From about 3000 BC (the fall of the Cucuteni–Trypillia farming culture to the Yamnaya nomads) to about AD 895 (the conquest of the Carpathian basin by the Hungarians), each nomad community that settled down could count on eventually being conquered by one or another of their distant cousins who stayed on horseback.

I question whether the agricultural lifestyle is a better lifestyle for humanity than pastoralism in some kind of utilitarian or consequentialist sense, provided the conquest of and parasitism upon agricultural peoples could be factored out. Pastoralists had generally taller stature and better dentition than agriculturalists until the industrial revolution. Pastoralists maintained smaller populations, and avoided the negative externalities of settled agriculture, e.g. soil exhaustion under intensive irrigation, pests and disease from close-quarters living.