Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in the longue durée
Bosporan kingdom
0 300 miles
0 300km
N
Vistula
S a r m a t
i a n s
Dnieper
Don
Ural
B a
s t a r n i a n s
Dniester
Bug
R o x o l a n
i
Volga
r
A o
i
s
Danube
Sea of
Azov
S
Kuban
i r a c e s
Black Sea
Caucasus Mountains
Caspian
Sea
Kura
12.3 The Pontic steppe from the second century bc to the mid fourth century ad saw successive movements
of Sarmatian bands to the west. But further movement was, for a while, halted by the Bastarnae,
who may have been of mixed Celtic and German ancestry.
to merge with the newcomers, further mixing the gene pool and the culture. Thus,
although a tribal name may have remained the same over several centuries, the culture
of the tribe may have changed significantly. The one constant was that the elite
males worked together as bands of predatory horsemen.
The dominant group to emerge in the early second century bc, centred on the
lower Volga but extending from the Don to the Urals, were the Aorsi. They seem to
have moved into the region from the central Kazakh steppe, ousting or absorbing the
local population. Their neighbours to the south were the Siraki, who lived to the east
of the Sea of Azov. The Aorsi, who are mentioned in Chinese sources in the late second
century bc, are described as a formidable power able to field a force of 100,000
archers. The annals indicate that they extended from the Aral to the Caspian Sea, the
original homeland of the tribe who had by now begun to move west to the Volga.
Strabo, writing at the beginning of the first century ad, adds to the geographic uncertainty
by referring to the Upper Aorsi, who occupied the region of the southern Urals
from where they commanded the major trade routes to the south. In all probability
the tribal name was applied to a confederacy of nomads extending over an extensive
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