Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

further reading
Chapter 7 Scythians in Central Asia: 700–200 bc
There is no easy way to approach the subject of the Scythian people of Central Asia
but a short section in T. Sulimirski, The Sarmatians (London, 1970), 53–80 gives a broad
survey of the question. The Sakā of Central Asia are covered in three chapters, all by
L. T. Yablonsky, in J. Davis-Kimball, V. A. Bashilov, and L. T. Yablonsky (eds.), Nomads
of the Eurasian Steppe in the Early Iron Age (Berkeley, 1995): ‘Written Sources and the History
of Archaeological Studies of the Sakā in Central Asia’, 193–7; ‘Material Culture of
the Sakā and Historical Reconstruction’, 201–39; and ‘Some Ethnogenetical Hypotheses’,
241–52. Together they provide the essential background data. For a shorter and
updated overview see the same author’s ‘Scythians and Sakā: Ethnic Terminology
and Archaeological Reality’, in J. Aruz et al. (eds.), The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Perspectives
on the Steppe Nomads of the Ancient World (New York, 2006), 24–31. The important issue
of the relationship of the Central Asian nomads to the sedentary polities on their borders
is considered in S. Stark, ‘Nomads and Networks: Elites and their Connection to
the Outside World’, in S. Stark et al. (eds.), Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and
Culture of Kazakhstan (Princeton, 2012), 107–38.
The cemetery of Filippovka is discussed in two papers by A. K. Pshenichniuk:
‘The Filippovka Kurgans at the Heart of the Eurasian Steppes’, in J. Aruz et al. (eds.),
The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Scythian and Sarmatian Treasures from the Russian Steppes (New
York, 2000), 21–30 and ‘Burial Ritual of the Filippovka Kurgan in the Ural region’, in
Aruz et al. (eds.), The Golden Deer of Eurasia: Perspectives (cited above), 40–5. The more
recent excavations are described by L. T. Yablonsky in ‘New Excavations of the Early
Nomadic Burial Ground at Filippovka (Southern Ural Region, Russia)’, American
Journal of Archaeology, 114 (2010), 129–43. The archaeological evidence for the desertedge
settlements is introduced in the papers of L. T. Yablonsky listed in the paragraph
above. Evidence for settlement and burial in the Semirechye region of Kazakhstan is
discussed in C. Chang, ‘Cycles of Iron Age Mobility and Sedentism: Climate, Landscape
and Material Culture in Southeastern Kazakhstan’, in Stark et al. (eds.), Nomads
and Networks (cited above), 140–51. The famous burial from Issyk in Kazakhstan is
published in K. A. Akisev, Kurgan Issyk: Iskusstvo sakov Kazakhstana (Issyk Mound: Art of
the Sakā in Kazakhstan) (Moscow, 1978).
The nomadic communities of the Altai–Sayan region have been extensively studied.
A thorough overview of the material culture and burials is provided in four chapters
by N. A. Bokovenko, in Davis-Kimball, Bashilov, and Yablonsky (eds.), Nomads of
the Eurasian Steppes in the Early Iron Age (cited above): ‘History of Studies and the Main
Problem in the Archaeology of Southern Siberia during the Scythian period’, 255–61;
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