The Origins and Genetic History of the Scythians and the Late Bronze Age Srubnaya Culture
Channel: Celtic History Decoded
Date: 11/04/2023

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The Scythians were one of the great civilisations of the ancient world along with the Greeks and the Celts, but what is their origins and their genetic history?

The Scythians enter the historical record around the 9th century BC. Certain sources argue that they grow out of the Srubnaya culture, or Timber-grave culture, a Late Bronze Age 1850–1450 BC culture in the eastern part of Pontic–Caspian steppe. This culture is generally associated with ancient Iranian speakers. Their name comes from Russian, сруб (srub), meaning "timber framework", from the way their graves were constructed.

For a detailed breakdown on the Scythians in general, check my playlist on them that I’ll link above. 

An interesting genetic study that looked at the Scythians from 2021 took genome-wide data for 111 ancient individuals retrieved from 39 archaeological sites from the first millennia BCE and CE across the Central Asian Steppe. Just for reference on dates before we continue, the Bronze Age lasted from 3300 BC – 1200 BC, with the Middle Bronze Age starting around 2000 BC. 

The authors note that three competing hypotheses have often debated regarding the origins of the Scythians: a Pontic-Caspian origin, supported by their assumed Iranian languages, a Kazakh Steppe origin supported by the archaeological findings, and a multiple independent origin from genetically distinct groups that adopted common cultural traits. 

The study did not find support for a western Pontic-Caspian steppe origin. This makes sense as we know that the Scythians moved into the Pontic-Caspian steppe from Central Asia as opposed to originating there. 
The study found that the Kazakh Steppe origin hypothesis finds instead a better correspondence with our results, but rather than finding support for one of the two extreme hypotheses, i.e., single origin with population diffusion versus multiple independent origins with only cultural transmission, we found evidence for at least two independent origins as well as population diffusion and admixture (Fig. 4B). 

In particular, the eastern groups are consistent with descending from a gene pool that formed as a result of a mixture between preceding local steppe Middle and Late BA sources (which could be associated with different cultures such as Sintashta, Srubnaya, and Andronovo that are genetically homogeneous) and a specific eastern Eurasian source that was already present during the Late Bronze Age in the neighboring northern Mongolia region (27). 

Sources:

Herodotus, the Histories (2008: Oxford University Press)  

Srubnaya culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srubnaya_culture 

Scythians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians 
 
Science Daily, Ancient genomes trace the origin and decline of the Scythians - Science News https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210326151352.htm 

Ancient genomic time transect from the Central Asian Steppe unravels the history of the Scythians, Science Advances https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe4414 

Pontic–Caspian steppe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic%E2%80%93Caspian_steppe 

Targitaos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targitaos 

Chapters:

0:00 Scythian Origins and Genetics
3:01 Altai Mountain Region and Ural Mountains 
5:47 The Legends of Scythian Origins 

#scythian #history #ancienthistory 

Scythia Scythia Documentary Scythian Origins Scythian Genetics Scythian History