Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

landscapes with people
leader like Chinggis Khan to unify the disparate tribes and build a massive force of
horsemen fired with ambitions for adventure and conquest. It would have been quite
impossible to amass the forces required (remembering that each rider needed five
horses) without there being sufficient rich pastures able to support them. At the very
least, we can suppose that the fluctuation in climate facilitated, and may have triggered,
a major event in the history of Eurasia.
By studying dendrochronology and pollen sequences recorded from peat deposits
and lake sediments one can build up a picture of climatic fluctuations across much
of the steppe region and identify periods of major change. An example of an event
which affected Europe and much of the western steppe was the Piora Oscillation, a
period of extremely cold winters which began about 4200 bc and lasted until about
3800 bc. One of the effects of this climatic downturn was to bring to an end the system
of sedentary agriculture which generated tells (high mounds created by successive
settlements) in many parts of the Balkans and in the middle and lower Danube
valley. At the same time groups of pastoralists crossed the Volga and moved westwards
into the Pontic steppe, establishing what archaeologists call the Sredni Stog
culture. The increase in the percentage of horses used for meat and milk noted at this
time is probably because horses are better able to survive harsh winters caused by a
climatic downturn than are cattle and sheep. Another part of the same general movement
saw herders move from the Dnieper valley to the Danube delta, some penetrating
as far west as the Tisza valley in what is now Hungary. They were characterized by
the use of kurgan burials and distinctive stone mace-heads shaped like horses’ heads.
In archaeological terminology the people are called the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka
culture.
These westerly movements of herding communities into areas previously inhabited
by settled agriculturalists between 4200 and 3800 bc were almost certainly
driven by climatic factors. They were a prelude to similar movements that were to
dominate the next 5,000 years.
A little later, c.3500–3000 bc, pollen sequences from the valleys of the Don and
Volga and from the north Kazakh steppe show that the whole of the Pontic–Caspian
region was now experiencing a dryer and generally cooler climate, conditions which
allowed the steppe grasslands to expand significantly at the expense of forest. The
dryer pastures meant that herding communities had to keep their flocks and herds
moving and thus to range over greater areas. To achieve this there developed a more
mobile lifestyle with entire families now being constantly on the move. This new
mobility was made possible by the ox-drawn covered wagon—a cumbersome fourwheeled
affair—which was used for transporting household equipment and those
unable to follow on horseback. Extensive nomadism of this kind required coopera-
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