After the fall of the Sassanid Dynasty in AD 949, Persia dissolved into a mass of semi-independent statelets endlessly warring with each other, but eventually three main factions emerged. Media and Assyria were absorbed into Armenia, which had long been very culturally similar to northern Persia; and many of the northern and eastern provinces were overrun by various Turkic tribes, among whom the Khwarezmians eventually became dominant. In the centre, the Shansabani Dynasty, a native Persian dynasty of Pashtun origin, took control of Iran itself.