Riders rush on horseback as fast as the wind, leaving clouds of dust behind them. It is the nomadic tribes returning with the loot. From 700 to 300 BC. e. they dominated the steppes of Eurasia. Then they disappeared, leaving a mark on history. They are even mentioned in the Bible. These were Scythians.

Scythian tribes

For centuries, their tribes, with huge herds of wild horses, roamed the boundless steppes that stretched from the Carpathians to what is now known as southeast Russia. By the 8th century BC. e. as a result of a military campaign undertaken by the Chinese emperor Xuan, they were forced out to the west. Having settled in new lands - in the foothills of the Caucasus and on the territory of the Northern Black Sea coast - the Scythians expelled the Cimmerians who lived there.

In search of treasure, the Scythians captured and plundered the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. Later, having united with Assyria, they attacked Media, Babylonia and other ancient states. Even the northern part of Egypt was subjected to their raids. The very name of the city of Scythopol (north-east of Israel), formerly known as Beth-San, suggests that, most likely, this city was also once captured by the Scythians.

Over time, the Scythians settled in the steppes in the territory now occupied by Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and southern Russia. Such a favorable location brought them a considerable income: they became intermediaries between the Greeks and the tribes of grain growers who lived in the territory that is now occupied by Ukraine and the southern part of Russia. In exchange for grain, honey, fur and cattle, the Scythians received wine, fabrics, weapons and jewelry from the Greeks. So the Scythian tribes amassed a huge fortune.

Scythians - life in the saddle

The horse for the Scythian warriors was the same as the camel for the inhabitants of the desert. The Scythians were known as excellent riders. They were among the first to use saddles and stirrups. They ate horse meat and drank mare's milk. It is known that the Scythians sacrificed horses. When a Scythian warrior died, his horse was slaughtered and buried with all honors. Along with the horse, a harness and blanket were also placed in the grave.

According to the historian Herodotus, the Scythians had cruel customs, for example, they made drinking bowls from the skulls of their victims. They mercilessly killed their enemies, using iron swords, battle axes, spears and triangular arrows that ripped through the tissues of the body.

Scythian graves for eternity

The Scythians were engaged in witchcraft and shamanism, and also worshiped fire and the mother goddess. The graves of the Scythians were considered dwellings for the dead. Slaves and domestic animals were also sacrificed to the deceased master. Jewelry and servants, according to the beliefs of the Scythians, were supposed to "go" after the owner to the "other world". Skeletons of five of his servants were found in the tomb of a Scythian king. Their feet were turned towards their master, as if at any moment these loyal subjects were ready to rise and serve him.

When the king died, the Scythians did not skimp on sacrifices, and during mourning they bled themselves and cut their hair. Here is what Herodotus reports: "They cut off a piece of their ear, cut off the hair on their head in a circle, make an incision on their arm around, scratch their forehead and nose, and pierce their left hand with arrows."

The Scythians left behind thousands of burial mounds (grave mounds). Items found during excavations Scythian burial mounds, acquaint us with the life, way of life and culture of this ancient people. In 1715, the Russian Tsar Peter I began to collect Scythian treasures, and now these masterpieces of ancient art are presented in the museums of Russia and Ukraine. The products, made in the animal style characteristic of the Scythians, depict figures of such animals as a horse, an eagle, a falcon, a cat, a panther, an elk, a deer, a vulture and a griffin (a winged fantastic monster with a lion's body and an eagle's head).

Bible and Scythians

There is only one direct mention of the Scythians in the Bible. In Colossians 3:11 we read, "Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, foreigner, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all." When the Apostle Paul wrote this letter, the word "Scythians" ceased to have an ethnic character and was applied to uncivilized people.

Some archaeologists believe that the name "Askenaz", mentioned in Jeremiah 51:27, is the equivalent of the Assyrian word "Ashkuz", which was used to name the Scythians. According to cuneiform tablets, in the 7th century BC. e. this people, together with the kingdom of Mana, united against Assyria. Before Jeremiah began to prophesy, the path of the Scythians to Egypt passed through the land of Judah, but the Scythians did not cause any harm to its inhabitants. Therefore, for many, Jeremiah's prophecy about the attack on Judah by the people from the north seemed incredible (Jeremiah 1:13-15).

Some biblical scholars believe that Jeremiah 50:42 speaks of the Scythians: "They hold a bow and a spear in their hands; they are cruel and unmerciful; their voice is noisy like the sea; they ride on horses, lined up as one man to fight you, daughter of Babylon ". However, these words primarily refer to the Medes and Persians, who captured Babylon in 539 BC. e.

The Scythians contributed to the fulfillment of Nahum's prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (Nahum 1:1,14). The Chaldeans, Scythians and Medes sacked Nineveh in 632 BC. which led to the collapse of the Assyrian Empire.

The mysterious disappearance of the Scythians

The Scythian people disappeared from the face of the earth. But why? "Honestly, this question remains a mystery," says a leading Ukrainian archaeologist. Some researchers are convinced that the Scythians were ruined by their indefatigable love of luxury, and between the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. e. they were driven out by the Sarmatians - an association of nomadic tribes.

Other researchers believe that the reason for the disappearance of the ancient Scythians was their tribal wars. Still others believe that the Scythians became the ancestors of the Ossetians. Be that as it may, this mysterious ancient people left an indelible mark on history - even the word "Scythian" itself has long become a household word, synonymous with the word "cruel".

Scythians (Greek Skythai), chipped, Ishkuza

• V. Abaev compared the ethnonym skuta with the Germanic *skut- (archer, to shoot).
• K. T. Vitchak and S. V. Kullanda explain the Scythian self-name as follows: other Greek. Σκόλοτοι< *skula-ta < *skuδa-ta < *skuda-ta (то есть «лучники», с закономерным переходом *d >*l in Scythian). Moreover, the form *skuδa-ta existed in the 7th century BC. e., when the Greeks began to contact the Scythians (that is why other Greek Σκύϑαι). Then the Assyrian campaign of the Scythians took place - that's why the Assyrians. Ašgūzai or Išgūzai. By the 5th century BC e. - the time of Herodotus' visit to Olbia - the transition *δ > *l has already occurred.

The transition of Old Iranian *δ into Scythian *l as a characteristic feature of the Scythian language is also confirmed by other Scythian words.

Language

The Scythian language is included in the northeastern subgroup of the Iranian languages. Very close in language and culture to the Scythians were Savromats (Sarmatians), Saks and Massagets.

Time of existence

Actually the history of the Scythians in the Northern Black Sea region - VIII century. BC e. - IV century. n. e. From the beginning of the war with the Cimmerians to the defeat of the Scythian kingdom by the Goths in the Crimea.

Origin

There are several legends of the origin of the Scythians -

1. Among the Scythians, there was a legend that their people were younger than all the others and that in their land, which was deserted, the first man Targitai was born from Zeus and the daughter of Borisfen. Targitai had three sons: Lipoksai, Arpoksai and Koloksai. Under them, golden objects fell from the sky: a plow, a yoke, an ax and a bowl. The older and middle brothers could not grab these objects: they immediately ignited. The younger son was able to safely take the wonderful gifts of heaven and therefore he was given the kingship.

• from the elder brother came the family of Avkhats,
• from the middle - the genera of catiars and traspians,
• from the younger - paralatov.

Here Herodotus says that the common name of the people is chipped off; the Greeks called them Scythians, and the Persians - Saks. It was the part of Scythia from the Danube to Meotida, especially known in Olbia, that was called primordial Scythia. A thousand years passed from Targitai to the time of Herodotus.

1. The Black Sea Greeks told Herodotus one more legend. Hercules, driving the cows of Gerion, entered Scythia, then not yet inhabited. When Hercules fell asleep, his horses left the yoke. He found them in Hylaea with a half-woman half-snake who lived in a cave, who agreed to return the mares to him if he marries her. Hercules lived with her for a long time and three sons were born from their marriage. Only after that did the hero get his horses back. When he left, he left his beloved a bow and a belt, so that one of his sons who could pull this bow and gird himself like a father would remain in possession of the land, and the other two would be removed. The task was completed by the youngest of them named Scythian, the ancestor of the Scythian kings. From the two elders - Agathirs and Gelon - the tribes of Agathirs and Gelons originated. In this myth one can clearly hear the Greek reworking of another native tradition, which differed from the previous one. It clearly refers to the crossing of newcomers (Hercules) and local (snake-footed goddess) beginnings in the Scythians, while in the first the local element sounds stronger, although the newcomer, perhaps, manifests itself in the fact that the future land of the Scythians was empty when they appeared .
2. Herodotus points out that there is, however, another story, which I myself most trust. According to this story, the nomadic Scythians who lived in Asia, being pressed by the war from the Massagets, crossed the Arak (Syr Darya) River and retired to the Cimmerian land.

At the moment, there are just three versions of where the Scythians appeared in the Black Sea region.

1. Grakov B.N. autochthonous theory. Grakov believed that the direct ancestors of the Scythians were the tribes of the semi-sedentary (shepherd) Srubna culture of the Bronze Age, which penetrated into the Northern Black Sea region from the Volga region. The resettlement took place for quite a long time from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. and the Herodotus migration of the Scythians - this can be said to be one of the last waves of migration. The Cimmerians, whom the Scythians met, are also one of the waves of the Srubnaya culture, but an earlier one, which eventually allowed related tribes to merge, forming a homogeneous ethnic element.
2. Artamonov M.I. Anterior Asian theory. Before the arrival of the Scythians in the Black Sea region, a log culture developed there and preceded the Scythian. The Scythians themselves came from Western Asia and were associated with the developed civilizations of that era (as the main element of the Scythian animal style). In his opinion, the Cimmerians are representatives of the Catacomb culture, who were ousted from the Black Sea region in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.
3. Terenozhkin A. I. Central Asian theory. According to his version, there is no ethnic or cultural continuity between the population of the Northern Black Sea region and the newcomer Scythians. The Scythians penetrate the Black Sea region from Central Asia (Mongolia, Altai, East Kazakhstan) in an already culturally formalized form, which is based on the triad - characteristic type of armament, horse harness, artistic animal style.
   In turn, the attack of the Massagetae led to their movement to the west, and they, in turn, were attacked by their eastern neighbors and, most likely, a great drought of 800 BC led to such a chain reaction.

Story

7th century BC. The war of the Scythians with the Cimmerians, which allowed the Scythians to oust the latter from the Black Sea region and occupy their territory.

685 Under the leadership of Spargapif, the Scythians migrated from the North Caucasus and the Kuban to the Northern Black Sea region. Most likely, Scythia at this time is divided into three regions -

• between the Don and the Volga, the clan of Ishpakaya-Partatua rules.
• between the Don and the Dnieper the genus Spargapif rules,
• between the Dnieper and the Danube, and possibly all of Scythia, Ariant rules.

70s 7th century BC. A series of Scythian campaigns in Media, Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor. As a result of which, the Scythians were able to establish themselves there.

Within the limits of Eastern Transcaucasia (modern Azerbaijan and partly Iranian Azerbaijan), on the northern and partly on the southern banks of the Araks River, the state of the Scythians was founded, named in the sources of Ishkuz, which existed until the 6th century BC. BC, when the Scythians were expelled from Transcaucasia by the Medes.

679-674/73 BC. The Scythians under the leadership of Ishpakai (one of the first historically known leaders of the Scythians), in alliance with the Medes, Urartu and the kingdom of Manna, participated in the war against the Assyrian kingdom under the leadership of Assarhadon, during which Ishpakay died.

673-654 BC. Partatua (Prototius) becomes the leader of the Scythians, under whose leadership the Scythians left the anti-Assyrian coalition. According to one hypothesis, this happened due to the conclusion of a dynastic marriage - Partatua married the daughter of Assarhadon.

Dyakonov I.M.

Piotrovsky B.B., Belyavsky V.A., Grakov B.N., Artamonov M.I.

654-625 BC. Madai (Madiy), probably the son of Partatua, became the leader of the Scythians. At this time, the Scythians make a series of predatory campaigns throughout the Mediterranean - to Syria, Palestine, Egypt. At the same time, they remain true to allied relations with Assyria. 653/52 BC The Scythians, helping Assyria, defeat the Medes. According to the legend of Herodotus, from that time and for 28 years, Media paid tribute to them, while also being subjected to robberies. 645 BC The Scythians under the leadership of Madai in Transcaucasia, again helping Assyria, defeat the Cimmerians. 625 The campaign of the Scythians to Egypt. According to one version, Pharaoh Psammetik I bought them off with gifts, according to another, the Scythians were still afraid to enter into open conflict with the Egyptian troops. After 612 B.C. The Medes are pushing the Scythians out of all the Transcaucasian lands they had previously conquered. This was done thanks to the cunning of Cyaxares, the king of the Medes. After the destruction of Assyria, Cyaxares decided to get rid of the Scythians. He invited the kings of the Scythians to a feast, got them drunk, and then ordered them to be killed. The Scythians left without leaders left Transcaucasia.

650-584 BC e. The king of the Scythians was Madiy. Long and quite successful campaigns of the Scythians in Transcaucasia and Western Asia begin. 624-585 BC. The reign of Cyaxares. But it is possible that he died earlier at the turn of the century. 616 BC Scythian invasion of Media. 614 BC Siege of Nineveh and Ashur by the Medes. Ashur was taken, the siege was lifted from Nineveh thanks to the Scythians - the allies of Assyria. 612 BC Nineveh was taken by allied forces - the Medes, Babylonians and Scythians, who sided with Media. The Scythians establish their dominance over Media for 28 years. 609 BC The Scythians defeated the Egyptian pharaoh. Turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. Cyaxares (or his son Aliattes) decide to destroy the Scythians and kill their leaders at a feast. After that, part of the Scythians returns to the Black Sea region, part submits to the Medes. 590-585 BC The war between Media and Lydia, as a result of which peace was concluded, according to which the Scythians, who fought on the side of Lydia, had to leave Transcaucasia.

650 BC The Scythian leader Ariant conducts a "census" of the population in the Black Sea region. He orders each Scythian to bring a tip. After that, he casts a large cauldron. The description is in Herodotus -

“In this area (near the upper reaches of the Hypanis-Bug) there is a copper vessel, perhaps six times larger than the vessel for mixing wine, which Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, ordered to dedicate to the gods and place at the entrance to Pontus (Black Sea). For those who have not seen this vessel, I will describe it: it can easily hold 600 amphoras, and the thickness of this Scythian vessel is six fingers. According to local residents, it is made from arrowheads. One Scythian king, named Ariant, wished to know the number of Scythians. For this, he ordered all the Scythians to bring one arrowhead each and threatened with death to anyone who did not obey. Then the Scythians brought so many arrowheads that the king decided to erect a monument to himself from them: he ordered this copper vessel to be made from the arrowheads and exhibited in Exampey. Here is the information that I received about the number of Scythians.

As previously indicated, there are opinions that Ariant owned the lands from the Dnieper to the Danube, but at the same time he could control Scythia as a whole.

Settlement of the Scythians according to Herodotus (Grakov B.N. Scythians - Moscow State University, 1971, p. 16-17.):

Many hypotheses have also been expressed about them, which, however, break down on the exact localization of the five main rivers: Istra, Tiras, Gipanis, Borisfen and Tanais. This allows us to outline the settlement of tribes in accordance with the data of Herodotus. This is how we see this settlement. From the Danube to the Dnieper, the coast is occupied by the Scythians: their northern border with the neurons is somewhere on the upper Dniester. Gipanis and the Dniester bring their course closer in the land of the Alazons: this convergence begins immediately above Nikolaev. Up along the Bug, Kallippids, otherwise Hellenes-Scythians, are closest to Olbia. Later, in the Olbian decree in honor of Protogenes (3rd century BC), they are called "mixelins", i.e. "mixed Hellenes". This confirms the accuracy of Herodotus' data. Above them lives the Scythian tribe of the Alazons, in the place where the Bug and the Dniester converge. Even higher are the Scythians-plowmen, somewhere in the interfluve of the same rivers. Exampey had their border with the Alazons. The fourth Scythian tribe, the Scythian farmers, lived along the Dnieper and beyond the Dnieper to Pantikap (Ingulets). It must be assumed that the Scythian farmers lived on both banks of the Borysfen, just as the Scythian nomads, who were located behind Panticap and further behind the farmers, obviously partly lived within the right bank. In other words, both tribes to some extent lived interspersed. Scythian nomads on the left bank of the Dnieper lived in the steppes, divided in half by Hypakiris, and reached the river Gerros (Konka). Further to the east and south lived the royal Scythians across the river Gerros. They occupied the steppe to Meotida and Tanais and the northern Crimea to the mountains where wild Tauri lived. Immediately above the Scythians along the Dnieper lived androfagi (cannibals). Herodotus says that they are the only cannibals of all the peoples of Scythia. They wear Scythian clothes, wander, but have their own language, different from the Scythians.

To the north of the Scythian plowmen and androphagi, according to Herodotus, between the fantastic lake from which the Dniester flows, and the Dnieper, the Nevri live immediately to the west of the Dnieper. In other words, the neurons occupied a vast space no longer in the steppes, since the upper reaches of the Dnieper and the Bug, as well as the right bank of the Dnieper adjacent to them, are already in the forest-steppe zone. At the same time, they somehow neighbored the boudins located to the east. A lot of amazing things were told about the neurons as werewolves and sorcerers. The neurons, according to Herodotus, had Scythian customs.

To the north of the royal Scythians on the left bank of the Dnieper and further to the east lived melanchlens, that is, people wearing black cloaks. Their eastern border is not clear, but somewhere closer to the Don they must have come into contact with the Boudins and, perhaps, with the Sauromates. This is a special, non-Scythian tribe, but its way of life is Scythian. Perhaps the Melanchlenians are called non-Scythian people because they had their own language, or because they were not part of the Scythian political grouping.

Above the Meotians, who occupied the delta and the very lower reaches of the Tanais-Don, three days' journey from its confluence with the Meotida, fifteen days' journey to the northeast, on the right bank of the river, the Sauromates lived in the treeless steppe. They allegedly originated from the marriages of the sons of free Scythians and warlike Amazon women. Their women were therefore warlike, and their language was spoiled Scythian through the fault of the Amazons who did not understand it. They retained political independence and were pure nomads.

Above the Savromats along the Don, beyond their steppe, but already in heterogeneous forests, that is, in the forest-steppe, lived the Boudins - a very large, according to Herodotus, and nomadic people. Their country, somewhere in the west, adjoined Nevris (the country of the Neuros), since a generation before Herodotus, the Neuros moved to the land of the Boudins. The Boudins spoke their own language. They, apparently, did not border on the Scythians and were, undoubtedly, politically completely independent. In their country there was a large wooden city of Gelon. It was inhabited by certain Gelons, who spoke either Scythian or Hellenic, revering the Greek gods, in particular Dionysus. They were sedentary and engaged in agriculture. Other writers, according to Herodotus, in vain considered the Gelons and Budins as one people.

Con. VII - beginning. 6th century BC e. Gnur, the son of Lik, the grandson of Spargapif, became the king of the Scythians in the Black Sea region.

90-50s 6th century BC. Savliy (Kaduit, Kaduin, Kalvid - in some sources) - the son of Gnur - becomes the king of the Scythians. According to the Herodotus version, the murderer of his brother - Anacharsis - one of the seven wise men.

End of the 6th century BC. The king of the Scythians becomes Idanfirs, the son of Savlius, who participates in the war against Darius I. One of the leaders in this war was Skopasis, whose detachment (most likely, the Azov Scythians and Sauromatians) was the most combat-ready and mobile. Another leader known from Herodotus, Taksakis, led the army of the Gelons and Boudins.

514/12 BC The war of the Scythians with the Persian king Darius I.

Darius gathered a huge army of 700 thousand people - colorful and multilingual, consisting of representatives of 80 peoples. With this army, the Persian monarch passed through Asia Minor, crossed to the European side through the Bosphorus, crossed Thrace. And finally, having crossed the Danube on a bridge of ships built for him by mercenaries (Asia Minor Greeks), he entered the Northern Black Sea region - within the boundaries of Scythia. The trip was planned for two months.

The Scythians, well aware of the actions of the enemy, knew about his colossal numbers. They themselves, together with the allied tribes, could put up no more than 200 thousand soldiers. Realizing the depth of the danger looming over them, the Scythians nevertheless decided to fight to the end. To do this, they developed a general strategic plan for the campaign:

• avoid big battles;
• lure the enemy deep into their territory;
• to attack his supply routes;
• destroy by attacks mobile cavalry detachments and small groups of Persians who are separated from the main forces in search of food and water.

At the same time, retreating, the Scythians filled up wells and springs and burned vegetation - steppe grasses that served as feed for livestock.

The army of Darius with its huge convoy, pursuing the Scythians, managed, according to Herodotus, to reach Tanais (Don) and Meotida (Sea of ​​Azov) in a short time, after which it turned back. From hunger, deprivation, disease, and the constant attacks of the Scythian cavalry, the Persians suffered huge losses, without winning a single battle and without capturing any booty. Fortunately for Darius, the Greek mercenaries did not dismantle the bridge on the Danube after the agreed 60 days, and the remnants of his troops and he himself, having escaped death, returned to Persia.

480-460s 5th century BC. Ariapif became the king of the Scythians - the father of Skil, Oktamasad and Orik. During his reign, several important events took place -

• settled relations with the Odrysian kingdom (through dynastic marriage),
• established a protectorate over Olbia (although there is an opinion that this is not so).

He himself was killed by the king of the Agathirs (most likely a Thracian tribe) Spargapif. After the death of the king of the Scythians, Opia, the wife of Ariapif and the mother of Orik, ascended the throne. The question of whether this character is a real historical figure remains debatable.

OK. 465-447/45 BC. After a short reign of Opia, Skil, the son of Ariapif, comes to power. He was the son of a Greek woman and almost completely accepted Greek culture and, after becoming king, settled in Olbia, promoting the commercial interests of Istria. As a result of palace intrigues, he was executed by the Scythians themselves.

50s 5th century BC. Octamasad, also the son of Ariapif, became the king of the Scythians. He was a relative of the king of the Odrysses - Sitalka. Perhaps with his support to power in the Bosporus in 438 BC. came Spartocus. Orik, brother of Oktamasad, most likely ruled Olbia at the same time.

Con. V-beginning 4th century BC. King Atey destroys other kings of the Scythians and usurps power.

Appears Kamenskoe settlement (located near the city of Kamenka-Dneprovskaya and B. Znamenka, Zaporozhye region). From the side of the steppe, the ancient settlement was protected by an earthen rampart and a moat, and from the north and west by cliffs over the Dnieper, r. Konka and Belozersky estuary. In the southwestern corner was the acropolis, where the Scythian nobility lived. The main occupations of the inhabitants were the manufacture of bronze and iron tools, weaving, pottery, as well as agriculture and cattle breeding. Craftsmen lived in dugouts and pillared ground buildings, the nobility lived in stone houses. The settlement was a large craft and trade center, closely associated with the Greek colonies of the Northern Black Sea region and the local population of Scythia. At the end of the III century. BC. the territory of the settlement was abandoned (with the exception of the acropolis, where life continued until the 3rd century AD).

358 BC The power of the Scythians is subject to Istria on the Black Sea coast.

344 BC The Scythians are waging a successful war with the Triballi, who lived on the territory of modern Bulgaria.

343 BC Subordinated to Callatis on the Black Sea coast.

40s 4th century BC. King Atey, having eliminated other kings, united the Scythian tribes from the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov to the Danube.

339 BC e. War of the Scythians with Philip II of Macedon. According to legend, it was in this war that King Atey died at the age of 90.

From the source it is known that “both sides were irritated, a battle ensued, in which the Scythians, despite the superiority of their spiritual prowess and numbers, were defeated by the cunning of Philip; 20 thousand children and women were taken (by the Macedonian winners), a lot of cattle, but there was no gold and silver at all, which was the first evidence of the poverty of the Scythians; 20 thousand blood mares were sent to Macedonia to breed the breed” [Justin. Epitome of Pompey Trogus. "History of Philip" (IX, 2-3)].

On the way back, the Macedonian army was ambushed by the Triballi.

331 BC Zopyrion is left by Alexander the Great as governor of Thrace, Pontus (or Scythia). Wanting to prove himself collects 30 thousand. army and goes to war against the Scythians. Most likely, he reached Olbia, but then he had to flee. As a result, he was overtaken by the Scythians, defeated, while losing almost the entire army. He himself dies somewhere in Bessarabia.

313 BC Lysimachus, the ruler of Thrace, inflicted a severe defeat on the Scythians across the Danube.

310-309 BC e. Dynastic war in the Bosporan kingdom. Agar, the leader of the Scythians, supported Satyr, but as a result of the battle on the Fat River, another pretender to the throne, Eumela Bosporus, Satyr's brother, won.

280-260 AD BC. The Sarmatians invade Scythia and in fact completely take over the northern Black Sea region, destroying and driving out the Scythians. Subsequently, part of the Scythians remained at the mouth of the Dnieper and on the Crimean peninsula. The other part crosses the Danube and settles there, the territory is called Lesser Scythia (Istria-Dobruja).

Con. III - beginning. 2nd century BC. Great changes are taking place in Scythia. The pressure of the Sarmatians is intensifying, as mentioned earlier, the Kamenskoe settlement ceases to exist (except for the acropolis, which continues to function) on the Dnieper. Throughout the Northern Black Sea region, archaeologists have noted the change of the Scythian culture to the Sarmatian. At the same time, the Scythians in the Crimea began to settle down, engage in agriculture, fishing, and crafts.

130-114/13 AD BC. The reign of the Scythian king Skilur in the Crimea. He was able to unite the entire territory of the Scythians in the Crimea, up to the mouth of the Dnieper and South. Bug. He turned Scythian Naples (near modern Simferopol) into the capital. To fight against Pontus, he began to attract Sarmatians (Roxalans), led by Tasius. Skilur managed to take possession of Kerkinitida, the Beautiful Harbor and Fortifications, the cities of the western coast of Crimea, which until then were part of the Chersonesos Republic.

114/13-111 BC.(110-107 BC) The reign of Palak, the son of Skilur. In three expeditions, Diophantus successively defeated Palak, conquered the mountain Taurians, occupied the Scythian fortresses of Khabei and Naples in the Crimea, and subjugated the Scythians to Mithridates of Pontus.

Later, the Scythians retreated again and Diophantus again went against them, freed Kerkinitida and the Fortifications and began to besiege the Beautiful Harbor. Palak moved on him, but was defeated in such a way that, according to the Chersonesos inscription in honor of Diophantus, "no one escaped from the infantry, and only a few escaped from the horsemen." In the spring, Diophantus moved to Khabei and Naples and forced the Scythians to ask for peace.

The Scythians who lived in the Bosporus revolted against Perisades, the last nominal king of the Bosporus from the previous dynasty, who transferred power to Mithridates VI, but retained his title. The uprising was led by the Scythian Savmak, perhaps the foster slave of Perisad. The king was killed, Savmak seized power, but Diophantus liquidated this uprising, subordinating Chersonese, the Bosporus and the Steppe Crimea to Mithridates of Pontus.

Through these wars, Tauroscythia was divided into several dominions and no longer represented a single kingdom.

Ser. 1st century BC. The Getae under the leadership of Birebista cross the Danube and destroy Olbia. The city ceased to exist. Later, the Scythians persuaded the escaped inhabitants to rebuild the city, but he no longer recovered from such a blow. This had a very serious impact on the very trade of the Scythians with the Greeks.

80 BC The Pontic stateg Mithridates Neoptol defeated the fleet of the Scythians, took Tire and Olbia from them. And a little later, in the Kerch Strait, he also breaks the fleet of the Scythians, and in winter on the ice he defeats the allied forces of the Bosporus and the Scythians. The power and authority of the Scythians have been shaken, but they continue to influence the politics of their region.

1st century BC. - II century. AD According to archaeological data, a strong mixing of the Scythians and Sarmatians begins, since their cultures actually coincide, and it is already quite difficult to separate one culture from another.

257 AD The arrival is ready in the Crimea. They attack the Bospro kingdom. From the same time, the Scythian kingdom ceased to exist as such.

70s 4th century Invasion of the Huns. They sweep away the remnants of the Scythians both in the Crimea and in Istria on the Danube. The Scythians, one might say, completely dissolve in the ethnic environment surrounding them.

social organization

Traces of the presence of the Scythians are also noted in the North Caucasus. The main territory of the settlement of the Scythians is the steppes between the lower reaches of the Danube and the Don, including the steppe Crimea and areas adjacent to the Northern Black Sea coast. The northern border is unclear. The Scythians were divided into several large tribes. According to Herodotus, the royal Scythians, who lived in the steppes between the Dnieper and the Don, were dominant. Nomadic Scythians lived along the right bank of the lower Dnieper and in the steppe Crimea. Between the Ingul and the Dnieper, Scythian farmers lived interspersed with nomads. In the basin of the Southern Bug, near the city of Olbia, the Callipids, or Hellenic-Scythians, lived, to the north of them - the Alazons, and even further north - the Scythians-plowmen. The boundaries of the settlement of individual tribes of Scythia (especially the Scythian plowmen) are unclear (see the map above).

Close relations with the slave-owning cities of the Northern Black Sea region, the intensive trade of the Scythians in cattle, bread, furs and slaves intensified the process of stratification in the Scythian society. It is known that the Scythians had a union of tribes, which gradually acquired the features of a kind of state of the slave-owning type, headed by the king.

From the end of the 7th century BC e. Scythian society knew different gradations of social status:

• slaves of various origins and exploited in various ways;
• "hippotoxotes" (mounted shooters) - free community members;
• the poor, who had the opportunity to fight only on foot;
• different levels of aristocracy from the heads of wealthy families to nomarchs-skeptukhs;
• kings from local to three leading kings with a senior in position at the head.

By the beginning of the VI century. BC. social stratification reaches large proportions. The grounds for saying so are given by the burials of that era. Grandiose royal mounds with murdered servants and concubines and simple burial pits with a minimum of inventory. Most of the free community members fought on horseback and had some property, but already at that time “octopuses” appeared. These are Scythians on foot who had only a couple of oxen to harness to the wagon, hence the name. There were even poor people who had nothing. Of these, the Scythian infantry was formed, which, over time, grew more and more numerically.

A stratum of slaves, originally foreigners, also appeared. In the legends and descriptions of Herodotus, the slaves were the local population, in the territories captured by the Scythians.

Royal power was hereditary, but there were several kings. This can be seen, for example, from the wars with Assyria, when one or another king could be an enemy and ally of Assyria. We see the same during the invasion of Darius, when the Scythians formed three detachments, each headed by its own king. At the same time, power apparently belonged to one dynasty.

Until the 5th century BC. royal power was limited to a council of kings or a military assembly. In other cases, the power of the king was unlimited. An encroachment on her was followed by beheading, or death at the stake.

Already in the IV century. Atheus ruled Scythia with absolute power, having other rulers in submission, named in one of the Olbian inscriptions as basileus, i.e. kings.

economy

Herodotus indicates that part of the Scythian tribes was engaged in cultivating the land. Wheat, barley, millet, beans, onions, and garlic were grown. Hemp is also indicated, from which the canvas was made and some kind of drug for smoking.

The bulk of the Scythians were engaged in nomadic cattle breeding. It was year round. In winter, tebenevka was common (the cattle themselves got their food from under the snow). Part of the nomads migrated to the Azov region to the estuaries of the rivers, where tall grass was preserved. Felt yurts were on wheels and a pair of oxen were harnessed to them. Such caravans of wagons were accompanied by mounted male warriors.

Judging by the excavations of the Kamensky settlement, the composition of the herds was as follows:

• horses - 40%
• cattle - 40%
• small cattle (sheep, goats) - 18%
• dogs, game game: deer, saiga, beaver - 2%

Interestingly, the Scythians did not breed pigs even in the settled centers of their state.

Accordingly, not only meat was used, but also skins and wool. They sewed sheepskin coats, felt felt, dressed leather. Milk was also used as food; it was not for nothing that the Scythians were called milkers of mares and mammals.

Iron-smelting workshops were found in a large number in the Kamensky settlement. Copper was mined in small quantities near Donetsk, and also, most likely, went along trade routes from the Caucasus and the Southern Urals. Zinc for bronze was mined on the Lower Dnieper, the origin of tin is still unclear.

Iron was in sufficient quantities in the swamps of the Dnieper floodplains. Iron smelting was extremely uneconomical, 40-60% remained in the slag. Judging by the excavations, large patriarchal families were engaged in iron-making - about 900 hectares in the Kamensky settlement were dotted with large houses (150-300 m³ each), in which there were forges for the production of various weapons and equipment.

Next to the metallurgists lived joiners, whose tools (chisels, axes, adzes) were also found in large quantities, both in the settlement and in the barrows. The fact that carpenters were still specialization says that yurts on wheels have many wooden parts. In addition, there were permanent dwellings - winter roads, which also had to be serviced by carpenters.

Pottery was developed. The potter's wheel was little used, the dishes were molded by hand from clay bundles. We find analogies of the Scythian utensils in the Late Srub culture. The utensils are mostly round-sided pots with a vertical, slightly flared neck or with a gently turned edge. They also find narrow-necked dishes with a spherical body.

Weaving was also widespread in the Scythian environment. find a lot of clay and lead whorls. They are found in settlements and as an obligatory element in female burials. The material for the fabric is sheep wave and hemp. In addition to fabrics, mats were woven, and felt and felt were also used.

Starting from the 7th century BC. the trade of the Scythians with the Greek cities of the Black Sea takes on a regular character. The main goods that the Scythians supplied to the markets were bread and slaves. Moreover, the scope of the grain trade was large. Even on the coins of the Scythian kings an ear of wheat was depicted. It was on such trade that the Bosporus kingdom arose (the export of bread accounted for the lion's share of exports). Grain trade was developed until the III century. BC. until the invasion of the Sarmatians, then it began to gradually subside, giving way to the cattle trade. Along with the cattle, furs were also exported, which came from the forest-steppe strip, through the lands of the Scythians. Honey and wax were also exported.

A substantial share in trade belonged to the export of slaves. Starting from the VI century. BC. The names of Scythian slaves appear in ancient inscriptions. At the same time, the Scythians come in large numbers to Greece to participate in wars. In addition to the Scythians, a large number of slaves came from the tribes of the Getae, Triballi, Sarmatians and Meotians. At the turn of III and II centuries. BC. the flow of Scythian slaves weakened.

As for imports into Scythia itself, it is worth highlighting wine, which came in huge quantities from Greece. As a result, Greek dishes are widely used - not only amphoras for wine, but also vessels for incense, ointments, perfumes, which are often found in the graves of rich and simple Scythians.

Fabrics and clothes also came to the steppe - this is reported by Greek writers. Jewelry was in large quantities - mirrors, glass and paste beads, earrings and various jewelry. The Scythians also often acted as intermediaries in trade with the more northern forest-steppe and forest tribes.

Sources

• B.N. Grakov. Scythians. Popular science essay. Moscow: MGU Publishing House, 1968.
• Archeology of the USSR. Steppes of the European part of the USSR in the Scythian-Sarmatian time. M.: Publishing house "Nauka", 1989.
• M.I. Artamonov. Cimmerians and Scythians. L .: Publishing house of Leningrad State University, 1974.
• IN AND. Gulyaev. Scythians: the rise and fall of a great kingdom. 2006

The Scythians dominated the present territory of Russia for almost a millennium. Neither the Persian Empire nor Alexander the Great could break them. But suddenly, overnight, this people mysteriously disappeared into history, leaving behind only majestic burial mounds.

WHO ARE THE SCYTHIANS

Scythians is a Greek word, with the help of which the Hellenes denoted nomadic peoples living in the Black Sea region between the courses of the Don and Danube rivers. The Scythians themselves called themselves Saki. For most Greeks, Scythia was an outlandish land inhabited by "white flies" - snow, and cold always reigned, which, of course, did not correspond to reality. It is this perception of the country of the Scythians that can be found in Virgil, Horace and Ovid. Later, in the Byzantine chronicles, Slavs, and Alans, Khazars or Pechenegs could already be called Scythians. And the Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote back in the 1st century AD that “the name“ Scythians ”is transferred to the Sarmatians and Germans,” and believed that the ancient name was assigned to many of the peoples most distant from the Western world. This name continued to live on, and in the “Tale of Bygone Years” it is repeatedly mentioned that the Greeks called the peoples of Russia “Scythians”: “Oleg went to the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv; he took with him many Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds, and Krivichi, and Meryu, and Drevlyans, and Radimichi, and Polyans, and Severians, and Vyatichi, and Croats, and Dulebs, and Tivertsy, known as interpreters: these were all called Greeks "Great Scythia".

It is believed that the self-name "Scythians" means "archers", and the beginning of the emergence of the culture of the Scythians is considered to be the 7th century BC. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus, in whom we find one of the most detailed descriptions of the life of the Scythians, describes them as a single people, breaking up into various tribes - Scythian farmers, Scythian plowmen, Scythian nomads, royal Scythians and others. However, Herodotus also believed that the Scythian kings were the descendants of the son of Hercules, the Scythian. For Herodotus, the Scythians are a wild and rebellious tribe. One of the stories tells that the Greek king went mad after he began to drink wine "in the Scythian way", that is, without diluting it, as was not customary among the Greeks: "From now on, as the Spartans say, every time , when they want to drink stronger wine, they say: “Pour it in the Scythian way.” Another demonstrates how barbaric the customs of the Scythians were: “Everyone has, as usual, many wives; they use them together; they enter into a relationship with a woman by placing a stick in front of the dwelling. At the same time, Herodotus mentions that the Scythians also chuckle at the Hellenes: "The Scythians despise the Hellenes for their Bacchic frenzy."

Thanks to the regular contacts of the Scythians with the Greeks, who actively colonized the lands surrounding them, ancient literature is rich in references to the nomadic people. In the VI century BC. the Scythians drove out the Cimmerians, defeated Media and, thus, took possession of all of Asia. After that, the Scythians retreated to the northern Black Sea region, where they began to meet with the Greeks, fighting for new territories. At the end of the 6th century, the Persian king Darius went to war against the Scythians, but despite the crushing power of his army and huge numerical superiority, Darius failed to quickly break the nomads.

The Scythians chose a strategy to wear down the Persians, retreating endlessly and circling around Darius's forces. Thus, the Scythians, having remained undefeated, earned themselves the glory of impeccable warriors and strategists. In the 4th century, the Scythian king Atey, who lived for 90 years, united all the Scythian tribes from the Don to the Danube. Scythia in this period reached its highest peak: Atey was equal in strength to Philip II of Macedon, minted his own coin and expanded his possessions. The Scythians had a special relationship with gold. The cult of this metal even became the basis for the legend that the Scythians managed to tame the griffins guarding gold. The growing power of the Scythians forced the Macedonians to undertake several large-scale invasions: Philip II killed Atheus in an epic battle, and his son, Alexander the Great, went to war against the Scythians later eight years. However, the great commander failed to defeat Scythia, and had to retreat, leaving the Scythians unsubdued.

During the 2nd century, the Sarmatians and other nomads gradually ousted the Scythians from their lands, leaving behind them only the steppe Crimea and the basin of the lower Dnieper and Bug, and as a result, Great Scythia became Lesser. After that, Crimea became the center of the Scythian state, well-fortified fortifications appeared in it - the fortresses of Naples, Palakiy and Khab, in which the Scythians took refuge, fighting with Chersonesus and the Sarmatians. At the end of the 2nd century, Chersonese found a powerful ally - the Pontic king Mithridates V, who went to war against the Scythians. After numerous battles, the Scythian state was weakened and bled dry.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SCYTHIANS

In the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the Scythian society could hardly be called nomadic: they were farmers, rather strongly Hellenized and ethnically mixed. The Sarmatian nomads continued to push the Scythians, and in the 3rd century the Alans began to invade the Crimea. They devastated the last stronghold of the Scythians - Scythian Naples, located on the outskirts of modern Simferopol, but could not stay on the occupied lands for a long time. The invasion of these lands by the Goths soon began, declaring war on the Alans, the Scythians, and the Roman Empire itself.

The blow to Scythia, therefore, was the invasion of the Goths around 245 AD. All the fortresses of the Scythians were destroyed, and the remnants of the Scythians fled to the south-west of the Crimean peninsula, hiding in hard-to-reach mountainous areas. Despite the seemingly obvious complete defeat, Scythia did not continue to exist for long. The fortresses that remained in the southwest became a refuge for the fleeing Scythians, and several settlements were founded at the mouth of the Dnieper and on the Southern Bug. However, they soon fell under the onslaught of the Goths. The Scythian war, which, after the events described, was waged by the Romans with the Goths, got its name due to the fact that the name "Scythians" began to be used to refer to the Goths who defeated the real Scythians. Most likely, there was some truth in this false name, since thousands of defeated Scythians joined the Gothic troops, dissolving in the mass of other peoples who fought with Rome. Thus, Scythia became the first state to collapse as a result of the Great Migration of Nations.

The Huns completed the work, in 375 they attacked the territories of the Black Sea region and killed the last Scythians who lived in the Crimean mountains and in the Bug valley. Of course, many Scythians again joined the Huns, but there was no longer any talk of any independent identity. The Scythians as an ethnic group disappeared in the whirlpool of migrations, and remained only on the pages of historical treatises, with enviable persistence continuing to call all new peoples "Scythians" , usually wild, recalcitrant and unbroken. It is interesting that some historians rank Chechens and Ossetians among the descendants of the Scythians.

Starting from the second half of the 8th c. BC. until the beginning of the 3rd century. AD, in the vast expanses from the Black Sea to the Sayano-Altai, mysterious peoples roamed. Ancient writers and historians called them "Scythians". The same ancient authors put different meanings into this concept. Under the "Scythians" were understood both the tribes who lived only in the Northern Black Sea region, and other peoples who lived in territories quite remote from each other. Even the Russian state in some medieval writings was called Scythia. Russian chronicles emphasized that the peoples of Russia were called by the Greeks "Great Scythia". The Scythians are mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years:

“Oleg went to the Greeks, leaving Igor in Kyiv, he took with him a lot of Varangians, and Slavs, and Chuds, and Krivichi, and Measure, and Drevlyans, and Radimichi, and Polyans, and Northerners, and Vyatichi, and Croats, and Dulebs, and Tivertsy, known as interpreters: these were all called by the Greeks “Great Scythia”.

Officially, there are two main versions of the emergence of the Scythians:

the first is based on the so-called "Third Tale" of Herodotus, which says that the Scythians came from the east;

the second is based on the legend recorded by the same Herodotus, and suggests that in the VIII century. BC. the Scythians settled the territories of the Northern Black Sea region, standing out from the environment of the successors of the Srubna culture

For reference: Srubna culture- an association of peoples of the Late Bronze Age (XVIII-XII centuries BC), common in the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eastern Europe between the Dnieper and the Urals. Separate monuments of this culture are found in Western Siberia and the North Caucasus. There is a version that the peoples of the Srubna culture were the basis from which the migration to the north-west of modern Iran took place. The Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a (subclades R1a1, R1a1a, R1a1a1b2, R1a1a1b2a2a-Z2123) was found among representatives of the Srubnaya culture who lived 3900–3200 years ago.

By the way, if we take genealogy as an argument and draw conclusions about the origin of peoples on its basis, then according to their DNA, the Scythians were also carriers of the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a. And if we take the DNA of modern Slavs, then their genotype, like that of other modern peoples, is rather heterogeneous due to assimilation and incest, but, nevertheless, the Y-chromosomal haplogroup R1a is characteristic of all groups of Slavs. In Russia, depending on the territory, it ranges from 34 to 55%, Belarusians 50%, Ukrainians 54%, Poles 56% (link). Of course, it cannot be argued that the Slavs descended from the Scythians. The history of the Scythians ended in the III century. AD defeat from neighbors and kindred people - the Sarmatians. The Slavs appeared on the historical arena in the 4th-5th centuries AD. Most likely, the Scythians and Sarmatians became part of the Slavic tribes, and the Scythian-Sarmatians joined the huge Slavic "family" not as poor relatives, but on an equal footing. In Russian folk art, needlework, there are connections with Scythian art, elements of clothing and symbols of the Sarmatians.

The Scythians were not a single people. The well-known Russian Scythologist A. Yu. Alekseev writes: “The Scythians, this Asian in origin, but who became a European people, had a significant impact on the culture and history of their close and distant neighbors for several centuries. They turned out to be the first in a long chain of nomadic tribes known to us, which, at intervals of 200-400 years, rolled in waves along the Great Steppe Corridor to Europe ... ". "Scythians" is the common name of many people close in culture, economic structure, way of life and ideological ideas of the nomadic tribes of Eurasia. The name of the Scythians was given by the Greeks, who first encountered them in Asia Minor, and then in the Northern Black Sea region, where the first Greek colonies arose in the second half of the 7th century BC. Thanks to the information that has come down to us from ancient historians, including those who lived in the 5th century BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the so-called European Scythians, who lived in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the Northern Black Sea region (between the Danube in the west and the Don in the east) from the 7th century BC, became most famous. to the 3rd century AD”

What were they doing? What was their way of life? Archeology has discovered the amazing world of Scythian burial mounds, examples of magnificent unique art, grandiose burial structures. The scientific basis of Scythian archeology was created in the 20th century. The first official excavations of a large Scythian burial mound were carried out in 1763 on behalf of Lieutenant General Alexei Petrovich Melgunov, Governor of the Novorossiysk Territory. From this moment the time of field Scythian archeology is counted. Then they explored the Litoy Kurgan, located 60 km from Elisavetgrad (now Kirovograd). The opened burial (Chervonnaya Mogila) turned out to be the burial of a noble Scythian, as evidenced by the magnificent gold items of the late 7th - early 6th century BC.

Masterpieces of the Scythian fine arts, stored in the best museums, have long been included in the treasury of world culture. Any educated person will recognize a thing made in the Scythian animal style. It is the animal style that constitutes the most original feature of the art of the Scythian world. Images of animals adorned horse harness, weapons, clothes, signs of power, cult and toilet items.

The artistic value of the works made by Scythian masters is great. They were well versed in the technique of casting, forging, embossing, embossing, engraving and created their own original style in art, the hallmark of which was images of animals in dynamics on things - fight, jump, run. A vivid example of Scythian art is an openwork plate - decoration of a horse dress - depicting a rider shooting a deer from a bow. And the golden pectoral (breast decoration of the Scythian king) is a unique work and a masterpiece of world art. Artists of the Scythian world mastered many genres - carving, relief, three-dimensional plastic, appliqué, embroidery. Metal products were created using casting, stamping, engraving. Basically, savages.

The death of the Scythian king was an important and tragic event for the people. He was mourned for a long time, performed a series of bloody rites. In addition to the king, animals, servants, wives, money and jewelry were buried in the grave. Then they poured a huge hill. A stone statue in the form of a standing human figure was installed on the mound. It had nothing to do with the "living prototype", it was a generalized image of a man, roughly carved from a monolithic stone. The master showed only the most necessary features - the head, face, arms and legs, clothes and weapons. The attributes of power were also depicted - a hryvnia around the neck and a rhyton in the hand. The Scythians believed that by erecting this image over the grave mound, they overcome the violation of the world order that occurs with the death of the king.

Today, the appearance of the Scythian nomads is already quite well known: the Hellenic masters depicted them ethnographically accurately on gold and silver vessels and jewelry found in many burial mounds of the highest Scythian nobility. Valuable information is also provided by the anthropological reconstruction carried out on bone remains and skulls from Scythian burials. “Yes, we are Scythians, yes, we are Asians with slanting and greedy eyes ...”- this poetic image created by Alexander Blok does not correspond to reality. The Scythians did not have any slanting eyes or other Mongoloid features. They are typical Caucasians of medium height and strong build. In terms of language, the Scythians belonged to the North Iranian group (of the existing peoples, Ossetians are closest to them in terms of language).

The Scythians were skillful and ferocious warriors. Appearing in the VIII - early VII century. BC. in the Black Sea region, moved to the Middle East and Greece. Having passed through the passes of the Main Caucasian Range, they invaded in the 7th century BC. in Transcaucasia, they defeated the mighty state of Urartu and, like a formidable storm, fell upon the flourishing cities of Media, Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia and Palestine. Shortly after these events, the Scythians moved further south and, reaching Syria and Palestine, were about to invade Egypt. But Pharaoh Psammetik I was ahead of them: he went out to meet the Scythians with rich gifts and dissuaded them from the intention to ruin the ancient country. According to Herodotus, the northern nomads remained in Western Asia for 28 years and devastated everything with their rampage and violence. The Scythians behaved in the Middle East like robbers and rapists. Thousands of bronze arrowheads found during excavations of ancient Middle Eastern cities, traces of fires and destruction in them confirm the reports of ancient written sources about the devastating raids of the Scythian cavalry on the flowering regions of Asia Minor.
Then the turn came to pay the Scythians for all the offenses they had caused. And the Median king Cyaxares, as ancient authors report, invited many Scythian leaders and commanders to his palace for a “friendly” feast and, having drunk them into unconsciousness, ordered them to be killed. Having lost their top leadership and being under the threat of a complete defeat by the Median troops, the Scythians were forced to return to their northern Black Sea possessions. And from the end of the 7th century BC. the main events of Scythian history are already associated only with the steppe and forest-steppe regions of Eastern Europe.
The table shows the main milestones in the history of the Scythians.

Findings:
1. The Scythians could not be the direct ancestors of the Slavs, although we are genetically similar.
2. The Scythians clearly had a significant impact on the formation, culture, traditions and customs of the Slavic peoples.
3. The Scythians were not one people, one ethnic group. These were nomadic tribes related in culture, language and customs.

Who are the Scythians - a question that belongs to the least documented pages of ancient history

The very name "Scythians" is rather a household name, and covers a large number of tribes that both nomadic and led a sedentary lifestyle in territories at least from the Carpathians and Danube to Altai and the borders of China and Mongolia, that is, in most of southern Eurasia .

Scythian times, traditionally considered by historians, are mainly the 1st millennium BC, that is, 3000-2000 years ago. If this time interval is slightly expanded, then from below it is limited to the period immediately before the Trojan War, that is, the middle to the end of the 2nd millennium BC, about 3500-3300 years ago, from above - the beginning of our era, when the times of the Scythians are replaced by the times of the Sarmatians . The Sarmatians themselves are attributed by historians to an approximately 800-year period, between the 4th century BC. and the 4th century AD, that is, already close to Slavic times, as linguists define them.

It should be clarified here that in this essay I use both dating systems - both in relation to our era (before or after), as is customary in historical science, and “years ago”, as is customary in DNA genealogy. Unification is not yet obtained without loss of quality. When I quote dates accepted by historians, for example, in relation to the Sarmatians, I cannot write "from 2400 to 1600 years ago", because this is not exactly what historians have in mind, and introduces inappropriate precision in dating. For a similar reason, I have difficulties with translating DNA genealogy data into “eras”, since the authors cited by me operate in years, and I have no right to change their data and conclusions. Therefore, in places I duplicate dates in both systems. In general, there are well-known problems at the intersection of sciences, and this one is far from being the most acute. So please take it as it is.

For linguists, the Slavs, as you know, are the peoples of central and eastern (mostly) Europe, speaking the languages ​​​​of the Slavic group. For example, in the diagram below known to specialists, the beginning of the Slavic group of languages ​​is placed at the beginning of the 8th century AD, 1300 years ago, and the unity of the Baltic and Slavic languages ​​is placed 3400 years ago, just in time for the beginning of Scythian times, if we follow the dating of historians.


A "family" tree of languages ​​(Gray and Atkinson, 2003). Dates - in years from our time.

True, the same diagram places the common ancestor of the European (and, as part of them, Slavic) and Iranian / Indo-Aryan languages ​​at 6900 years ago, which is in no way consistent with the fact that the Aryans (haplogroups R1a) began to divide into southeastern (R1a-Z93 ) and Central Eurasian (R1a-Z280) branches about 5500 years ago. The Aryans began their migrations from Europe to the east, to the Russian Plain about 5,000 years ago, to the southeast from the Russian Plain, migrations began about 4,500 years ago, and the Aryans came to India and Iran only about 3,500 years ago. Since from half to two thirds of the Slavs belong to the same haplogroup R1a, and since there are many Aryan toponyms and hydronyms on the Russian Plain, and in the Russian North in particular, which can hardly be dated earlier than 4500-4000 years ago, it is clear that the common ancestor of the "classical" ("steppe") Aryans and Slavs did not live earlier than 5500-5000 years ago, that is, one and a half to two thousand years later than indicated on the diagram. In general, the very concept of "common ancestor of the Slavs and Aryans" refers, rather, to the traditional division of "Slavs" and "Aryans" in modern linguistics, and in genealogy it sounds something like "the common ancestor of father and son." Well, it is clear that this is the father himself. That is, the common ancestor of the Slavs and Aryans were the Aryans themselves. There, in this family, are the Scythians, as will be shown below.

Indeed, linguists unanimously scold the authors of the diagram above, since they are biologists, and have applied biological methods for constructing phylogenetic trees to create a tree of languages ​​(“it’s necessary - they apply the patterns of the spread of infectious diseases to linguistics”), but linguists are against dating, nevertheless, don't mind. This is quite typical for them - they scold them for the fact that strangers invaded their diocese, but the data themselves do not refute.

It gets funny. A few months ago, a group of linguists from Stanford University (California) staged a public denunciation - there is no other word for it - the same Atkinson and Gray, biologists from Australia (in their absence, it must be said) at a specially convened conference, smashing their recent article in the journal Science (2012 ) about the Indo-European ancestral home, which they placed in Anatolia, that is, Asia Minor, using the same methods of biological systematization. . To a question from the audience, what, they say, do you propose yourself, the answer followed, what to offer was not part of the tasks of the conference and reports, the task was to show that biological methods cannot be applied to solving problems of linguistics. And there is Anatolia or not Anatolia, the ancestral home or not the ancestral home - the question is complex, there is no definite answer. By the way, linguists also did not consider those biological methods of systematization because of their incompetence in them.

The same is true about the origin of the Slavs - linguists place the Slavs in a completely different language group, far from the Aryan, "Iranian" or "Indo-Aryan" language group (by the way, you will not see the word "Aryans" on the diagram), based on their own classification and their own dating, often completely conditional. And, as a rule, do not want to hear about any other options. The words "alternative interpretation" scare them, although they mean "based on the same data." They avert their eyes from the Aryan toponymy and hydronymy on the Russian Plain, they do not consider it. The fact that the Slavs and Indians of the haplogroup R1a are very close in haplotypes, and hence in origin, strains them and leads them into passive indifference and a visible lack of interest. Otherwise, too much in their science will have to be changed, and who needs it? They don't.

And here we return to the Scythians and their possible origin, as well as their historical relationship with the Slavs as possible descendants of the Scythians, they are essentially the Aryans and their descendants. From the point of view of traditional historical science, the question is either unsolvable or has a negative answer. Modern historical sources indicate that the Slavs had eastern and southern neighbors - the Iranian tribes of the Scythians and Sarmatians (by the way, “Iranian” here is a linguistic term, and has nothing to do with Iran). Well, since the neighbors - then what is the origin of the Slavs from them? Moreover, when the Scythians were in the historical arena, the Slavs, according to many historians and linguists, did not yet exist - there was a historical gap between them. For the common origin of the Scythians and Slavs, historians have no grounds, what kind of Slavs were three thousand years ago, right? And in general, neither Herodotus nor Strabo wrote about this, which means that there is no question.

It must be said that ancient authors are the highest authority among modern historians. That's how it's done. Quotations from them are always a priority in modern professional historical literature and are always welcome. Dozens and hundreds of historical articles and books repeat the legends and myths about the origin of the Scythians, described by Herodotus, repeat again and again about the golden plow, yoke, ax and bowl that fell from the sky. At the same time, even misunderstandings or misprints are transferred from work to work, for example, from the description of Herodotus (History. IV. 5-6):

According to the stories of the Scythians, their people are the youngest of all. And it happened in this way. The first inhabitant of this then uninhabited country was a man named Targitai. The parents of this Targitai, as the Scythians say, were Zeus and the daughter of the Borisfen river (of course, I do not believe this, despite their assertions).

Clearly, "the youngest" in this context is a misunderstanding. And what kind of people will claim that he is "the youngest of all"? Moreover, how is it “younger than everyone”, if it came from Zeus? And this has been actively replicated and discussed in the literature, including scientific literature, for more than two thousand years. All this is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the topic of our discussion. Therefore, I will no longer quote ancient historians here. This article has other tasks than repeating for the thousandth time what has been repeated for a long time. Who needs it - let them read numerous books about the Scythians, although they generally repeat one another.

The fact that the Slavs and Scythians are different peoples, with different origins, is enshrined in historical literature. It has traditionally been taken for granted and as a means of artistic expression. Here is an example - a picture of V.M. Vasnetsov "Fight of the Slavs with the Scythians":

What are the "fathers and sons" here, right? And this motif consistently, over and over again, enters the subcortex: the Scythians are some kind of Asians, “with slanting and greedy eyes” (A. Blok), and he is about them - “We will turn to you with our Asian mug”! Well, what are the Slavs, right?

And suddenly DNA genealogy quickly entered science.. In DNA genealogy, it is not necessary to repeat what ancient historians said. This is only secondary, auxiliary material that serves as a general background, and it is not at all necessary to be equal to it. DNA genealogy accepts only experimental facts, and compares its results and interpretations with them, based on the study of DNA of contemporaries and fossil haplotypes. If the data are consistent, fit, then this is an important part of the overall picture of optimizing the results of experimental data and their interpretations. The fact that historical science operates with dozens of names of tribes is also not a priority information in this optimization. Dozens of names may actually belong to the same genus, or they may belong to different genera. They are, in fact, irrelevant, they are often not even a general guideline. The same applies to material features, which are so important to historians for lack of anything better. In one of my works I wrote:

Archaeologists are not accustomed to seeing their cultures from the angle of who and what kind of cultures founded them. They are not used to the fact that the relationship between cultures is considered not so much on the basis of commonality or continuity of material characteristics, but on the basis of the continuity of the clans whose migration led to the creation of these cultures. The characteristics change, but the genus remains the same. For example, the "78-rpm vinyl" culture was replaced by "tape recorder culture", then "CD culture", and then "DVD culture", but the genus remained the same. In other words, DNA genealogy is interested in the aspect of continuity human carriers archaeological culture, because the material signs change, but the genus remains, sometimes migrating, moving to new places. And the consideration of archaeological data from this new angle allows us to better understand the historical connection between people and the objects they created. A similar situation has developed both in history and in linguistics. For a linguist, the Slavs are the carriers of a group of Slavic languages ​​dating back to the middle of the 1st millennium AD. For a historian dealing with the Slavs - the same times. For a specialist in DNA genealogy, these are the ancestors of the Slavs, including the distant ancestors of the Slavs, carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who lived in the same territories as the modern Slavs ...

Let's apply the same approach first to the Scythians and then to the Slavs and see what kind of picture emerges. And then we check how this picture is consistent with data historical science. With data, not necessarily traditional interpretations of that data.

Yes, why is the origin of the Slavs placed in the middle of the 1st millennium AD? What are the grounds for this (more precisely, of course, interpretations)? Chronicle of Nestor? So he did not write about the origin of the Slavs, but about the origin of the names of a number of Slavic tribes. They moved from place to place with him, which, for sure, was in fact, but did they move from somewhere? And where they moved from, they also did not appear out of thin air. So the historians following Nestor talk about the movements of the Slavic tribes, in some cases, about their arrival on the territory of Ancient Russia, as historians again interpret it.

We look at V.O. Klyuchevsky. He writes in Russian History that in the 6th century A.D. Slavdom was united in a powerful association that successfully opposed the Byzantine Empire. And further: "This military alliance is a fact that can be placed at the very beginning of our history." That's where these interpretations come from. Well, what kind of “beginning of history” is this, when the Slavs were already united? Russia in the early 1940s also rallied and successfully resisted Nazi Germany, eventually leading it to capitulation - so, did the history of Russia begin then?

This is explained by a prominent historian, Academician B.A. Rybakov, that the turning point in the fate of all Slavs came at the end of the 5th-6th centuries AD, when the great settlement of the Slavs began, which changed the entire map of Europe. Not the “emergence of the Slavs”, but a turning point in their destinies, according to B.A. Rybakov. Already in Russia there were so many “changes in the fates” of the people that you get tired of counting, and even more so, to take everyone for the beginning of Russia. As for the "great resettlement" - this is again a figure of speech. The resettlement of the Slavs, mainly carriers of the haplogroup R1a, from the Russian Plain to Europe continued throughout the 1st millennium BC. and until the middle of the 1st millennium AD, according to DNA genealogy (Rozhanskii & Klyosov, 2012), by many tribes. So, the “great settlement of the Slavs” did not “begin” in the middle of the 1st millennium AD, but continued, and continued before that for more than one thousand years, as will be shown below.

Naturally, even before the VI century AD. the Slavs were, among other things, as powerful associations, which, according to the description of M. Orbini (“Slavic Kingdom”, 1601), “with the courage of their warriors and the best weapons in the world, kept the entire universe in obedience and humility for thousands of years. The Russians have always owned all of Asia, Africa, Persia, Egypt, Greece, Macedonia, Illyria, Moravia, Shlonsky land, the Czech Republic, Poland, all the shores of the Baltic Sea, Italy and many other countries and lands ... ”(Russian translation of 1722 at the direction of Peter I). Let the "Russians" here also be a figure of speech, but they were Slavs, and Slavs united, otherwise there would not have been such military successes without a serious military and political organization. True, in traditional history they are called Scythians and other different names, again deliberately (or out of ignorance) tearing up the history of the Slavs, but we will return to this later.

Unfortunately, a destructive, destructive approach traditionally continues in Russian historical science, whether it concerns Normanism or other periods of Russian history. Only sources that underestimate the significance and role of the Slavs in historical processes are selectively selected and introduced into "official" circulation. There is no M. Orbini’s “Historiography” in this turnover, there are no works of the Polish Archbishop Stanislaw Bohuts (Stanislaw Bohusz, 1731-1826), an outstanding educator, in one of whose works - “Historical studies of the origin of the Slavs and Sarmatians” - describes the Slavs living in ancient times from Syria to Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea). There are no dozens of other books that have become classic in antiquity or in the Middle Ages, which tell about the Slavs of the past millennia. There is a whole library of Serbian historians of the past about this, in which Slavs are called those whom Russian (and Western) historians call "Scythians". If historians have objections to this, where are they? Or do they live by the saying “I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, I won’t tell anyone”?

At the same time, I do not mean at all some kind of “conspiracy” among historians or linguists, there is no such thing. This is just an old academic tradition - God forbid, they will be accused of nationalism. In bias in favor of his people. Let us better drive our people under the bench than give a reason to accuse us of sympathy for them. Let's step back, we'll stick out our lips, but we'll look kosher in an academic ivory tower.

So, what is the picture when we consider historical data in their diversity, and compare them with the data of DNA genealogy, given below?

The picture is as follows: the Scythians are mainly the descendants of the Aryans, carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who did not go south, through the Caucasus to Mesopotamia and the Middle East, and did not go to the southeast, to Iran and India, about 4000-3500 years ago . These are those that remained in the northern Black Sea region and scattered across the Great Steppe from the lower reaches of the Danube through the Caspian territories, Central Asia, the Southern Urals and to Altai, and further to China and Mongolia. Some of them remained Caucasoids, some became Mongoloids, continuing to be carriers of the haplogroup R1a. I will explain how this happened on the basis of data on fossil haplotypes. Naturally, over two and a half millennia, from 4500 years ago to the turn of the old and new eras, the customs of scattered nomadic and sedentary tribes changed, dialects “floated”, but they remained mainly carriers of the R1a haplogroup and spoke, in general, Aryan languages ​​that linguists call "Iranian", although Iran itself, as I have already mentioned, has nothing to do with this. It must be said, however, that linguists attribute the “Iranian” languages ​​to the Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family, thereby agreeing that the Aryans were the ancient speakers of these languages. The Scythians also belonged to them.

Thus, the historical fixation of the Scythians as "beginning" from the middle to the end of the 2nd millennium BC. is highly arbitrary and arbitrary. Coincidentally or not, a line under the time of the Scythians separates the migrations of the Aryans to the south (Hindostan, Iran, Mesopotamia) from their migrations along the Eurasian steppes. Remembering the textbook question - "and who was left in the shop?", The answer is "the Scythians remained."

In the history of peoples, there is nothing at all sudden and clearly defined by time frames. Nations do not appear out of nowhere and do not disappear into nowhere. It was the same with the Scythians. They smoothly passed in their existence from the Aryans of the Russian Plain, received an arbitrary and generalized name "Scythians", existed in this rather indefinite quality for two and a half thousand years - a huge period even by historical standards (the same period separates us from the founding of Ancient Rome). During the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries of our era, the Scythians, mainly carriers of the haplogroup R1a, partly moved to Europe, up to the Atlantic, the rest settled across the territory of Kazakhstan, the southern Urals, Central Asia, up to Altai, and now they continue there live their descendants - Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Khakasses, Tuvans, Tubalars, Kumandins, Chelkans, Altai-Kizhi and others. Western Scythians continue to live today as modern Western and Eastern Slavs, in the population of Central and Eastern Europe, belonging to the haplogroup R1a. The same applies to the "predecessors" of the Scythians, the Cimmerians, and to the Sarmatians, who, according to traditional historical information, ousted the Scythians at the turn of the eras, and after a few centuries somehow allegedly disappeared themselves. In fact, both the Cimmerians and the Sarmatians (presumably carriers of basically the same haplogroup R1a) also did not disappear anywhere, they were assimilated as a people, but remained in the descendants of the population of Eastern and Central Europe from the Black Sea to the Baltic, from Altai to the Urals and to the Atlantic. Among the Slavs, there are definitely many descendants of the Scythians and Sarmatians - both Russians, and Ukrainians, and Belarusians, and Poles.

Consider the key periods in the history of the Aryans with their transition to the "remaining" Scythians, and in what territories and at what times this happened.

We will not delve into the history of mankind tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago here, my other essays are devoted to this. Let's move on to the time when the future Aryans, carriers of the haplogroup R1a, arrived in Europe about 10-8 thousand years ago, after a long migration journey along the southern arc, from Central Asia, through Tibet, Northern Hindustan, the Iranian plateau, Anatolia, to the Balkans. Then, according to DNA genealogy, the Aryans moved from Europe to the Russian Plain about 4800 years ago, apparently under pressure from the Erbins arriving in Europe, carriers of the haplogroup R1b. They crossed, accompanied by their women, predominantly of the mitochondrial haplogroup H, and we will need this later to explain the anthropology (Mongoloid) of a part of the Scythians. The fact is that both the male (Y-chromosomal) haplogroup R1a and the female (mitochondrial) haplogroup H usually accompany Caucasoid anthropology in such a combination. Neither one nor the other, strictly speaking, define Caucasoidness, but they usually accompany it. There are exceptions, of course, for example A.S. Pushkin, having the haplogroup R1a, was to a certain extent and for certain reasons partly a Negroid, but there are statistically few such cases among the people, and they do not determine the anthropology of the population as a whole.

Several main branches of the R1a haplogroup arrived on the Russian Plain about 4800 years ago from Europe, which, most likely, were not physically clearly divided by geography or by tribes. In any case, there is no data to separate them. These were branches, or, as it is commonly called in DNA genealogy, subclades (the latter was formed after the arrival of L342.2 on the Russian Plain, during migration to the east):

R1a-Z283(Eurasian branch);
R1a-Z280, its child subclade
(the central Eurasian branch, it is also a branch of the Russian Plain);
R1a-Z93(southeast branch);
L342.2, its child subclade (Aryan branch);
L657, a child subclade of the latter (Eastern Aryan branch).

The two main branches, Z283 (Eurasian) and Z93 (southeastern) formed in Europe, 5700-5500 years ago. The Z280 branch, which now dominates the Eastern Slavs, was formed about 4900 years ago, during the transition to the Russian Plain. The Aryan branch, L342.2, formed at the same time, 4900 years ago. Finally, the daughter branch of the Aryan - subclade L657, was formed approximately 4050 years ago, already during the Aryan migrations from the Russian Plain. We will need these data later in the discussion of the Scythian migrations.

The name "Aryan branch" for subclade L342.2 does not mean at all that the Aryans belonged only to this branch. This name is an attempt to reconcile the traditional historical consideration of the Aryans as the steppe peoples of the south of the Russian Plain with DNA genealogy data. Indeed, it is the L342.2 branch that is now being detected among carriers of the R1a haplogroup in India and the Middle East, as well as among many Kyrgyz, Bashkirs, and residents of Central Asia. But this (contrived) system of traditional attribution of the Aryans to the steppes is broken by the fact that there are carriers of the subclade L342.2 among the Poles, Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars. Moreover, Aryan toponyms and hydronyms are often found in the Russian north, which is impossible when linking the Aryans only to the southern steppes and forest-steppes. It is clear that the Aryans with their own (Aryan) language were distributed throughout the Russian Plain up to the northern regions.

Approximately 4500 years ago, the Aryans began to diverge from the Russian Plain in different directions - to the south (through the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, to the Middle East and further to the Arabian Peninsula up to the Indian Ocean, approximately 4000-3600 years ago; in the Arab world, the share of the R1a haplogroup now reaches up to 9% of the population by region; in the same place, on the territory of modern Syria, ancient Mitannian Aryans were recorded), to the southeast (to the mountains of Central Asia about 4000 years ago, and then, after about 500 years, to the Iranian plateau, like Avestan Aryans), to the Southern Urals about 4000 years ago (and further south, to Hindustan, about 3500 years ago, as Indo-Aryans). These departed Aryans no longer have a special relationship to the question of the Scythians, except for a kindred one - they have other historical destinies.

Naturally, not all Aryans left the Russian Plain, and the remaining carriers of the haplogroup R1a in the south of Russia and Ukraine, in the Ciscaucasia, in the Caspian steppes, in Central Asia, as well as in the Balkans (ancestors of the Serbs, for example) - all of them, according to the ancient Greek definition of the Scythians, turned out to be Scythians . But the Scythian Aryans went east even further, further than the Urals, where they arrived about 4000 years ago (the ancient settlement of Arkaim, the modern name, existed between 3800-3600 years ago), and already 3800-3400 years ago the Aryans were far to the east, in the Khakassian -Minusinsk basin. According to the traditional historical classification, these are already the early Scythians. And so it turns out - the late Aryans become the early Scythians. This is the conventionality of the distinction between Aryans and Scythians. In fact, one genus, one population.

Recent excavations of the burial places of these Scythian Aryans in the Khakass-Minusinsk basin dated 3800-3400 years ago (Keyser et al., 2009) showed that by that time the Scythian Aryans had already advanced 4000 kilometers beyond the Urals (see map below). If they walked at the usual rate of migrations for the ancients of 1 km per year, then such a transition would take 4 thousand years. The Scythians covered this distance in several hundred years. Clearly, they were no longer on foot. They had horses, they had wheeled vehicles.

During these excavations, it was found that out of ten haplotypes identified, nine were haplogroups R1a. One is local, haplogroup C (xC3), which means haplogroup C, but not subclade C3. This is not very interesting - both the assignment is fuzzy, and the haplotype is clearly local, it does not reflect any migrations. The importance of this study cannot be overestimated - the first evidence of post-Aryan, that is, Scythian migrations - and mainly the haplogroup R1a. The first direct evidence of the Aryan origin of the Scythians, and practically in Altai, far from the Black Sea region.

The inset shows (numbered) locations of archaeological sites where bone materials were taken for DNA determination. It can be seen that this is a distant Trans-Urals - several thousand kilometers east of the Urals, north of the Mongolian border, in the Altai region. From Keyser et al. (2009).

Let's take a look at the fossil haplotypes of the Scythians of the haplogroup R1a (3800-3400 years ago).

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 14 11 32 15 14 20 12 16 11 23 (Scythians, Andronovo culture)

In the same work, excavations were carried out dating back 2800-1900 years ago, in the burials of the Tagar culture, on the same territory, and again only haplotypes of the R1a group were found. Although a thousand - one and a half thousand years have passed, the haplotypes have remained almost the same:

13 24/25 16 11 11 14 10 13/14 11 31 15 14 20 12/13 16 11 23 (Tagars, R1a)

There are a couple of variants of mutations, the alleles began to diverge a little, but even then not for everyone. Double values ​​are variants of different haplotypes from excavations, or uncertainties in identification. So, indeed, the haplotypes are very similar, despite the rather large time distance, 1000-1500 years. This is the reliability of haplotypes - they change insignificantly over time. If several markers have changed, it means that millennia have passed. It is also important here that even after more than a thousand years, Scythians of the same kind, R1a, continue to live in the same places. Dozens of generations have passed, and the Scythians in Altai have the same DNA genealogical lines. Time: I millennium BC - the beginning of the 1st millennium AD, "official" Scythian times.

Well, how do you know that this is the Aryan haplotype? After all, only if the Aryans have the shown haplotypes, can the Scythians of the Minusinsk Basin be directly connected with the Aryans. Now we will show and connect with the arias. Consider the haplotypes of the R1a group in dynamics - in space and time: from ancient Europe (fossil haplotypes in Germany dated 4600 years ago, Haak et al., 2008), to modern haplotypes of ethnic Russians (Eastern Slavs) haplogroup R1a-Z280, with a common ancestor 4800 years ago (a branch of the Russian Plain), to the fossil haplotypes of the Aryan-Scythians of the Minusinsk Basin, dated 3800-3400 years ago, to modern haplotypes of the Indians of the highest caste, haplogroup R1a-L342.2-L657 (Eastern Aryan branch), and to the haplotypes of modern Arabs, descendants of the ancient Aryans, with a common ancestor 4000 years ago, haplogroups R1a-L342.2 (Aryan branch).

Fossil haplotypes in Germany (village Eulau) dated 4600 years ago, of which there were about a dozen, turned out to be all haplogroups R1a (Haak et al, 2008). “About a dozen” - because not all haplotypes were completely determined, some with gaps. Since it turned out to be a family, the haplogroups of all turned out to be similar to each other. These are (marker X was not determined; double numbers in fossil haplotypes - in this case those where they could not determine exactly, options are possible):

13/14 25 16 11 11 14 10 12/13 X 30 14/15 14 19 13 15/16 11 23 (Germany, R1a, 4600 years old)

They turned out to be very similar to the haplotype of the common ancestor of the R1a haplogroup among ethnic Russians, that is, the Eastern Slavs, to which modern haplotypes converge:

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 13 11 30 15 14 20 12 16 11 23 (ethnic Russians R1a)

Only two alleles (as these numbers are called) in fossil haplotypes differ from ethnic Russian haplotypes, and they are highlighted in bold. In other words, these Proto-German haplotypes are slightly different from the Proto-East Slavic ones, which, in general, is not surprising. Moreover, this fossil haplotype belonged to one specific family, in which mutations are always possible in haplotypes. But it is clear that these haplotypes - the fossil in Germany and the East Slavic - belong to fairly close relatives. Two mutations between the haplotypes mean that the common ancestor of the "proto-Slavic" and "proto-German" haplotypes lived about 575 years before them, that is, about 5000 years ago. This is determined quite simply - the mutation rate constant for the given haplotypes is 0.044 mutations per haplotype per conditional generation of 25 years. Therefore, we get that their common ancestor lived 2/2/0.044 = 23 generations, that is, 23x25 = 575 years before them. This places their common ancestor at (4600+4800+575)/2 = 5000 years ago, which agrees (within the calculation error) with the “age” of the common ancestor of the genus R1a on the Russian Plain, determined independently.

We look above at the haplotype from Germany and at the haplotypes of the Eastern Slavs, for comparison with the haplotypes of the Scythians from the Minusinsk Basin.

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 14 11 32 15 14 20 12 16 11 23 (Scythians, R1a)

The difference between the haplotype of the Scythians and the haplotype of the common ancestor of the Slavs is only in a pair of 14-32 for fossil haplotypes (noted) and 13-30 for the ancestors of the Russian Slavs. In fact, there are two mutations between them, since according to the rules, the detailed reasons for which I will not explain here, these are pairs 14-18 and 13-17. The numbers 32 and 30 are the sums of the first two, as it is customary to represent data in these markers. In other words, the Eastern Slavs and the Scythians of the Minusinsk Basin are not only one genus, R1a, but also a direct and fairly close relationship at the level of haplotypes. That is, as explained above, two mutations (575 years of difference between common ancestors) mean that the common ancestor of the Slavs and Scythians lived just a few hundred years before the events in question. Over these several hundred years, these two mutations slipped through the haplotype of a common ancestor. Calculations show that the common ancestor of the Slavs on the Russian Plain (4800 years ago) and the fossil Scythians (3800-3400 years ago) lived (4800 + 3800 + 575) / 2 = 4600-4400 years ago, that is, just at the time of the beginning of the Aryan migrations from the Russian Plain.

Further the situation unfolds even more interestingly. This pair of alleles, 14-32, is found in the direct descendants of the Aryans in India. Here, for example, is the haplotype (on the first 12 markers) of the Indian Brahmin of the haplogroup, of course, R1a. "Naturally" - because the haplogroup R1a reaches 72% in the Indian upper castes (Sharma et al, 2009).

13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 (India, Brahmin)

Alleles that were not determined in the fossil haplotypes of the Scythians are highlighted here. The fact is that the Scythian fossil haplotypes were determined by a simplified forensic method, in which only 17 markers are determined. The standard simplified method of the company, in which the haplotype of the Indian Brahmin was determined - 12 markers, but with the addition of two isolated alleles. The ancestral haplotype of the Slavs of the haplogroup R1a was determined by the full procedure, using 111 markers:

13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 13 11 30 – 15 9 10 11 11 24 14 20 32 12 15 15 16 – 11 12 19 23 16 16 18 19 35 38 14 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 12 12 11 13 11 11 12 13 – 32 15 9 15 12 26 27 19 12 12 12 12 10 9 12 11 10 11 11 30 12 13 24 13 9 10 19 15 20 11 23 15 12 15 24 12 23 19 10 15 17 9 11 11

As you can see, on the first 12 markers, the Indian Brahmin really differs from the Eastern Slavs only in a pair of 13-30 → 14-32

It turned out that this pair, 14-32, is characteristic of many haplotypes of the subclade R1a-L342.2-L657, that is, a later subclade in the dynamics of mutations of the southeastern branch of the haplogroup R1a. This pair is typical for the Aryans of India, Iran, the Middle East (UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia), that is, where the Aryans reached; the estimated dates of common ancestors are the same 3500-4000 years. Below are examples of modern haplotypes of their direct descendants:

13 25 15 11 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 - India
13 25 15 10 11 14 12 13 10 14 11 32 - Iran
13 25 16 11 11 13 12 12 11 14 11 32 - UAE

13 25 15 10 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 - Arab (country not specified)
13 25 15 11 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 - Bahrain
13 24 15 10 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 - Saudi Arabia

13 25 16 11 11 14 X X 10 14 11 32 - Fossil haplotype of the Scythians, 3800-3400 years old

And among the Kyrgyz, this haplotype is ancestral for the entire Kyrgyz population of the haplogroup R1a-L342.2:

13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 14 11 32 – 15 9 11 11 11 23 14 21 31 12 15 15 16

with a common ancestor who lived 2100±250 years ago. "Classic" times of the Scythians, the end of the last era. It turns out that the Kyrgyz of the haplogroup R1a (of which they have a lot) are direct descendants of the ancient Scythians.

So we come to the conclusion that in relation to the origin of clans and tribes, haplogroups and subclades in DNA genealogy, the concepts of Aryans, Scythians, Eastern Slavs in a number of contexts are interconnected and interchangeable. We simply attribute them to different time periods, and sometimes to different territories. This is exactly we we attribute, to simplify consideration, but rather, on the basis of established traditions of historical science. It is clear that the Kirghiz are not Slavs, just as they are not Slavs and Arabs. But they are all descendants of common Aryan ancestors. These are the branches of the same tree. We will return to this issue at the end of the article. Therefore, the answer to the question - are the Slavs the descendants of the Scythians? - will be like this. In some cases - yes, they are direct descendants; in many cases, Slavs and Scythians are descendants of the same common ancestors, Aryans, carriers of the haplogroup R1a.

But is it known from archaeological data that there were Mongoloids among the Scythians? Known. However, if haplogroups were determined for those Mongoloids, then with a good probability they would also have the haplogroup R1a. How can this be? And here is a new round of information about the Altai Aryans-Scythians. We turn to the Pazyryk archaeological culture and modern inhabitants of Altai with the haplogroup R1a.

Reasons for the Mongoloidity of the Eastern Scythians. The Pazyryk culture is an archaeological culture of the Iron Age (III-V centuries BC, although some omit the date to the 6th century BC), which is attributed to the "Eastern Scythian circle". The region is the Altai Mountains and adjacent territories of Altai, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. The main occupation is nomadic cattle breeding. It is suggested that the Pazyryk culture is a derivative of the Afanasiev culture.

Recently, haplotypes and haplogroups (male and female) of modern inhabitants of this region have been studied (Dulik et al, 2012), and mitochondrial haplogroups (female in fact, since men receive them from their mothers, but do not pass them on further, there are no mitochondria in spermatozoa) of fossil bone remains Pazyryk culture (Gonzalez-Ruiz et al, 2012). It turned out that most of the male haplogroups in the region belong to the R1a haplogroup, with the largest number of them in the Altai-Kizhi people. R1a also contained Tubalars, Chelkans, Kumandins. Haplogroup Q was in second place in terms of numbers, then C, then N, the rest were minor, single haplogroups, including R1b, which, as a rule, were random and could get there at any time.

However, the carriers of the haplogroup R1a in Altai had a characteristic feature. If on the Russian Plain and in Central Europe they predominantly have the mitochondrial haplogroup (mtDNA) H, like their wives and girlfriends, the so-called “European” or “Western” mtDNA, then in Altai, R1a has mainly eastern, “ East Eurasian, Asian mtDNA - A, C, D and G, they are in the carriers of the haplogroup R1a up to half and two thirds, the rest are minor, single. They have almost no Caucasoid mtDNA.

Carriers of mtDNA A, C, D and G are usually Mongoloid women and their sons and daughters, again Mongoloid. This is the clue why the Altai carriers of the haplogroup R1a, the descendants of the Aryan-Scythians, as a rule, are Mongoloid themselves. Anthropology is largely defined by women. In addition, among the Altai R1a, the same Mongoloid women, apparently, changed the language of the entire population to Turkic.

An analysis of Altaian haplotypes from the point of view of DNA genealogy was carried out in the article (Klyosov, 2012). The haplotype tree has an unusual appearance:


Tree of 75 haplotypes of haplogroup R1a in Altai in 17-marker format. The upper left branch is Tubalars (57, 68, 70, 71, 74), Chelkans (60, 61, 62) and Altai-Kizhi (57). The lower right branch is a similar composition: tubalars (66, 67, 69, 73, 75) and one chelkan (63). The lower left branch is mixed: Kumandins (64, 65), Tubalar (72), Altai-Kizhi (8, 51, 59). The remaining haplotypes are Altai-Kizhi.

The species is unusual because the haplogroup is one, that is, the genus is one, and the branches diverge in different directions, being noticeably isolated from each other. This means that this population had a difficult fate. Tribes perished, the few who survived fled, starting their genealogical lines almost from scratch. This was repeated, and again they were saved, fled, and again began their lines. That is, the effect of "the last of the Mohicans" was repeated. As a result, all branches on the haplotype tree are relatively young; this is a set of relatively young “bushes” transplanted from old cuttings that have died. But the original common ancestor lived in distant antiquity, this is indicated by large-scale discrepancies between the branches.

For comparison, the haplotype tree of the R1a group on the Russian Plain looks incomparably more prosperous:

Tree of 257 haplotypes of haplogroup R1a on the Russian Plain (in 12 regions of the Russian Federation). The sharply distinguished haplotypes Ar32 and Ar38 were erroneously included in the list of the author of the work (and on the tree I built), they belong to other haplogroups. I did not take them off to show how sensitive the tree is to "strangers" (Klyosov, 2009).

The haplotype tree of the Russian Plain looks even more favorable for a large number (801) of extended haplotypes (67 markers):

A tree from 801 haplotypes of haplogroup R1a on the Russian Plain - in 67-marker format. From an article (Rozhanskii and Klyosov, 2012).

Let's take a closer look at modern Altai haplotypes. The upper left branch in Fig. 3 of the eight haplotypes (Tubalars and Chelkans) have the following ancestral haplotype:

13 24 16 9 12 14 10 14 11 32 14 14 20 12 17 11 23 (Altai haplotypes, branch)

There are only 10 mutations in the branch for 8 haplotypes, that is, for 8x17 = 136 markers, which gives 10/8/0.034 = 37 → 38 conditional generations, that is, 950 ± 315 years to a common ancestor (arrow - correction for backmutations, 0.034 - mutation rate constant for 17-marker haplotypes). In other words, the common ancestor of this branch lived around the 11th century AD, plus or minus three centuries. It is clear that he is removed from the Scythians in time, but the haplotype shows that the modern Altaians are direct descendants of the Scythians. Haplotype type is the same, the same pair 14-32.

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 14 11 32 15 14 20 12 16 11 23 (fossil Scythians, R1a)

At the foot of the described branch, there is a mini-branch of four haplotypes of the Altai-Kizhi population, three of which are identical, and the fourth (56) differs by only one mutation:

13 26 16 10 11 14 10 14 11 32 15 14 21 12 16 11 23 (№ 27, 28, 29)
13 25 16 10 11 14 10 14 11 32 15 14 21 12 16 11 23 (№ 56)

We see that they have the same characteristic "signature" - a pair of 14-32. Moreover, they have only three and two mutations, respectively, from the fossil Scythian haplotype, that is, there is almost no difference.

One mutation between the above haplotypes places their mini-branch at 1/0.034 = 29 → 30 generations, i.e. approximately 750 years ago. But between this mini-branch (Altai-Kizhi) and the branch of Tubalars and Chelkans there are 6.5 mutations, or 5900 years between their common ancestors. It places them common ancestor at (5900+950+750)/2 = 3800 years ago. This is just the dating of the fossil haplotypes of the Scythians.

In other words, from the DNA line going from 3800 years ago (which, in turn, also clearly passed the bottleneck of the population), there were two sub-branches with an age of 950 and 750 years ago. But the distance between them betrays that they are far apart from them a common ancestor, and how far they diverged from each other can be easily calculated. This distance between the common ancestors of the two Altai branches is the 5900 years indicated above.

Haplotypes, similar to the ancient Scythian ones, also have other branches of the haplotype tree in Fig. 1. For example, a small branch on the left of seven haplotypes (in which there are only three mutations):

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 14 11 32 – 15 14 21 10 16 11 23 (325 years before common ancestor)

Quite an ancient branch of 6 haplotypes (for 7 hours):

13 25 15 10 11 14/15 10 13 11 30/31 – 15 14 20 12 16 11 23 (3800 years before common ancestor)

This may well be subclade L342.2, whose base haplotype in the west of the Russian Plain is as follows:

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 13 11 30 – 15 14 20 12 16 11 23

A young branch of 10 haplotypes at the bottom of the tree with only 4 mutations:

13 25 16 11 11 14 10 14 11 32 – 15 14 21 12 17 11 23 (300 years before common ancestor)

A branch of seven haplotypes at the top right of the tree with only 5 mutations, giving 5/7/0.034 = 21 generations, or approximately 525 years to a common ancestor:

13 26 16 10 11 17 11 14 11 32 – 15 14 19 11 15 11 23

A sub-branch of 9 haplotypes for 3 hours (in which there are only 7 mutations, that is, the common ancestor lived 7/9/0.034 = 23 generations, that is, 575 years ago), with a base haplotype:

13 26 16 11 11 17 11 14 11 31 – 15 14 19 11 15 11 23

It can be seen that this is a related branch of the previous one. They have the same values ​​for most alleles, and they differ in only two mutations, that is, their common ancestors diverge by 2 / 0.034 = 59 → 63 generations, that is, by 1575 years. Them common ancestor lived (1575+525+575)/2 = 1340 years ago. It is clear that this double branch is young (in relation to its common ancestor). It can be seen how the branches are fragmented, how they crumble into quite recently surviving and giving recent descendants.

The main conclusion is that these modern Altai haplotypes, or rather, their carriers, are the descendants of the ancient Scythians, they are also ancient Aryans, with an ancestor on the Russian Plain.

Excavations of the Pazyryk culture have revealed three mtDNA dating from the Bronze Age and sixteen mtDNA from the Iron Age. Unfortunately, Y-chromosomal DNA has not been studied, but we already know that they would most likely give rise to the R1a haplogroup. But the information received was important. Of all 19 fossil mtDNA haplogroups, 11 turned out to be Asian (A, C, D, and G), and 8 were Western, more precisely, Western Eurasian (HV, J, U, T, K). All three haplogroups of the Bronze Age turned out to be Asian. The Iron Age haplogroups produced a mixture of European and Asian haplogroups. In any case, this shows that the Scythians were both Caucasoid and Mongoloid, and the Scythian Aryans who came to the Altai region in the Bronze Age, that is, the earliest, took local Mongoloid women as wives, and their descendants, retaining the R1a haplogroup, were already Mongoloid. This again explains the Mongoloid nature of some (or many) Scythians who roamed the steppes of Eurasia. But many Scythians obviously migrated to the east with their European wives and girlfriends, which gave “Western” mtDNA in their descendants, including in the Altai in antiquity. So the variety of anthropology of the Scythian nomads turned out, from Caucasoid to Mongoloid, in the presence of the main haplogroup R1a.

The rest of the known information about the Scythians, as well as the myths and legends of the Scythians and about the Scythians, are presented in a variety of sources, from ancient to modern, therefore we will not dwell on them. We already know that in relation to the origin of clans and tribes, haplogroups and subclades in DNA genealogy, the concepts of Aryans, Scythians, Eastern Slavs are interconnected and interchangeable, we simply attribute them to different time periods. And again, this we we attribute, to simplify consideration or on the basis of established traditions of historical science. Let's say, when considering the American Indians, there is no such stratification, they are "native Americans" at least 16 thousand years ago, at least now. And the ancient Scandinavians do not, they are Scandinavians then and Scandinavians now. And the ancient Germans do not, they are Germans in antiquity, and the Germans (Germans) now. And among the population of the Russian Plain, the ancestors of the current Slavs, history was torn apart by different names, and there are ongoing disputes over them. For some reason, criteria are dictated by linguistics, although it is well known that when going back to antiquity, linguistic criteria shift, break down, because languages ​​progressively change towards antiquity, and then generally disappear like sand, only separate fragments are reconstructed, and even then quite arbitrarily. Well, how can one use the criteria of linguistics when the antiquity of clans and tribes is more than 4 thousand years ago, not to mention 6 thousand years or more? This is how the Aryans turned into some faceless "Indo-Europeans", whose languages ​​are now spread all over the world, and in most cases they have nothing to do with the ancient Aryans.

In fact, the ancient Aryans on the Russian Plain were Slavs, judging by the pantheon of (pagan) gods that echo from Eastern Europe through the Russian Plain to Hindustan, as well as legends and myths. Their toponyms and hydronyms were ancient Slavic simply by definition. And there is no need to compare their sounds with modern Slavic ones, the language has changed since then, and it should not be the basis for the classification of ancient tribes and peoples. But the characteristic “signatures” in their DNA have not changed, and have been inherited without fundamental changes over the course of many millennia and tens of thousands of years, only branched naturally, leaving the overall picture accessible for simple reconstruction. Languages ​​here are a secondary feature, not the main one, they are changeable and fundamentally subject to arbitrary interpretations and interpretations of linguists. Which, by the way, cannot agree among themselves in the vast majority of cases.

And if, in all fairness, we consider languages ​​in this context as secondary factors, then the picture emerges quite clearly: the Aryans, Scythians and Eastern Slavs are the same people, in their natural chronological dynamics. Most of them belonged and belong to the same genus - R1a.

Now the question is - how much "majority"? I guess the exact number doesn't matter here. It is clear that there were other haplogroups in their composition, but they did not dominate. In any case, there is no such data, there will be - we will consider it. The haplogroup R1b had its own glorious history, but they were not among the Aryans who arrived in India. In any case, there are very few of them in modern India, almost none in the higher castes, and among the 367 Brahmins tested for haplogroups, not a single case of the R1b haplogroup was found (Sharma et al, 2009). We cannot rule out the presence of a certain number of Erbins, carriers of the R1b haplogroup, among the Scythians, but what will this give? Well, let's say there were ... What's next? And among modern ethnic Russian carriers of the haplogroup R1b, about 5%. For comparison, haplogroups R1a among ethnic Russians - up to two thirds in the southern regions - Kursk, Belgorod, Oryol. On average, in all European regions of the Russian Federation, including the northern (largely Finno-Ugric) - half of the R1a of the total population.

Among the Aryans and Scythians, there were no carriers of the haplogroup N. Those had a different history, also glorious, simply by definition. They left South Siberia to the north about 8 thousand years ago, then turned to the west, and through the Urals, becoming Ugrians according to the definitions of linguists, they diverged into several branches. One branch through the Volga region went to central Europe, became the Hungarians, although there are very few of them left in Hungary now, a few percent. Perhaps it was the same in ancient times. The other went to the Baltic, diverged into the Finnish (N1c1-Z1935), Baltic (N1c1-L1022) and South Baltic (N1c1-L550) branches. None of them has anything to do with the Aryans or Scythians, although many Slavs (according to the definitions of linguists) of the N1c1 haplogroup came out of the last two. Nowadays, there are about 14% of them among ethnic Russians, but it reaches half in the Russian North. In the south of Russia - a few percent of the southern Balts and Finno-Ugric peoples (by origin).

The same applies to the carriers of haplogroup I (I1 and I2), they were not among the Aryans or Scythians. Almost all of them were destroyed in Central Europe in the 3rd millennium BC. (between 4800 and 4000 years ago), during the settlement of the European continent by erbins. The remnants of carriers of haplogroup I fled to the British Isles and the Carpathians, and began to revive only 3600 years ago (I1) and 2300 years ago (I2). It was already too late for the Aryan migrations, so the carriers of haplogroup I did not get to India or Iran, just as they did not get to the Middle East (there are a few, but relatively recent). They remained within Europe, mainly in the Atlantic part of it (I1 and I2), in Scandinavia (I1), and in the Balkans (I2). Therefore, they were not part of the Scythians, especially since the beginning of the revival of the I2 haplogroup in the Carpathians is already the end of the past era, the times of the decline of the Scythians in the form in which they are represented by academic history.

In principle, haplogroup Q could be represented as part of the Scythians, since the Siberian and Mongolian peoples have it (although the latter have haplogroup Q only 6%). The only reason for this, apart from the argument “by general terms”, is the presence of a relatively small amount of haplogroup Q in modern Europe, and even then at a low level: 2% in Hungary, 2% in Romania, 1% in France. Although these may all be descendants of the Ugric peoples who came to Hungary already in our era and dispersed throughout Europe. Based on the rather large influx of Scythians into Europe, it can be concluded that haplogroup Q was represented very little among them. In general, it turns out that the Scythians were mainly Aryans, carriers of the haplogroup R1a. And the fact that they were different in anthropology, from Caucasoid to Mongoloid, we have already explained on the basis of DNA genealogy data.

Another consideration following from the above. All known divisions of the Scythians into "royal Scythians", "Scythian plowmen", "Scythian warriors", "Scythian nomads", "Scythian farmers", "Borisfenites" (Herodotus) and others are superficial. According to similar "signs", we can divide today's Russians into "plowmen", "warriors", "engineers", "professors", "medical workers" and others, but does this division refer to the origin of the Russian people? Although it is possible and necessary to divide and study, and social services are engaged in this, one must understand for what purposes, why it is worth doing, and what mysteries of history - in the case of the Scythians - this will answer.

Literature

Klyosov, A.A. (2009) Eastern Slavic haplotypes: nine tribes? Bulletin of the Russian Academy of DNA Genealogy, vol. 2, no. 2, 232-251.

Klyosov, A.A. (2012) Haplotypes of the R1a group in Altai: "autochthonous" and "Indo-Europeans". Bulletin of the Academy of DNA Genealogy, vol. 5, no. 12, 1511-1525.

Dulik, M.C., Zhadanov, S.I., Osipova, L.P., Askapuli, A., Gau, L., Gokcumen, O., Rubinstein, S., Schurr, T.G. (2012) Mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome variation provides evidence for a recent common ancestry between Native Americans and indigenous Altaians. amer. J. Human Genetics, 90, 1-18. DOI 10.1016/ajhg.2011.12.014.

Gonzalez-Ruiz, M., Santos, C., Jordana, X., Simon, M., Lalueza-Fox, C., Gigli, E., Aluja, M., Malgosa, A. (2012) Tracing the origin of the East-West population admixture in the Altai region (Central Asia). PLOS One, 7, 1-11. e48904.

Gray, R.D. and Atkinson, Q.D. (2003) Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature, 426, 435-439.

Haak, W., Brandt, G., de Jong, H.N., Meyer, C., Ganslmeier, R., Heyd, V., Hawkesworth, C., Pike, A.W.G., Meller, H., Alt, K.W. (2008) Ancient DNA Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyzes shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age. Proc. Natl. Acad. sci. U.S. 105, 18226-18231.

Keyser, C., Bouakaze, C., Crubezy, E., Nikolaev, V.G., Montagnon, D., Reis, T., Ludes, B. (2009) Ancient DNA provides new insight into the history of south Siberian Kurgan people. Human Genetics 126, 395-410.

Klyosov, A.A., Rozhanskii, I.L. (2012) Haplogroup R1a as the Proto Indo-Europeans and the legendary Aryans as witnessed by the DNA of their current descendants. Adv. Anthropol. 2, no. 1, 1-13.

Klyosov, A.A., Rozhanskii, I.L. (2012) Haplogroup R1a as the Proto Indo-Europeans and the legendary Aryans as witnessed by the DNA of their current descendants. Adv. Anthropol. 2, no. 2:1-13.

Rozhanskii, I.L., Klyosov, A.A. (2012) Haplogroup R1a, its subclades and branches in Europe during the last 9000 years. Adv. Anthropol. 2, no. 3, 139-156.

Sharma, S., Rai, E., Sharma, P., Jena, M., Singh, S., Darvishi, K., Bhat, A.K. et al. (2009) The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochtonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system. J. Human Genet. 54, 47-55.