Sarmatians

The Sarmatians (/sɑːrˈmeɪʃiənz/; Ancient Greek: Σαρμάται, romanized: Sarmátai; Latin: Sarmatae [ˈsarmatae̯]) were a large confederation of ancient Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples who dominated the Pontic steppe from around the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD.

The earliest known reference to the Sarmatians comes from the Avesta, where they are mentioned as Sairima-, which in later Iranian sources became Sarm and Salm. Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians formed part of the wider Scythian cultures. They started migrating westward around the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by 200 BC. At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BC, these tribes could be found from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas and the Caucasus to the south.

In the 1st century AD, the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes. In the 3rd century AD, the Germanic Goths broke the Sarmatian dominance of the Pontic Steppe, and with the Hunnic invasions of the 4th century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths and other Germanic tribes such as the Vandals and settled in the Western Roman Empire. Since large parts of today's Russia, specifically the land between the Ural Mountains and the Don River, were controlled in the 5th century BC by the Sarmatians, the Lower Volga–Don steppes are sometimes called the "Sarmatian Motherland".

The Sarmatians in the Bosporan Kingdom assimilated into Greek civilization, while others were absorbed by the proto-Circassian Maeotian people, the Alans, and by the Goths. Other Sarmatians were assimilated and absorbed by the Early Slavs. The Alans survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.

The early-modern Polish nobility (Polish: szlachta) claimed descent from the Sarmatians.

Genomic studies suggest that the Sarmatians may have been genetically similar to the eastern Yamnaya Bronze Age group.