Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in central asia
people were buried without weapons and without items decorated in the animal
style. A study of the skeletal remains, particularly skulls, suggests that the population
may have originated in the southern Ural area. The second group were cremated or
inhumed either as single burials or with several individuals buried together. In some
cases the burials were placed in deep pits beneath kurgans and were accompanied
by weapons, horse gear, and ornaments decorated in animal style. The morphology
of their skulls compares with that of the population living in the eastern steppe and
forest steppe region. The burials from the cemeteries in the Syr Darya delta all belong
to this second group.
If one takes the data together, it would seem that these desert-edge communities
were made up largely of people who came from the east, perhaps from the Altai–
Sayan region, but that west of the Amu Darya they were intermixed with people of
Volga–Ural origin. Some observers have related these differences to tribes mentioned
by the classical sources, assuming the eastern group to be Sakā and suggesting that
the western population were derived from the Massagetae. Given the paucity of the
evidence it is probably safer to leave aside these attributions and regard the differences
simply as reflecting the mobility of populations in the first millennium bc.
The Country of the Seven Rivers
The Semirech’ye region of southern Kazakhstan is a particularly favoured zone, benefiting
from a varying topography. To the south lie the high Tian Shan Mountains,
the melting snows from which feed the seven main rivers which flow northwards to
meet the Ili River that carries the spring flood waters onwards to Lake Balkhash. The
rivers have created fourteen large alluvial fans of deep rich soil above well-drained
gravels. Not far to the south the land rises to the foothills and upland plateaus with
mixed forest interspersed with meadow before the higher mountain slopes with
their stands of conifers and alpine meadows are reached. From the semi-arid areas of
the Ili valley, interspersed with marshland, to the mountain slopes is a mere 60 km.
Thus a community choosing to settle on the alluvial fans would be able to exploit a
wide range of different ecologies easily accessible within a day or two’s journey from
home. Crops could be grown on the fertile soil while the animals were enjoying the
upland pastures, and when the harvests were in the animals could be brought down
for the winter to feed off the stubble and fallow, at the same time providing the much
needed manure.
Several first millennium bc settlements have been excavated on the Talgar fan, not
far from the modern city of Almaty, providing clear evidence that millet, wheat, barley,
and grapes were grown. Millet was more common at first but after about 400 bc
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