea, and precipitation falls into the oceans, forming layers of sedimentary rock.   A mouse has very thin legs and an elephant has huge limbs. Terrestrial animals do not reach the size of whales or giant squids. What do these facts have in common? They are all based on the law of universal gravitation, which is intertwined with other laws that are just as real, invisible, but perceptible.15

Earth's gravity has always existed, but it took Newton's epiphany of an apple falling from a branch to make people aware of it. And how many other powerful forces of nature that surround us and control our destiny are beyond our comprehension? We live in an undiscovered world and often move by touch, with tragic consequences. This is why the magic glasses of science, by which I mean of the Earth's surface, in one way or another, falls within the realm of geography, either physical, or economic, or historical. The epiphany of ingenious scientists is necessary in order, having understood the world around us and our place in it, to learn to foresee at least the immediate consequences of one's actions.

13 Vernadsky V.I. The chemical structure of the Earth's biosphere and its environment. С. 273.

14 Vernadsky V.I. Vernadsky. Т. V: Biosphere. С. 19.

15 Malinovsky A.A. The way of creative biology. М., 1969. С. 7.

Research into the functional connection between physical geography and paleoethnology, using the materials of Central Asian history and Lower Volga archaeology, has led to three conclusions: 1. The historical fate of an ethnic group, which is the result of its activity, is directly linked to the dynamic state of the host landscape. 2. The archaeological culture of a given ethnos, which is a crystallized trace of its historical fate, reflects the paleogeographic state of the landscape at an era that is amenable to absolute dating. 3. The combination of historical and archaeological materials allows us to judge about the character of a given host landscape at one or another epoch, hence about the nature of its changes16.

Of course, the accuracy here is relative, but a tolerance of plus or minus 50 years with blurred boundaries does not affect the conclusions, and therefore, is harmless. Much more dangerous is the pursuit of scrupulosity in the literal sense of the word. Scrupulus (lat.) - a pebble that fell into the sandals and pricked the feet of the ancient Romans. They thought it was pointless to study the position of these stones in the sandals, believing that one should simply take off and shake out the shoes. That is why the word "scrupulosity" meant an unnecessary accounting of details. Today, the word is used in the sense of "ultra-precise.

Unfortunately, the requirement of "scrupulousness" is not always harmless, in particular when comparing natural phenomena with historical events, because the legal tolerance reaches 50-60 years and cannot be reduced, because the relationship sought is mediated by the economic system of ancient countries17.  The economic system, agricultural, pastoral and even hunter-gatherer, has its own inertia. If, say, it is shaken by droughts, the weakening of the state based on it will only occur when the supplies run out and permanent malnutrition (rather than short-term hunger) undermines the strength of the new generation. This process can only be uncovered by a broad integration of historical series of events, not by a scrupulous correlation of natural and historical phenomena. In this regard, it is worth recalling the famous words of the naturalist: "You will never know what a mouse is like if you examine its individual cells under a microscope, any more than you would know the beauty of a Gothic cathedral if you subjected each stone to chemical analysis.18

Of course, by examining one or even two facts in isolation, we remain captive to the ancient authors, who know how to impose their assessments on the reader with intelligence and talent. But if we peel away the direct information from the sources and take two thousand facts instead of two, we get several cause-and-effect chains correlated not only with each other, but also with the model we propose.

This is not a simple functional dependence, which was sought in the 18th century by advocates of geographic determinism, such as Montesquieu. What we find here is a systemic relationship that has become the basis of the science of humanity's relationship with nature.

The universality and specificity of this interaction allows us to separate it into an independent, frontier field of science, to be called ethnology as a combination of history and geography. But here a new painful question arises: is it possible to find a tangible definition of ethnos?

16 Gumilev L.N. 1) Khazaria and the Caspian Sea // Bulletin of the Leningrad State University. 1964. No 6. С. 95; 2) Khazaria and Terek // Ibid. No 24. С. 78.

17 For more details see: Gumilev L.N. 1) The Origins of the Rhythm of Nomadic Culture in Central Asia (Experience of Historical and Geographical Synthesis) // The Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1966. No 4. С. 85-94; 2) The role of climatic variations in the history of people of the steppe zone in Eurasia // The History of the USSR. 1967. No 1. С. 53-66; 3) Climate changes and migrations of nomads // Nature. 1972. No 4. С. 44-52.

18 Selye H. From Dream to Discovery. New York, 1964 [quoted from Mirskaya E.Z. Contradictoriness of Scientific Creation // Scientific Creativity / Ed. by S.R. Mikulinsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky. М., 1969. С. 298]. Cf: Soviet Archaeology. 1969. No 3. С. 282-283.

Framework

What exactly do we know about ethnicities? Very much and very little. We have no reason to assert that ethnos as a phenomenon occurred in the Lower Paleolithic. Behind the highbrow arches, inside the huge cranium of the Neanderthal, thoughts and feelings apparently nested. But what they were, we have no right to even guess, if we want to remain on the platform of scientific credibility. We know more about the people of the Upper Paleolithic. They were great hunters, made spears and darts, dressed in clothing made from animal skins, and painted as well as the Paris Impressionists. Apparently, their form of collective existence was similar to that which we know, but this is only a hypothesis; it is not even possible to base a scientific hypothesis on it. It is possible that in ancient times there were some peculiarities that have not survived to our time.

On the other hand, the peoples of the Late Neolithic and Bronze ages (3,000-2,000 B.C.) can most likely be regarded as similar to the historical peoples. Unfortunately, our knowledge of ethnic differences at this time is fragmentary and so scarce that, based on it, we risk not distinguishing the pattern we are currently interested in from local peculiarities and, mistaking the particular for the general, we would be in error.

Reliable material for analysis is provided by the so-called historical epoch, when written sources illuminate the history of ethnic groups and their interrelations. We have the right, having studied this section of the subject, to apply our observations to earlier epochs and, by extrapolation, to fill in the gaps in our knowledge that arise in the first stage of our study. In this way we avoid the aberration of distance, one of the most common errors of historical criticism.

It is better to take the early nineteenth century as an upper limit because we need only complete processes to establish a pattern. We can only speak of unfinished processes by way of prognosis, and for the latter it is necessary to have the formula of a regularity in hand, the one we are looking for. In addition, the aberration of proximity is possible when studying the phenomena of the 20th century, in which the phenomena lose their scale as in the aberration of distance. Therefore, we will limit ourselves to an era of 3,000 years, from the 12th century BC to the 19th century AD, or, for clarity, from the fall of Troy to the deposition of Napoleon.

To begin with, we investigate our abundant material through a synchronic methodology based on a comparison of pieces of unquestionable reliability. What we are going to do is to combine the facts in the perspective we propose. This is necessary because the kaleidoscope of dates in the various chronological tables gives the reader no idea of what has happened to the peoples in the course of their historical life. This methodology is characteristic not so much of the humanities as of the natural sciences, where making connections between facts on the basis of statistical probability and the internal logic of phenomena is considered the only way to construct an empirical generalization that is as reliable as the observed fact.19

An empirical generalization is neither a hypothesis nor a popularization, although it is built not on primary material (experience, observation, reading a primary source), but on facts that have already been collected and verified. Synthesizing and conceptualizing is the middle stage of thinking about a problem, before making a philosophical generalization. It is this middle stage that is needed for our purposes.

It seems that the more detailed and numerous information relating to this or that subject, the easier it is to make an exhaustive picture of it. But is this really the case?

 19 Vernadsky V.I. Izbras. vol. V. P. 19

Most likely, no. Excessive, too small information, not changing a picture as a whole, creates what in cybernetics and systemology is called "noises", or "hindrances". However, for other purposes, it is the nuances of sentiment that are needed. In short, to understand the nature of phenomena, it is necessary to cover the totality of facts relevant to the issue in question, rather than the information available in the arsenal of science.

But what is to be considered "relevant to the question"?   Apparently, the answer will vary from case to case. The history of mankind and the biography of a remarkable person are not equal, and the patterns of development will be different in both cases, and there are any number of gradations between them. This is complicated by the fact that any historical phenomenon, such as a war, a law, the erection of a monument, the creation of a kingdom or a republic, etc., must be considered in several degrees of approximation, and the comparison of these degrees gives seemingly contradictory results. We take an example from the well-known history of Europe.

After the Reformation a struggle arose between the Protestant Union and the Catholic League (approximation a).

Consequently, all Protestants in Western Europe would have to fight against all Catholics. However, Catholic France was a member of the Protestant Union, and Protestant Denmark struck at the rear of Protestant Sweden in 1643, i.e. political interests were placed above ideological ones (approximation b).

Does this mean that the first statement was wrong? Not at all. It was only more generalized. Furthermore, both sides had mercenaries, the vast majority of them indifferent to religion, but who had been negligent; thus,

in the following approximation (c) one could characterize the Thirty Years War as a rampant banditry, and that would also be correct to a certain extent.

Finally, behind the religious slogans and golden diadems of kings were real class interests that would have been wrong to ignore (approach d).

To this we can add the separatist tendencies of certain regions (approach e), detected by paleoethnography, etc.

As can be seen from the above example, a system of successive approximations is a difficult task even in the analysis of a single localized episode. Nevertheless, we should not lose hope of success, for we are left with the path of scientific deduction. Just as the movement of the Earth is a complex composite of many regular movements (rotation around the axis, rotation around the Sun, pole shift, movement with the entire planetary system through the Galaxy, and many others), so humanity, the anthroposphere, evolving, experiences not one but a series of influences, studied by separate sciences. The spontaneous movement reflected in social development is studied by historical materialism; human physiology is the domain of biology; the relation of man to the landscape - historical geography - is in the domain of geographical sciences; the study of wars, laws and institutions is political history, and opinion and thought is cultural history; the study of languages is linguistics, and literary creativity is philosophy, etc. Where does our problem fit in?

To begin with, ethnicity (one or the other), like language, is not a social phenomenon, because it can exist in several formations. The influence of spontaneous social development on the formation of ethnoses is exogenous. Social development can influence the formation or decay of ethnoses only if it is embodied in history, both political and cultural. Therefore, we can say that the problem of ethnogenesis lies at the edge of historical science, where its social aspects seamlessly merge into natural ones.

Since all phenomena of ethnogenesis take place on the surface of the Earth under various geographical conditions, the question of the role of landscape as a factor presenting economic opportunities to naturally formed human collective to ethnic groups20.

However, the combination of history and geography is not enough for our problem, because we are talking about living organisms, which, as it is known, are always in a state of either evolution, involution or monomorphism (stability within species) and interact with other living organisms, forming communities – geo/bio/cenoses.

Thus, our problem should be placed at the junction of the three sciences: history, geography (landscape science) and biology (ecology and genetics). If it is so, then we can give a second approximation of the term "ethnos": ethnos is a specific form of Homo sapiens existence, while ethnogenesis is a local variant of intraspecies formation, determined by a combination of historical and chronomical (landscape) factors. It may seem extravagant to consider passions and drives as one of the driving forces of human development, but this type of research was initiated by Charles Darwin and Friedrich Engels21. In the scientific tradition, we pay attention to that aspect of human activity which has been overlooked by most of our predecessors.

In a historian without geography, one encounters the "stumbling block" of the dependence of man on his natural environment, more precisely, on the geographical environment, has never been disputed, although the extent of this dependence has been assessed differently by various scientists.   But in any case, the economic life of the peoples who populated and inhabited the Earth is closely connected with the landscapes and climates of the inhabited territories. The rise and decline of the economy of ancient eras is difficult to trace, again due to the inadequacy of the information obtained from primary sources. But there is an indicator - military power. As far as the New Age is concerned, no one doubts this, but for two thousand years the situation has been exactly the same, not only among settled peoples, but also among nomads. For a campaign one had to have not only well-fed, strong and not tired people able to draw a tight bow "to the ear" (which allowed to throw arrows for 700 m, whereas when drawing "to the eye" the range of an arrow was 350-400 m) and to sword fight with a heavy sword or a curved saber, which was even more difficult.

You had to have horses, about 4-5 per man, taking into account a wagon train or packs. A stock of arrows was needed, and making them was a time-consuming business. You needed a supply of provisions, for example, for nomads - a flock of sheep and, consequently, shepherds with them. One needed a reserve guard to guard women and children... In short, even then the war cost money, and also a lot of it. To wage war at the expense of the enemy is only possible after the first, and not insignificant, victory, and to win it requires a strong rear, a flourishing economy, and, consequently, optimal environmental conditions.

The importance of geographical conditions, such as topography, for military history has been discussed for a long time, if not forever. The Battle of Lake Trasimene was won by Hannibal who used some deep valleys, set at a 90° angle to the lake shore and the road the Roman troops rode. Because of this disposition, he attacked the Roman army in three places at once and won the battle. At Kinoskephali the Macedonian phalanx scattered in the rugged terrain, and the Romans easily overpowered the heavily-armed enemies who had lost formation. These and similar examples have always been under the scrutiny of historians, and gave reason to I. Boltin's famous observation: "A historian who does not have a handle on geography, meets misunderstanding"22 .

20 Kalesnik S.V. Fundamentals of General Geography. М., 1955. С. 412-416.

21 See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. Vol. 21. P. 176.

22 Boltin I.N. Notes on the History of Old and Modern Russia by Leclerc, composed by Major General Ivan Boltin: In 2 vols. Т. 2. St. Petersburg, 1788. С. 20.

The geography, too, has moved away from simply describing the curiosities of our planet and has acquired capabilities that were inaccessible to our ancestors. So, we pose the question differently: not only how does the geographic environment affect people, but to what extent are people themselves part of the Earth's shell, what is now called the biosphere? Which patterns of human life are influenced by the geographic environment and which are not? This question needs to be analyzed, that is, artificially partitioned for ease of research. It is therefore only of secondary importance to understanding history, because the goal of our work is synthesis. But, alas, just as one cannot build a house without a foundation, so it is impossible to generalize without first dissecting it. Let us limit ourselves to a minimum. When we speak of human history, we usually mean the social movement of history, that is, the progressive development of humanity as a whole in a spiral. It is a spontaneous movement, and for this reason alone cannot be a function of any external causes. Neither geographical nor biological influences can influence this side of history.

So, what do they influence? On organisms, including human beings. This conclusion was already made in 1922 by L.S. Berg for all organisms, including humans: "A geographical landscape influences an organism forcibly, forcing all individuals to vary in a certain direction as far as the organization of the species permits”. Tundra, forest, steppe, desert, mountains, water environment, life on the islands, etc. - all these things put a special imprint on organisms. Those species that are unable to adapt, have to move to another geographic landscape or become extinct.24

Landscape is "an area of land surface, qualitatively distinct from other areas, bordered by natural boundaries and representing a special, coherent and mutually conditioned natural totality of objects and phenomena, which is typically expressed in a large space and is inextricably linked in all respects to the landscape shell"25.

In combination, this can be called "place-development"26. The thesis formulated here is what L.S. Berg called the choronomical (from the Greek "choros" - place) principle of evolution, thus linking geography with biology. In the aspect we have adopted, history has been added to the two named sciences, and nevertheless the principle remains unshaken. Moreover, it has received a new unexpected confirmation, and this obliges us to continue considering the laws of ethnic development, but taking into account the dynamic moment, the appearance of new ethnic groups, that is, ethnogenesis on the basis of the characteristics of the phases of ethnogenesis. However, this is the topic is another chapter.

II.  Nature and History Combining Natural History and History

In antiquity, when man viewed the world as a whole, despite its apparent disparity, and interconnected despite its seeming fragmentation, the problem of linking natural history and history did not even arise. All events deemed worthy of immortalization were written in the annals. Wars and floods, upheavals and epidemics, the birth of a genius and the flight of a comet were all considered events of equal importance and interest for posterity. At that time, the principle of magic prevailed in scientific thought: "the similarity begets the similar," which made it possible, through broad associations, to grasp the links between natural phenomena and the fate of nations or individuals.

23 Vernadsky V.I. Proc. vol. V.

24 Berg L.S. Nomogenesis. Pg., 1922. С. 180-181.

25 Kalesnik S.V. Fundamentals of General Earth Science. С. 455.

26 Savitsky P.N. Geographical peculiarities of Russia (I). Prague, 1927. С. 30-31.

This principle was developed in astrology and mantics (the science of divination), but with the development of individual sciences, as knowledge accumulated; it was discarded as untenable and unjustifiable in practical application.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the differentiation of the sciences accumulated a vast amount of information, which by the beginning of the twentieth century had become indiscernible. Figuratively speaking, the mighty River of Science was released into irrigation ditches. The life-giving water irrigated a wide area, but the lake previously fed by it, i.e. the holistic worldview, dried up. And now the autumn wind is blowing up the bottom sediments and sowing salty dust on the loosened soil of the fields. Soon the steppe, though dry, which fed the herds, will be replaced by salt marshes, and the biosphere will give way to spatial matter, not forever, of course, but for a long time. For when people leave the doomed land, the ditches will silt up, and the river will channel again and fill in the natural depression. The wind will replace the salt marshes with a thin layer of fresh dust; grass will grow and fall on it without being eaten by ungulates (a kind of steppe “dear”). In a few centuries a humus layer will form on the plain, and a plankton in the lake; herbivores will come, and waterfowl will paw fish eggs into the lake... And life will once again triumph in its diversity.

In science too: narrow specialization is useful only as a means to accumulate knowledge; the differentiation of disciplines was a necessary and inevitable stage, and would be fatal if left too long. To accumulate knowledge without systematizing it for broad generalization is rather pointless. And were the principles of ancient science so false? Could it be that its failure lay not in its postulates, but in its ineptitude in applying them? After all, there is an interplay of "natural and human history" which can be grasped using the sum of accumulated knowledge and the methods of investigation that are evolving before our eyes. Let's try to go down this road and formulate the problem as follows: can the study of history be useful in interpreting natural phenomena?

Obviously social and natural phenomena are not identical but do have a point of contact. It is necessary to find it, because it cannot be the anthroposphere as a whole. Even if we understand the anthroposphere as a biomass, there are two sides to the phenomenon: a) the mosaic, because different groups of people interact differently with their environment; if we consider the well-known history of the last 5,000 years, this diversity and its causes can be key to the problem; b) the multitude of the subject we study, humanity. This should be understood in the sense that each person (or humanity as a whole) is a physical body, an organism, the upper link of a biocoenosis, a member of society, a member of a nation, etc. In each of these examples, the subject (in this case, man) is studied by the relevant scientific discipline, which does not negate the other aspects of research. It is the ethnic aspect of humanity as a whole that is important for our problem.

Let's make a little excursion into epistemology. Let us ask ourselves: what is accessible to direct observation? It turns out that it is not an object, but the boundaries of objects.   We see the water of the sea, the sky above the land, for they border the shores, the air, the mountains. But pelagic fish could only guess the existence of water by being caught by the fisherman and being pulled up into the air. So, we know that as a category time exists, but without seeing its boundaries, we have no way to give time a generally accepted definition. And the stronger the contrast, the clearer for us the objects we do not see, but conjecture, that is, imagine.

History, as a chain of events, we observe constantly. Consequently, history is the boundary -- fortunately, we know what -- of the social form of the movement of matter and the four natural ones. And so, along with the socio-sphere and the techno-sphere it spawns, there is a certain living being that is not only around people, but also in them. And these elements are so contrasting that they are grasped by the human mind without the slightest difficulty. This is why humanitarian concepts have proved unnecessary, or rather, inadequate – that they have questioned the influence of.

On the basis of this approach, the conceptions of the humanities have proved to be unnecessary and insufficient: they raise the question of the influence of geographical, biological, social, or, in idealistic systems, spiritual factors on historical processes, rather than the juxtaposition of the two, thus making the process and its constituents empirically generalizable. What we propose here is nothing less than analysis, that is to say "dissection" necessary to "untangle" the obscure passages of history and then to proceed to synthesis when the results of different methodologies are taken into account.

In 19th century historiography, the interaction of the social with the natural was not always taken into account27.  But now the dynamics of natural processes have been studied to such an extent that their comparability with historical events is obvious. Biocenology has shown that man enters the biocoenosis of the landscape as the upper final link; he is a predator, and as such is subject to the evolution of nature, which does not exclude the additional point - the development of productive forces that create the technosphere, devoid of self-development and capable only of destruction.

Formations and Ethnic Groups

However, if we look at the entire history of the world, we note that the coincidence of the change of formations and the emergence of new peoples is only a rare exception, while within the same formation ethnic groups, very different from each other, constantly emerge and develop.

Take the example of the twelfth century, when feudalism flourished from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Were French barons really like the free peasants of Scandinavia, the slave warriors of Mameluk Egypt, the wild population of Veche cities in Russia, the Mongolian Nuhur, or the Chinese landowners of the Song Empire?

One thing they all had in common was the feudal mode of production, but otherwise they had little in common. The relationship to nature was not the same for the farmer and the nomad; susceptibility to foreignness or the capacity for cultural borrowing was greater in Europe than in China, as was the desire for territorial conquest that stimulated the crusades; Russian slash-and-burn agriculture was simpler and more primitive than the viticulture of Syria and the Peloponnese, but produced fabulous harvests with less labor; languages, religion, art, education, all were different, but in this diversity there was no disorder: each way of life was the patrimony of a particular people. This is especially noticeable with regard to the Landschafts in which ethnicities were created and inhabited.

But we should not think that nature alone determines the degree of ethnic originality. As centuries went by, the relations of ethnic groups changed: some of them disappeared, others appeared; in Soviet science this process is usually called ethnogenesis. In a unified world history, the rhythms of ethnogenesis are coupled with the pulse of social development, but coupling does not mean coincidence, much less unity. The factors of the historical process are different, and our job, analysis, is to isolate those phenomena that are most closely connected to ethnogenesis, in order to understand what ethnos is and what its role in the life of mankind is.

To begin with, it is necessary to define the purpose of the terms and the boundaries of the study. The Greek word "ethnos" has many meanings in the dictionary, of which we have chosen one: "species, breed", meaning people. For our formulation of the topic, it does not make sense to single out concepts such as "tribe" or "nation," because we are interested in the member that can be taken out of brackets, - in other words, that which is common to the English, the Maasai, the ancient Greeks, and the modern Roma. It is a property of the Homo sapiens species to group itself in such a way that it is possible to oppose itself and "our own" (sometimes close, and often quite distant) to the rest of the world. The "us versus them" opposition (conditio sine qua non est) is characteristic for all eras and all countries:

27. Plekhanov G.V.27 Something about History // Op. Т. 8. M.; L., 1923. С. 227. 

Hellenes and barbarians, Jews and uncircumcised, Chinese (people of the Middle Kingdom) and Hu (barbarian periphery, including Russians), Muslim Arabs during the first caliphs and "infidels." Catholic Europeans in the Middle Ages (the unity called "Christian World") and the unholy, including Greeks and Russians; "Orthodox" (in the same era) and "non-Christians," including Catholics; Tuaregs and non-Tuaregs, Gypsies and everyone else, etc. д.

The phenomenon of such opposition is universal, indicating its deep underlying basis, but in itself it is only a foam in a high-water river, and its essence is to be uncovered. However, the observation already made, is enough to state the complexity of the effect that can be called ethnic (in the sense of "generic"), and which can become an aspect for constructing the ethnic history of mankind, just as social, cultural, political, religious and many others are constructed. Our task, therefore, is first and foremost to grasp the principle of process.

The connection between ethnic culture and geography is unquestionable, but it cannot exhaust (explain) the complexity of the relationship between the diverse phenomena of nature and the zigzags of ethnic history. Moreover, the thesis that any attribute underlying the classification of ethnic groups is adaptive to a specific environment reflects only one side of the process of ethnogenesis.  Hegel wrote that "it is unacceptable to point to the climate of Ionia as the cause of Homer's creations”.28

However, having established itself in a particular region, where adaptation to the landscape was maximal, an ethnic group retains many of the original features that distinguish it from aboriginal ethnic groups when it migrates. For example, the Spaniards who migrated to Mexico did not become Aztec or Mayan Indians. They created for themselves an artificial micro-landscape - cities and fortified haciendas, preserved their culture, both material and spiritual, despite the fact that the humid tropics of the Yucatan and the semi-desert of Anahuac were very different from Andalusia and Castile. And in fact, the separation of Mexico (New Spain, as it was then called), from Spain in the nineteenth century was to a large extent the work of descendants of Indian tribes who had adopted the Spanish language and Catholicism, but who were supported by the free Comanche tribes roaming north of the Rio Grande.

Now let us draw the first conclusion, which will be the starting point for the rest of the story (book). The mosaic anthroposphere, constantly changing in historical time and interacting with the landscapes of planet Earth, is nothing other than the ethnosphere. Since humanity is widespread but unevenly distributed across the land surface, and it interacts with the Earth's natural environment at all times but in different ways.  It is appropriate to view it as one of the Earth's envelopes, but with the necessary adjustments for ethnic differences. Thus, we introduce the term "ethnosphere.  The ethnosphere, like other geographical phenomena, should have its own regularities of development, different from biological and social ones. Ethnic laws can be seen in space (ethnography) and time (ethnogenesis and paleogeography of anthropogenic landscapes).

Can we trust historical sources?

V.K. Yatsunsky, the author of excellent reviews of geographical thought of the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, rightly notes: "Historical geography does not study the geographical ideas of people of the past, but the specific geography of past centuries.29  The starting point for this search is obviously to be found in the historical writings of bygone eras. But how? Unfortunately, there is no indication of a possible research methodology. And here is why.

 28 Hegel F. Philosophy of History // Essays: In 14 vols. Т. 8. М., 1935. С. 72. 29 Yatsunsky V.K. Historical geography. М., 1955. С. 3.

Historical materials as a source for reconstruction of ancient climatic conditions were and are used very widely. The famous controversy between L.S. Berg30 and G.E. Grumm-Grzhimailo31 on the issue of desiccation of Central Asia during the historical period developed in this respect. The related problem of the Caspian Sea level fluctuations in the 1st millennium A.D. was also solved by selecting citations from ancient authors32.  Special compilations of information from Russian chronicles were made in order to draw conclusions about climate change in Eastern Europe33.  But the results of the extensive and labor-intensive research did not meet expectations. Sometimes the evidence from the sources was corroborated, other times it was contradicted by other means. Obviously, the coincidence of the findings with the truth was a matter of chance, and this shows the inadequacy of the methodology. Indeed, the route of mere reference to the testimony of an ancient or medieval author leads to a false or at best inaccurate conclusion. It must be so.  

The chroniclers referred to natural phenomena either in passing or based on the science of their time, treating thunderstorms, floods, and droughts as omens or punishment for sins. In both cases the phenomena of nature were described selectively when they came to the attention of the author, and how many of them were omitted, we cannot even guess. One author paid attention to nature and another, in the next century, did not, and it may be that rains are mentioned more often in dry times than in wet ones. Historical criticism cannot help here, because it is powerless in relation to omissions of events that are not causally related.

Ancient authors always wrote for specific purposes and, as a rule, exaggerated the significance of the events they were interested in. The degree of exaggeration or exaggeration is very difficult and not always possible to determine.34 Thus, L. S. Berg concluded from his historical writings that the transformation of cultivated lands into deserts was the result of wars35.  Nowadays this concept is accepted without criticism, and as an example P.K. Kozlov's finding, the dead Tangut city of Idzinai, known as Hara-Khoto36, is most often cited. This point is so revealing that we will focus our attention on one problem - geographical location of this city and conditions of its destruction.

The Tangut Kingdom was located in the Ordos and Alashan, in what are now sandy deserts. This would seem to be a poor and sparsely populated state, but it had an army of 150,000 horsemen, a university, an academy, schools, a court, and even a scarce trade, for it imported more than it exported. The deficit was covered in part by golden sand from Tibetan possessions and, most importantly, by the export of live cattle, which constituted the wealth of the Tangut kingdom.37

The city discovered by P.K. Kozlov is located in the lower reaches of Edzin-Gol, in an area that is now waterless. The two old rivers surrounding it from the east and west show that the water was there, but the river shifted its course to the west and now flows into two arms into the lakes: the salt lake Gashun-Nor and the freshwater lake Sogo-Nor.

30 Berg L.S. Climate and Life. М., 1974.

31 Grumm-Grzhimailo G.E. Desert growth and destruction of pastures and cultivated lands in Central Asia for historical period // Iz. historical period // Izv. GO. 1933. VOL. XI. Vyp. 5.

32 Berg L.S. The level of the Caspian Sea in historical time: Essays on Physical Geography. MOSCOW, LENINGRAD, 1949. С. 205 - 279; Shnitkov A.V. Rhythm of Caspian Sea. 1954. Т. 94. No 4; Apollov B.A. 1) Proof of past low states of Caspian Sea level. M., 1951; 2) The Caspian Sea level fluctuations // Proceedings of the Institute of Oceanology. 1956. VOL. XV.

33 Betin V.V., Preobrazhensky Y.V. Severity of winters in Europe and ice cover of the Baltic Sea. L., 1962; Buchinsky I.E. Essays on Climate of the Russian Plain in Historical Epoch. Л., 1957.

34 Gumilev L.N. The Hunnu. М., 1960. С. 59-62.

35 Berg L.S. Climate and Life.

36 Merpert N.Ya., Pashuto V.T., Cherepin L.V. Genghis Khan and his heritage // History of the USSR. 1962. No 5. С. 56. 37 Grumm-Grzhimailo G.E. The growth of deserts...

P.K. Kozlov describes the Sogo-Nor valley as a beautiful oasis among the surrounding desert, but at the same time notes that a large population is unable to feed itself here. Only the citadel of Ijin-'ai is a square with a side of 400 meters. All around are traces of lesser structures and fragments of pottery, showing the presence of slobodas. The destruction of the town is often attributed to the Mongols.

Indeed, in 1227 Genghis Khan took the capital of Tangut and the Mongols massacred its population brutally. But the city discovered by P.K. Kozlov continued to live in the XIV century, as evidenced by the dates of numerous documents found by the workers of the expedition headed by him. In addition, the city's destruction is associated with a change in the course of the river, which, according to the popular belief of the traders, was diverted by the besiegers by means of a dam made of sacks of earth. This dam has survived to this day in the form of a rampart. Apparently, it was, but the Mongols had nothing to do with it. In the descriptions of the capture of Urahai (Mong.), or Hechuichen (Ch.), there is no such information. It would be simply impossible, because the Mongolian cavalry did not have the necessary tools. The destruction of the city is attributed to the Mongols by the bad tradition, which started in the Middle Ages, to attribute all bad things to them.  It was taken by the Chinese troops of the Ming dynasty, which was at war with the last Chinggisids, (Genghis-ites) and ruined as a stronghold of the Mongols who threatened China from the west38.

But then why was it not resurrected? A change in the flow of the river is not the reason, since the city could have moved to another channel of the Edzin-Gol. And this question can be answered in the book by P.K. Kozlov.   He notes with his characteristic observation that the amount of water in Edzin-gol is shrinking, the lake Sogo-nor is becoming shallow and overgrown with reeds. Some role here is played by the movement of the riverbed to the west, but this alone cannot explain why the country in the 13th century fed a huge population, and by the beginning of the 20th century turned into a sandy desert?

So, the blame for the desolation of the cultural lands of Asia lies not with the Mongols, but with climate change, a phenomenon that we have described in special works39.

Is it possible to believe the monuments?

Why exactly Genghis and his children were attributed the devastation of Asia, while other events, much bigger in scale, for example the defeat of the Uighurs by the Kyrgyz in 841-846, or the massacre of Kalmyks by the Manchu emperor Qian Lun in 1756-1758(40) remained out of the historians' sight?

The answer to this question must be sought in historiography, not in the history of peoples. Talented books on history are not written often, not on every occasion, and, moreover, not all of them have survived. The 14th-15th centuries were a time of flourishing literature in the Middle East, and the struggle against the Mongol yoke in both Persia and Russia during this period was the most urgent issue, so many works have survived to this day. Among them were talented, bright works, some of which we know. They caused imitation and repetition, which increased the total number of works on the subject. The extermination of the Oirat did not find a historian, or he died in the massacre.

38 Rudenko S.I., Gumilev L.N. Archaeological research of P.K. Kozlov in the aspect of historical geography // Izv. VGO. 1966. Vyp. 3. С. 244.

39 Gumilev L.N. 1) Heterochronality of humidification of Eurasia in Antiquity (Landscape and Ethnicity: IV) // Bulletin of Leningrad State University. 1966. No 6. С. 64-71; 2) Heterochronity of humidification in Eurasia in the Middle Ages (Landscape and ethnos: V) (in Russian) // Ibid. 1966. No 18. С. 81-90.

40 The Chinese emperor Qian Lun massacred the Oirat, with the Manchus preying on women, children, and elders, giving no mercy to anyone. The official Chinese history is limited to a simple statement: "More than a million Oirat were slaughtered." The grandiose event sank in the executioner's note, and is it the only one! Alas, the history of mankind is known to us with varying degrees of detail, and this is the same as if a geographer had a 1:200,000 map on one tablet and a 1:100 map on the other.

Thus, it turned out that the events are covered unevenly and their significance is distorted, as they are presented as if in different scales. Hence the hypothesis that Genghis Khan's warriors almost totally destroyed the populations of the countries they conquered and completely altered their landscapes, which is not at all true. It should be noted that the most desiccated were not the countries destroyed by the war, but Uiguria, where there was no war at all, and Dzungaria, where no one was going to destroy the grassy steppes. Consequently, the historical and geographic information of the sources is unreliable.

Finally, there is a temptation to consider as migrations grand historical events, such as the campaigns of the Mongols in the 13th century. Eminent scholars E. Huntington and E. Brooks succumbed to it, but the Mongolian campaigns were not associated with migrations. Victories were won not by hordes of nomads, but by small, well-organized mobile forces returning to their native steppes after campaigns. For example, the Juchid dynasties of Batu Khan, the Horde, and Sheiban received by the bequest of Genghis a mere 4,000 horsemen, i.e. about 20,000 men who settled in areas from the Carpathians to the Altai. In contrast, the genuine migration of Kalmyks in the seventeenth century has been overlooked by most historians as it has received little resonance in works on world history. It would thus require a more solid knowledge of history than is readily apparent from omnibus works, and a more detailed knowledge of geography than is usually confined to historians or agricultural economists. Above all, it is necessary to deconstruct the truth from the subjective assumptions of many of the writers of written works from Herodotus to the present day.

By reliable information we mean sources that have passed the throat of historical criticism and have been interpreted in an unambiguous way. There are many of them, but the vast majority are political histories. We know the dates and details of battles, peace treaties, palace coups, and great discoveries, but how do we use this data to explain natural phenomena? The methodology of comparing facts of history with changes in nature began to be developed only in the twentieth century.  

Climate historian E. Leroy Ladurie noted that the desire to reduce the ups and downs of the economy in different European countries to periods of increased or decreased moisture, cooling or warming is based on ignoring the economy and social crises, the role of which is undoubted. Thus, the increase of Baltic (i.e. Russian) grain imports to the Mediterranean and the decrease of sheep populations in Spain in the 16th and especially in the 17th century are easier to compare with the devastation caused to European countries by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, than with minor changes in annual temperatures. He is right! Not only Germany, which had been ravaged by the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), but also Spain, the straightforward country not exposed to devastation, had a negative population increase during these centuries: in 1600 it had 8.0 million – and 8.0 million, in 1700, and in 1964 only 8.8 million. - This was simply because most of the young men had been mobilized to America or to the Netherlands, so the country lacked the manpower to support the economy and the family.

"What would one think of a historian who, since 1850, would attribute the economic development of Europe to the retreat of the glaciers, certainly established for the Alps..." - writes E. Leroy Ladurie, and it is impossible not to agree with him. Consequently, in the opinion of our author, we must simply accumulate facts, carefully and accurately dated and free from arbitrary interpretations. In other words, we must be sure that explanation of the factor of interest at the expense of economic, social, ethnographic factors and mere coincidences is excluded.42

 41 Leroy Ladurie E. A history of climate over 1,000 years. Л., 1971. С. 14-15.

In geography there is no exact methodology for determining absolute dating. An error of a thousand years is considered quite acceptable there. It is easy to determine, for example, that in such an area, silt deposits overlapped a layer of loam, and consequently the presence of watering is noted, but it is impossible to say when it happened - 500 or 5 thousand years ago. Pollen analysis shows the presence of dry-loving plants, for example, where there are now water-loving plants, but there is no guarantee that the waterlogging of the valley was not caused by displacement of the nearby river bed and not by climate change. In the steppes of Mongolia and Kazakhstan, remnants of groves have been found for which it cannot be said whether they died from desiccation or were cut down by humans, and even if the latter is proven, the age of human massacre of the landscape remains unknown.

Perhaps archaeology can help? Monuments of material culture clearly mark the periods of prosperity and decline of peoples and can be dated quite clearly. Things found in the ground or ancient graves do not tend to mislead the researcher or distort the facts. But things are silent, allowing the archaeologist's imagination to run wild. And our contemporaries, too, do not mind imagination, and although their way of thinking is very different from that of the Middle Ages, there is no certainty that it is much closer to reality. In the 20th century we sometimes encounter a blind faith in the power of archaeological excavations, based on really successful finds in Egypt, Babylonia, India, and even in the Altai Mountains, which made it possible to discover and investigate forgotten pages of our history. But this is an exception, and for the most part the archaeologist has to be content with shards lifted from the dry dust of the heated steppes, the fragments of bones in looted graves and the remains of walls, the height of one imprint of a brick. And yet we must remember that what is found is a tiny fraction of what is missing. In most areas of the Earth, almost all non-preserved materials: wood, furs, textiles, paper (or birch bark which replaced it), etc. are not preserved. It is never known exactly what is missing, and to consider what is missing and not correct for it, is a mistake that leads knowingly to wrong conclusions. In short, archaeology without history can mislead the researcher. Let us approach the problem differently.

III.   Is There an Ethnos?

There is no criterion for defining ethnicity.  According to our definition, the species Homo sapiens is a group of individuals opposing all other groups. It is more or less stable, although it appears and disappears in historical time, which is the problem of ethnogenesis. All such collectives are more or less different from one another, sometimes in language, sometimes in customs, sometimes in the system of ideology, sometimes in origin, but always in historical destiny. Hence, on the one hand, ethnicity is derived from the historical process and, on the other hand, through its productive activity - economy - it is connected with the biocenosis of the landscape in which it was formed.    A nationality may subsequently change this relationship, but it is modified beyond recognition, and the continuity of the Migration42 responds to extremely complex human motivations and driving forces. Famines arise when severe conditions for grain production are created, and climatically they can never be deciphered a priori, since they may be meteorological events, sometimes short-lived and insignificant in climatic sense". [Ibid. P.17].  It’s traceable only through historical methodology and the most rigorous criticism of sources, for words are deceptive.

Before moving on, we should at least concede the notion of "ethnos," which has yet to be defined. We have no real attributes to define any ethnos as such, although there has not been and is no human being in the world that is non-ethnic. All of the listed attributes define an ethnos "sometimes," and the totality of them does not define anything at all. Let us test this thesis using the negative method.

The theory of historical materialism recognizes the mode of production, which is realized in socio-economic formations, as the basis of society. Precisely because self-development plays a decisive role here, the influence of exogenous factors, including natural ones, cannot be the main one in the genesis of social progress. The concept of "society" means a totality of people united by concrete-historical conditions of material life common to them. The main force in this system of conditions is the way of production of material goods. People unite in the process of production, and the result of this unification is social relations, which are formed into one of the five known formations: primitive communal, slave-holding, feudal, capitalist and communist.

It is impossible to "unite into an ethnicity," since belonging to one ethnicity or another is perceived by the subject himself directly, and by others is stated as a fact that is not subject to doubt. Consequently, ethnic diagnostics is based on a feeling. A person belongs to his or her ethnicity from infancy. Incorporation of non-tribesmen is sometimes possible, but applied on a large scale, it degrades the ethnos. Specific historical conditions change more than once during the life of an ethnos, and conversely, the divergence of ethnoses is often observed when one mode of production is dominant. Based on Marx's idea of the historical process as an interaction between natural and human history,43 the first and most general division can be proposed: social stimuli, arising in the technosphere, and natural stimuli, constantly coming from the geographical environment.44

Every human being is not only a member of a society at a certain age determined by the action of hormones. The same can be said of long-lived collectives, which in the social aspect form differently characterized class states or tribal unions (social organisms), and in the natural one, ethnoses (nationalities, nations). The mismatch between the two is obvious.

See Part Two for:

Ethnos is not a society.

.