Lower Don contact zone of interaction of nomads and the settled population in the first centuries CE Cover Image

Нижнедонская контактная зона взаимодействия номадов и оседлого населения в первые века н.э.
Lower Don contact zone of interaction of nomads and the settled population in the first centuries CE

Author(s): Evgeny V. Vdovchenkov
Subject(s): History
Published by: Нижневартовский государственный университет
Keywords: Tanais; Sarmatians; Meotians; Lower Don area; surface area; sarmatisation

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to one of the most pressing problems of the history of the ancient Northern Black Sea region: the situation in the Lower Don contact zone in the first centuries CE. Its main peculiarity was the mutual influence of the ancient and barbarian Iranian world on the one hand, and the interaction of the sedentary and nomadic population of the region on the other. In the Lower Don from the first to the third centuries CE, lived three different ethno-cultural groups: the nomads of Sarmatia, the Greeks (inhabitants of Tanais), and the Meotians (in the ancient settlements on the right and left banks of Don). Based on the analysis of archaeological data and written sources, the features of the Lower Don contact zone are presented as a result of evolution in three interconnected planes: economic, ethno-cultural, and political. Attention is paid to the problem of the Tanais and Meotian fortifications, as well as to the identification of specific cultural practices that arisen in the Lower Don contact zone.