During the mongol horde, did we eventually become part mongol?
What differences did europeans have before that period?
Not sure I understand the second part of your question.
But as to the first - Nope. Mongol penetration of Europe was strictly limited to begin with. Essentially European Russia, with thrusts, but no permanent occupation, into Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Even in Russia the occupation was mostly indirect, as the Golden Horde was politically and demographically centered on the southern steppes, that had been predominantly Turkic for at least 900 years at that point. Even then, the number of actual Mongols who settled in the region was pretty minimal. In the low thousands ( the personal guards alotted from the Imperial Mongol army to the Jochid heirs led by Batu ). The manpower of the Golden Horde consisted almost entirely of the same Kipchak Turks (Cumans, Polovsty )that had been living there before the Mongols arrived. They simply changed political allegiance and were absorbed into the Mongol system.
- Tamerlane
I meant before the interracial mix with the mongols, what distinct racial differences did the people of europe have?
Well, like I said, the was no real “interracial” mix with the Mongols, per se. With the Turks of the Russian steppes, sure ( a section of the Cumans even settled in the Balkans, fleeing the Mongols ). But that had been going on for a millenia - It was nothing new.
As to Europe - meh. Different, but not really all that radically different from today I imagine. No East or South Asians to speak of, somewhat fewer people of immediate sub-Saharan African or Near Eastern/North African descent ( though they were certainly present ). But there were no ( as there never has been ) distinct racial categories to pigeonhole folks into. Shoot, the entire Mediterranean Basin has been one big panmictic breeding trough since time immemorial. Plus a certain amount of contact with sub-Saharan Africa via both trans-Saharan trade routes and, intermittently, with Christian Ethiopia. Asian contact across the great trade routes of central Asia.
It’s all a matter of gradients, not sharply delineated categories.
- Tamerlane
I believe I recall that they had long, narrow noses, very pale flesh that burned easily, and Hitler moustaches. Queen Sonja of Norway is a good example. Me, I’m half mongoloid on my father’s side, but I have trouble proving it because my eyes aren’t brown. My mom was Aryan, but she had black hair. Dammit.
Also, we didn’t know how to bar-be-que.
There are quite tantalizing hints that Indo-Europeans lived in large numbers, perhaps were even the dominant ethnic group, in parts of central Asia well into western China. There are cave paintings that depict what appear to be European faces in Sinkiang and a little further east. The current hypothesis (i.e. “guess”) is that the Mongol’s expansion overwhelmed the remnants of the Indo-Europeans in that region. (There are a lot of ethnic groups in that area now. A lot. But there are no remnants of Indo-European languages.)
So, while the Mongols probably didn’t affect the ethnic make-up of Europe, they might (emphasize might) have affected what parts of Asia were populated by people considered “European”.
The ancient history of central Asia is a great mystery. So much was destroyed by waves of invaders. Formerly grand cities are nothing more than flat plains of brick dust.
What about the Tartars, and the tribes of the Caucasus?
A lot of people mention that there were Asian influences there.
Guinastasia, I think the Tartars are the descendants of the Mongols. And for a mostly landlocked people, they make a lot of fish sauce 
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/baraba_tatars.shtml
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/chulym_tatars.shtml
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_tatars.shtml
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/lithuanian_tatars.shtml
The “Mongols” were not all “Mongoloid”. Over time they were basically a conglomerate off all the Turanian and Persian peoples they conquered.
But what about their racial differences? Isn’t that the topic of, um, what, debate or something?
The question of are Europeans Mongols.
Yes.
All European genetic diversity is a mere subset of African diversity, and in fact only a bud off the that subset of African genetic diversity contained in North East Africa (Ethiopian horn region). Insofar as Europeans are nothing but a subset of extra-Africa Eurasiatic diversity intermediate between far eastern Asia and Africa, they are nothing but a variety of ex-African genetic heritage barely distinguishable from Mongols.(*)
Any other answer is simple maundering nonsense mixing vaguely historical observations with mythical ideas on race, etc. Carry on.
(BTW – it is absolutely incorrect to say there are no more Indo-European languages in Central Asia. Dialects of Farsi are spoken throughout the region, as are Indic languages.)
[sub](*: Or alternatively mutant albinoid Ethiopians)[/sub]
Are Americans in effect Europeans? 
Accepting the fallacy of races thing, what is the word/name for the difference in skull categories?
I have heard archaeologists speak of mongoloid, caucasoid, australoid and negroid(?) What is the word for these different -oids, would “people groupings” be appropriate? With relevance to the OP don’t (northern and mediterranean) Europeans generally have caucasoid skulls, rather than mongoloid?
Eh… what?
The question needs no more answering than Tamerlane and Collounsbury have already supplied. But I am going to go at it anyway, because we OBVIOUSLY need to get to the end of this seemingly endless slew of race related debates this week.
If the more subtle points escaped anyone Tamerlane and Collounsbury more or less answered ‘Of course No but then again Yes’. The problem in all of this is once again the concept that there would be such a thing as a meaningful biological racial delineation of our species. There isn’t. Independent if you subscribe to the “Out of Africa” or the “Simultaneous Evolution” theory; the level of constant interbreeding between human groups is abundantly evident both in the fossil record and the genetic stem.
In respects to Europe, genetic research along the mutation of mitochondrial DNA over time, the ‘Mit line’ (maternal ancestry) and genetic traits passed from father to son linked to the male chromosome portion of DNA, ‘the Y-line’ (paternal ancestry) by Professor Bryan Sykes at Oxford University gives us some clues to what the lowdown on this issue is. Regarding Maternal Ancestry Sykes findings indicate that the majority of Europeans can be traced down the maternal line to seven females that Sykes has popularized as ‘The Seven Daughters of Eve’. They all settle in Europe between 10.000 and 45.000 years ago. In the same time span the human ancestral tree bifurcates on the maternal side across the globe and so far they have identified about 30 distinct maternal lineages worldwide. If you subscribe to the ‘Out Of Africa’ theory, for which there is increasing evidence, these then stem back to one common maternal Ancestor in Africa some 200.000 years ago. If you believe in ‘Simultaneous Evolution’, for which the evidence build up is stagnating these stem back to a smaller subset of distinct but closely related Homo who interbred to create the similarity in the lineages.
“So there ARE races then, you’re just calling them lineages, same thing!” says you. Not so. Follow the Y-line and the story gets more complicated. Evidence holds that although the Mit Line allows a division into distinct groups in the last 150.000 years, the Y-Line reflecting the interbreeding between these groups shows that we are all more or less cross related even during these 150.000 years.
It is fairly easy to follow the logic here. Through mom you’ll find your oldest and most stable ancestors. Through dad you’ll find your most diverse relatives. In case this gives you the idea that dad’s been throwing it around a bit more than mom; it doesn’t prove that -although it’s an entertaining thought that gender clichés could get proven genetically.
If you’re of European descent and interested in finding out your distant maternal ancestry, and you happen to have something like 500 EUR sitting around with little use, Oxford Ancestors offers you the possibility of find out which of the ‘Seven Daughters of Eve’ you sprang from. It’s not a hoax, but kind of silly…but I guess that there is a comic point to it somewhere.
Regarding the Mongols in respect I’ll answer the question in the OP with a screaming; ‘Yes we (the Europeans) are Mongols and vice versa, but it has not got one @#$^&%-ing thing to do with the Mongol Horde. We’re all Mongol fercryinoutlout”. It goes to reason that since we’re all related, how couldn’t we be?
With the above tidbits in head. Let’s now think of the nature of the Mongol Horde. Some tens of thousands of nomadic soldiers/truants/adventurers/horse breeders/seekers/bandits (take your pick and feel free to expand the list) traveling far away form home, but with all the comforts of Mongol hominess in their saddle bag or following close by in the supply train. Note that the Mongol’s in the Khan era were very well organized nomads and not a bunch of rowdy anarchists that fell around as they came. Hence, they most definitely had families that they brought along on their invasion sprees. They did not generally adopt families as they went along, nor did they ever settle in Europe west of the Urals for any longer period. Given the Hordes standard demand of a tenth in tribute to spare a town or city often enough included people, it is obvious that a good deal young Bulgar and Bohemian girls joined the Horde as part of a long tradition in the history of ‘adopted’ wives. Although I have no evidence per se I wouold surmise that there was some incidents of this happening out of free will as well. This is never the less not the point, since along the OP’s worldview that would slowly contaminate the ‘purity’ of the Mongols with filthy European blood and not the other way around. It is also fairly probable that some other opportunities to interbreeding presented themselves. I mean let us not be coy here; it is called ‘rape and plunder’ after all. Last but not least the Horde had little interest in the local flavor of culture and everyday life. They usually came, demanded their tribute and secured some regular payment of insurance against themselves, or when resisted left things pretty much in a state of destruction as they pulled on. For certain they never assimilated into the general population and culture.
Now let’s have a look at some dates and numbers…
1236 The Mongol invasion of Europe starts under Kahn Ogadai
1237 Russia invaded
1238-39 Present day Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czeckia and Bavaria are invaded
1240 The Horde sacks Vienna
1241 News of Kahn Ogadai’s death reaches minor Khan Batu in present day Hungary late in the year
1242 the Mongols retreat to positions near the Ural, never to return to Europe west of the Carpathians.
1242-1502 The Mongol Horde holds parts of Russia in tribute
1502 The Golden Horde is thrown out of Russia once and for all
Hence, all in all they stayed for about eight years in central Europe. When they retreated in 1242 they settled outside Eastern Europe south of the Urals and continued to regularly raid Russia for over 250 years.
The portion of the Horde that left for Europe in 1236 has been estimated to between 50 and 60 thousand heads strong.
The population in Europe around 1200 is estimated at slightly over 50 million people. (that is all of the continent and not completely relevant to the Mongols, but I am afraid that the way the OP is phrased it becomes relevant).
Let’s see…
50.000 invade a continent of 50.000.000. They don’t settle down. They have their own gals with them. Whatever chicks they pick up they bring back to the step. They’re already related to the people they invade. What was the question again? Sheesh! Yeah they sure took us over!!
The Mongols had deep impact on European and global culture. We are all their distant cousins. But the Mongol Horde had little impact on who your average European’s great, great granddad was.
Pity though, I’d love to have closer ancestral ties to old Kublai.
Soooooo where does that leave us?
Well. asking if ‘we eventually became part Mongol?’ As our presently banned OP did, makes no sense.
I would humbly suggest to anyone that feels inclined to debate ‘race’ and similar contentious issues and feels inclined to involve historicist claims, that these needs better be more founded and correctly phrased.
BTW No cites for the Mongol Horde portion. Open any history book. It’s all in there. 
Sparc
Since someone did bring it up, I will note that “aryan” or “white” people of various sorts didn’t all go to Europe. That sorta stared in Central Asia and then they got pushed over to Europe by the Huns, who kinda dissappeared.
But different peoples have been coming from the North/South of Eastern Europe since before the invention of writing.
[hijack]
There was a facinating bit last night on the National Geographic channel called “The Real Eve” were they were using genetics to trace early human migrations from Africa to SE Asia. They showed a primitive tribe in Malaysia whose people had amazingly African-like features.
[/hijack]
sqweels: We now know that the dark-skinned, broad-nosed curly-haired people of SE Asia aren’t any more closely related to African people than their classicly asian featured neighbors. As Collounsbury pointed out, all non-African peoples are part of the same branch of the human family tree (always remembering that humans have two sexes and plenty of Sub-Saharan Africans mixed their genes into the non-African gene pool).
Skeletal analysis suggest that pretty much all of SE Asia…what is now Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia was populated by people similar to Australain Aborigines/New Guineans. The classicly asian populations now living there are much more recent. (Source: Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. I don’t have my copy here, so I can’t tell you HIS source…).
But these people aren’t/weren’t African, except superficially. They are more closely related genetically to Europeans and classic Asians.
Lemur866, I take it you’d rather have intended to say recently than closely?
Most Respectfully
Sparc
Don’t ask Le Pen this question; or, day after elections, Paris will be emptier than a beer bar stocked only with Zima.
Emptier than Enron’s piggy bank.
Emptier than a meeting hall of the John Ashcroft Admiration Society.
Emptier than Phyllis Diller’s little black book. :wally
OK, how about this:
There are numerous protein polymorphisms in the human genome. When we look at the the diversity and distribution of those polymorphisms, we find that “Negrito” populations share many more polymorphisms with Eurasians than they do with Sub-Saharan Africans. This tends to support the theory that most non-African people are descended primarily from one group of people who left Africa at some point tens of thousands of years ago. And that Negritos are no exception…they are part of the Eurasian branch, not one of the African branches. (Always keeping in mind that “branching” is an imperfect metaphor, since humans are not an asexual species).
That make you happier? 