 The Scythians were one of the great civilisations of the ancient world, along with the likes of the Celts and the Greeks, but what was their origins and their genetic history? The Scythians entered the historical record around the 9th century BC. Certain sources argue that the Scythians grew out of the Srebnaja culture, or Timbergrave culture, a late Bronze Age culture from around 1850 to 1450 BC, associated with the eastern part of the Pontic Caspian steppe. This culture is generally associated with ancient Iranian speakers. For a detailed breakdown on the Scythians in general, please watch my playlist that will link above. Although the Scythians were ancient people that didn't really write a lot down, which is quite hard when you try and trace their origins, an interest in genetic study was done in 2021. They looked at genome-wide data from 111 ancient individuals retrieved from 39 archaeological sites, from the 1st millennia BC and AD, across the Central Asian steppe. Just for reference on dates before we continue, the Bronze Age lasted from 3300 BC to around 1200 BC, with the Middle Bronze Age starting around 2000 BC. The authors note that there are three competing hypotheses that have often been debated regarding the origins of the Scythians, a Pontic Caspian origin supported by their assumed Iranian languages, a Kazakh steppe origin supported by the archaeological findings, and a multiple independent origin from genetically distinct groups that adopted common cultural traits. This study did not find any evidence to support the Pontic Caspian steppe origin of the Scythians. This makes a lot of sense, as we know the Scythians originated in Central Asia, and then migrated west into the Pontic Caspian steppe, as opposed to originally being from the Pontic Caspian steppe. How many times can you say the Pontic Caspian steppe? The study, however, found that the Kazakh steppe origin hypothesis better corresponds with their results, but rather than finding support for one of the two extreme hypotheses, i.e. single origin with population diffusion versus multiple independent origins with only cultural transmission. We found evidence for at least two independent origins, as well as population diffusion and admixture. In particular, the Eastern groups are consistent with descending from a gene pool that formed as a result of a mixture between preceding local steep, middle and late Bronze Age sources, which could be associated with different cultures, such as the Sintashta, Srebnaja and Andru Nova, that are genetically homogeneous or uniform, and a specific Eastern and the Asian source that was already present during the late Bronze Age in the neighbouring Northern Mongolia region. This study found that the All-Time Mountain Area formed the genetic substratum of the Eastern Scythians. The All-Time Mountain Area is the area where the borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China and Russia all converge into one. Is this general area here, which basically is a nexus point, for Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and Russia in this area, and it makes sense that the Scythians, if they originated or one of the main points of origination, was this area, it allowed them to then traverse the Eurasian steppe through Kazakhstan and link up with various other groups in that general area. So it definitely seems from the findings of this study at least that one of the main origin points of the Scythians is the All-Time Mountain Range. This nexus point, where the countries of Kazakhstan today, Russia, Mongolia and China, where they all meet basically to the west of Mongolia, the east of Kazakhstan, the south east of Russia, and the northwest of China. This convergence is one of the main origin points of the Scythians and then emigrated across Central Asia from there. There was limitations of this study, however, particularly when looking at Western Scythian cultures. The study noted that more data from the later and westernmost Scythian cultures of the Caucasus in Eastern Europe will provide a better understanding of their genetic affinities with the earlier Scythians from the Kazakh steppe analysed in the current study. This study also looked at the western formations from the southern Euro region, a Scythian-related culture and found that they were formed as a result of an admixture between the same three ancestral sources as the Eastern Scythians. Nevertheless, this study found that the Eastern Eurasian ancestry is present only in a small amount in formations. In addition, the results from this study suggested that the formations descend from a related but different late Bronze Age gene pool compared with the one that contributed to the Eastern Scythians. Given the geographic location of the earlier Scythian sites found so far, we hypothesise that this gene pool originated in the late Bronze Age, southern Euro area. So the Euro area of course refers to the Euro mountains in the Western Russia. This general territory in this general area, which you can see Kazakhstan there, and that's the Euro mountains, that whole mountain range there. So it's that general area. There are also some fabulous legends about the origins of the Scythians. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote in his book The Histories, which is known as one of the founding documents of history, which was written about 430 BC. He wrote about the origins of the Scythians as the Scythians themselves apparently believed. According to the Scythians, theirs is the most recent race on earth, and their account of their origins is as follows. The first man to be born in their country, which had previously been uninhabited, was someone called Tadgetus, whose parents, according to the Scythians, and this is what they say, but I myself do not believe it, where Zeus and a daughter of the Boris Thienes River. This is supposed to be Tadgetus' lineage, and then he had three sons, Lepoxes, Arpoxes and Colaxes, who was the youngest. During their reign, they fell from the sky onto Scythia, for golden implements, a plough, a yoke, a sagaris, and a cup. The first one to see them was the eldest son, and he ran up to take possession of them. But at his approach, the gold caught fire. He retreated, and the second son approached, but exactly the same thing happened to him. At the approach of the youngest son, however, the fire died down, and he took the golden implements back to his home. The two older brothers therefore yielded to the youngest brother and handed the whole kingdom over to him. This is the somewhat mythical and legendary origin of the Scythians, as told by the Greek historian Herodotus. As I previously said, the Scythians and the Celts were two great civilizations of the ancient world. To find out about the Scythian impact on Celtic art, please click here. Thanks for watching, please subscribe and hit the bell, and tell your friends and family about this channel. For ways to support this work, through buying me a coffee, patreon and paypal, all the links will be in the description below. Thanks again for watching, and I'll see you next time.