Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

Seret
Bug
Dnieper
landscapes with people
Suvorovo-Novodanilovka
Sredni Stog
Steppe
N 0 300 miles
0 300km
Carpathian Mts
Don
Donets
Volga
Dniester
Tisza
Prut
Sea of
Azov
Kuban
Danube
Balkan Mts
Black Sea
C a u c a s u s
M t s
3.3 Over time steppe nomads migrated to the west, sometimes impinging on the territories of settled
farming communities in Eastern Europe. Among the earliest to be identified were people called by
archaeologists the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka culture who entered the Danube region c.4200–3900 bc.
tion and agreements over the use of pasture as well as complex networks of exchange,
which created an appearance of cultural unity spreading across the steppe from the
Urals to the Danube delta. The phenomenon is known as the Yamnaya culture. It was
not long before internal pressures led to the expansion of the Yamnaya communities
westwards into the Great Hungarian Plain.
Another period of cool, dry weather began around 2500 bc. It reached a peak of
aridity in about 2000 bc, again causing grassland to expand at the expense of forest.
At the same time the extent of the marshlands along the river valleys became far
more restricted. This climatic downturn particularly affected the steppe regions east
of the Urals, while the more westerly areas still benefited to some extent from the
ameliorating effects of the Atlantic airstream. It was in this region, at the south-eastern
end of the Urals between the rivers Tobol and Ui, that the distinctive Sintashta
culture emerged. Driven by the need to protect the valley marshlands, so necessary
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