The Geographical Term “Steppe”: Its Origin, Evolution, and Distribution

The genesis and the transformation of the concept of “steppe” are discussed. It has been shown that initially the etymology of this term can be linked to a terrain feature and forestlessness and in general corresponds to the “steppe forefatherland” of Indo-European peoples and languages. We have found that this term has a dualistic nature, the latter having played a role in how it was interpreted in the ancient literature and scientific sources. We have traced the diversity of the meanings of “steppe” as an orographic term, its correlation with the concept of “field,” and how it happened that “steppe” became a landscape concept. For the first time, an attempt was made to explain the spread of this term based on the results obtained by the interdisciplinary collaboration of geneticists, linguists, and archaeologists and their estimates of the time of formation and settlement of Indo-European peoples.