Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

crossing the carpathians
lar material culture. The numbers of actual immigrants may not have been large but
they made a considerable impact, introducing steppe horses and styles of riding to
western Europe. Once established the Mezöcsát communities maintained links with
the east, and it was the continuation of these systems of connectivity that encouraged
new people, the Scythians, to migrate from the Pontic and forest steppe to settle
within the Carpathian Basin.
Scythians in the West
The suggestion that people of Scythian culture made the journey from the Pontic
region through the Carpathians to the west is based entirely on archaeological evidence;
there are no historical sources to offer support. What the texts do report is
that for a while the lower Danube and its estuary formed a southern boundary to
Scythian expansion, but penetration into the Dobruja and, later, engagements with
the increasingly powerful Thracian states to the south of the Danube eventually
brought the Scythians into conflict with the expansionist ambitions of Philip of Macedon
(below, pp. 55–7). For Scythians wishing to explore the west, the route through
Thrace along the lower Danube and through the Iron Gates was not an option, but
the well-established passes across the Carpathians were open to them.
Scythian involvement in the Carpathian Basin is manifest in the distribution of
artefacts found in graves and as isolated finds. Most numerous are items of military
equipment: arrows, quivers, short iron daggers, iron battleaxes, scale armour, and
shields. Horse gear is also prolific. Other items include bronze mirrors, pole-top rattles,
bronze kettles, gold ornaments, and dress attachments. In fact all the main attributes
of Scythian material culture are found, and often in some quantity. For example,
Scythian-type arrows are known from 120 different sites and the short iron daggers
are recorded at thirty-five locations. Not all of the Scythian-style material necessarily
came from the Pontic region. The horse gear, for example, was probably made locally
but in Scythian style. On the other hand, some of the items were definitely imported.
Many of the twenty-five known mirrors were probably made in the Greek workshops
in Olbia. Nor can there be any doubt that the two spectacular repoussé gold animals,
emblems adorning shields or gorytoi found at Zödhalompuszta and Tápiószentmárton
in Hungary, were manufactured in the Pontic steppe. They were the trappings of
a Scythian warrior elite.
In the face of so much Scythian-style material in the Carpathian Basis it is tempting
to argue for an incursion of warriors in the sixth century establishing themselves
in this westernmost enclave of the steppe. But alternative explanations must be considered.
The presence of Scythian material could be explained as the result of trade
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