Scythians and Persians
Saka horseman, Pazyryk, from a carpet, c. 300 BCFrom the late 2nd millennium BC to early 1st millennium BC the Iranians had expanded
from the Eurasian Steppe, and Iranian peoples such
as Medes, Persians, Parthians and Bactrians populated the Iranian Plateau.[57][58]
Scythian tribes, along with Cimmerians, Sarmatians and Alans populated
the steppes north of the Black Sea. The Scythian and Sarmatian tribes were spread
across Great Hungarian Plain, South-Eastern
Ukraine, Russias Siberian, Southern, Volga,[59] Uralic regions and
the Balkans,[60][61][62] while other Scythian tribes, such as the Saka, spread as far east
as Xinjiang, China.
Western and Eastern Iranians
The division into an "Eastern" and a "Western" group by the early 1st millennium is
visible in Avestan vs. Old Persian, the two oldest known Iranian languages. The Old
Avestan texts known as the Gathas are believed to have been composed by Zoroaster,
the founder of Zoroastrianism, with the Yaz culture (c. 1500 BC – 1100 BC) as a candidate
for the development of Eastern Iranian culture.[citation needed]