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 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 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.
| Pontic–Caspian steppe | |
|---|---|
 The steppe in Azov-Syvash National Nature Park, Ukraine, with reintroduced horses. | |
 The steppe extends roughly from the Danube to the Ural River. In this map is shown the region known as Pontic Steppe, which is the biggest portion of the whole Pontic-Caspian Steppe. | |
| Ecology | |
| Realm | Palearctic |
| Biome | Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands |
| Borders | List
|
| Geography | |
| Area | 994,000 km2 (384,000 sq mi) |
| Countries | |
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 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 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.
Geography and ecology
This section does not cite any sources. (January 2021) |
The Pontic–Caspian steppe covers an area of 994,000 km2 (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 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 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 the Turgai Sea, an extension of the Paratethys which extended south and east of the Urals and covering much of today's West Siberian Plain in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
Prehistoric cultures
Innumerable tribes, cultures, nations, languages and more had origins in Pontic Caspian Steppes including
- Linear Pottery culture 5500–4500 BC
- Cucuteni-Trypillian culture 5300–2600 BC
- Khvalynsk culture 5000–3500 BC
- Sredny Stog culture 4500–3500 BC
- Maykop culture 3700–3000 BC
- Yamnaya/Kurgan cultures 3500–2300 BC
- Kura-Araxes culture 3000–2000 BC
- Catacomb culture 3000–2200 BC
- Srubna culture 1600–1200 BC
- Koban culture 1100–400 BC
- Novocherkassk culture 900–650 BC, etc. etc.
Historical peoples and nations
Innumerable tribes, cultures, nations, languages and more had origins in Pontic Caspian Steppes including
- Indo-Europeans 4th millennium BC – now
- Cimmerians 12th–7th centuries BC
- Dacians and Thracians (Getae) 11th century BC – 3rd century AD
- Scythians 8th–4th centuries BC
- Sarmatians 5th century BC – 5th century AD
- Ostrogoths 3rd–6th centuries
- Huns and Avars 4th–8th centuries
- Bulgars, Onogurs, and Bulgarians 4th–21st centuries:
- Great Bulgaria 7th century
- First Bulgarian Empire 7th–11th centuries
- Second Bulgarian Empire 12th–15th centuries
- Principality of Karvuna
- Alans 5th–11th centuries
- Eurasian Avars 6th–8th centuries
- Göktürks 6th–8th centuries
- Sabirs 6th–8th centuries
- Khazars 6th–11th centuries
- Magyar tribes (Hungarians) 7th–9th centuries attested but probably from earlier
- Rus' people (Kievan Rus') 8th–13th centuries
- Pechenegs 8th–11th centuries
- Kipchaks and Cumans 11th–13th centuries
- Mongol Golden Horde 13th–15th centuries
- Cossacks, Kalmyks, Crimean Khanate, Volga Tatars, Nogais, and other Turkic states and tribes 15th–18th centuries
- Russian Empire 16th–20th centuries
- Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus 19th–20th centuries
- Soviet Union 20th century
- Ukraine, Moldova, Southern Russia 21st century
- Uralic tribes including Finno-Uralic tribes 1st century to present but definitely earlier than that, etc. etc.
See also
- Forest steppe
- Indo-European migrations
- Crimean–Nogai raids into East Slavic lands
- Eurasian Steppe
- Haplogroup R1a1 (Y-DNA)
- Haplogroup R1b1 (Y-DNA)
- Kurgan hypothesis
- Late Glacial Maximum
- Steppe Route
- Tarim mummies
- Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands
- Kurgan stelae
References
- "Mystery Of Horse Domestication Solved?". sciencedaily.com. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
- David W. Anthony (2010). The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1400831104.
- Haak, Wolfgang; Lazaridis, Iosif; Patterson, Nick; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Llamas, Bastien; Brandt, Guido; Nordenfelt, Susanne; Harney, Eadaoin; Stewardson, Kristin; Fu, Qiaomei; Mittnik, Alissa; Bánffy, Eszter; Economou, Christos; Francken, Michael; Friederich, Susanne; Pena, Rafael Garrido; Hallgren, Fredrik; Khartanovich, Valery; Khokhlov, Aleksandr; Kunst, Michael; Kuznetsov, Pavel; Meller, Harald; Mochalov, Oleg; Moiseyev, Vayacheslav; Nicklisch, Nicole; Pichler, Sandra L.; Risch, Roberto; Guerra, Manuel A. Rojo; Roth, Christina; Szécsényi-Nagy, Anna; Wahl, Joachim; Meyer, Matthias; Krause, Johannes; Brown, Dorcas; Anthony, David; Cooper, Alan; Alt, Kurt Werner; Reich, David (10 February 2015). "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe". bioRxiv. 522 (7555): 207–211. arXiv:1502.02783. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..207H. bioRxiv 10.1101/013433. doi:10.1038/NATURE14317. PMC 5048219. PMID 25731166. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
- Allentoft, Morten E.; Sikora, Martin; Sjögren, Karl-Göran; Rasmussen, Simon; Rasmussen, Morten; Stenderup, Jesper; Damgaard, Peter B.; Schroeder, Hannes; Ahlström, Torbjörn; Vinner, Lasse; Malaspinas, Anna-Sapfo; Margaryan, Ashot; Higham, Tom; Chivall, David; Lynnerup, Niels; Harvig, Lise; Baron, Justyna; Casa, Philippe Della; Dąbrowski, Paweł; Duffy, Paul R.; Ebel, Alexander V.; Epimakhov, Andrey; Frei, Karin; Furmanek, Mirosław; Gralak, Tomasz; Gromov, Andrey; Gronkiewicz, Stanisław; Grupe, Gisela; Hajdu, Tamás; Jarysz, Radosław (2015). "Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia". Nature. 522 (7555): 167–172. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..167A. doi:10.1038/nature14507. PMID 26062507. S2CID 4399103.
- Mathieson, Iain; Lazaridis, Iosif; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Llamas, Bastien; Pickrell, Joseph; Meller, Harald; Guerra, Manuel A. Rojo; Krause, Johannes; Anthony, David; Brown, Dorcas; Fox, Carles Lalueza; Cooper, Alan; Alt, Kurt W.; Haak, Wolfgang; Patterson, Nick; Reich, David (14 March 2015). "Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe". bioRxiv: 016477. doi:10.1101/016477. Retrieved 3 April 2018 – via biorxiv.org.
- Shinde, Vasant; Narasimhan, Vagheesh M.; Rohland, Nadin; Mallick, Swapan; Mah, Matthew; Lipson, Mark; Nakatsuka, Nathan; Adamski, Nicole; Broomandkhoshbacht, Nasreen; Ferry, Matthew; Lawson, Ann Marie; Michel, Megan; Oppenheimer, Jonas; Stewardson, Kristin; Jadhav, Nilesh (October 2019). "An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers". Cell. 179 (3): 729–735.e10. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.08.048. ISSN 0092-8674. PMC 6800651.
- "2 THE YAMNAYA CULTURE AND THE INVENTION OF NOMADIC PASTORALISM IN THE EURASIAN STEPPES". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
- "Ancient DNA and migrations: New understandings and misunderstandings". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 24 January 2024.
- "Steppe migrant thugs pacified by Stone Age farming women". ScienceDaily. Faculty of Science – University of Copenhagen. 4 April 2017.
- "The Proto-Turkic Urheimat and the Early Migrations of Turkic Peoples". Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
External links
- "Pontic steppe". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund.
- Google maps: Pontic-Caspian 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 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 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 Pontic Caspian steppeThe steppe in Azov Syvash National Nature Park Ukraine with reintroduced horses The steppe extends roughly from the Danube to the Ural River In this map is shown the region known as Pontic Steppe which is the biggest portion of the whole Pontic Caspian Steppe EcologyRealmPalearcticBiomeTemperate grasslands savannas and shrublandsBordersList Caspian lowland desertCaucasus mixed forestsCentral European mixed forestsCrimean Submediterranean forest complexEast European forest steppeKazakh semi desertKazakh steppeGeographyArea994 000 km2 384 000 sq mi CountriesList BulgariaKazakhstanMoldovaRomaniaRussiaUkraineStreltsovskaya Steppe a preserved area in Milove Raion in Luhansk Oblast Ukraine The steppe is often dominated by plumes of Stipa in early summer Tulipa suaveolens one of the most typical spring flowers of the Pontic Caspian steppe 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 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 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 Geography and ecologyThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed January 2021 Learn how and when to remove this message The Pontic Caspian steppe covers an area of 994 000 km2 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 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 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 the Turgai Sea an extension of the Paratethys which extended south and east of the Urals and covering much of today s West Siberian Plain in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Prehistoric culturesBronze Age spread of Yamnaya steppe pastoralist ancestry into two subcontinents Europe and South Asia from c 3000 to 1500 BC Innumerable tribes cultures nations languages and more had origins in Pontic Caspian Steppes includingLinear Pottery culture 5500 4500 BC Cucuteni Trypillian culture 5300 2600 BC Khvalynsk culture 5000 3500 BC Sredny Stog culture 4500 3500 BC Maykop culture 3700 3000 BC Yamnaya Kurgan cultures 3500 2300 BC Kura Araxes culture 3000 2000 BC Catacomb culture 3000 2200 BC Srubna culture 1600 1200 BC Koban culture 1100 400 BC Novocherkassk culture 900 650 BC etc etc Historical peoples and nationsThe Pontic Caspian steppe in c 650Zaporozhian Cossacks fighting Tatars from the Crimean Khanate late 19th century painting by Jozef Brandt Innumerable tribes cultures nations languages and more had origins in Pontic Caspian Steppes includingIndo Europeans 4th millennium BC now Cimmerians 12th 7th centuries BC Dacians and Thracians Getae 11th century BC 3rd century AD Scythians 8th 4th centuries BC Sarmatians 5th century BC 5th century AD Ostrogoths 3rd 6th centuries Huns and Avars 4th 8th centuries Bulgars Onogurs and Bulgarians 4th 21st centuries Great Bulgaria 7th century First Bulgarian Empire 7th 11th centuries Second Bulgarian Empire 12th 15th centuries Principality of Karvuna Alans 5th 11th centuries Eurasian Avars 6th 8th centuries Gokturks 6th 8th centuries Sabirs 6th 8th centuries Khazars 6th 11th centuries Magyar tribes Hungarians 7th 9th centuries attested but probably from earlier Rus people Kievan Rus 8th 13th centuries Pechenegs 8th 11th centuries Kipchaks and Cumans 11th 13th centuries Mongol Golden Horde 13th 15th centuries Cossacks Kalmyks Crimean Khanate Volga Tatars Nogais and other Turkic states and tribes 15th 18th centuries Russian Empire 16th 20th centuries Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus 19th 20th centuries Soviet Union 20th century Ukraine Moldova Southern Russia 21st century Uralic tribes including Finno Uralic tribes 1st century to present but definitely earlier than that etc etc See alsoForest steppe Indo European migrations Crimean Nogai raids into East Slavic lands Eurasian Steppe Haplogroup R1a1 Y DNA Haplogroup R1b1 Y DNA Kurgan hypothesis Late Glacial Maximum Steppe Route Tarim mummies Temperate grasslands savannas and shrublands Kurgan stelaeReferences Mystery Of Horse Domestication Solved sciencedaily com Retrieved 3 April 2018 David W Anthony 2010 The Horse the Wheel and Language How Bronze Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World Princeton University Press ISBN 978 1400831104 Haak Wolfgang Lazaridis Iosif Patterson Nick Rohland Nadin Mallick Swapan Llamas Bastien Brandt Guido Nordenfelt Susanne Harney Eadaoin Stewardson Kristin Fu Qiaomei Mittnik Alissa Banffy Eszter Economou Christos Francken Michael Friederich Susanne Pena Rafael Garrido Hallgren Fredrik Khartanovich Valery Khokhlov Aleksandr Kunst Michael Kuznetsov Pavel Meller Harald Mochalov Oleg Moiseyev Vayacheslav Nicklisch Nicole Pichler Sandra L Risch Roberto Guerra Manuel A Rojo Roth Christina Szecsenyi Nagy Anna Wahl Joachim Meyer Matthias Krause Johannes Brown Dorcas Anthony David Cooper Alan Alt Kurt Werner Reich David 10 February 2015 Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo European languages in Europe bioRxiv 522 7555 207 211 arXiv 1502 02783 Bibcode 2015Natur 522 207H bioRxiv 10 1101 013433 doi 10 1038 NATURE14317 PMC 5048219 PMID 25731166 Retrieved 3 April 2018 Allentoft Morten E Sikora Martin Sjogren Karl Goran Rasmussen Simon Rasmussen Morten Stenderup Jesper Damgaard Peter B Schroeder Hannes Ahlstrom Torbjorn Vinner Lasse Malaspinas Anna Sapfo Margaryan Ashot Higham Tom Chivall David Lynnerup Niels Harvig Lise Baron Justyna Casa Philippe Della Dabrowski Pawel Duffy Paul R Ebel Alexander V Epimakhov Andrey Frei Karin Furmanek Miroslaw Gralak Tomasz Gromov Andrey Gronkiewicz Stanislaw Grupe Gisela Hajdu Tamas Jarysz Radoslaw 2015 Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia Nature 522 7555 167 172 Bibcode 2015Natur 522 167A doi 10 1038 nature14507 PMID 26062507 S2CID 4399103 Mathieson Iain Lazaridis Iosif Rohland Nadin Mallick Swapan Llamas Bastien Pickrell Joseph Meller Harald Guerra Manuel A Rojo Krause Johannes Anthony David Brown Dorcas Fox Carles Lalueza Cooper Alan Alt Kurt W Haak Wolfgang Patterson Nick Reich David 14 March 2015 Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe bioRxiv 016477 doi 10 1101 016477 Retrieved 3 April 2018 via biorxiv org Shinde Vasant Narasimhan Vagheesh M Rohland Nadin Mallick Swapan Mah Matthew Lipson Mark Nakatsuka Nathan Adamski Nicole Broomandkhoshbacht Nasreen Ferry Matthew Lawson Ann Marie Michel Megan Oppenheimer Jonas Stewardson Kristin Jadhav Nilesh October 2019 An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers Cell 179 3 729 735 e10 doi 10 1016 j cell 2019 08 048 ISSN 0092 8674 PMC 6800651 2 THE YAMNAYA CULTURE AND THE INVENTION OF NOMADIC PASTORALISM IN THE EURASIAN STEPPES scholar google com Retrieved 24 January 2024 Ancient DNA and migrations New understandings and misunderstandings scholar google com Retrieved 24 January 2024 Steppe migrant thugs pacified by Stone Age farming women ScienceDaily Faculty of Science University of Copenhagen 4 April 2017 The Proto Turkic Urheimat and the Early Migrations of Turkic Peoples Archived from the original on 24 December 2013 Retrieved 24 December 2013 External linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Pontic steppe Pontic steppe Terrestrial Ecoregions World Wildlife Fund Google maps Pontic Caspian steppe
