Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

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THE RISE OF THE PONTIC
STEPPE SCYTHIANS
700–200 bc
The arrival of the Kimmerians in the Pontic region in the ninth century heralded
the beginning of a series of incursions from the steppes of Central Asia
that were to characterize the first millennium bc. The story is complex, much
more so than the archaeological sources and the limited historical record allow us
to sketch out, as has already been noted, but the broad outline is clear enough. Next
to arrive on the Pontic–Caspian steppe were the people the Greeks called Scythians,
who began to arrive after the middle of the eighth century and gradually expanded
their control to eventually dominate the region. By the end of the fifth century the
Sauromatae from east of the Don had begun to move west, bringing about changes
in Scythian culture until, at the beginning of the second century, the westward movement
of the Sarmatians, who seem to have developed in the original homeland of
the Sauromatae, brought the rule of the old Scythian/Sauromatians elites to an end.
The division of the Scythian period into three, Early (or Archaic) (750–600), Middle
(600–400), and Late (400–200), followed by the Sarmatian period, broadly contains
the archaeological evidence.
Writing of the origin of the Scythians, Herodotus summarized two rambling
mythologies, one told by the Scythians themselves and one by the Greeks living in
the Black Sea region (below, pp. 266–7) before presenting a much simpler hypothesis:
that the Scythians came from Central Asia where, having come into conflict with
the Massagetae, they decided to move west, crossing the River Volga into the terri-
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