The territory of the Seym Basin is the northern boundary of the forest-steppe zone of the Dnipro Left Bank, which coincides with the spread of the sites of the forest-steppe population of the Scythian time. The ecotonic position of the region compelled the local population to adapt the forest-steppe economy to different natural conditions and to make contacts with the neighboring forest population. A few monographs and articles have highlighted the results of studies of individual sites, but the work of combining this information has not been done. The uniqueness of the region, as well as the views on the contacts of societies with different economies and genesis, make this topic very relevant.
The study of the Scythian period of the region began about 80 years ago. During this time, several major expeditions were in the Seym region, which significantly changed its perception. Ivan Lyapushkin was one of the first researchers to draw attention to the Scythian time sites there. His investigations in the Seym basin led him to believe that their appearance dates back to the IV century B.C. Around the same time, Varvara Ilinskaya conducted a study of the Western Seym region at the Shiryaevo hillfort. Her excavations at the Shiryaevo hillfort have become the only professional study on the Scythian culture of the Western Seym region for more than half a century. The situation changed drastically in 1962, with the publication of Anna Alikhova’s seven-year research at the Kursk region. These sites differed from the Shiryaevo hillfort in the Western Seym region, which created the idea of the Eastern Seym region as an area of solely Yukhiv culture. Later Anna Puzikova concluded that there was a significant number of the sites of the local Scythian forest-steppe farmers similar to the population of the Dnipro Left Bank and the Don regions, set the time of their appearance to the late VII - VI centuries B.C. and suggested that population changed around the V century B.C. In recent years, the expedition of Dmytro Karavayko provided mass material from a large number of Western Seym sites and facilitated the exploration of the Shiryaevo hillfort.
Since the publications of Anna Puzikova's works, theoretical studies of the Scythian period of the region were based mainly on rethinking the already obtained materials. The exact area of sites, their number, chronology, and economy have not been fully established. To address these and other issues, this work took an approach of combining both conventional archaeological research methods with statistical and geographical methods.
The mapping and cataloging of the sites made it possible to accurately determine the number of known objects and their distribution area. An analysis of the topography and fortifications made it possible to divide the sites by topographic position and type of fortifications. Accurate mapping and GIS analysis made it possible to divide the region into Eastern and Western Seym. In addition to the location of the sites, their resource zones were also analyzed, which showed a predominance of different topographies of structures and, consequently, of different types of the economy that the local population engaged in. To clarify the latter, an analysis of osteological material from the sites was performed, a comparison of which showed that the sites had different types of animal husbandry and different roles of hunting. Large excavations of several sites made it possible to analyze the traditions of housebuilding of the population and to compare it with neighboring societies, and the presence of stray findings of human bones on some sites gave ground for speculative theories about possible burial practices of the population. A significant amount of published material from the sites has allowed conducting statistical analysis of the ceramics of the region. In general, it can be said that although the material complex of the Seym region has unique features, it can be considered common for the forest-steppe area. The differences are mainly manifested in the ceramic traditions, which was influenced by the previous societies and contacts with the forest population, and the tradition of construction of small but numerous fortifications.
