Scythian-era populations in ancient Ukraine were less mobile than previously thought and were engaged in agro-pastoralism focused primarily on millet agriculture, according to new research led by University of Michigan scientists.
Gold Scythian pectoral from a royal kurgan in Towsta Mohila, Pokrov, dated to the 2nd half of the 4th century BCE. The central lower tier shows three horses, each being torn apart by two griffins. Image credit: D. Kolosov.
“Public and academic perceptions of the Scythian-era Eurasian steppe (700 to 200 BCE), from the northern Black Sea to the Altai Mountains, have frequently highlighted its domination by warrior nomads,” said lead author Dr. Alicia Ventresca Miller from the University of Michigan, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and Kiel University, and her colleagues.
“This stereotype is documented as far back as Herodotus, who describes Scythian populations living in wagons while also engaging in raiding and warfare.”
“Archaeologically, this view has been supported by material evidence for horse harnesses, weapons, monumental burial mounds, and a shared set of ‘animal style’ ornaments and belt plaques identified across the Eurasian steppe.”
“Yet, the adoption of this warrior nomad narrative by academics has resulted in diverse cultures and periods being lumped together as a homogeneous Scythian ‘culture’ or, even more controversially, as parts of a vast Scythian ‘Empire’ encompassing the whole of the Eurasian steppe.”
“In reality, there are clear indications of variability in the historical designations (e.g. Scythian, Sarmatian, and Saka) used for populations who engaged in horseback riding, had armaments, and are purported to have roamed the steppe in different periods of time and locales.”
“Descriptions of mobile populations and warrior nomads have overshadowed archaeological and textual evidence illustrating that the Pontic region was inhabited by farmers and pastoralists, as well as Scythian warriors and ‘Royal’ Scythians,” they said.
“Moreover, archaeological evidence lends support for diverse subsistence and productive (iron, ceramic) economies, which some have linked to environmental variation, with agro-pastoralists occupying the forest-steppe and nomads the steppe proper.”
“However, there have been few direct studies of the diet and mobility of these populations living in the Pontic steppe and forest-steppe during the Scythian era.”
Environmental zones of Ukraine and surrounding regions identifying zones of woodland, forest-steppe, steppe, and mountainous zones with the relevant archaeological sites; red star is the location of Kyiv. Image credit: Ventresca Miller et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245996.
In the study, the researchers employed isotopic analyses to investigate patterns of diet and mobility in Scythian populations.
They measured isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and strontium in human teeth and bones from several Scythian-era sites in Ukraine.
Isotopes that reflect diet, indicate that in some places there was a varied diet including numerous domesticated crops, such as millet, while isotopes that reflect geologic surroundings indicate that most people did not travel long distances during their lifetimes.
These results support the growing understanding that Scythian populations were not a homogenous culture, but a more diverse group which, in some places, lived more sedentary lives with a dependence on agriculture.
“Our multi-isotopic study challenges romantic notions of wide-ranging Scythian nomads,” the scientists said.
“We show that while some individuals from classic Scythian contexts traveled long distances, the majority remained local to their settlements, farming millet and raising livestock in mixed economic systems.”
The research is described in a paper in the journal PLoS ONE.
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A.R. Ventresca Miller et al. 2021. Re-evaluating Scythian lifeways: Isotopic analysis of diet and mobility in Iron Age Ukraine. PLoS ONE 16 (3): e0245996; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245996
