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15-570: The Achaei were an ancient people of Scythia , mentioned by Strabo (11.2, together with the Zygoi , Heniochi , and Cercetae and Macropogones ) and by Pliny (4.26.2). Pliny mentions a Portus Achaeorum at the mouths of the Danube . The name has been interpreted to mean "river dwellers", from an Indo-European word for "water" (Latin aqua , Old High German aha ; Wissowa, Pauly's Real-Encyclopadie s. v. Achaei) This article related to an ethnic group

30-667: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Scythia The names Scythia and Scythica are themselves Latinisations of the Ancient Greek names Skuthia ( Σκυθια ) and Skuthikē ( Σκυθικη ), which were themselves derived from the ancient Greek names for the Scythians, Skuthēs ( Σκυθης ) and Skuthoi ( Σκυθοι ), derived from the Scythian endonym [Skuδa] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script ( help ) . The territory of

45-544: The Lower Volga region where it straddles the border of southern Russia and western Kazakhstan . Biogeographically, it is a part of the Palearctic realm , and of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome . The area corresponds to Cimmeria , Scythia , and Sarmatia of classical antiquity . Across several millennia, numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen used the steppe; many of them went on to conquer lands in

60-688: The Northern Caucasus of southern Russia , and into the Lower Volga region of western Kazakhstan , to the east of the Ural Mountains . The steppe is bounded by the East European forest steppe to the north, a transitional zone of mixed grasslands and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests . To the south, the steppe extends to the Black Sea, except the Crimean and western Caucasus mountains' border with

75-686: The Pontic steppe from the 7th century BC to the 3rd century BC, and the name "Scythia" is used to describe this region of the Pontic steppe inhabited by the Scythians. Pontic steppe The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia , formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to

90-519: The 5th century BC, which allowed the steppe nomads to move into the steppes proper. In these favourable climatic conditions grass grew abundantly on the treeless steppe and permitted the nomadic Scythians to rear large herds of cattle and horses. The country which the Greeks named Hylaea ( Ancient Greek : Υλαια , romanized :  Hulaia , lit.   'the Woodland';), consisting of

105-738: The Pontic–Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language . With the scientific advances in DNA genome mapping and the introduction of bioarchaeology , the Kurgan hypothesis is today widely considered to have been validated. The Pontic–Caspian steppe covers an area of 994,000 km (384,000 sq mi) of Central and Eastern Europe , that extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania , through Moldova , and southern and eastern Ukraine , through

120-456: The Scythian kingdom of the Pontic steppe extended from the Don river in the east to the Danube river in the west, and covered the territory of the treeless steppe immediately north of the Black Sea 's coastline, which was inhabited by nomadic pastoralists, as well as the fertile black-earth forest-steppe area to the north of the treeless steppe, which was inhabited by an agricultural population, and

135-658: The Scythians. The Scythian migration pushed the Agathyrsi westwards, away from the steppes and from their original home around Lake Maeotis , and into the Carpathian region. Beginning in the late 4th century BC, another related nomadic Iranian people, the Sarmatians, moved from the east into the Pontic steppe, where they replaced the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic steppe by the Sarmatians, due to which " Sarmatia Europea " (European Sarmatia) replaced " Scythia " as

150-565: The name for the region. During the Hellenistic period , the use of "Scythia" by Greek and Latin speakers was extended to also cover the southern Russian steppe in general, as well as the entire treeless steppe bounded by the Danubian plains in the west and the Chinese marches in the east. In contemporary modern scholarship, "Scythian" generally refers to the nomadic Iranian people who dominated

165-740: The northern area around the Caspian Sea , where it ends at the Ural-Caspian narrowing, which joins it with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia, making it a part of the larger Eurasian Steppe . Geopolitically, the Pontic-Caspian Steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania through Moldova and eastern Ukraine , through the North Caucasus of southern Russia , and into

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180-438: The northern border of this Scythian kingdom were the dedicuous woodlands, while several rivers, including Don and Dnipro , flowed southwards across this region and emptied themselves into the Black Sea. Between the 9th and 5th centuries BC, the climate in the steppes was cool and dry, which was a catalyst for the emergence of equestrian nomadic pastoralism in the northern Pontic region. The climate became warmer and wetter during

195-519: The region of the lower Dnipro river along the territory of what is modern-day Kherson and the valleys further north along the river, was covered with forests. Conditions in the southern lands near the shores of the Black Sea were propitious for agriculture. Before the arrival of the Scythians, this region of the Pontic Steppe was dominated by the Agathyrsi , who were nomadic Iranian people related to

210-580: The sea, where the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex defines the southern edge of the steppes. The steppe extends to the western shore of the Caspian Sea in the Dagestan region of Russia, but the drier Caspian lowland desert lies between the steppe and the northwestern and northern shores of the Caspian. The Kazakh Steppe bounds the steppe to the east. The Ponto-Caspian seas are the remains of

225-569: The settled regions of Central and Eastern Europe , West Asia , and South Asia . The term Ponto-Caspian region is used in biogeography with reference to the flora and fauna of these steppes, including animals from the Black, Caspian, and Azov Seas . Genetic research has identified this region as the most probable place where horses were first domesticated . The Kurgan hypothesis , the most prevalent theory in Indo-European studies , speculates that

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