The Pazyryk culture was one of the Scythian nomadic societies that inhabited the Eurasian steppe in the Iron Age — roughly the sixth through third centuries before the common era.

“Scythian” is itself a general term applied by Greek and Persian writers to the various nomadic peoples of the steppe, who shared broad cultural patterns but were not a single unified political entity.

The Pazyryk specifically inhabited the Altai region: the mountain territory where the modern Russian Republic of Altay is located, bounded by the great grasslands of the western steppe to the west and the Mongolian steppe to the east and south.

This was high-altitude country, demanding country, country that shaped its inhabitants toward particular forms of life.