The earliest mention of Mongol - speaking tribes, which can be considered buryat ones, can be found in Mongolian chronicles, composed in the 13th century. They are the Khory-tumats, Ikhiresy, Bulnya (buryats).These groups, evidently, formed the core, around which the consolidation of the tribes took place. They lived in the basin of the Angara and the Lena, as well as on the eastern shore of the Baikal and lower reaches of the Selenga. The consolidation of the tribes finally led to the forming of the Buryat nationality.

The history of the Buryat people, in particular, the Khory-Buryats, can be found deep into centuries. The great nomads in the south reached the Himalayas, in the west -Europe, in the north-The Arctic Ocean and the Pacific in the east. The Khory people, the Khory-tumats are known in the history as Khory-buryats. By their origin they are connected with the Turkic tribes, Hunnu, Kurikins and others.

The union of the Khory and Tumats, their friendship, their nomad civilization appeared in early centuries close to the Alps. All these facts reflected in the oral folk arts of Buryats. Primordial nomads, the khory-tumats, lived to the west of Arig-Us(the Baikal) in the country Bargudzhin-Tukum. But they had to leave that place. Gradually the ways of two buryat tribes, the Khory and Tumats, were dispatched. The Tumats went to China.
The Khory is the most numerous group of nomads in Asia. The representatives of which still live in Inner Mongolia, Mongolia and Kalmikiya, as well as next to Tibet. The Aginskii district (okrug) is populated by Khory.
The Buryats from Barguzin came to the place from Irkutsk province, Verkholenskii district and natural boundary of Anga in1740.Their main duties concentrated in agriculture, cattle breeding and potato-sowing. Only small part of them was involved in hunting and fishing. Wandering took place twice a year. Barguzin people lived in houses and wooden yurts (nomad`s tents) in summer. Gradually agriculture and hunting started developing. While hunting, they mostly got squirrels, alongside with foxes, wolfs, elks, mask-deer and sables.
The tribes which came from Mongolia and local Buryats, who were living in the basin of the Selenga formed one of the main parts of the buryat people, which is now called the Buryats of Selenga (Selenginskie).In the 18th century they were called "Russians Mongols".

The Buryats are the native people of Pribaikalie. They were engaged in hunting and fishing with the tribes of Samodin and Tungus. The Buryat tribes like the Tchinos (Shono) and Nokhoi or Khory-Buryats were formed even in the Mesolithic and neolithic epochs.

At the beginning of 17th century, till the Russians coming, all buryat tribes, lived between the Enisei and the Baikal, were united with the name "Buryats" - that was a process of consolidation of isolated tribes of Pribaikalie. Later on, the military people called Pribaikalie as "The land of brothers", distinguishing different tribes. The second half of the 17th century was known as the spreading the athnicon "Buryats" on all the tribes, lived in Pribaikalie and Zabaikalie. Approximately at that time their number was increased by the Mongolian tribes which moved from Mongolia because of the internal wars. In Russian documents they are called the Mungals. They became a part of the buryat ethnos. The process of the Mongol movement stopped after the Burins treatise of 1727, which defined the rules on the border. Up to the 17th century the Buryats lived in class and territorial groups. Family ties remained the main form of social relations. Every attempt to a life or wealth of the family concerned all relatives and led to great conflicts. The "reply" that followed was blood revenge. Usually it happened as a result of cattle stealing, better pastures, hunting conservation, women kidnapping.

For many centuries the development of Buryatia coincided with the history and culture of Mongols and the peoples of Central Asia. However, the culture of Buryats is quite original. The archaic features are mostly seen in traditions and folklore.

The household, material culture of the Ekhirits, Bulagats and Khory, representing the main core, round which the nation has formed, was also connected with hunting-agricultural traditions of Buryats from Kurumkan. The territory around the Baikal in 6-7th century was populated by the Kurikans or "Early Khory", the tribe of Khory. The winter place of living was a dugout. In the settlement could consist of 40 houses, for example the Ust`-Tal`kin settlement on the river Unga. In summer they lived in wooden houses covered with bark and birch. Outside the houses different cellars could be found.
Cattle-breeding was a base for material well-being of the Khory. Even nowadays the ancient irrigating systems are still kept in villages, like the Ulun and Uluchikan in the Barguzin Valley. In the middle centuries the Khory were engaged in agriculture, as far as the ancient arable lands were found. Pig-iron shovels, iron sickles, mattocks and millstones are kept. They sowed millet, wheat, barley and hemp.
Even in the 1 A.D. cattle-breeding played the main role in the life of the buryat people. That was horse-breeding, that proves the fact that the Buryats were engaged in agriculture. But unfortunately the traditions of primitive agriculture were lost and at the middle of 13th century arable farming was based on the Russian experience. That`s why the terminology of arable farming has a Russian origin.
However, later on cattle-breeding became the basis of the buryat household. It gave them food, clothes, and the material for the arrangement of the dwelling-the felt yurt. When Russians came to the place, cattle-breeding became dominant; it pushed aside fishing and gathering.
The period of time in 14-16th centuries is the so called "the white stains" in the buryat history. There are no written sources about the time. It`s only known that at that time the Khondogors lived in Pribaikalie (close to the Baikal). That was a big tribe, now being a part of the Alar`s and Tunka`s Buryats.
In the 17th century Nikolay Spapharii and Isbrant Ides, in 18th century-Lange, Gmelin, Pallas, Georgi, Sivers, Lucksman, in the first part of 19th century-Gedenstorm, Miller, Kohren, Martos, Kastrin and others traveled through Burytia. The travelers marked the colonial policy of tsarism. It happened so that in 18th century the government forbade the cattle-trading with China. That led to the decreasing of the stimulus to the cattle-breeding development. That also caused the hostile attitude to the Russians.
Nikolay Spapharii was sent to China by the Moscow government in 1675.At that period the center of trade ("change") was Selenginskii ostrog(fortress). Spapharii wrote: "The Siberian State ends here and this is the beginning of the Mungal State……The yurts, they have, are made of felt, the dresses, they wear are like Kolmikian. There are a lot of cattle. The Buryats are not educated; they don`t have written documents about their past and have only unclear legends". Ides was sent to China in 1692 and he wrote about Priangarian buryats (lived close to the Angara): "They lived in small huts, which are built of wood and covered with clay; they don`t change the place of living, as the Tunguses do". At the end of the 17th century felt yurts were replaced by the wooden ones, the buryats stopped vagrant way of life. Still some movements took place. Peter I sent also a Swede, named Lange who visited “Bratskii ostrog” (fortress). He told that "Bratsk Tatars" lived in felt yurts. They are rich in horses and cattle. If someone has 5000 horses or other cattle it is considered to be not really important".
Gmelin admired forge craft of masters from the Balagan ostrog (fortress): “They can make silver and tin notches as good as Damask`s masters. Horse harness,sheath for hunting knives, belts and spoons are the results of their work”.