Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

landscapes with people
3.1 The landscape of the steppe.
The predatory nomad bands that were to emerge quite suddenly at the beginning
of the first millennium bc and to spread rapidly throughout the steppe were a phenomenon
new to Eurasia. They were forged during the second millennium through
an interplay of all these disparate factors.
The Steppe Corridor
The steppe corridor is a remarkable phenomenon. It is the largest expanse of temperate
grassland in the world, stretching in an almost continuous swathe from Manchuria
in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the west—a distance of 8,000 km. It
mostly lies between the latitudes of 40 o and 50 o N. The temperature range within this
zone is warm enough to allow grass and shrubs to grow but is too dry to favour tree
growth. To the south the vegetation gradually thins, creating a roughly parallel zone
of desert steppe, beyond which the open desert is reached. To the north the steppe
merges with the forest steppe. As the density of trees increases, the forest steppe
eventually gives way to forest proper—the light covering of spruce and other conifers
that make up the taiga of Russia and the deciduous woodland that characterizes
much of the European peninsula.
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