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Nomadic Iranic people of the Pontic Steppe
The Scythians or Scyths, also known as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people who migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained until the 3rd century BC.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Scythia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Scythians or Scyths, also known as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people who migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained until the 3rd century BC.
Skilled in mounted warfare, the Scythians displaced the Agathyrsi and the Cimmerians as the dominant power on the western Eurasian Steppe in the 8th century BC. In the 7th century BC, the Scythians crossed the Caucasus Mountains and often raided West Asia along with the Cimmerians.
In the 6th century BC, they were expelled from West Asia by the Medes, and retreated back into the Pontic Steppe, and were later conquered by the Sarmatians in the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC. By the 3rd century AD, the remnants of the Scythians were overwhelmed by the Goths, and by the early Middle Ages the last Scythians were assimilated and absorbed by the various successive populations who had moved into the Pontic Steppe during the Migration Period.
After the Scythians' disappearance, authors of the ancient, medieval, and early modern periods used their name to refer to various populations of the steppes unrelated to them.
The name is derived from the Scythian endonym *Skuδa, meaning lit. 'archers' which was derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kewd-, lit. 'shoot, throw'. This name was semantically similar to the endonym of the Sauromatians, *Saurumata, meaning "armed with throwing darts and arrows."
From this earlier term *Skuδa were derived:
The Urartian name for the Scythians might possibly have been Išqigulu (𒆳𒅖𒆥𒄖𒇻).
Due to a sound change from /δ/ (/ð/) to /l/ commonly attested in East Iranic language family to which Scythian belonged, the name *Skuδa evolved into *Skula, which was recorded in ancient Greek as Skolotoi (Σκόλοτοι), in which the Greek plural-forming suffix -τοι (-toi) was added to the name. The name of the 5th century BC king Scyles (Ancient Greek: Σκύλης, romanized: Skúlēs) represented this later form, *Skula.
The name "Scythians" was initially used by ancient authors to designate specifically the Iranic people who lived in the Pontic Steppe between the Danube and the Don rivers.
In modern archaeology, the term "Scythians" is used in its original narrow sense as a name strictly for the Iranic people who lived in the Pontic and Crimean Steppes, between the Danube and Don rivers, from the 7th to 3rd centuries BC.
By the Hellenistic period, authors such as Hecataeus of Miletus however sometimes extended the designation "Scythians" indiscriminately to all steppe nomads and forest steppe populations living in Europe and Asia, and used it to also designate the Saka of Central Asia.
Early modern scholars tended to follow the lead of the Hellenistic authors in extending the name "Scythians" into a general catch-all term for the various equestrian warrior-nomadic cultures of the Iron Age-period Eurasian Steppe following the discovery in the 1930s in the eastern parts of the Eurasian steppe of items forming the "Scythian triad," consisting of distinctive weapons, horse harnesses, and objects decorated in the "Animal Style" art, which had until then been considered to be markers of the Scythians proper.
This broad use of the term "Scythian" has however been criticised for lumping together various heterogeneous populations belonging to different cultures, and therefore leading to several errors in the coverage of the various warrior-nomadic cultures of the Iron Age-period Eurasian Steppe. Therefore, the narrow use of the term "Scythian" as denoting specifically the people who dominated the Pontic Steppe between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC is preferred by Scythologists such as Askold Ivantchik.
Within this broad use, the Scythians proper who lived in the Pontic Steppes are sometimes referred to as Pontic Scythians.
Modern-day anthropologists instead prefer using the term "Scytho-Siberians" to denote this larger cultural grouping of nomadic peoples living in the Eurasian steppe and forest steppe extending from Central Europe to the limits of the Chinese Zhou Empire, and of which the Pontic Scythians proper were only one section. These various peoples shared the use of the "Scythian triad," that is of distinctive weapons, horse harnesses and the "Animal Style" art.
The term "Scytho-Siberian" has itself in turn also been criticised since it is sometimes used broadly to include all Iron Age equestrian nomads, including those who were not part of any Scythian or Saka. The scholars Nicola Di Cosmo and Andrzej Rozwadowski instead prefer the use of the term "Early Nomadic" for the broad designation of the Iron Age horse-riding nomads.
While the ancient Persians used the name Saka to designate all the steppe nomads and specifically referred to the Pontic Scythians as Sakā tayaiy paradraya (𐎿𐎣𐎠 𐏐 𐎫𐎹𐎡𐎹 𐏐 𐎱𐎼𐎭𐎼𐎹; lit. 'the Saka who dwell beyond the (Black) Sea'), the name "Saka" is used in modern scholarship to designate the Iranic pastoralist nomads who lived in the steppes of Central Asia and East Turkestan in the 1st millennium BC.
The Late Babylonian scribes of the Achaemenid Empire used the name "Cimmerians" to designate all the nomad peoples of the steppe, including the Scythians and Saka.
However, while the Cimmerians were an Iranic people sharing a common language, origins and culture with the Scythians and are archaeologically indistinguishable from the Scythians, all sources contemporary to their activities clearly distinguished the Cimmerians and the Scythians as being two separate political entities.
There are two main sources of information on the historical Scythians:
The arrival of the Scythians in Europe was part of the larger movement of Central Asian Iranic nomads, including Cimmerians, Sauromatians, and Sarmatians, westwards towards Southeast and Central Europe from the 1st millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD.
Like the nomads of the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex, the Scythians originated, along with the Early Sakas, in Central Asia and Siberia in the steppes corresponding to either present-day eastern Kazakhstan or the Altai-Sayan region. The Scythians were already acquainted with quality goldsmithing and sophisticated bronze-casting at this time, as attested by gold pieces found in the 8th century BC Aržan-1 kurgan.
The second wave of migration of Iranic nomads corresponded to the early Scythians' arrival from Central Asia into the Caucasian Steppe, which begun in the 9th century BC, when a significant movement of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian Steppe started after the early Scythians were expelled from Central Asia by either the Massagetae, who were a powerful nomadic Iranic tribe from Central Asia closely related to them, or by another Central Asian people called the Issedones, forcing the early Scythians to the west, across the Araxes river and into the Caspian and Ciscaucasian Steppes.
This western migration of the early Scythians lasted through the middle 8th century BC, and archaeologically corresponded to the westward movement of a population originating from Tuva in southern Siberia in the late 9th century BC, and arriving in the 8th to 7th centuries BC into Europe, especially into Ciscaucasia, which it reached some time between c. 750 and c. 700 BC, thus following the same migration path as the first wave of Iranic nomads of the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex.
The Scythians' westward migration brought them in the 7th century BC to the Caspian Steppe, occupied by the Cimmerians since the 10th century BC as part of the first westward wave of proto-Scythian migrations. Around this time, the Cimmerians left the steppe and crossed the Caucasus into West Asia. This may have been due to pressure from the Scythians, but they arrived in West Asia about 40 years before the Scythians and evidence is lacking of pressure or conflict between them in later Graeco-Roman accounts.
Thus dominance in the Caspian Steppe transferred from Cimmerians to Scythians. Remaining Cimmerians were assimilated by the Scythians, which was facilitated by their similar ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles. Later, the Scythians settled the Ciscaucasian Steppe where they established their capital, between the Araxes river to the east, the Caucasus Mountains to the south, and the Maeotian Sea to the west.
The arrival and establishment of the Scythians corresponds to a disturbance of the development and a replacement of the Cimmerian peoples' Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex during c. 750 to c. 600 BC in southern Europe. Nevertheless, early Scythian culture had links to the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk complex. Also, Scythian culture shows links to the older Bronze Age Timber Grave culture in the north Pontic region, including elements of funerary rituals, ceramics, horse gear, and some weapon types.
After their initial westwards migrations, and from around c. 750 BC, the Scythians settled in the Ciscaucasian Steppe between the Araxes river to the east, the Caucasus mountains to the south, and the Maeotian Sea to the west. They concentrated in the valley of the Kuban river, where they established their capital until the end of the 7th century BC. Initially, they were few and occupied a small area of Ciscaucasia. This would remain the centre of the Scythian kingdom and culture until around c. 600 BC.
The Scythians extracted tribute from the native Koban and Maeotian populations of Ciscaucasia, such as agricultural, clay and bronze goods, weapons and horse equipment. Maeotians provided large wide-necked pots, jugs, mugs, and small basins. Through the 8th and 7th centuries BC, these interactions and assimilation led to a mixed culture.
During the latter 8th and the 7th centuries BC, equestrian nomads beginning with the Cimmerians expanded from Ciscaucasia southwards across the Caucasus Mountains to West Asia. They were taking advantage of the social disruption caused by the growth of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in West Asia.
Surrounding polities were:
Like local rulers, Scythians and Cimmerians negotiated for their interests by vacillating between these powers. and served as mercenaries.
Small nomad groups from Ciscaucasia might have acted in West Asia since the 9th century BC, which laid the ground for the larger migrations. The migration of the Scythians was not directly connected to that of the Cimmerians. Scythians became active there after arriving in Transcaucasia around c. 700 BC, and maintained contact with the Scythian kingdom in Ciscaucasia.
In West Asia, the Scythians settled eastern Transcaucasia and the northwest Iranian plateau, in today's Azerbaijan, which became their centre until c. 600 BC. Akkadian sources from Mesopotamia called this "land of the Scythians" (𒆳𒅖𒆪𒍝𒀀𒀀, māt Iškuzaya). Unlike Cimmerians, the Scythians there remained a single polity. Local craftsmen became their suppliers.
The Scythian and Cimmerian movements into Anatolia and the Iranian Plateau would act as catalysts for the adoption of Eurasian nomadic military and equestrian equipments by various West Asian states: it was during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE that "Scythian-type" socketed arrowheads and sigmoid bows ideal for use by mounted warriors were adopted throughout West Asia.
The Mannaean king Aḫšeri (r. c. 675 – c. 650 BC) welcomed the Cimmerians and the Scythians as useful allies against the Neo-Assyrian Empire. During the reign of the Neo-Assyrian king Esarhaddon (r. 681 – 669 BC), the Scythians acted in with Mannai and Media; their first known mention in Neo-Assyrian records is in c. 680 BC. Around this time, Aḫšēri hindered Neo-Assyrian operations between its own territory and Mannai. The Scythians even attacked distant Neo-Assyrian provinces, and on one occasion core territories.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Scythians”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.