Interactions between the nomadic cultures of central Asia and China in the Middle Ages

Notions of centre and periphery as used in archaeology and anthropology, irrespective of how they are technically understood, are often value-laden, since they tend to rank cultures according to their level of technological advancement or general development. Such is the common approach in the West, including that of a useful Soviet review of the subject (Pershits & Khazanov 1978). It is no wonder then that an even stronger relativism should be characteristic of the naturally ethnocentric approach of those particular cultures whose conceptualization of their contacts with their neighbours is based on the opposition ‘we versus them’. A classic example is China with her self-centred world-view.