Abstract:

The Turks are without doubt at the head o f the oldest nations history has ever known. Their earliest homelands were the Altai and Sayan Mountains and their southwestern regions in Central Asia. They entered the stage o f history here by establishing great empires that dominated Central Asian history. The Pre-Historic periods o f Central Asia go back to the years around 5000 BC. This was the Paleolithic Age. Finds and remains discovered by Russian archaeologists in sites like “Anau, Kelteminar, Afanas’evo, Andronovo, Karasuk, Tagar and Tashtyk” demonstrate us clearly how much the Turks played a role in Central Asian cultural history. According to the Geopolitical Understanding o f History, geography and climate play the primary role in the birth and development o f cultures. In other words, each culture carries on itself the mark o f the geography and climate it was born in. Thus, the extremely unfavorable natural and climactic conditions o f Central Asia has played a determining role on Ancient Turkic life style, character, belief, understanding o f art and traditions, in short Ancient Turkic culture. This culture has been named as the Horse Nomadic or Steppe Culture in the scientific world. The most significant characteristic of this culture is that it has created sturdy and immortal values whose essence and fundamentals have been preserved up to this day. In this short study of ours, we will try to express how the natural and climactic conditions of Central Asia have shaped a life style (Horse-Nomadic) and character for the Turks.

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