The Scythian culture was an Iron Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe from about 700 BC to 200 AD. It is associated with the Scythians, Cimmerians, and other peoples inhabiting the region of Scythia, and was part of the wider Scytho-Siberian world.
Chronology The Scythian Culture can be divided into three stages: Early Scythian – from the mid-8th or the late 7th century BC to about 500 BC Mid-Scythian or Classical Scythian – from about 500 BC to about 200 BC Late Scythian – from about 200 BC to the mid-3rd century AD, in Crimea and the Lower Dnipro, by which time the population was settled.
Development Early Scythian The Early Scythian Culture emerged during the 8th century BC. Since the Scythians were nomads who did not create permanent settlements, the Early Scythian culture is known primarily from Scythian funerary sites.
The Scythians originated in the region of the Volga-Ural steppes of Central Asia, possibly around the 9th century BC, as a section of the population of the Srubnaya culture, to which the Scythians themselves initially belonged. The population of the Srubnaya culture was among the first truly nomadic pastoralist groups, who themselves emerged in the Central Asian and Siberian steppes during the 9th century BC as a result of the cold and dry climate then prevailing in these regions.
Archaeologically, the Scythians proper as well as a related people from the Caspian and Caucasian steppes, the Cimmerians, both belonged to pre-Scythian cultures, with the earliest Scythians belonging to the Srubnaya culture in its Srubnaya-Khvalynsk form. The Srubnaya culture expanded into the territory to the west of the Volga in two to three waves, with the westwards migration of the Early Scythians from Central Asia into the Caspian Steppe constituting the latest of these waves, which occurred in the 9th century BC.
The Scythian movement into Transcaucasia is attested in the form of a migration of a section of the Srubnaya-Khvalynsk culture to the west into the Pontic steppe, to the south towards the northern foothills of the Caucasus mountains, and to the south along the western coast of the Caspian Sea into Transcaucasia and the Iranian plateau. Although the Early Scythians initially belonged to a pre-Scythian archaeological culture, their original Srubnaya culture which contained significant admixture from the Andronovo culture evolved into the Scythian culture from coming in contact with the peoples of Transcaucasia and the Urartians, and further contacts with the civilisation of West Asia, and especially with that of Mesopotamia, would also have an important influence on the formation of Scythian culture; the Early Scythian culture thus possessed several Central Asian elements, but developed into its definitive form under the influence of the cultures of Ciscausia, with some minor influences from ancient West Asian cultures as well. The Scythians who had expanded into the Pontic steppe meanwhile maintained their Srubnaya culture in its Srubnaya-Khvalynsk form, which is also called the Late Srubnaya culture, which spread over the territory of the Catacomb culture in the Pontic Steppe.
The Cimmerians are associated with the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk Culture of the west Eurasian steppe, which itself showed strong influences originating from the east in Central Asia and Siberia (more specifically from the Karasuk, Arzhan, and Altai cultures), as well as from the Kuban culture of the Caucasus which contributed to its development. Materially, the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture is difficult to distinguish from the Late Srubnaya culture of the early Scythians who later became dominant in the Pontic steppe and replaced the Cimmerians in the Caucasian steppe, with both the Cimmerians and the Scythians being part of the larger Chernagorovsk-Arzhan cultural complex, and both Scythians and the Cimmerians used Novocherkassk objects when the Scythians initially arrived into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes.
The grave goods within the tombs in Ciscaucasia during the 8th to 7th centuries BC, such as those of Khutor Kubanskiy and Krasnoarmeyskoye, show differences resulting from the invasion of the Scythians into the region.
The initial westward migration of the Scythians from Central Asia was accompanied by the introduction into the north Pontic region of articles originating in the Siberian Karasuk culture and which were characteristic of Late Srubnaya archaeological culture, consisting of cast bronze cauldrons, daggers, swords, and horse harnesses. The Late Srubnaya culture thus consisted of North Caucasian populations, who manufactured standard bronze horse harness bits adapted from West Asian types in Koban metallurgical workshops, and of the Late Srubnaya Scythians, who introduced Siberian bronze horse harness bits with stirrup-shaped terminals; the spread of the latter to the west corresponded to the migration of the Scythians in that direction. Horse harness bits of both the North Caucasian and Siberian types as well as Novocherkassk type swords, daggers and articles were in turn introduced into Central Europe by Ciscaucasian populations who migrated there under the pressure of the incoming Scythians.
The initial Scythian movements of the 8th to 7th century BC into the eastern Pontic steppe had also destroyed most of the around , although many of their settlements were rebuilt and lasted until the 6th century BC. Sections of the Sabatynivka culture nevertheless subsisted in the western part of the steppe, in the country of the , until around 450 to 400 BC, as well as in the region inhabited by the Georgoi, some of whose settlements corresponded to the later phases of the Sabatynivka culture.
Material remains Early Scythian material remains were composed of a specific set of articles which exhibited minor regional differences: horse bridles which were composed of: metal bits, made of: bronze, with ends shaped like stirrups, iron, whose ends were looped. cheek-pieces which were joined to the metal bits with straps; these cheek-pieces were usually made of: iron, and had three loops, and a curved or straight end, bone, and had three holes, and their ends were decorated in the animal style, bronze, and had three hopes, wood, with bone ends. separators where the straps crossed each other, to prevent them from becoming tangled. nose plates. weapons, consisting of: small sigmoid composite bows, arrows, whose arrowheads were usually made of bronze, and sometimes of bronze or iron; the arrowheads had a socket and two or three edges, 1.70 to 2.20 metre long spears with bay leaf-shaped spearheads, 50 to 70 centimetres-long iron swords and daggers called (singular: ), longer swords, which ceased being used after the Early Scythian period, war axes, scale armour consisting of iron, bronze, or bone scales sewn onto leather, "Kuban"-type helmets. bronze or iron cultic terminals made of hollow bells with slits and small balls inside them, which were positioned on high sockets and crowned with images of animal or bird heads or figures, which were often found with remains of carts and chariots or alongside horse skeletons, large bronze mirrors with handle shaped like a loop or like a plaque raised over two small posts, large round cast-bronze cauldrons on high feet with vertical handles at their edges that were sometimes shaped like animal figures.
Some of the Early Scythian material remains also exhibits connections with those of the pre-Scythian cultures of the north Pontic region.
The Cimmerian and Scythian presence in West Asia By the time the Cimmerians had moved into West Asia, they had come into contact with the native cultures of Transcaucasia, of the Iranian Plateau, and the Armenian Highlands, under the influence of which their material culture became indistinguishable from the archaeological Scythian culture, which itself had developed from the contact of the Early Scythians who initially belonged to the Srubnaya culture with the native cultures of Transcaucasia and Mesopotamia.
Therefore, the Cimmerians in West Asia are considered to have materially belonged to the Early Scythian culture, and archaeological remains of the Scythians and Cimmerians are difficult to distinguish from each other, with "Scythian" arrowheads have been found among the weapons of besieging armies of ruined cities in parts of Anatolia where Cimmerians are attested have operated but where Scythians were not active. The adoption of Scythian techniques by the Medes also makes it difficult to archaeologically distinguish the Scythians from the Medes. Attesting to these movements are archaeological records of Scythian presence to the south of the Caucasus range in the 7th century BC, which predate the earliest Scythian material remains to the north of the Caucasus Mountains, which are from the 6th century BC; the earliest Scythian antiquities from the north of the Caucasus Mountains also show significant West Asian influence. Examples of Early Scythian burials in the Near East include those of Norşuntepe and İmirler. Objects of Early Scythian type have been found in Urartian fortresses such as Teishebaini, Bastam and Ayanis-kale. Near Eastern influences are probably explained through objects made by Near Eastern craftsmen on behalf of Scythian chieftains.
During the 8th to 7th century BC, which corresponded to the period when the Scythian kingdom was centred in the Ciscaucasian Steppe and extended into West Asia and the Pontic Steppe, the older Novocherkassk Culture was replaced by a new Scythian Culture. The transition from the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture to the Scythian culture appears to have itself been a continuous process, and the Cimmerians cannot be distinguished from the Scythians during the period of transition from the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture to the Scythian culture.
Although the pre-Scythian Transcaucasian tombs showed no significant social stratification among the local population, by the 8th century BC, sumptuously furnished tombs of Scythian aristocrats containing human sacrifices appeared in the area. These were different from the tombs of the native population, and show significant social differences; the human remains within the tombs also reflected these social differences, with members of the native population being sacrificed on the graves of their Scythian overlords. Other Early Scythian remains in Transcaucasia include the kurgans of Sé Girdan, where a 7th-century BC tomb contained a crouched skeleton body of a Scythian aristocrat covered with ochre similar to the Andronovo burials of Central Asia, and near whom was a feline-headed whetstone similar to sculptures from the Minusinsk Hollow in southern Siberia, showing that he was a Srubnaya-Khvalynsk Scythian of Andronovo descent. Another of the Sé Girdan kurgans contained three coeval bronze axes from the Late Bronze Age, thus attesting to connections between the Transcaucasian and Ciscaucasian Scythian groups.
The lavish equipment which included West Asian-manufactured grave goods and animal and human sacrifices of the later Scythian kurgans (barrow-graves) in Ciscaucasia reflected practices borrowed from the peoples of West Asia by the Scythians during the 7th century BC. These were present in neither the pre-Scythian kurgans of the Pontic Steppe nor in those of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures ancestral to the Scythians and Sarmatians, and they also were not found among the Saka tribes to the east of the Ural Mountains.