It is quite obvious that the CIMMERIANS ARE THE CARRIERS OF THE CUT CULTURE OF THE SOUTH RUSSIAN STEPPES of the Late Bronze Age (1600–1000 BC). But the data of the exact sciences turn out to be very inconvenient for those who want to present the history of the Eurasian steppes as a meaningless kaleidoscope: one people who came from nowhere completely exterminates or displaces another, who also came from nowhere, and everything is repeated over and over again. Say, the wild "nomads of the steppes" could not have a coherent, civilized history: they suddenly appeared and just as suddenly disappeared, leaving no traces …
After archaeological, anthropological and linguistic research revealed that the ancient civilization of the southern Russian steppes had a high level of development and became the "progenitor" of many civilizations and peoples of the Old World, the question of linking the ancient "prehistory" to the earliest written sources that have come down to us acquired special poignancy. Everything rests on the origin of the Cimmerians, the first of the peoples of the southern Russian steppes, mentioned in written records; the solution of this problem makes it possible to establish what relation Scythia of the Iron Age has to the ancient "Aryans".
How important this issue is for the history of Russia and world history is not worth explaining. And is it any wonder that as soon as the true role of the South Russian cultures of the Bronze Age in the genesis of Indo-European civilizations began to be clarified, “pseudo-scientific” speculations around the “Cimmerian problem” immediately appeared. Some of these speculations are worth dwelling on, since they, in the interests of certain forces, are carefully supported and cultivated to this day.
First of all, in order to "tear" the Cimmerians from the ancient Aryans, on the border of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (that is, at the turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC) they try to create - at least on paper - a kind of "gap". That is: there were some "Aryans" in the Eurasian steppes, and then they all disappeared somewhere. The Cimmerians, mentioned by ancient sources, are not the heirs of the Srubnaya culture, but a kind of "new" people who penetrated into the steppes of southern Russia only at the beginning of the Iron Age (about 1000 BC). Where did it come from?
The most common version is that the Cimmerians were … Thracians. However, the real Thracians of the early Iron Age - the inhabitants of the Danube basin and the Northern Balkans - are sedentary farmers who did not show love for crossing the steppe spaces, while the sources (and archeological data) speak of the Black Sea Cimmerians as typical "horsemen", herders.
There is no archaeological evidence of the advancement of peoples from the Northern Balkans to the Black Sea region at the turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. e. not. On the contrary, there is evidence of significant migrations in the opposite direction, from the Cimmerian steppes to the Balkans … The only argument in favor of the “Thracian” trace is the names of some Crimean kings, which have analogues in the Northern Balkans. But who can guarantee that this is the result of influence from west to east, and not vice versa, or not at all the result of the common origin of the “nominal set”. Even from the small list of names given by Herodotus, it is clear that the name Spargapit was at the same time carried: the Thracian king from the banks of the Danube, the king of the Black Sea Scythians and the prince of the Central Asian "Scythians" - Massagets …
Speculations around the Cimmerians, attempts to ascribe to them a "foreign" origin fulfill the task set: to create a gap between the ancient Aryans of the Bronze Age and the population of the southern Russian steppes of the Iron Age. Exactly the same gap - and for the same purposes - is being artificially created between the Cimmerians and the Scythians who inhabited the steppes of southern Russia in the early Iron Age. Allegedly, two different and alien peoples met, one of them displaced the other, and … the story began anew.
However, if we turn to the true historical monuments, we can be sure that the Scythians have been known to the surrounding peoples since ancient times. The Scythians are already mentioned by the oldest Greek poet Hesiod (VIII century BC). The legends about Hercules describe how this famous hero of Greece (and the founder of many royal dynasties) received his bow from the hands of the Scythian Teutar, who taught him how to shoot, and in fact, according to tradition, Hercules' activity dates back to one or two generations before the Trojan war, that is, by the first half of the XIII century. Legends about the Scythians are included in the most archaic Greek myths, such as the myth of the invention of agriculture, onions, copper smelting technology, etc.
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In the era of Homer and Hesiod, that is, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., the Scythians (as well as the Cimmerians) were perceived by the "Greeks" * as a well-known, "familiar" people; they were written about, they were portrayed4. But this means that the place of residence of the Scythians could not be too far from Greece at that time.
"Father of history" Herodotus, describing the origin of the Scythians, offered two versions. One of them tells about the arrival of the Scythians from Asia and their defeat of the Cimmerian kingdom in the Black Sea region. The second, telling about the origin of the Scythians from a riding deity and "goddess of a geographical place", the daughter of the Borisfena (Dnieper) river, in fact, asserts the autochthonous nature of the Scythian people in the steppes of the Black Sea region. Which version is correct?
Oddly enough, both. As the data of archeology show, the Scythians were the closest neighbors and relatives of the Cimmerians, the descendants of the Eastern (Volga-Ural) group of the very same CUT CULTURE5. The movement of the Scythians in the Black Sea region, as evidenced by ancient historians, did not come at all from the "depths of Asia", but only from the banks of the Volga. It should be recalled that the Don River was recognized as the border of Europe and Asia in ancient times …
In addition, it should not be imagined that the Scythians, who came from the banks of the Volga and Don to the banks of the Dnieper, completely ousted the local Cimmerians. Both were related peoples: their archaeological cultures show great similarities, such that it is really difficult to distinguish one from the other. The traditions of the Late Bronze Age (that is, the Cimmerian time) were preserved in the Don and in the Iron Age (in the Scythian time), which also meant the preservation of the main composition of the population.
One of the most important indicators of the continuity of cultures is the burial ceremony. It is known that the Scythians buried their rulers in barrows. But mounds were built in the southern Russian steppes before, in the Bronze Age. It has been established that in the Scythian period in the Dnieper region, not only new burial mounds were erected, but also old ones that had survived from the Bronze Age were used for burial. This means that the Scythians considered these mounds to be their own.
The conclusion is inevitable: the majority of the population of Scythia of the Iron Age were all the same "Cimmerians", who only changed their name. It was not for nothing that Herodotus noticed that in general the people of the Scythians are very numerous, but there are few real Scythians (that is, those who came from Asia, because of the Don).
Since both the Scythians and the Cimmerians had a single origin from the people of the Srubnaya culture, the Herodotus legend about the "first kings" can be attributed to their common ancestors. It is important that the DATING BY HERODOTUS OF THE BEGINNING OF THE RULE OF THE FIRST Scythian Kings - 1000 years before the campaign of the Persian king Darius in the Black Sea region, that is, about 1500 BC. 9 - COMPLETELY COINCIDES WITH THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATING OF THE BEGINNING OF THE CUT CULTURE, formed in the South Ural and Volga-Don region in the 16th century. BC e. This once again confirms that the ancient historical tradition can be trusted.
Where did the first Scythian (and Cimmerian) kings begin to rule, who, according to legend, were called Ripoksai, Arpoksai and Koloksai? The Srubnaya culture, successive to the older Aryan cultures of the Bronze Age, developed in the steppe region of the Southern Urals - the lower Volga region - the lower Don in the 16th century. BC e. To the west of the Don, in the Middle Bronze Age, a cultural community arose that had slightly different traditions.
This community, which occupied the territory of modern Ukraine in the XVI-XIV centuries. BC e., received the name of the culture of multi-roll ceramics. How much it differed from the classical steppe cultures of the Bronze Age can be seen at least from the fact that its carriers almost did not use the burial rite of mounds. There is reason to believe that multi-roll ceramics spread to Ukraine from the west, from the Danube basin.
The Don in the Middle Bronze Age became the border of two ethnocultural communities - different and, apparently, hostile. At that time, a system of powerful defensive structures - stone fortresses - arose on the banks of the river. These were the first buildings of this kind in Eastern Europe, not inferior to their modern counterparts in the Balkans and the Middle East.
The South Russian steppe inhabitants "rolled back" to the east, to the Volga steppes, having lost almost all of Ukraine, which was occupied by the culture of multi-roll ceramics. On the Volga, in the 16th century. BC e. a new community was formed, the Srubnaya culture, which was actually the "Scythian-Cimmerian" kingdom.
This geopolitical "status quo" persisted for about 3 centuries. Finally, in the XIV century. BC e. the carriers of the Srubnaya culture broke through the line of fortifications on the Don. The fortresses were destroyed and never rebuilt. They were no longer needed, since now the steppes from the Volga and the Urals to the Dnieper and Dniester were united into one ethnopolitical system.
Obviously, the name Scythians (self-name, according to Greek sources: chipped off) originally referred to those inhabitants of the southern Russian steppes who remained to live in their "old" place, in the initial area of the Srubnaya culture formation - in the Volga-Ural and Don steppes, while " Cimmerians "were considered related inhabitants of the Black Sea steppes (the territory of modern Ukraine).
For some time, the "Scythian" - eastern and "Cimmerian" - western regions of the Srubnaya culture maintained ties with each other, but at the turn of the Iron Age - about 1000 BC. e. - their unity fell apart. The old "log" traditions were maintained for some time to the west of the Don, in the Black Sea region, while in the east, on the Don and Volga, a new community was formed. Apparently, it is precisely this moment in the development of the South Russian steppe civilization that is reflected in the earliest ancient sources, which reported the existence of two kingdoms - the Cimmerian and the Scythian proper, as well as a hostile clash between them.
The story about the fall of the Cimmerian kingdom under the onslaught of the Scythians, cited by ancient sources, finds archaeological confirmation. By the time around 800 BC. e. the death of settlements of the so-called Kobyakovskaya (late Ruben) culture in the lower Don; Obviously, these are the real traces of the Scythians crossing the Don, that is, their "invasion" from Asia to Europe.
Through hundreds of years of efforts by Russophobic historiography, false stereotypes were imposed, which still hinder a correct understanding of the ancient period of our country's history.
1. The Cimmerians are supposedly a "late" people that appeared only at the turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. e.
Reliable sources testify to the deep antiquity of the Cimmerian people (in the Bible, the Cimmerian is recognized as the eldest son of the ancestor of the Indo-Europeans, Iapetus), and archeological data allow us to trace the continuity of cultures in the southern Russian steppes, at least from the beginning of the Bronze Age. It is easy to see that with the help of this simple position they are trying to break the connection between the Cimmerians and the most ancient people of Southern Russia - the "protoary" …
2. Cimmerians - allegedly aliens in the southern Russian steppes (for example, they are attributed to the Balkan-Thracian * origin), "alien" in relation to the Scythians …
* Here, in our opinion, the author is in vain to disown the relationship between the Cimmerians-Scythians and the Balkan-Thracians. Both those and other closest relatives on the Aryan line - the Proto-Slavs. Both those and others were generated by the Rus-Aryans of the Northern Black Sea region and in the whole of the circumpontian zone. - Note. Yu. D. Petukhova.
In fact, the ancient historical tradition speaks of the kinship of these peoples (in the Bible, the Scythian is considered the son of a Cimmerian), and archeology testifies to the great closeness of their cultures.
3. The Scythians allegedly came to the Black Sea region not earlier than the 7th century. BC e. (almost about 600 BC).
This provision is necessary for the separation of the news of written sources about the Cimmerians and Scythians from the period of the Srubnaya culture (1600–1000 BC). But according to archeology, the Scythians crossed the Don around 800 BC. e. This means that the lands between the Volga and the Don, as well as the North Caucasus, were occupied by the Scythians even earlier - about 1000 BC. e. - when archeology fixes the end of the Srubnaya culture, the eastern group of which undoubtedly belonged to the ancestors of the Scythians, and the western one to the ancestors of the Cimmerians.
4. The Scythians allegedly completely ousted (or even exterminated) the Cimmerians, taking their place …
In fact, only the ruling elite was eliminated. The Cimmerian people did not go anywhere, but remained in their place, forming the basis of the population of Scythia …
Summarize. The Cimmerians are not at all a “new” people who came to the southern Russian steppes from nowhere in the early Iron Age, but on the contrary, the most ancient, “senior” in the Aryan family, successive with the Aryans of the Bronze Age (Yamnaya culture of the 3rd millennium BC.). From ancient Cimmeria there were constant migrations to Europe and Asia, new kingdoms and new peoples were formed (some of them continued to bear the name "Kimry"), but some of the inhabitants remained loyal to their ancestral home. This continued until the Cimmerian kingdom weakened (the end of the Srubnaya culture around 1000 BC). And then it was restored from the east, because of the Volga: the Scythians reached the Don, and after about 200 years (about 800 BC) they also occupied the western lands of the Black Sea region. Considering the reports of Herodotus and other sources about the beginning of statehood in the Northern Black Sea region a thousand years before the campaign of Darius 512 BC. e., and comparing with the data of archeology about the beginning of the Srubnaya culture (XVI century BC), we can identify the actual "Cimmerian time" in the steppes of southern Russia with the period of this culture, 1600–1000. BC e. The turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC e. became the beginning of the "Scythian time" proper (and the beginning of the Iron Age), since already at this time the Scythians settled on the Don; here their state took shape, which in a few centuries also covered the Black Sea region. The turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC e. became the beginning of the "Scythian time" proper (and the beginning of the Iron Age), since already at this time the Scythians settled on the Don; here their state took shape, which in a few centuries also covered the Black Sea region. The turn of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC e. became the beginning of the "Scythian time" proper (and the beginning of the Iron Age), since already at this time the Scythians settled on the Don; here their state took shape, which in a few centuries also covered the Black Sea region.
There was no "kaleidoscope" of peoples in the Eurasian steppes in the Bronze and Iron Ages. The archaeological cultures of the steppe zone of the East European Plain of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age show great continuity, the same applies to the physical type of people who left these cultures.
It must be admitted that the ancient historical tradition presented in the Bible, which considers Scythian as the eldest son of a Cimmerian, and a Cimmerian as the eldest son of Iapetus (Aryan), is absolutely true.
Petukhov Yuri, Vasilyeva Nina
