The (Generalized) Scythian Cultural Continuum
Generally speaking, the Scythian cultures are considered to be related—part of a kind of cultural continuum—based on several commonly shared attributes from burials and extant artifacts:
- "Animal style" aesthetic
- Horse bridle, bit, and cheek-piece designs
- Similar weapons (e.g., akinakes short swords)
- Burials in kurgans (graves over which large mounds were constructed)
That said, it is also understood that the term "Scythians" does in fact (typically) encompass a wide range of cultures and sociopolitical affiliations despite these shared attributes.
The following categories are simplistic/reductive but they may be useful as a starting point for identifying what might interest you (or how you might think about different kinds of cultural interaction and exchange).
“Skuda”
The term “Skuda” and its many derivatives is one of the few potential endonyms that we have for Scythian cultures. “Skuda” (and “Skudra,” “Skythoi,” etc.) is generally understood to refer to archery (e.g., “the archers”) as a significant identifying cultural element of nomadic/semi-nomadic horse peoples.
Western: “Scythians”
Pontic/Black Sea area (modern-day Ukraine)
Herodotus’ Histories book IV primarily deals with this group and their assorted tribal identities. Some notable political distinctions include:
- Borysthenites (Scythians living along the Borysthenes river) and the Olbiopolities (the Greeks & other settled people in and around the city of Olbia)
- Kallipedae and Alizones, Greco-Scythian farmers
- Fully nomadic Scythian tribes
Eastern: “Saka”
Modern-day Kazakhstan
The term “Saka” was used by the Achaemenid Persians to refer to the assorted horse archer cultures they encountered and occasionally subjugated.
Herodotus notes three distinct groups, which do not necessarily comprise all Sakas:
- Saka hamavarga (the “haoma-drinking” Saka)
- Saka tigraxauda (the Saka with “pointed caps”)
- Saka paradraya (the Saka “beyond the sea,” meaning the Pontic-region Scythians)
Altai/Pazyryk
The Pazyryk valley in the Altai mountain region around where modern-day Russia, Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan all meet
We don’t have written records of this culture, but we do have a lot of organic items from their burials—something typically not found in burials elsewhere (made possible in the Altai thanks to the permafrost and ice entering the burials to freeze everything solid and preserve it).
Indo-Scythians
Gandhara and Taxila (parts of modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan)
The primary extant materials are coins of regional rulers from the 1st c. BCE to the 1st c. CE.
