Pontic–Caspian steppe

The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area around the Caspian Sea, where it ends at the Ural-Caspian narrowing, which joins it with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia, making it a part of the larger Eurasian Steppe. Geopolitically, the Pontic-Caspian Steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania through Moldova and eastern Ukraine, through the Northern Caucasus of southern Russia, and into the Lower Volga region where it straddles the border of southern Russia and western Kazakhstan. Biogeographically, it is a part of the Palearctic realm, and of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.

The area corresponds to Cimmeria, Scythia, and Sarmatia of classical antiquity. Across several millennia, numerous tribes of nomadic horsemen used the steppe; many of them went on to conquer lands in the settled regions of Eastern and Central Europe, Western Asia, and Southern Asia.

The term Ponto-Caspian region is used in biogeography with reference to the flora and fauna of these steppes, including animals from the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and Azov Sea. Genetic research has identified this region as the most probable place where horses were first domesticated. The Kurgan hypothesis, the most prevalent theory in Indo-European studies, speculates that the Pontic–Caspian steppe was the homeland of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. With the scientific advances in DNA genome mapping and the introduction of bioarchaeology, the Kurgan hypothesis is today widely considered to have been validated.