314 Gocha R. Tsetskhladze
From north of the Danube in an arc to the northern Caucasus, the Black Sea coastal
region, including the Crimea, was the preserve of Scythian tribes, Iranian language speak-
ers, who settled in the rich plains and valleys of the Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, and Don,
and much of the southern Ukraine as far inland as Kiev, having migrated from southern
Siberia at the start of the seventh centuryBCinto the North Pontic steppelands, evicting
the Cimmerians, hitherto dominant hereabouts. Our main written source is Book 4 of
Herodotus, and the author himself says that “Scythian” was a name created by the Greeks
to describe different, ethnically related tribes and groups, such as the Alazones, Callip-
pidae, Geloni, and Budini. They were sometimes antagonistic to each other, but at no
time was there a monolithic Scythia or Scythian culture (Hdt. 4.6, 16–31, 46–47). The
“Royal Scythians” were the most numerous of these tribes, regarding the others as their
slaves, and enjoyed the closest relations with the Greeks of the northern Pontus (Hdt.
4.20). In the mid-seventh centuryBC, the Scythians migrated to Asia Minor/Anatolia
via the Caucasus, as had the expelled Cimmerians before them, overthrowing the Medes,
Assyria, and Urartu (Hdt. 1.104), before returning via a similar route at the end of that
century or the beginning of the next.
Misconceptions about the Scythians and their culture(s) abound (Tsetskhladze 2008a,
2011). In reality, there were two Scythias, that of the Archaic period and the one of the
Classical and beyond. The first was nomadic and, as evidence demonstrates, based mainly
on the steppes of the northern Caucasus and of the Kuban region. The Scythia of the
northern Black Sea steppes existed only from the Classical period, especially from the
second half of the fifth centuryBCwhen, as with many other Eurasian nomads before
and since, the Scythians settled down, at least becoming semi-sedentary. This, especially
the fourth centuryBC, is precisely the time when close links were forged with the Greek
colonies of the northern Black Sea coast. For Archaic Scythia, our sources are tombs,
especially rich ones, from the North Caucasian and Kuban steppes; for Classical Scythia,
we have both tombs and an increasing body of evidence emerging from Scythian settle-
ments. In general, we know less about their settlements than their tombs: about 3,000
of the latter have been excavated, many well known on account of their luxurious grave
goods and being described as “royal” or “elite” tombs. Herodotus gives a clear descrip-
tion of the burial rites of the “Royal Scythians” (4.71–72), but he records, without
going into detail, that other Scythians had different burial practices (Ivantchik 2011;
Rolle 2011).
Very often, settlements of the eighth–sixth centuriesBCon the Ukrainian steppes have
been mislabeled “Scythian.” In fact, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the Scythi-
ans. Excavation is providing ever more evidence linking them to a people of Eastern
Halstatt origin (Kashuba and Levitskii 2012; Vakhtina and Kashuba 2012). These tribal
political centers were substantial. Nemirov covered 110 ha; its ramparts were 8m in
height; and at its middle lay an acropolis of 12.5 ha. Motroninskoe spread over 200 ha,
a third of it enclosed within fortifications of earthen ramparts 10.5m high and a ditch or
moat 4–6m deep and 10–15m across; outside the fortifications, there are three ceme-
teries containing 60 tumuli. Trakhtemirov, 500 ha, was defended by earthen ramparts,
ditches, and a wooden fortification structure. The largest, Belsk, occupied 4,020 ha; it
had a defensive perimeter of 25km and an estimated population of 4,000–5,000. The
ramparts were 9m high and the ditches over 5m deep. It was once thought that there was
a strong Scythian presence in the Dobruja and its Transdanubian hinterland. Not many