Sarmatian Puns

Title

I'm curious to what extent the Scythian cultures were absorbed into, rather than replaced by, the Turkic cultures who occupied a very similar area. To what extent were Turkic peoples such as the Cumans and the Gokturks descended from earlier Iranic-speaking nomads?

Scythians and Sarmatians are described as Iranian ethnic groups. According to Wikipedia, they were assimilated into Slavic cultures starting in the 4th century. Nowadays, these Iranian ethnic groups appear to have little to no influence on the cultures of Ukraine and Russia.

What happened to make Scythians and Sarmatians fold before the Slavic peoples? Did the Slavic peoples have better military technology/techniques? Did the Slavic peoples have more optimal agricultural techniques allowing them to out-populate the Scythians and Sarmatians?

I've been doing some research, and have noticed a fair deal of written work is well beyond the Anglo-Sphere as far as more detailed information and educated hypotheses on the subject. Generally this seem to be Russian academics.

Was the Supreme deity of these groups Ares/Mars? All information surrounding them seem to point to a type of sword worship and veneration. It is the most expressed form of worship found besides burial practice.

Also, what does this mean: "The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of nature."

the Sarmatian Archaeology is divided into four distinguished phases based on different grave construction, burial customs and monuments .

• 1- Sauromatian period (6th–5th centuries BC) : in this phase the Sarmatian culture was isolated only in north Caucasus/middle volga region . the date and the time of this phase correlate with earliest historic documents mentioned Sarmatian in southern russia , as if Herodotus has named Sarmatian as a nomadic people live east of sea of Azof , being neighbor to northern Budini (perhaps bearers of GORODETS culture in forest-steppe) and eastern Thyssgetae in north of Caspian/Aral horizon .

Tap on the link to see the first map .

• 2-Prokhorevka culture or Early Sarmatian period (4th–2nd centuries BC) : sometimes between 4th and 3rd centuries BC , a tribal movement from southern Ural region brought new elements to former Saurmatian period , merging with local people of previous phase formed a cluster of related monuments extended from southern Ural to Volga region . as we saw in previous phase , the 5th century BC Sarmatians dwelt in a region between Volga river to sea of Azov , but not further east where non Sarmatian people like Thyssgetae and Iyrcae lived in 6th-5th centories BC . there is no consequence that the bearers of this culture (and even next phases) really designated themselves as Sarmatians like previous proper Sarmatian tribe. Tap on the link to see the second link .

• 3-Middle Sarmatian period ( late 2nd century BC to late 2nd century AD ) : during this period sarmatians seems to expanded their geography and absorbed and replaced the previous Scythians in Ukraine and their name appears in antique sources like Pliny the Elder and Strabo as the domenent people of steppe.

Tap on the link to see the third map .

• 4-Late Sarmatian period ( late 2nd century AD to 4th century AD ) : the final sarmatian has been over by several invasion such as Goths and Huns . in this time tribes like Alans, Aorsi, Roxolani, and Iazyges were called Sarmati , later on Sarmatian

Yes I understand Ossetian is a descendant. But the modern Ossetian language seems too “Caucasified” in the sense that it contains ejectives and has assimilated many other speech habits of the languages of the Caucasus, besides being heavily influenced by Russian.

I’m talking about a more antique or “pure” form of Scythian or Sarmatian. Any clue anyone?

https://preview.redd.it/uuuwm66x0vo51.png?width=1711&format=png&auto=webp&s=be5c4d7205ab05925f094639a66bd3e319868862

hi

who are the scythians and sarmatians Descendants?

ty

https://preview.redd.it/oa50xg4vfr461.png?width=1506&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d0742645b272c8936c1b7e6aa22f71fc80c31ac

A Dynamic 6,000-Year Genetic History of Eurasia’s Eastern Steppe is still my favourite to have come out this year, the amount of data they have provided is amazing and I am very grateful for their work, allowing a peak into this epic time period!

But I have to note that some of their methods and conclusions were a bit sloppy. Sometimes sloppy work can lead to faulty statements. The problem is then that people who are not as familiar withancient population genetics, then take these words for granted.

>“There’s no written evidence of [Xiongnu] contact with Sarmatians, and it’s not well-attested archaeologically. It’s really surprising they’re mixing over these long distances,” says Tsagaan Turbat, an archaeologist at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Archaeology. “This kind of information is really a game changer.”

I think that is a little worrisome. As some of you may know I've been critical of many of the conclusions and implications coming out of genetic articles, and no I'm not doing this to be a cool smartass or because of nationalistic tendencies.

I'm doing this to make the point that you should not blindly hang on to statements made in ancient genetic papers because quite frankly there is a lot of nonsense floating around, especially when it comes to the more niche topics like Iron age steppe societies. Likewise, you should not hang on to what I'm saying here. What you need to do is thoroughly look at the data youtself and come up with your own conclusions.

As you could tell from the title, one of the notions I disagree with is their supposed Xiongnu Sarmatian cluster. Even when the preprint came out and I couldn't look at the data myself, I noticed that in their admixtue modeling, these Sarmatian samples were really Central Asian like. And when I say Central Asian, I mean south of the steppes Central Asian.

Now that's a little strange given that Sarmatians were nomads on the eastern European steppes, albeit the distant Eastern European steppes. But now that the data has been released, I think it's quite unlikely that what we're seeing here are actually Sarmatians.

https://preview.redd.it/fh81ravtlr461.png?width=604&format=png&auto=webp&s=8d9653aea2e3383a9f75bcdf990b9e5f4108094b

Clearly, all the samples he

Much hay has been made about the connections between the deployment of Sarmatian Auxiliaries to Britain by Marcus Aurelius after the Marcommanic wars and the later Arthurian legends, particularly the use of armored cavalry. This hypothesis is supposedly bolstered by the similarities between the Nart Saga of the Ossetians, a Sarmato-Alan people who now live in the Caucuses. Specifically the tales of the hero Batraz, who pulls a sword from the root of a tree (the Sarmatians and Alans worshipped swords plunged into the soil). When Batraz is dying from a mortal wound in battle, he asks one of his brother warriors to hurl his sword into the Black Sea. Like Bedwyr, the warrior hesitates, before finally acceding to the hero's request.

To be honest, I have always found the supposed connection between these 2nd Century Sarmatians and the Arthurian legendaria to be spurious. For one, it is extremely unlikely they would have preserved their cultural identity for very long. They would have been vastly outnumbered by the native Britons and likely assimilated into the local population. It would have been impossible for them to maintain their nomadic life style of migrating from from pasture to pasture with their herds and flocks.More likely, the Romans would have provided them with mounts kept in stables and fed with grains. Isolated far from their homeland and controlled by a centralized, urban based state, the Sarmatians would have lost their identity within a few generations.

As for the Batraz-Arthur similarities, they are intriguing. However, the practice of throwing weapons and precious metals into bodies of water is a long attested cultural practice among Celtic peoples and the sacralization of swords is a universal custom in warriors cultures from Western Europe to South Asia to Japan.

However...the Alans did migrate into Gaul after 406AD and settled directly across Britain in Armorica. They integrated into the local population as part of the aristocracy and seem to have totally assimilated by the mid to late 6th century, which should make us skeptical about the Sarmatians preserving their culture in Britain down to Sub-Roman times. Nonetheless, they were a militarily formidable people in their heyday and considered the equals of the Huns in terms of their skill at cavalry warfare. The Roman general Flavius Aetius used them against Attila at the Battle of Chalons. The Alans prevented the Frankish king Clovis from conquering Armorica in th

According to the Wikipedia page on them, the Greek geographer Pausanias reported that they had little access to iron and therefore made their weapons out of bone and wood, and scale armor from the hooves of their horses. This struck me as unusual as I have never heard of armor made from animal products before. Did the Sarmatians or any neighboring peoples commonly use armor made from horse hooves or similar materials? How effective would this armor have been?

Hey guys!

I often come across claims by Eastern European scholars of a strong Scythian/Sarmatian (= Eastern Iranian) influence on the Slavs. Either by connecting the names of tribes like Croats, Antes or Serbs to Iranian words or by comparing the culture. (eg. claiming that Arabic sources show that the old Moravians had a more nomadic elite).

I am wondering what the general academic view of this is. Is this an accepted theory? Or is it seen as mere conjecture by most scholars?

Was there no influence? Or was only the elite Scythian / Sarmatian in origin? Are there relatively proven influences?

I mean, ultimately the Scythians / Sarmatians in modern Ukraine dissapeared, did they become part of the Slavs?

Thank you very much for your insight! I feel there is so much misinformation about this online that I can’t wrap my head around.

As a Polish character, hold the Empire of Pontic Steppe/Khazaria.

A reference to Sarmatism.

I heard that some Slavic groups (ex. Poles, Croats, Serbs) claim descent from the Sarmatians. I've heard that while some have rejected this hypothesis, there was also evidence that Sarmatians were assimilated by Slavs during the Slavic expansion, and that some Slavic art/heradlry resembles Sarmatian designs. How credible is the Slavic-Sarmatian connection?

I was thinking along the lines of how the Aztec and other Mesoamericans' combat focused on taking captives rather than killing and how that was a detriment in their engagements with the Spanish and perhaps if the Iranian-speaking peoples of the Eurasian steppe had some similar cultural handicap.

Or more specifically, did they perhaps resist state-formation on the steppe? I notice they disappear around the same time (and maybe my timeline is off here) that steppe empires begin to be a thing, presumably due to 'cooked' tribes as the Chinese called them, adopting state-structures and spreading that around the steppe? And maybe that would put them at a military disadvantage to the Turkic peoples at least?

Yes I understand Ossetian is a descendant. But the modern Ossetian language seems too “Caucasified” in the sense that it contains ejectives and has assimilated many other speech habits of the languages of the Caucasus, besides being heavily influenced by Russian.

I’m talking about a more antique or “pure” form of Scythian or Sarmatian. Any clue anyone?

hi

who are the scythians and sarmatians Descendants?

ty