If I asked you to prove to me that Genghis Khan was a Mongolian, born and raised in Mongolia, from where he launched a rather massive military assault on everyone he seemed to know, both east and west of him, would you know how to do that? If I say, "Can you show me his grave, or any archaeological evidence like that?"
Your only real choice is to respond, "Umm, no. Here, I'll quote wikipedia real quick:
Years before his death, Genghis Khan asked to be buried without markings, according to the customs of his tribe. After he died, his body was returned to Mongolia and presumably to his birthplace in Khentii Aimag, where many assume he is buried somewhere close to the Onon River and the Burkhan Khaldun mountain (part of the Kentii mountain range). According to legend, the funeral escort killed anyone and anything across their path to conceal where he was finally buried. The Genghis Khan Mausoleum, constructed many years after his death, is his memorial, but not his burial site."
And then I snicker and say, "Well, how damn convenient is that, lol? Guess we need to start scouring the Historical source documents to see what we can find for 'proof', eh?"
As you work your way backwards, you find your 'best proof' -
The Secret History of the Mongols. And you send it my way and say, "See. Pretty damn clear, CJ. It's all right here about exactly who Genghis was, where he was from, and all kinds of other important details about his life, and all the PhD scholars just rave about it, so it cannot be questioned, certainly not by a retired skibum/river rat in Colorado, the High Country, of all places. What an idiot you are."
And I say, "I see. So, that's some book Genghis wrote?"
"Umm ... no"
"So, who wrote it, and when and where did it enter the public domain?"
You stammer a bit and stall, starting to wonder if maybe you bit off a little more than you can chew and maybe CJ ain't the dumbass you were thinking he was, "Umm ... I'll just quote Wikipedia again:
The Secret History of the Mongols is the oldest surviving Mongolian-language literary work. It was written for the Mongol royal family some time after Genghis Khan's death in AD 1227, by an anonymous author and probably originally in the Uyghur script, though the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions or translations into Chinese characters dating from the end of the 14th century, compiled by the Ming dynasty under the name The Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: 元朝秘史; pinyin: Yuáncháo mìshǐ). Also known as Tobchiyan (Chinese: 脫必赤顏 or 脫卜赤顏; pinyin: Tūobìchìyán, Tūobochìyán) in the History of Yuan.
The Secret History is regarded as the single most significant native Mongolian account of Genghis Khan. Linguistically, it provides the richest source of pre-classical Mongolian and Middle Mongolian.[2] The Secret History is regarded as a piece of classic literature in both Mongolia and the rest of the world."
"I see. So, this Chinese copy of an alleged Mongolian original that nobody has ever seen produced by an anonymous author and handed to us by The Powers That Be in China that was not written until after Genghis died is the only proof you have? That's pretty weak sauce..."
Mongolia, eh? Let's take a look at the place. I'll enlist Julia Roberts on her little camping trip to help me. If you watch the first couple minutes, at about 44 seconds, they all come out of the yurt. Forget about them. Forget about the people, forget about the yurt, and just look at everything else you see. They'll go back in the yurt with the camera, but come back out, so watch the first couple of minutes, ignore the yurts and people and just focus on all of the other stuff you see in the picture. Ya ready? Mmmkay...:
What'd all ya'll see? That's right - a whole bunch 'o jackcrap nothing. Barren land. Barren of life, barren of natural resources. That's some tough livin' there, ain't it? Just to survive. The life of a Nomad, indeed. One for which I have respect and appreciation. There was the 'Mongol' Horde and Wave. But, anyone that wants to tell me that a group of people from the area known as Mongolia was at the helm of it gets resoundly laughed at, PhDs included. Not possible. Mongolians were no more capable of launching a 'global' military assault force, toppling multiple militaries, etc., in the 13th century than they are today. And that is because of that landscape I drew your attention to - it CANNOT support such. A cultural like that one (pretty damn unchanged in many ways, still, today) is not capable of sending all of its able boys and men of to war, with multiple horses each, etc. Imagine that Mongolian lady's Husband and oldest boy taking off with all of the best horses to go conquer the world. How in the hell is she going to survive? Not because she is a woman, but because keeping herself and her children alive in an environment like Mongolia ain't a one person job. How does she move the yurt from location to location by herself, etc.? And then, with the men and boys that would be causalities of war and never come home, etc. Gimme a break ... what crock 'o shite that Fairy Tale is.
I'll stop there with that - it is enough for one to get the idea of where I am going concerning the relative impossibilities of a military force the size of the Horde basically instantaneously springing up out of nowhere, to quickly disappear again from a place that is ridiculous to consider such happening because of the environmental limitations. All of the societal infrastructure for training, weapons manufacture, organization, food supply, etc., necessary to support a military wave could NOT have originated from the Nomads of Mongolia, with no history of such prior or afterwards, nor is there ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE OTHER THAN HEARSAY, other than 'lost copies' of 'alleged and never seen original' books handed to us by The Powers That Be. The land simply does not have enough natural resources, including the human societal density and infrastructure necessary.
But, that Mongol Horde, and the Blue, White, Golden Hordes were a real thing - just NOT a Mongolian thing. One of Genghis' realtive's names still lives on - the Vatican, named after Batu-Khan (don't forget about the flexion that occurs between b & v). There most definitely is a group of known Horse People from the Asian Steppes, but from the Western Steppes, not Eastern ...