🐎 What the genomes say about the Scythians

Researchers sequenced 131 ancient individuals from the North-Pontic steppe to the Middle Don and Crimea. The Scythians weren’t one tribe genetically: most of their ancestry comes from European Bronze Age steppe groups, with only small Siberian/East Asian components appearing in the Iron Age.

Earlier Scythian groups show some southern links, while “classical” and late Crimean Scythians lean more toward northern steppe sources. When compared to later and modern peoples, their closest affinities sit mostly in eastern Baltic and northwestern Russian populations — pointing to a legacy that is stronger in Europe than in Central Asia.

Takeaway: Scythia was a cultural world built from multiple steppe ancestries, not a single migrating people.

Source: Andreeva et al., 2025. Genetic history of Scythia.