Sarmates
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The Sarmatians (; Ancient Greek: Σαρμάται, romanized: Sarmatai; Latin: Sarmatae [ˈsarmatae̯]) were a large confederation of ancient Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 5th century BCE to the 4th century CE.
The earliest known reference to the Sarmatians occurs in the Avesta, where they appear as Sairima-, which in later Iranian sources becomes *Sarm and Salm. Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians formed part of the wider Scythian cultures. They started migrating westward around the fourth and third centuries BCE, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by 200 BCE. At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BCE, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas and the Caucasus to the south.
In the first century CE, the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes. In the third century CE, the Germanic Goths broke the Sarmatian dominance of the Pontic Steppe. With the Hunnic invasions of the fourth century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths and other Germanic tribes (Vandals) in settling in the Western Roman Empire. Since large parts of today's Russia, specifically the land between the Ural Mountains and the Don River, were controlled in the fifth century BCE by the Sarmatians, the Lower Volga–Don steppes are sometimes called the "Sarmatian Motherland".
The Sarmatians in the Bosporan Kingdom assimilated into Greek civilization, while others were absorbed by the proto-Circassian Maeotian people, by the Alans, and by the Goths. Other Sarmatians were assimilated and absorbed by the Early Slavs. The Alans survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.
The early-modern Polish nobility (Polish: szlachta) claimed to stem from the Sarmatians.
Genomic studies suggest that the Sarmatians may have been genetically similar to the eastern Yamnaya Bronze Age group.
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Sarmates - 2024-06-21 00:00:00
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