Stadial and Local Variants of the Great Steppe Civilization

Research аrticle

Abstract

The paper examines the problem of the civilizational interpretation of the history of the Great Steppe and the need to overcome the fragmentation of the traditional historical narrative, in which the societies of the Saka, Huns, Turks, and other nomadic formations are interpreted as isolated ethnopolitical entities. The object of the study is the civilization of the Great Steppe as an integral historical and cultural system that developed over a long period and included a number of stadial and local forms. The aim of the work is to provide a theoretical interpretation of this civilization as a polycentric and dynamic system possessing a stable structural core and capable of reproducing itself under various natural-climatic, political, and cultural conditions. The methodological foundation of the study is based on a synthesis of civilizational, systemic, and historical-anthropological approaches. The civilization of the Great Steppe is considered as an open historical system in which economic practices, military organization, social structure, and symbolic culture function as interrelated elements. Special attention is given to mobility as the fundamental structural principle of steppe societies, which determined the forms of social integration, political consolidation, and cultural continuity. The empirical basis of the analysis consists of interpretative models developed within the fields of nomadic studies, archaeology, and historical anthropology. The results of the study show that the formation of the civilization of the Great Steppe is associated with the transition to mobile pastoralism and the domestication of the horse during the Eneolithic period, which ensured a high level of mobility and led to the emergence of a military-nomadic model of social organization. The main stadial stages in the development of the steppe civilizational system are identified as the Saka-Scythian, Hunnic-Sarmatian, and Turkic stages, each reflecting successive transformations of a single civilizational matrix. It is established that during the medieval period, local variants of this civilization were formed, including the Turkic-Muslim and Mongol-Buddhist cultural areas, as well as adaptive forms in Southern Siberia, Yakutia, and along the western frontiers of the steppe world. It is concluded that the civilization of the Great Steppe represents a multipolar historical system characterized by stable invariant features, including a mobile pastoral economic system, a military-hierarchical organization of society, a clan-based social structure, the sacralization of power, and a distinctive type of spatial thinking. The proposed approach makes it possible to interpret the succession of ethnonyms and political formations not as ruptures in historical tradition, but as successive stages in the development of a unified civilizational complex. The results obtained provide a theoretical basis for a more comprehensive interpretation of the history of steppe societies and their role in the civilizational dynamics of Eurasia.