ound within the walls. The outlying agricultural centers produced the wheat and agricultural commodities that elevated Olbia over other colonies of the same time on the Black Sea. Scythians, The Outlying CommunitiesChora, is the Greek word for outlying communities or “ the inner hinterlands of the polis.” As mentioned previously around thirty thousand people lived within Olbia, and it is natural that at least as many lived in the surrounding chora. The situational location of Olbia places it directly beside the joining of two huge estuaries, the Bug and the Dnepr. In ancient time this entire area was settled in wheat fields and villages covering the entire peninsula of the combined estuaries. The Greek historian, Herodotus, tells us much about the Scythians of Olbia in his Histories and his description of this group of people just beyond the gates of Olbia, describes the population of the chora. He recorded various tribes of Scythian culture and made distinctions between nomads and Scythian pastoralist communities. He describes a people he calls the Geloni who were descendants of Greek colonists and native who lived around the city. He also describes the city, Gelonus which they built of wood. Some ate what they grew and other produced for the Greek wheat market. Archaeology in recent yeas has uncovered networks of town sites along the middle Dnepr River. These sites include settlements enclosed and fortified with outside cemeteries and industrial works such as granaries, potteries, and smithies for ironworks. The site of Belsk has ramparts which are 21 miles in circumference and is quite possibly the Gelonus of Herodotus. At the site there was a workshop making the type of human skull drinking cups which Herodotus details. (Ascherson 77) Herodotus also described more nomad people who travel the steppes and return to localities to reap harvests. There were also true nomadic tribes operating as well, such as t...
