Well, they didn't take it over very easily at all. They made repeated incursions over several hundred years. Keep in mind that the anatolians themselves came from a warrior culture and that their warriors were given plenty of good food and they had plenty of their own martial prowess. And also by the time they actually took all of Anatolia, the ottomans themselves would have largely been barely any different from an anatolian, they had absorbed an overwhelming amount of gene flow from the native population, plus the fact that they were already half white to begin with. It's why the turks barely even qualify as a turkic group besides the fact that they speak a turkic language.
Anatolians are one of the oldest distinct indo european cultures. They were originally a mixture of indo european people with anatolian farmers (the same as every other european group). In pre history they were the hittites, the medes, and the Lydians. Lydia was taken over by the Persians, which was then taken over by the Greeks, who were taken over by Rome. Rome split in 2, and eastern Rome was beaten by the ottomans. Anatolia wasn't an independent land for a very long time until after ww1, but it maintained a degree of autonomy in every empire it ended up in (and it had control in the ottoman empire), plus a degree of safety, so it was advantageous overall for them to not be independent.
The anatolians were and were not their own race. A majority of their dna is still from the native inhabitants, but there is a mixture with other closely related people like the Greeks and Persians. The anatolians who fought the ottomans would be culturally greek, but ethnically distinct from Greece
I am quite confused about Anatolians being indo-european because I remember there being 2 kinds: Anatolian farmers (Neolithic, ~7000–4000 BCE) and Indo-European Anatolians (Bronze Age, after ~2000 BCE) who were the Hittites, Luwians, and related peoples. I feel people use these interchangeably and it causes some confusion.
Anatolian farmers conquered all of europe, some of them stayed in anatolia. The hittites, luwians, et al were created from these 2 groups of people mixing.
The MONGOLIANS destroyed NE Asia (and the rest of the world, until Western Europe) for many reasons.
Among the many reasons they conquered the world "Mongolians are naturally stronger and faster than everyone else" is not one of them.
I'll list some reasons why the Mongolians were very successful in their conquest.
1. They were united in a common cause. Normally, the mongolians behaved like disunited tribes, but that all changed with their new leader.
2. They fought in a unique way that civilizations had never encountered before. They didn't use heavy infantry and they were expert at using harassment techniques to wear down the enemy, as well as lure them into traps and fighting on unfavorable terrain.
3. They used their speed (mounted troops) to their advantage and did not get bogged down in extended sieges. (They'd burn a city down rather than try to take it.) Imagine Blitzkrieg but in the middle ages. How do you stop an army that moves faster than your messengers? How do you pin an army down in pitched battle when they don't want to fight your heavy infantry at all?
4. They didn't need a supply chain to keep them fed and clothed as they were very independent and able to scavenge everything they needed.
5. If people submitted to their rule they were treated really well, almost like equals. In many cases, it was better to live under Mongolian rule than the local rulers, because you got lower taxes and greater freedom and wealth. So oftentimes people would just let them take the city rather than fight them.
Is that why Turkic tribes took over Anatolia so easily, because anatolians were a farming based society?
Are Anatolians their own race?
The anatolians were and were not their own race. A majority of their dna is still from the native inhabitants, but there is a mixture with other closely related people like the Greeks and Persians. The anatolians who fought the ottomans would be culturally greek, but ethnically distinct from Greece
Among the many reasons they conquered the world "Mongolians are naturally stronger and faster than everyone else" is not one of them.
I'll list some reasons why the Mongolians were very successful in their conquest.
1. They were united in a common cause. Normally, the mongolians behaved like disunited tribes, but that all changed with their new leader.
2. They fought in a unique way that civilizations had never encountered before. They didn't use heavy infantry and they were expert at using harassment techniques to wear down the enemy, as well as lure them into traps and fighting on unfavorable terrain.
3. They used their speed (mounted troops) to their advantage and did not get bogged down in extended sieges. (They'd burn a city down rather than try to take it.) Imagine Blitzkrieg but in the middle ages. How do you stop an army that moves faster than your messengers? How do you pin an army down in pitched battle when they don't want to fight your heavy infantry at all?
4. They didn't need a supply chain to keep them fed and clothed as they were very independent and able to scavenge everything they needed.
5. If people submitted to their rule they were treated really well, almost like equals. In many cases, it was better to live under Mongolian rule than the local rulers, because you got lower taxes and greater freedom and wealth. So oftentimes people would just let them take the city rather than fight them.