Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the rise of the pontic steppe scythians
The majority of the graves were comparatively modest. The bow and arrow was
the most widely represented weapon set, although swords and daggers were not
infrequent. Less common were spears, battleaxes, helmets, and scale armour. Horse
gear was sometimes included and, less often, the horses themselves. Female burials
were often accompanied by quernstones and some were provided with jewellery. The
richer graves contained bronze mirrors, some of which can be identified as products
of the workshops in Olbia. Herodotus’ account of the warlike Sauromatian women
is supported by the fact that about a fifth of the excavated female graves contained
weapons and some were buried with their horses.
The cultural differences already apparent between the communities of the Lower
Volga and those in the Samara–Ural region intensified in the fifth century with the
appearance in the Samara–Ural region of a range of new equipment of eastern origin,
from Central Asia and Siberia—items such as distinctive dagger types and flat bronze
mirrors—and with the appearance of Siberian animal style decoration. While all this
need imply little more than an increase in exchanges with the east, it is more likely to
reflect the arrival of a fresh influx of nomadic migrants from Central Asia since new
methods of burial were introduced at the same time. Bodies were now laid diagonally
across the bottom of a deep grave shaft or were placed in a catacomb dug out of the side
of the shaft. The appearance of all these new features (referred to as the Prokhorovka
culture) is first identified in the region of Orsk and Orenburg, within the Samara–Ural
group, from where they gradually spread westwards. By the end of the fourth century
the new cultural elements had reached most of the Sauromatian region.
Taken together, the evidence is best interpreted as the spread of nomads from
Central Asia infiltrating the old Sauromatian culture and contributing to the emergence
of a new cultural complex which can now be referred to as Sarmatian. Who the
incomers were is debatable but they are most likely to have been one of the branches
of the Massagetae who occupied the region to the east of the Caspian Sea at the time
when Herodotus was writing.
The Caspian steppe, between the southern end of the Urals and the River Don,
served as a broad corridor for east–west movement and as a temporary holding
ground for nomads moving in stages westwards from Central Asia. It was through
this region that the ancestors of the Kimmerians and the Scythians had passed and
now, towards the end of the fifth century, a fresh influx was creating tensions out
of which new ethnic configurations were emerging, putting pressure on the existing
population to relocate south and west away from the disrupting thrust. One of
these groups, called the Siraces, moved south into the North Caucasian steppe in the
fourth century, becoming involved in wars of succession fought between the contenders
for the Bosporan kingdom. As neighbours they were able to benefit from the
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