Introduction

Abstract

The Eurasian steppe belt was populated in the first millennium B.C.E. by various nomadic and settled tribes whose material cultures show considerable similarities. In the specialized literature they are conventionally called peoples with "Scythiantype" cultures. Written sources have preserved the ethnonyms of some of them, which may be pinpointed quite accurately on the map: these are the Scythians of the northern Black Sea coast, the Sauromatae-Sarmatians of the lowlands of the Don, Volga, and Ural Rivers, and the Sako-Massagetic tribes of Central Asia. The ancient names of other peoples of this region have not been precisely established, and hence in the literature they bear only arbitrary archeological names. These were the bearers of the Tagar culture in Southern Siberia, the Pazyryk culture in the Altai region, the Tasmolin culture in northern Kazakhstan, etc. Archeological studies of the last few decades have shed considerable light on the cultures of the populations of the Eurasian steppe region and have gone far in elucidating the character and level of the development of their economy; in a number of cases genetic ties with the bearers of earlier cultures of the Bronze Age have been established.