On the Southern Border of the Forest and Forest-Steppe Cultures in the Urals in the Ist Millennium BC

Abstract

The article demonstrates that the central part of South Ural Mountains with surrounding foot-hills was a special transzonal territory, where the natural conditions prevented development of homogenous and stable ethnic and cultural formations in the central part of the South-Ural region. In the I Millennium BC, this region accepted numerous groups of forest and northern forest-steppe population who continuously migrated here from the north and lived in the immediate vicinity to the steppe nomads. The author identified three main itineraries of such groups migrating to the south. A number of laws of interaction of forest and northern forest-steppe early Iron Age population was considered, both among themselves and with the nomads.

Keywords

• South Urals
• meridional natural zonation
• nomads of Scythian-Sarmatian time
• forest and forest-steppe population
• trans-Ural route
• transzonal paths