Pontic-Caspian steppe

Pontic-Caspian steppe
The steppe extends roughly from the Dniepr to the Ural or 30° to 55° east longitude, and from the Black Sea and the Caucasus in the south to the temperate forest and taiga in the north, or 45° to 55° north latitude.

The Pontic-Caspian steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the north of the Black Sea (Graeco-Roman tradition refers to it as the 'Hospitable sea', Euxeinos Pontos (Εὔξεινος Πόντος) - thus a euphemism - in antiquity) as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from western Ukraine across the Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan, forming part of the larger Eurasian steppe, adjacent to the Kazakh steppe to the east. It is of the paleartic temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands ecoregion of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.

The area corresponds to Scythia and Sarmatia of Classical antiquity. Across several millennia the steppe was used by numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen, many of which went on to conquer lands in the settled regions of Europe and in western and southern Asia. It was finally brought under the control of a sedentary people by the Russian Empire in the 16th to 18th centuries.

The term Ponto-Caspian region is used in biogeography for plants and animals of these steppes, and animals from the Black, Caspian and Azov seas. Genetic research has identified this region as the most probable place where horses were first domesticated.[1]

Contents

Geography and ecology

The Pontic steppe covers an area of 994,000 square kilometres (384,000 sq mi), extending from eastern Romania across southern Moldova, Ukraine, Russia and northwestern Kazakhstan to the Ural Mountains. The Pontic steppe is bounded by the East European forest steppe to the north, a transitional zone of mixed grasslands and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests.

To the south, the Pontic steppe extends to the Black Sea, excepting the Crimean and western Caucasus mountains' border with the sea, where the Crimean Submediterranean forest complex defines the southern edge of the steppes. The steppe extends to the western shore of the Caspian Sea in the Dagestan region of Russia, but the drier Caspian lowland desert lies between the Pontic steppe and the northwestern and northern shores of the Caspian. The Kazakh Steppe bounds the Pontic steppe on the southeast.

The Ponto-Caspian seas are the remains of the Turgai Sea, an extension of the Paratethys which extended south and east of the Urals and covering much of today's West Siberian Plain in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Prehistoric cultures

Historical peoples and nations

See also

External links

References

Palearctic Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublandsv · Alai-Western Tian Shan steppe
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Altai steppe and semi-desert Kazakhstan
Central Anatolian steppe Turkey
Daurian forest steppe China, Mongolia, Russia
Eastern Anatolian montane steppe Armenia, Iran, Turkey
Emin Valley steppe China, Kazakhstan
Faroe Islands boreal grasslands Faroe Islands, Denmark
Gissaro-Alai open woodlands Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Kazakh forest steppe Kazakhstan, Russia
Kazakh steppe Kazakhstan, Russia
Kazakh upland Kazakhstan
Middle East steppe Iraq, Syria
Mongolian-Manchurian grassland China, Mongolia, Russia
Pontic steppe Kazakhstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Ukraine
Sayan Intermontane steppe Russia
Selenge-Orkhon forest steppe Mongolia, Russia
South Siberian forest steppe Russia
Tian Shan foothill arid steppe China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan

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