Mokshans, Moksha — an ethnos which, together with the Erzyans (Erzya), makes up the Mordvin people (the Mordvins). The center of settlement is Saransk (the capital of the Republic of Mordovia).
History of settlement
Judging by scant toponymic data, the Moksha tribes must have occupied the territory of the left bank of the Sula and the basins of the Psel and the Vorskla, i.e. the northwestern part of the area of the Bondarikha culture. Such a localization of Moksha settlements gives grounds to more confidently link the well-known Belsk hillfort with the city of Gelonus described by Herodotus. This hypothesis was long advocated by B.A. Shramko, but V.A. Ilyinskaya argued it was untenable (Ilyinskaya V.A., 1977, 91-92). Herodotus indicated that the wooden city of Gelonus was located in the land of the Budini. The Belsk hillfort is located by the old channel of the Vorskla opposite the town of Kotelva in Poltava Oblast.
The legitimacy of this assumption is also supported by the Mordvin epic about the building of a great city (Maskaev A.I., 1965, 298). The Bondarikha culture, which existed between 1200 and 800 BC, is connected with the preceding Maryanivka culture, whose territory covers that of the Bondarikha culture and extends beyond it into the interfluve of the Sula and the Desna. It was here that the Lebedivka culture later spread, whose bearers we have identified as the Anglo-Saxons. Having crossed to the left bank of the Dnieper, the Anglo-Saxons pushed the Moksha back beyond the Sula, and possibly also assimilated its remnants, which is reflected in lexical correspondences between the English language and the Moksha language of the Mordvins that cannot otherwise be explained.
There is a word in English, fang "canine tooth", which could testify in favor of contacts between the Anglo-Saxons and the Mordvins, since similar words meaning "tooth" are also found in the Finno-Ugric languages (Mansi puŋk, Khanty pöŋk, Hungarian fog, Sami pānnj, Udmurt and Komi pin'). In the Moksha language this word has the forms pey and peyn', but earlier it may have sounded differently, since in the Talysh language there is pingə "canine tooth", which could have been borrowed from the Mordvins (no other Iranian language has such a word). However, it is believed that the meaning "canine tooth" of the English word developed from Old English fang "catch, prey", which is semantically rather distant.
It is interesting that Old English had another word meaning "canine tooth" of unclear origin. It may testify to the presence of the Anglo-Saxons in Eastern Europe, since there is a whole group of words of different meanings but derived from the Turkic čočqa "pig" – Ossetian tusk'a "boar", Hungarian tuskó "stump", Moksha shochka, Erzya chochka "log", to which corresponds Old English tūsc "canine tooth" (Hungarian tüske "thorn", Veps t'ähk, Finnish tähkä "ear of grain").
A good argument in favor of Anglo-Mordvin contacts appears to be the correspondence between the archaic English leman "lover" and the Mordvin (Moksha and Erzya) loman' "person". At first glance the connection seems remote, but this is not so. In Ossetian there is the word lymän "friend", semantically close to the English word, and this immediately changes one's attitude toward the correspondence in question. V.I. Abaev also spoke of a connection between the Ossetian and Mordvin words, but he believed that it had been borrowed into the Mordvin languages from "Scythian". In fact, the Mordvin loman' has correspondences in several Finno-Ugric languages with the meaning "person" or "stranger" (Veps łaman, Sami olmenč, Mari ulmo, Moksha lomanen', Mansi elm), so it is certainly not a borrowing.
At the same time it can be noted that the semantic link between the words "friend" and "stranger (person)" is quite explicable, since in antiquity friendly relations always existed between members of different ethnic groups (kunaks). And the path by which the word entered English is of no great importance. What matters only is that it attests to the presence of the Anglo-Saxons east of the Dnieper. Here are a few more possible Anglo-Mordvin correspondences:
Old English ampre "sorrel" – Moksha umbrav "sour";
Old English glæs "glass" - Moksha klyants "glass",
Old English pæl, pal "post, pole" - Moksha pyal' "stake";
Old English sot "soot" – Moksha sod "soot",
Old English tōl „tool" – Moksha tula „wedge";
Old English tang(e) "tongs" – Moksha tsyanga "pitchfork".
Tellingly, no correspondences to the words given above have been found in the Erzya language. Evidently only the Moksha had contact with the Anglo-Saxons, while the Mordvin-Erzya moved far to the east. Later, evidently, the Mordvin-Moksha must have returned to their original lands, and further into the territory of present-day Mordovia, and could have served as an intermediary in transmitting Germanic words to other Finno-Ugric peoples. For example, Mari pundo "money" corresponds to Old English pund "pound, a measure of capacity". Evidently this word reached the Mari through the Mordvin-Moksha, whose language has pandoms "to pay", pandoma "payment", apparently borrowed from the Anglo-Saxons. Similar words are also found in other Germanic languages.
It is believed that these are early borrowings from Latin, which has pondō "pound" and pondus "weight" (Kluge Friedrich, 1989, 542). The Russian funt is borrowed from Middle High German phunt (Vasmer Max, 1974) and could not have been the source of the borrowing into Mari for phonetic reasons. It is remarkable, however, that the Mari word is closest to Latin pondō. This may be a coincidence, but attention is also drawn to another Mari-Latin parallel: Mari pundash "bottom" - Latin fundus "bottom, base". It cannot be ruled out that individual words could travel over great distances in very remote times.
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To the north are immense forests, in which live two kinds of people, namely: the Moxel, who have no law at all, pure pagans. They have no towns, but live in small huts in the forests. Their ruler and most of their people were killed in Germany. It was the Tatars who led them together with themselves right up to their entry into Germany, and therefore the Moxel greatly favor the Germans, hoping that with their help they will yet free themselves from the bondage of the Tatars… Among them live others, called Merdas, whom the Latins call Merdinis, and they are Saracens | 
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"Journey to the Eastern Parts" by William of Rubruck, 1253
Moksha
1) Based on the Steppe Pontid or Pontid type.
2) Lower Dnieper type.
3) Central European race.
4) Sub-Uralic type.
5) Lapponoid.
Erzya
1) Based on the Baltid type.
2) East Baltid.
3) Valdai-Upper Dnieper type (Bunak)
4) Northern type (Cheboksarov)
5) Atlanto-Baltic type
6) Lower Oka-Don-Sura type (Alekseeva)