Afanasievo cultureThe Afanasievo culture, or Afanasevo culture (Afanasevan culture) (Афанасьевская культура Afanas'yevskaya kul'tura), is an early archaeological culture of south Siberia, occupying the Minusinsk Basin and the Altai Mountains during the eneolithic era, 3300 to 2500 BCE. It is named after a nearby mountain, Gora Afanasieva (Гора Афанасьева) in what is now Bogradsky District, Khakassia, Russia. Afanasievo burials have been found as far as Shatar Chuluu in central Mongolia, confirming a further expansion about 1,500 km beyond the Altai mountains.
SakaThe Saka (Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: 𐨯𐨐 ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit (Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): शक , शाक ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Eastern Iranian peoples who historically inhabited the northern and eastern Eurasian Steppe and the Tarim Basin. The Sakas were closely related to the European Scythians, and both groups formed part of the wider Scythian cultures and ultimately derived from the earlier Andronovo culture, and the Saka language formed part of the Scythian languages.
ScythiansThe Scythians (ˈsɪθiən or ˈsɪðiən) or Scyths (ˈsɪθ, but note Scytho- (ˈsaɪθʊ) in composition) and sometimes also referred to as the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people who had migrated during the 9th to 8th centuries BC from Central Asia to the Pontic Steppe in modern-day Ukraine and Southern Russia, where they remained established from the 7th century BC until the 3rd century BC. Skilled in mounted warfare, the Scythians replaced the Agathyrsi and the Cimmerians as the dominant power on the western Eurasian Steppe in the 8th century BC.
