The Scythian culture was an Iron Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Eastern Europe from about 700 BC to 200 AD. It is associated with the Scythians, Cimmerians, and other peoples inhabiting the region of Scythia, and was part of the wider Scytho-Siberian world.
Chronology
The Scythian Culture can be divided into three stages: Early Scythian – from the mid-8th or the late 7th century BC to about 500 BC Mid-Scythian or Classical Scythian – from about 500 BC to about 200 BC Late Scythian – from about 200 BC to the mid-3rd century AD, in Crimea and the Lower Dnipro, by which time the population was settled.
Development
Early Scythian
The Early Scythian Culture emerged during the 8th century BC. Since the Scythians were nomads who did not create permanent settlements, the Early Scythian culture is known primarily from Scythian funerary sites.
The Scythians originated in the region of the Volga-Ural steppes of Central Asia, possibly around the 9th century BC, as a section of the population of the Srubnaya culture, to which the Scythians themselves initially belonged. The population of the Srubnaya culture was among the first truly nomadic pastoralist groups, who themselves emerged in the Central Asian and Siberian steppes during the 9th century BC as a result of the cold and dry climate then prevailing in these regions.
Archaeologically, the Scythians proper as well as a related people from the Caspian and Caucasian steppes, the Cimmerians, both belonged to pre-Scythian cultures, with the earliest Scythians belonging to the Srubnaya culture in its Srubnaya-Khvalynsk form. The Srubnaya culture expanded into the territory to the west of the Volga in two to three waves, with the westwards migration of the Early Scythians from Central Asia into the Caspian Steppe constituting the latest of these waves, which occurred in the 9th century BC.
The Scythian movement into Transcaucasia is attested in the form of a migration of a section of the Srubnaya-Khvalynsk culture to the west into the Pontic steppe, to the south towards the northern foothills of the Caucasus mountains, and to the south along the western coast of the Caspian Sea into Transcaucasia and the Iranian plateau. Although the Early Scythians initially belonged to a pre-Scythian archaeological culture, their original Srubnaya culture which contained significant admixture from the Andronovo culture evolved into the Scythian culture from coming in contact with the peoples of Transcaucasia and the Urartians, and further contacts with the civilisation of West Asia, and especially with that of Mesopotamia, would also have an important influence on the formation of Scythian culture; the Early Scythian culture thus possessed several Central Asian elements, but developed into its definitive form under the influence of the cultures of Ciscausia, with some minor influences from ancient West Asian cultures as well. The Scythians who had expanded into the Pontic steppe meanwhile maintained their Srubnaya culture in its Srubnaya-Khvalynsk form, which is also called the Late Srubnaya culture, which spread over the territory of the Catacomb culture in the Pontic Steppe.
The Cimmerians are associated with the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk Culture of the west Eurasian steppe, which itself showed strong influences originating from the east in Central Asia and Siberia (more specifically from the Karasuk, Arzhan, and Altai cultures), as well as from the Kuban culture of the Caucasus which contributed to its development. Materially, the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture is difficult to distinguish from the Late Srubnaya culture of the early Scythians who later became dominant in the Pontic steppe and replaced the Cimmerians in the Caucasian steppe, with both the Cimmerians and the Scythians being part of the larger Chernagorovsk-Arzhan cultural complex, and both Scythians and the Cimmerians used Novocherkassk objects when the Scythians initially arrived into the Caucasian and Pontic steppes.
The grave goods within the tombs in Ciscaucasia during the 8th to 7th centuries BC, such as those of Khutor Kubanskiy and Krasnoarmeyskoye, show differences resulting from the invasion of the Scythians into the region.