Eastern Iranian peoples
The Eastern Iranic and Balto-Slavic dialect continuums
in Eastern Europe, the latter with proposed material cultures correlating to speakers of Balto-Slavic in
the Bronze Age ( white ). Red dots = archaic Slavic hydronyms
Archaeological cultures c. 750 BC at the start of Eastern-
Central Europe's Iron Age; the Proto-Scythian culture borders the Balto-Slavic cultures
(Lusatian, Milograd and Chernoles) Silver coin of the Indo-
Scythian king Azes II (reigned c. 35–12 BC). Buddhist triratna symbol in the left field on the reverse
While the Iranian tribes of the south are better known through their texts and modern counterparts, the
tribes which remained largely in the vast Eurasian expanse are known through the references made to
them by the ancient Greeks, southern Iranians, Chinese, and Indo-Iranians as well as by archaeological
finds. The Greek chronicler, Herodotus (5th century BC) makes references to a nomadic people,
the Scythians; he describes them as having dwelt in what is today southern
European Russia and Ukraine. He was the first to make a reference to them. Many ancient Sanskrit texts
from a later period make references to such tribes they were witness of pointing them towards the
southeasternmost edges of Central Asia, around the Hindukush range in northern Pakistan.
It is believed that these Scythians were conquered by their eastern cousins, the Sarmatians, who are
mentioned by Strabo as the dominant tribe which controlled the southern Russian steppe in the 1st
millennium AD. These Sarmatians were also known to the Romans, who conquered the western tribes in