Thraco-Cimmerian
Categories: Iron Age | Indo-European | Archaeological cultures
Thraco-Cimmerian is a historiographical and archaeological term, composed of the names of the Thracians and the Cimmerians. It refers to 8th to 7th century BC cultures that intruded into Eastern Central Europe from the area north of the Black Sea. It is uncertain if and how these incursions are related to the historical Thracians and Cimmerians, who invaded the Balkans and Anatolia, respectively, in the same period. It is assumed that these migrations were triggered by an Iranian expansion, from the area of the former Srubna culture, into the steppes of what is now the Ukraine. Virtually nothing is known about the langauges of either Thracians or Cimmerians, but they are usually speculated to belong to the Satem group, forming a Thraco-Iranian continuum. The Sigynnae reported by classical authors as an Iranian tribe of the Black Sea steppes may also belong to this group.
Archaeologically, "Thraco-Cimmerian" artefacts are metal (usually bronze) items, particularly parts of horse tacks, found in a late Urnfield context, but without local Urnfield predecessors for their type. They appear rather to spread from the Koban culture of the Caucasus and northern Georgia, which together with the Srubna culture, blends into the 9th to 7th centuries pre-Scythian Cernogorovka and Novocerkassk cultures, and by the 7th century, "Thraco-Cimmerian" objects are spread further west over most of Eastern and Central Europe, locations of finds reaching to Denmark and eastern Prussia in the north and to Lake Zürich in the west. Together with these bronze artefacts, earliest Iron items appear, ushering in the European Iron Age, corresponding to the Proto-Celtic expansion from the Hallstatt culture.
The arefacts labelled "Thraco-Cimmerian" all belong to a category of upper class, luxury objects, like weapons, horse tacks and jewelry, and they are recovered only from a small percentage of graves of the period. From this it is assumed that the "Thraco-Cimmerian" migration did not consist of large populations, but rather of relatively small groups who installed themselves as ruling class over the indigenous Urnfield/Hallstatt population.