--- #TODO Oracle inscriptions from the late Shang Dynasty (c.1200–1046 BCE), the earliest texts from China, at least three beverages were distinguished ([3](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref3), [5](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref5), [6](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref6)): _chang_ (an herbal wine), _li_ (probably a sweet, low-alcoholic rice or millet beverage), and _jiu_ (a fully fermented and filtered rice or millet beverage or “wine,” with an alcoholic content of probably 10–15% by weight). According to inscriptions ([6](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref6)), the Shang palace administration included officials who made the beverages, which sometimes were inspected by the king. Fermented beverages and other foods were offered as sacrifices to royal ancestors in various forms of bronze vessels, likely accompanied by elite feasting ([7](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref7)). Later documents, incorporating traditions from the Zhou period (c.1046–221 BCE), describe another two beverages ([5](https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407921102#core-ref5)): _luo_ (likely made from a fruit) and _lao_ (an unfiltered, fermented rice or millet beverage or the unfermented wort). - **Indo-European (Aryan) migrations (~2000 BCE):** Western-step herders moved into Europe and India, seeding half of Europe’s genetics and almost its entire linguistic and mythic heritage. They brought a warband ethos—heroism, individualism, a valorization of risk—that underpins Greek philosophy and Vedic mysticism. - **Step as crucible of metallurgy and warfare:** Though unsaid explicitly, the very fact of repeated steppe raids forged early iron-age martial orders. - **Aryan migrations (~2000 BCE):** Steppe iron and horse technology let Indo-European herders burst into Europe and India, remaking half the world’s languages and mythic structures in a single migratory wave. (completely replacing cultures, killing the men, r* etc etc, is important to mention...) - **Iron-age “soft” vs. “hard” ecologies:** Wet, wooded Europe yielded to agrarian hierarchy; the dry plains fostered small mobile warbands that could exploit the new weaponry far beyond their numbers. **Key geographic-mimetic takeaways across eras:** 1. **Terrain as teacher:** Hard land breeds hard men. From Mongolia’s frost-bitten plateaus to Ukraine’s wind-scoured grasslands, geography dictated the only viable subsistence: horsemanship, warrior-discipline, and mobile kin bonds. 2. **Frontier as crucible:** Wherever dense empires met vast margins, “barbarian spawn points” arose—Denmark’s Baltic outlet, the Iranian deserts, the Eurasian steppe—each perpetually sending forth challengers who imprinted the center with cycles of collapse and renewal. 3. **Predator–prey politics:** Low-density herders vs. high-density farmers mimicked ecological relations—nomads as apex predators extracting tribute, oasis towns and empires as vulnerable prey, each shaping the other’s social forms. 4. **Mimetic contagion:** Steppe warriors internalized no “universal moral code” but a continual test of strength; farmer-states responded either by building high walls and castles or by adapting cavalry themselves (e.g., Byzantine cataphracts, Ottoman sipahis). 5. **Geography’s final verdict:** Once technology neutralized cavalry, the same plains that had empowered barbarians facilitated their subjugation—illustrating how no strategic advantage endures beyond technological and ecological change. The steppe was never a single “civilization” but a perpetual **anti-civilization** generator—its open spaces compelling mobility, martial valor, and charismatic rule, and in turn catalyzing the rise, fall, and rebirth of every great farmer-state it touched. - **Aryan language and horse chariots** (Reich, _Who We Are and How We Got Here_) Ancient DNA confirms that Indo-European expansion around 2000 BCE wasn’t just linguistic but demographic, propelled by superior chariot and horseback technologies that gave herders both martial edge and corridor into Europe and South Asia. - **Iron’s steppe crucible** (Gat, _War in Human Civilization_; Keegan, _A History of Warfare_) Azar Gat and John Keegan both stress that early bloomery iron-smelting sites clustered not in river valleys but in ore-rich uplands—often in tributary zones of the steppe—furnishing herders and farmer-states alike with more durable weapons, reshaping 8HE warfare. - **Anomic and clan collapse under empires:**  In Western Asia and the Near East, great Iron-Age empires (Hittites, Assyria) rolled over more fluid, clan-based societies—from Egypt to Mycenae.  The transcript’s point that anomic systems “fell quickly because they lacked political mechanisms” applies here: Bronze-Age city-states without incest bans or tight clan law crumbled under iron-wielding conquerors ~3,500 years ago (1,500 BCE)"Sea Peoples" invasions throughout eastern Mediterranean; major population movements from EuropeWidespread conflict; cities "torched" across Mediterranean coastPressure to form stronger community bonds against external threatsMonotheistic "revealed" religions emerge within subtropical zone; all associated with pastoral peoples (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc.) - **Misconception (Primarily attributed to Indian nationalists):** The Indo-Aryan invasions (or migrations) around 2000 BC from the Ukraine-Kazakhstan region, spurred by the light chariot, which influenced cultures from Ireland to Bangladesh (resulting in Indo-European languages), never happened. - **Speaker's Counter-Argument:** This theory is "just proven" unless one is a "complete ideologue." - **Motivation for Denial:** Indian nationalists dislike the idea that India's foundational culture could originate outside India, especially from "European like peoples." - **Past Unpopularity in the West:** The theory was unpopular in the West post-WWII due to a dislike of migration models of history and its association with Nazi ideology. - **Evidence Supporting the Migrations:** - **Genetic Proof:** Majority of North European ancestry and "downwards of half of India's" ancestry is from Indo-Aryan roots. - **Archaeological Proof:** Red-haired, tartan-clad mummies found in Western China from this era. - **Mythological and Linguistic Proof:** All point towards a shared cultural root in the "western state" (steppe).