Eastern and western ceramic imports in the burials of the early Sarmatian culture in the Lower Volga region

The paper is devoted to the analysis of Eastern and Western burials’ ceramic imports of Early Sarmatian archaeological culture in the Lower Volga region. Availability of the products from Central Asia, antique, meotian and the North Caucasus workshops provides not only chronological data, but also determines the relations of nomads with the agrarian population. Written sources indicate the intensification of political relations between the Sarmatians and the Greek cities of the Northern black sea region in the 2nd- 1st cc. BC. At the same time, the grave goods of the Lower Volga region’s nomads, got replenished with the range of ceramic products produced in the Bosporan Kingdom, Kuban and in the workshops of the Central Caucasus. Besides, the relations with Central Asian centers were random, although the original migration of this time was traditionally associated with this region. The emergence of mass production of ceramics coming to the Sarmatians of the Kuban, the Don and the Volga region in this period, indicates the period of stability in the relationship between the nomadic world and settled population. Apparently, it should be assumed that new nomads, mixing and living side by side with a substrate population, managed to be included in the system of existing tribal relations, without destabilizing the situation.