ИСТИНА

When did Early Scythian (Early Kelermes) cultural complex emerge? Revision of ‘traditional’ chronology was initiated by Kossack (1983; 1987), and supported and developed in Russia and the Ukraine (Medvedskaya 1992; Polin 1998; Ivanchik 2001). These scholars believed this emergence had taken place at the end of the 8th/beginning of the 7th century BC. So did Alexeev and Ryabkova (2010), who presumed that the barrows of the Early Kelermes group had been built by the Scythians around 700 BC, i.e. in the period preceding the Scythian invasion of Transcaucasia and the Near East (‘proto-campaign period’), based primarily on the radiocarbon dates of the 2/V Kelermes barrow. Daragan (2012) also adheres to an early formation date. Balahvantsev (2012), based on his dating of an inscription from Risaykino, believes that the ram-bird (or ram-griffin) – a fundamental element of Early Scythian culture – had already emerged in the second half of the 8th century BC (2012). Far from all scholars are persuaded by these new dates. We think that: 1. First contacts of the populations of the northern Black Sea region and the northern Caucasus with Transcaucasia had already started in Pre-Scythian times. 2. The emergence in the Near East of such ‘Early Scythian’ artefacts as bronze socketed arrowheads at well stratified sites took place no earlier than the beginning of the 8th century BC (Derin and Muscarela 2002) and probably was an adoption from Central Asia. Finds of them are not testimony to the direct presence of Scythians originating in the northern Black Sea region: the majority of smelting moulds for casting these arrowheads were discovered in the Near East, which is evidence of local manufacture. Meanwhile, the earliest Scythian elements had emerged in both the northern Black Sea region and northern Caucasus; and first there had appeared arrowheads of extended rhombic form (Yendze barrow 2, tomb 1-type) which became the base for local modifications (such as barrow 524 from Zhabotin) (Ryabkova, 2012). 3. The beginning of the Early Kelermes stage of the Early Scythian material complex dates to the end of the second/beginning of the third quarter of the 7th century BC. Why? East Greek (Ionian) imported artefacts have been discovered in bulk in integrated contexts with objects of ‘the Kelermes circle’ in strata of fortified forest-steppe sites in the Dnieper basin (West Belskoe, Nemirovskoe, Trakhtemirovskoe). The earliest Kelermes barrows present some cultural innovations that could emerge only as a result of the Scythian invasion of the Near East, such as bells and a horse-harness which Galanina (1983, 43) identifies as the ‘local version’ of the Near Eastern harness. The materials of the Kelermes barrows do not allow us to presume a gap of 50-100 years between the Early and Late Kelermes barrow groups or to link the Early group to the ‘proto-campaign period’.