Study On The Ancient Scythians Of The Northern Black Sea

From ancient time to the Middle Age, many nomads lived on the steppes of northern Black Sea (now southern Russia, Ukraine area). Among them, Scythians who spoke Iranian were the first mounted nomads which appeared in the steppes of northern Black Sea. As one of the earlier Eurasian nomads, like the Huns of the Chinese history, Scythians are quite unique in the Western history. Among the nomads, it first appeared in the eyeshot of Mediterranean classical authors. Therefore, the study of Scythians has important value. This dissertation was based upon those thoughts.The dissertation is divided into six sections, including the introduction and five chapters.The introduction comprises of two sections. Sectionâ… introduces the literature of the classical world related to the Scythians and the using methods. In sectionâ…¡, I summarize the history of historical research of Scythians at home and broad, analyze the research problems of Scythians, and point out the foundation of the writing and new ideas of this dissertation.The first chapter, mainly investigates the term "Scythians" usage in the classical authors, makes clear that this dissertation focus on the Scythians in narrow sense, who formed political entities in the northern Black Sea. Meanwhile, summary the various versions of the origins of Scythian culture and makes a systematic review.Chapterâ…¡systematically explores the early history of Scythians. points out that Because of the hot and cry climate, Scythians appeared in the North Caucasus and developed specialized nomadic pastoralism, and looted to supplement supplies.To the end, they repeatedly broke into the West Asia and did the looting. During this period, stimulating by the looting and the other factors, the political form of social organization of the North Caucasus and the Scythians had improved than before.Chapterâ…¢is one of focuses of this article. In this chapter, according to Herodotus'records, the author analyzes the ethnic names, profession, living area of the various tribes of the Scythians, then points out that in that time, Scythians mainly engaged the animal husbandry and partly do farming. In order to supplement materials, usually they looted the neighbors and traded with the Greeks in trade. In social and political organizations, they formed a tribal alliance which headed by the royal Scythians.Chapter IV is also the key part of the dissertation. In this chapter, based on archaeological data, the author will analyze the changes in the Scythians'economy, the distribution of villages and towns. Then the author will point out that benefiting from good climatic conditions, the Scythians had shown some signs of the trend of settlement. In politics, the author indicates that there is no enough materials to research the monarchy, it must mainly depend on archaeological data. Thus, according to archaeological materials, the paper points out that compared with the previous community, obvious stratification appeared among the Scythians, the power of community was concentrate. All those illustrates that country has arised at that time.Chapter V mainly discusses the history of Scythia Minor in Crimea, after the collapse of Great Scythia. The author points out that Scythia Minor has no direct correlation with the Great Scythia, but only a volatile multi-ethnic country formed by the barbarians of Crimea and other places in the Eurasian steppe. This group of Scythians, who managed the agriculture and pastoral staff, had a higher degree of settlement. Meanwhile, they formed a more unique palace-temple system in politics.In the epilogue, the author summarizes the historical position of the Scythians in the north Black Sea, which from the economy, foreign relations, political organization and other aspects.