Saltovo-Mayaki or Saltovo-Majaki is the name given by

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

s to the early medieval culture of the

Pontic Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to: The Black Sea Places * The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores * Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores * The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from no ...

steppe region roughly between the

Don Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia *Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name *Don, Benin, a town in Benin *Don, Dang, a vill ...

and the

Dnieper River } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...

s, flourishing roughly between the years of 700 and 950.

History

Saltovo-Mayaki influence was strong in the area of the

Volyntsevo culture Volyntsevo culture is an archaeological culture of the early Middle Ages (8th to 9th centuries), located between the Dnieper and the Don rivers. In the west, the territory of the Volyntsevo monuments reaches the right bank of Dnieper in the Kyiv a ...

to the northwest of the main Saltovo-Mayaki territory. There is no consensus as to what ethnicity to assign to this culture, if any at all.https://publicera.kb.se/csa/article/download/1117/1072/1294

Characteristics

The Saltovo-Mayaki material culture was "fairly uniform" across the various tribes.

Ethnicity

Their culture was a melting pot of Onogur,

Khazar The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

Pecheneg The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პაჭ ...

, Magyar,

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name **List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

, and Slavic influences.

Genetics

A genetic study published in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' in May 2018 examined three males of the Saltovo-Mayaki culture buried in

Belgorod Oblast Belgorod Oblast (russian: Белгоро́дская о́бласть, ''Belgorodskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Belgorod. Population: History At the turn of the 17th c ...

, Russia between ca. 700 AD and 900 AD. The sample of

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

extracted belonged to haplogroup R1. The three samples of

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

extracted belonged to the haplogroups I, J1b4 and U7a4.

References

Sources

* Nomadic groups in Eurasia Medieval Ukraine Early Middle Ages Archaeology of Ukraine Archaeology of Russia Medieval Russia Archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe Iranian nomads {{Ethno-stub