Central Asia - Environment
Central Asian steppe
By the time the first Neanderthals reached Central Asia, maybe about 100,000 BC, most of Central Asia was covered by hundreds of miles of tall grass, like the prairies of South Dakota or Nebraska in North America. There were hardly any trees, and not much water. We call this grassland the steppe.
In the north, the steppe was colder, and the ground stayed frozen even in the summertime - we call that permafrost, and we call the northern steppe the tundra.
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(a project)
Further south, it was warmer, but there was still not enough water for farming, so people did not farm there. At first they hunted wild aurochs and horses, and gathered wild grain and apples. Later, when they had tamed horses to ride, people kept big herds of cattle, and rode horses like cowboys to watch their cattle. The steppe made it easy for people on horses to travel long distances very fast, so people used it as a kind of road to get from Europe and West Asia to China. Animals and plants also traveled across the steppes, so that many different kinds of plants grow there and animals live there.
Several mountain chains cross the steppes. The biggest one is the Ural mountains, most of the way west towards Europe. Up in the mountains, there are rivers and pine trees.
Gobi Desert
The south-eastern part of Central Asia is too dry even for grass to grow there. It is the Gobi Desert. Mostly people don't live in the Gobi Desert.
Because most of Central Asia is so far from any ocean, the oceans can't help control its temperature, and it gets very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. Even in the Gobi Desert, it gets way below freezing in the winter, though there's not much snow because there's no water. On the steppe, there may be several feet of snow in the winter, and then temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 Celsius) in the summer.
Tales
Told in Tents: Stories from Central Asia
by Sally Pomme Clayton (2000). For kids.
Empire
Of The Mongolians, by Michael Burgan (2005). Young adult.
