The legendary Amazon women did exist

… but what were the blood type distributions among them?

Let’s see:

Some Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have given rise to Greek stories of Amazons. Graves of armed females have been found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony notes, “About 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian ‘warrior graves’ on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle as if they were men, a style that may have inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons.

The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of nature, and women’s prominent role in warfare, which possibly served as the inspiration for the Amazons.

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Who were the Sarmatians?

The Sarmatians (Latin: Sarmatae, Sauromatae) were a large
Iranian confederation that existed in classical antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD.

Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians were part of the wider Scythian cultures.

Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan *sar-ma(n)t (feminine – rich in women, ruled by women), the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word *sar- (woman) and the Indo-Iranian adjective suffix -ma(n)t/wa(n)t.

**Amage was a Sarmatian queen.**

According to the writings of Polyaenus,
she was the wife and co-ruler of the Sarmatian king Medosacus.
They were from the coast of the Euxine Sea.
Having observed that her husband was “totally given up to luxury”, she took over the government, acting as a judge of causes,
stationing garrisons, repulsing enemy invasions, and was such a successful leader that she became famous through all Scythia.
As a result of this fame, the people of the Tauric Chersonesus, having been harassed by a neighboring Scythian king,
requested a treaty with her. As a result of the formation of this treaty, she wrote to the Scythian prince,
requesting that he cease harassing the people. When he replied contemptuously, she marched against him with 120 strong and seasoned warriors,
and gave each warrior three horses. In one night and one day, she covered a distance of 100 stades (roughly 184.81 kilometers),
and arrived at the palace, surprising the inhabitants and killing all the guards.
As the prince was taken off guard, and perceived her force to be larger than it really was, she was able to charge and personally kill him,
as well as his friends and relatives. Thus she enabled the people of Chersonesus to regain free possession of their land.
She allowed the prince’s son to live and rule the kingdom on the condition that he not invade nearby kingdoms.
This took place towards the end of the second century, BC.

*(Image source: Pinterest)*

By this derivation was noted the unusual high status of women (matriarchy) from the Greek point of view and went to the invention of
Amazons (thus the Greek name for Sarmatians as Sarmatai Gynaikokratoumenoi, ruled by women).

Herodotus (Histories 4.21) in the 5th century BC placed the land of the Sarmatians east of the Tanais, beginning at the corner of the Maeotian Lake, stretching northwards for fifteen days’ journey, adjacent to the forested land of the Budinoi.

Herodotus (4.110–117) recounts that the Sauromatians arose from marriages of a group of Amazons and young Scythian men. In the story, some Amazons were captured in battle by Greeks in Pontus (northern Turkey) near the river Thermodon, and the captives were loaded into three boats. They overcame their captors while at sea, but were not able sailors. Their ships were blown north to the Maeotian Lake (the Sea of Azov) onto the shore of Scythia near the cliff region (today’s southeastern Crimea). After encountering the Scythians and learning the Scythian language, they agreed to marry Scythian men, but only on the condition that they move away and not be required to follow the customs of Scythian women. According to Herodotus, the descendants of this band settled toward the northeast beyond the Tanais (Don) river and became the Sauromatians.
Herodotus’ account explains the origins of their language as an “impure” form of Scythian. He credits the unusual social freedoms of Sauromatae women, including participation in warfare, as an inheritance from their Amazon ancestors. Later writers refer to the “woman-ruled Sarmatae“.

Again:

Archaeological evidence suggests that Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have given rise to the Greek legends of Amazons. Graves of armed females have been found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony notes,
“About 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian “warrior graves” on the lower Don and lower Volga contained females dressed for battle as if they were men, a phenomenon that probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons.

The Ossetians descend from the Alans, a Sarmatian tribe (Scythian subgroup of the Iranian ethnolinguistic group). The Alans were the only branch of the Sarmatians to keep their culture in the face of a Gothic invasion (c. 200 CE) and those who remained built a great kingdom between the Don and Volga Rivers, according to Coon, *The Races of Europe*. Between 350 and 374 CE, the Huns destroyed the Alan kingdom and the Alan people were split in half. One half fled to the west, where they participated in the Barbarian Invasions of Rome, established short-lived kingdoms in Spain and North Africa and settled in many other places such as Orléans, France. The other half fled to the south and settled on the plains of the North Caucasus, where they established their medieval kingdom of Alania.

The **Jász** are an Iranic ethnic group who have lived in Hungary since the 13th century. They live mostly in a region known as Jászság, which comprises the north-western part of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county. They are sometimes known in English by the exonym Jassic and are also known by the endonyms Iasi and Jassy. They originated as an Ossetian people from **Sarmatia**.

Sources and additional information:

Who were the legendary Amazons?

In 2017, a genetic study of the Scythians suggested that the Scythians were ultimately descended from the Yamna culture, and emerged on the Pontic steppe independently of peoples belonging to Scythian cultures further east. Based on the analysis of mithocondrial lineages, another later 2017 study suggested that the Scythians were directly descended
from the Srubnaya culture. A later analysis of paternal lineages, published in 2018,
found significant genetic differences between the Srubnaya and the Scythians,
suggesting that the Srubnaya and the Scythians instead traced a common origin in the Yamnaya culture, with the Scythians and related peoples such as the Sarmatians perhaps tracing their origin to the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppes and the southern Urals.
Another 2019 study also concluded that migrations must have played a part in the emergence of the Scythians as the dominant power of the Pontic steppe.

Who were the Yamnaya?

They are also closely connected to later Final Neolithic cultures, which spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people, but also the Bell Beaker culture as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubna cultures. In this group, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Genetic studies have also indicated that these populations derived large parts of their ancestry from the steppes. Early Anatolian farmers would have had low percentages of rh negatives but Steppe individuals around 40% according to the now popular claims.

Blood groups in ancient Europe

“If we compute expected phenotypic frequencies, this suggests that around around 65% of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers would have been type O, compared to around 40% in present-day Europeans, and around 40% of Steppe-ancestry individuals would have been Rh-,
compared to around 24% of hunter-gatherers, 4% of early farmers, and about 16% of present-day Europeans.”

Thank you for reading. The quest continues:

What is the origin of rh negative people and blood

The legendary Amazon women did exist

Who were the Sarmatians?

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