Revisiting the Origin Time of the Sarmatians in the Crimean Steppe

The study deals with the question of determining time of the first appearance of the Sarmatians in the Crimean Steppe. Discrepancy between scientific interpretations of ancient written sources and dating by archaeological researches can be observed: while the former admit that the Sarmatians inhabited the Crimean peninsula in 3rd – 2nd centuries BC, the later assume the origin time to be the late 1st century BC. The monument considered in the article is burial 80 of kurgan Ungut-1 which partially helps to overcome this discrepancy. The studied monument is a single burial of a male positioned on his back with his head oriented to the north accompanied by a moulded pot, a fibula, a knife and a bead. These grave goods and, the first of all, fibula date back the burial to the early 1st century BC, and allow this Sarmatian complex to be considered the earliest precisely dated one in the Crimea. This fact indicates the presence of the nomads on the peninsula during the reign of Mithradates VI Eupator. At the same time, the examined monument does not mitigate completely discrepancies existing between ancient written sources and massive archaeological material regarding their timing. The only indisputable fact is that the nomads were there during the events of the Diophantine wars. However, their presence on the Crimean peninsula in earlier periods, especially in the late 4th – early 3rd centuries BC, remains disputable.