'Celtoscythians': Ethnical Processes and Cultural Contacts in the Baltic-Black Sea Region (3rd Century BC — 1st Century AD)

Abstract

The paper deals with the ethnocultural processes that took place in the 3rd century BC – 1st century AD on the territory of Ukraine and neighbouring lands of Central and Eastern Europe. These processes, in particular, have expressed themselves in the emergence of terms ‘Celtoscythians’ and ‘Bastarnae’. The author aims to show that ancient Greeks and Romans used these names to define barbaric population, which, was living on the territory of Scythia according to geographical concepts of those days, but had material culture and customs similar to Celtic and, to some extent, could use Celtic dialects. It is stated that the lands of present-day Ukraine were stretched across the distinct periphery of the ‘Celtic world’.A group of Celtic settlements and burials which occupied the Transcarpathian region was a rather typical sub-group of the La Tene culture, similar to those in nearby regions of Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. There are only traces of the ‘Celtic’ military raids and micro-migrations in the lands eastward of the Carpathian Mountains and they had no significant impact on the cultural situation in the region. At the turn of the eras, in the basins of Dniester and Dnipro, the new Poieneşti-Lukashevka and Zarubyntsi archaeological cultures emerged. Both combined Jastorf and La Tène traditions and local traditions. The Greek and Roman authors used the new ‘umbrella’ ethnic entities ‘Bastarnae’ and ‘Κελτοσκύθαι’. Such mixed groups of the population emerged as a result of intensifying cultural contacts between the Baltic and Pontic areas. One may pay attention to the communication route from Hellespont to the Baltic shores that Plinius the Elder described in his Naturalis Historia (NH. IV. 28). Apparently, the route following Dniester and Vistula played a significant role in exchange of prestigious artefacts, as well as ideas and technologies between various groups of population of the Northern and Eastern fringes of the Celtic world. The contact zone that formed along this route played an important role in the processes of ethnogenesis on the territory of Ukraine over the following centuries.