Pontic–Caspian steppe

The Pontic–Caspian steppe, formed by the Caspian

steppe and the Pontic steppe, is the steppeland Pontic–Caspian steppe
stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the
Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area
around the Caspian Sea. It extends from Dobruja in the
northeastern corner of Bulgaria and southeastern
Romania, through Moldova and southern and eastern
Ukraine, across the Russian Northern Caucasus, the
Southern and lower Volga regions to western
Kazakhstan, adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to the east,
both forming part of the larger Eurasian Steppe. It forms
a part of the Palearctic realm and of the temperate
grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.
The steppe in Azov-Syvash National
The area corresponds to Cimmeria, Scythia, and Nature Park, Ukraine, with reintroduced
Sarmatia of classical antiquity. Across several millennia, horses.
numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen used the steppe;
many of them went on to conquer lands in the settled
regions of Europe, Western Asia, and Southern 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 Sea,
Caspian Sea, and Azov Sea. Genetic research has
identified this region as the most probable place where
horses were first domesticated.[1]

According to the most prevalent theory in Indo-

European studies, the Kurgan hypothesis, the Pontic–
Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the
Proto-Indo-European language.[2][3][4][5]
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.

Contents Ecology
Realm Palearctic
Geography and ecology
Biome temperate grasslands,
Prehistoric cultures
savannas, and shrublands
Historical peoples and nations
Borders List
See also
Caspian lowland desert
References
Caucasus mixed forests
External links Central European mixed
forests

Geography and ecology Crimean Submediterranean

forest complex
East European forest steppe
The Pontic-Caspian steppe covers an area of 994,000 Kazakh semi-desert
square kilometres (384,000 sq mi) of Europe, extending
Kazakh steppe
from Dobrudja in the northeastern corner of Bulgaria
and southeastern Romania, across southern Moldova, Geography
Ukraine, through Russia and northwestern Kazakhstan Area 994,000 km2 (384,000 sq mi)
to the Ural Mountains. The steppe is bounded by the
Countries List
East European forest steppe to the north, a transitional
zone of mixed grasslands and temperate broadleaf and Bulgaria
mixed forests. Kazakhstan
Moldova
To the south, the steppe extends to the Black Sea, except
the Crimean and western Caucasus mountains' border Romania
with the sea, where the Crimean Submediterranean Russia
forest complex defines the southern edge of the steppes.
Ukraine
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.
Streltsovskaya Steppe, a preserved
area in Milove Raion in Luhansk
Prehistoric cultures Oblast, Ukraine. The steppe is often
dominated by plumes of Stipa in
Linear Pottery culture 5500–4500 BC early summer.
Cucuteni-Trypillian culture 5300–2600 BC
Khvalynsk culture 5000–3500 BC
Sredny Stog culture 4500–3500 BC
Maykop culture 3700–3000 BC
Yamna/Kurgan culture 3500–2300 BC
Kura-Araxes culture 3000–2000 BC
Catacomb culture 3000–2200 BC
Srubna culture 1600–1200 BC
Koban culture 1100–400 BC
Tulipa suaveolens, one of the most
Novocherkassk culture 900–650 BC
typical spring flowers of the Pontic-
Caspian steppe
Historical peoples and nations
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 Bronze Age spread of Yamnaya steppe
Ostrogoths 3rd–6th centuries pastoralist ancestry into two subcontinents
Huns and Avars 4th–8th centuries —Europe and South Asia—from c. 3000 to
Bulgars (Onogurs, Proto-Bulgarians), Bulgarians 4th– 1500 BC.[6]
21st centuries:[7]
 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
The Pontic-Caspian steppe in c. 650
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 Zaporozhian Cossacks fighting
centuries
Tatars from the Crimean Khanate –
Soviet Union 20th century late 19th-century painting

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
1. "Mystery Of Horse Domestication Solved?" (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/09
0423142541.htm). sciencedaily.com. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
2. 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.
3. 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" (https://www.bio
rxiv.org/content/early/2015/02/10/013433). bioRxiv. 522 (7555): 207–211. arXiv:1502.02783 (ht
tps://arxiv.org/abs/1502.02783). Bibcode:2015Natur.522..207H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/a
bs/2015Natur.522..207H). bioRxiv 10.1101/013433 (https://doi.org/10.1101%2F013433).
doi:10.1038/NATURE14317 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2FNATURE14317). PMC 5048219 (http
s://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5048219). PMID 25731166 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nl
m.nih.gov/25731166). Retrieved 3 April 2018.
4. 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" (https://depot.ceon.pl/handle/1
23456789/13155). Nature. 522 (7555): 167–172. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..167A (https://ui.adsa
bs.harvard.edu/abs/2015Natur.522..167A). doi:10.1038/nature14507 (https://doi.org/10.1038%
2Fnature14507). PMID 26062507 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26062507).
S2CID 4399103 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4399103).
5. 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" (https://w
ww.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/13/016477). bioRxiv: 016477. doi:10.1101/016477 (https://
doi.org/10.1101%2F016477). Retrieved 3 April 2018 – via biorxiv.org.
6. "Steppe migrant thugs pacified by Stone Age farming women" (https://www.sciencedaily.com/re
leases/2017/04/170404084429.htm). ScienceDaily. Faculty of Science - University of
Copenhagen. 4 April 2017.
7. "The Proto-Turkic Urheimat and the Early Migrations of Turkic Peoples" (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20131224111409/http://turkic-languages.scienceontheweb.net/Proto_Turkic_Urheimat.ht
ml). Archived from the original (http://turkic-languages.scienceontheweb.net/Proto_Turkic_Urhe
imat.html) on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 24 December 2013.

External links
"Pontic steppe" (https://www.worldwildlife.org/ecoregions/pa0814). Terrestrial Ecoregions.
World Wildlife Fund.
Google maps: Pontic-Caspian steppe (https://maps.google.com/?t=h&om=0&ll=49.382373,41.
44043&spn=11.07443,29.311523)

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