Scythians

In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths^[1] (Ancient Greek: Σκύθαι) were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian^[2][3][4] groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralistswho dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe.^[5] However, the name "Scythian", and the related word Saka (in Persian), was also used to refer to various peoples seen as similar to the Scythians, or who lived anywhere in a vast area covering present-dayCentral Asia, Russia, Romania and Ukraine—known until medieval times asScythia. They have been described as "a network of culturally similar tribes."^[6]

The historic European Scythians spoke an ancient Iranic language,^[7] and throughoutClassical Antiquity dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe, known at the time asScythia.

By Late Antiquity the closely related Sarmatians came to dominate the Scythians in the west. Much of the surviving information about the Scythians comes from the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 440 BC) in his Histories and Ovid in his poem of exileEpistulae ex Ponto, and archaeologically from the depictions of Scythian life shown in relief on exquisite goldwork found in Scythian burial mounds in Ukraine and Southern Russia.

The ultimate origins of both Scythian culture and historic groups remains a focus of academic debate. The classical histories and archeological evidence give only a partial understanding of the origins of Scythian culture. What is certain is that, during the Iron Age, a broadly similar Scythian culture flowered in a vast zone from the eastern European steppe to the Altai Mountains.^[8]