Cimmerians and Scythians in Anatolia and their traces in the central Anatolia

Anatolia, which is located on the transition point of three continents as its geographical position, functioned like a bridge during migration of tribes through centuries. Tribal migrations were seen from the Central Asia to Anatolia due to various reasons at different periods in B.C. or A.D. Cimmerians who were one of the migrating nomadic horse mounted tribes resided firstly in northern Black Sea and southern steppes of Russia. Some groups of Cimmerians migrating from the southern Black Sea because of the pressure by Scythians came into eastern Anatolia through Caucasia; other groups came to Anatolia migrating to the west through the straits. Beginning from the late 8th century B.C.; they played an important role in the history of especially Urartians, Phrygians, Lydians, Ionians and late Hittite city states; states located in Anatolia, neighboring tribes, Assyrians and Med-Persians.The topic of the dissertation is the traces of Cimmerians and Scythians in Anatolia. In the study, especially their traces in central Anatolia cities like Sivas, Tokat, Yozgat, Çorum, Kayseri, Ankara, Eskişehir, Kırşehir, Niğde, Nevşehir and Konya were focused, archeological materials which was found in the related area and might belong to the mentioned tribes were tried to be analyzed based on contemporary archeological data. In this scope, the works at the museums in the above mentioned cities were examined; the pieces which might be related with Cimmerians and Scythians were photographed and introduced. Keywords: Anatolia, Cimmerians, Scythians, Culture.