[7] The population of the Srubnaya culture was among the first truly nomadic pastoralist groups, who themselves emerged in the Central Asian and Siberian steppes during the 9th century BC as a result of the cold and dry climate then prevailing in these regions.

[15] The grave goods within the tombs in Ciscaucasia during the 8th to 7th centuries BC, such as those of Khutor Kubanskiy and Krasnoarmeyskoye, show differences resulting from the invasion of the Scythians into the region.

The Late Srubnaya culture thus consisted of North Caucasian populations, who manufactured standard bronze horse harness bits adapted from West Asian types in Koban metallurgical workshops, and of the Late Srubnaya Scythians, who introduced Siberian bronze horse harness bits with stirrup-shaped terminals; the spread of the latter to the west corresponded to the migration of the Scythians in that direction.

These were present in neither the pre-Scythian kurgans of the Pontic Steppe nor in those of the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures ancestral to the Scythians and Sarmatians, and they also were not found among the Saka tribes to the east of the Ural Mountains.

The hoard also contained a bronze sarcophagus on which was represented the deceased, dressed as an Assyrian high official, towards whom Median, Urartian and Mannaean tribute-bearers were being led.

[28] One Scythian burial in the steppe region dating from the Scythian period in West Asia is a 7th-century BC kurgan from Krivorozhye [ru], which contained a bull head-shaped silver terminal which had once been part of an Assyrian stool, a wreath made of electrum which adorned a bronze helmet, and an animal-shaped Ionian Greek vase from Samos.

[1] The most northern Scythian kurgan from the middle Dnipro group of the Scythian culture was located at Mala Ofirna [uk], where was buried a warrior, who might possibly have been a local lord who was buried there along with his wife, and two of his servants outside of the main burial chamber, and which contained weapons, horse gear, bronze personal ornaments, and many clay vessels.

Both the Tiasmyn and Kyiv groups were war-like populations organised into a series of small territorial units who lived in open undefended settlements, with the earliest one, dating from around 600 BC, being located at Taras Hill.

[33] One Scythian kurgan from around 500 BC in the country of Hylaea, at Zelenivka, contained the burial of a regional Agriculturalist Scythian lord and his wife, and its grave goods included 13 arrowheads, a knife with an iron blade, as well as four gold earrings, a necklace made of gold and carnelian and clay beads, and an Ionian goddess-shaped bronze mirror handle.

These Early Scythian earthworks were of extensive sizes, and were made of hard-baked clay cores over which mounds of earth were raised, and which were strengthened by vertical wooden posts.

These cities were surrounded by ramparts and moats, and the dwelling places contained within them were made of walls of adobe supported by timber frames which were built on the surface of the ground or sunk into the earth, and an acropolis which consisted of an additionally fortified area.

[33][1] An earthwork from Severynivka [uk] was similarly built in the pre-Scythian Late Bronze Age, and continued to be occupied during the Early Scythian period.

[39] Many of the settlements of the Bessarabian group of the Scythian culture located on the middle Dnister river, which also corresponded to the Agathyrsi, were destroyed in the late 6th century BC, possibly due to the Persian invasion of Scythia.

[40] These groups are distinctively Scythian, and consist of settlements, earthworks, and burials concentrated in the valleys of the rivers Vorskla, Sula, and Donets, from which they derive their names.

[47] The burials of the Donets group were almost always secondary ones in more ancient kurgans, and their graves were located at the bottom of quadrangular shafts which were usually covered in timber.

[47] Intact human bones were found among the kitchen refuse of the earthworks of the Donets group, suggesting that the Melanchlaeni also practised ritual cannibalism.

These fortifications enclosed an area of 44020 hectares within which were the two earlier earthworks, which had been built in the middle to late 7th century BC, and which were located at 5 kilometres from each other.

[49] Large amounts of Greek pottery were found in both earthworks, attesting of the role of Gelonus on the trade route which started from Pontic Olbia and continued northeastwards into the steppe and forest-steppe regions.

[47] Over the course of the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC, the Royal Scythians had lost control over Ciscaucasia and moved their centre of power towards the lower course of the Dnipro River, which happened at the same time as a wave of Sauromatian immigrants arrived from the Volga Steppe.

[53][27][26][1] The changes in Scythian material culture which occurred during the Mid-Scythian periods were partially the result of an evolution of the Early Culture, but largely consisted of new elements introduced by nomadic immigrants who had arrived from the east some time between 550 and 500 BC, as well as of the Hellenising influence on the Scythian ruling classes of contacts with the Greek colonies on the north shore of the Black Sea.

The imported goods, such as Greek pottery, found in the acropolis of Kamyanka attests that it enjoyed close relations with the Bosporan cities.

[56][51][1] Another change resulting from the migrations of the early Mid-Scythian period was the new appearance of tombs of the commoners of Scythia, which had not been present in the steppe region until then.

4th century BC graves of local lords from the Royal Scythians' territory were located in the regions of Mariupol, Berdiansk and Prymorsk, and more burials were found in the north-eastern borderlands of the Royal Scythians to the south of the Donets River, in the regions of Izium, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk, with the earliest of them being a 5th-century BC kurgan from Shpakivka, while the rest were mostly poorly equipped burials in older Srubnaya kurgans which sometimes contained lone bronze ornaments but otherwise no weapons except for bronze arrowheads.

These Greek-influenced burials were present both in Crimea, such as at Kul-Oba, and in the steppe to the south of the Dnipro, and they contained only small numbers of grave goods decorated in the Scythian animal style art.

[1][29] Scythian burials from western Crimea during this period were however rare, and largely limited to two kurgans from the area of Simferopol, of which one was from around c. 500 BC and another one from the mid-fifth century BC, and a third one from Chornomorske on the western coast of Crimea, which belonged to an aristocrat and included three gold plaques each decorated with a recumbent stag, linking this aristocrat with the Royal Scythians.

[53] By the Late Scythian period of the 4th to 3rd centuries BC the market for Pontic Olbia was limited to a small part of western Scythia, while the rest of the kingdom's importations came from the Bosporan kingdom, especially from Panticapaeum, from where came most of Scythia's imported pottery, as well as richly decorated fine vases, rhyta, and decorative toreutic plaques for gorutoi.

[53] Large numbers of Greek amphorae were found in the tombs of rank-and-file Scythians of the 4th to 3rd centuries BC, attesting to the prevalence of wine consumption among non-aristocrats during the Mid-Scythian period.

[34] Excavation at kurgan Sengileevskoe-2 found gold bowls with coatings indicating a strong opium beverage was used while cannabis was burning nearby.

Another monumental mausoleum was built around c. 115 BC immediately outside Scythian Neapolis, near the city's central gates and resting against the outside of the defensive walls.

These developments, along with the replacement of the older funeral rites by new ones and changes within the local material culture, as well as some elements continuity from the previous periods, suggest that the sedentary Late Scythians were being assimilated by the nomadic Sarmatians at this time.