| Map of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, & Greece 1200 BC |
| Around the end of the thirteenth century BC the entire eastern Mediterranean region was hit by drought and the loss of surviving crops. Food supplies dwindled and the number of raids by various patchwork groups increased exponentially. By about 1200 BC, this flood had turned into a tidal wave of destruction, abandonment, and migration. In the case of the South-West Indo-Europeans, that migration meant following what was probably already an active route for low-level movement and also some trade, taking them southwards towards Mycenaean Greece. They divided along the way (if such divisions didn't already exist), with the Illyrians heading for the west coast, the Epirotes doing the same on the edges of Mycenaean occupation, the Thracians and Phrygians heading towards the eastern coast, the Macedonians slotting in between the two coasts, and the Dorians, Ionians, and Aeolians heading into Mycenae and the islands of the Aegean. The Ionians even ventured through the Bosphorus to begin proto-Greek settlement in the Black Sea region. The Dacians seemingly moved the least - if at all - probably being able to make the most of their increased resources and lower population levels along the Danubian shoreline. |
| Map of Scythian Lands c.500 BC |
| The Scythians were a westwards extension of the Indo-Iranian Sakas of Central Asia (the latter's lands are shown in vertical stripes above and to the east of the Caspian Sea). In creating their domain on the Pontic steppe (to the north of the Black Sea) they seemingly dominated the early Slavs who were still largely located around the Dnieper and perhaps as far north as the headwaters of the Vistula. The period between about 800-600 BC saw the Scythians expand from the Pontic steppe into the outer edges of Central Europe. These steppe horsemen appeared in Moravia (now eastern Czechia), and what is now Romania and Hungary. The powerful Cimmerians had already been defeated and expelled from their homeland around the Crimea, and for a while, prior to the rise of the Persian empire, the Scythians also dominated Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains. Between about 600-500 BC the Scythians looked north, reaching the borders of the western Baltic lands. This was seemingly due to their becoming involved in wars against the Persians who launched several campaigns around the Black Sea coast. Balt defences were never seriously breached though. Between about 500-400 BC large numbers of Iron Age La Tène Celtic peoples migrated eastwards from Central Europe, to locations in Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Balkans, and Ukraine. This served to pin back the Scythians in the west of their lands. By around 100 BC a clearly-defined Scythian kingship was in operation, although whether this was just one of many is not known. Ruling from Crimea, the Scythians were defeated by the Pontic kingdom which had replaced Persian rule in northern Anatolia, and the Scythians were broken. Their lands - known as Scythia - were referred to as such for several more centuries but the nomadic Scythian horsemen no longer posed a threat to the civilisations to their south. |
