ABSTRACT
This chapter looks into the origins and history of the earliest Turkic peoples, who resided in and dominated the Mongolian and Jungharian steppes as pastoral nomads up to the mid-ninth century CE: the Tiele (also known as Oghuz), who were the earliest known Turkic people or group of tribes in history; the Türks, who founded the first Turkic empire in history, the Türk Qaghanates (552–745), which dominated much of Inner Asia for nearly two centuries from 552 to 742 CE; the Uyghurs, a Tiele people who replaced the Türks as the dominant power in the steppe world and ruled in the Mongolian steppe from 744 to 840 CE.
