The Eurasian Steppes
What were the ancient Eurasian steppes?
The ancient Eurasian steppes was an area defined by nomadic, regional groups that were heralded by a wide variety of economic activity, including stock herding, hunting, trading, and agriculture. This was influenced by the broad-sweeping geographic area that this region covered, reaching all the way from Eastern Europe to Northeastern China, allowing these eastern and western reaches to be more readily defined geographically as the eastern and western steppes. This region not only included a vast array of climates, from grasslands to deserts to forests, but also intersected with the Silk Road, the most prolific trading route in history, connecting the east to the west both economically, socially, and idealistically. The people of this region are closely associated with their ornate bronze-work, which was both small and portable to suit their nomadic lifestyles, but also extremely practical and full of motifs and symbolism that would indicate hierarchical status as well as regional group affiliation among broader themes. This area, one whose people served as intermediaries between the east and the west, invariably developed a culture entirely unique, something that is understandably depicted within their bronze pieces.
Who were the ancient Eurasian steppe people?
The people of the ancient Eurasian steppes are best known for their nomadic lifestyles as well as their reliance on the horse for transportation, their use of domesticated and wild animals for food, and their metalwork, particularly bronze metalwork, to create tools and ornamental objects. Since much of this region was non-urban, most people in the ancient steppe culture evolved from participating in sedentary pastoralism to nomadic pastoralism during the second millenium BCE, even lending to the evolution of transhumance, a seasonal migration in which these nomadic groups would search for water and new lands for their herds to graze. As a result, most of the lives of these people were structured around the seasons, migrating between warmer and cooler climates in order to maintain their pastoralism. Such a lifestyle made it difficult to develop a strong, written record-keeping system, so oral and pictorial traditions were the most popular tool by which they would instill values and teach the history of their culture, something that is evident in the motifs of their bronzes.