3000 BC to 210 BC

Herders of the plateau

Herders have grazed horses, sheep, cattle and camels on the Mongolian plateau for thousands of years. Bronze Age peoples leave more than a thousand deer stones, standing stones carved with flying deer, and thousands of stone burial mounds called khirigsuurs, many around three thousand years old. Riding horses early on, they set the pattern for every later state of the steppe.