The steppe culture in Turks and the environmental impact of this culture to the present

Abstract

The tame of the horse and the wrought of iron, as many scientists have acknowledged, are among the important civilizational steps attributed to our ancestors. These two civilization phenomena have led to the creation of an equestrian-shepherd culture that brings humanity beyond food-gathering and animal hunting. These civilization phenomena has also affected the cultural history economically. In large steppes, managing people and animals, as opposed to resident life, has also given our ancestors the ability of organizing. Summer and winter, for those people who are constantly on the move, this geography consists of large plains along with the overlying sky. This land, the world, “yer-sub”, are rich pastures for the animals they feed and are not suitable for agriculture. Turning the lands in this structure to agriculture would be a murder both for that geography and for the nature of the world, and our ancestors were aware of this. In line with these basic consciousness and beliefs they develop about their environment, the wastes left behind in these large plains where they can come again, will be lost due to the weather, climate and soil conditions as they may be only organic wastes for those centuries, and there will be nothing left behind as waste. This extraordinary opportunity, which has been offered by the weather, climate and land, saved our ancestors from the mountains of rubbish. How has the perception of being able to get rid of the mountains of rubbish so easily, together with the spirit of this steppe which has entered our genes affected us that have been living in Anatolia today? Today the mood is the same but the place and time are very different. The wide steppes of Central Asia do not exist in this region. Moreover, there are products resulting from industrialization and the remnants of these products never disappear in the soil. We, with our old habits, throw these ruins in our environment very easily and we think that they will be lost in nature without our intervention. This is nothing more than the negative impact of this steppe culture that we inherited from our ancestors from past to today, arising from not being able to adapt to new places and times. © 2019 Hacettepe University 1. All rights reserved.