The
etymology of the name and the identity of the people remain unclear.
Edward James Of these, the Sindi are the best attested, and were probably the dominant people among the Maeotians. The language of the Maeotians—and even its language family—is uncertain. One princess of the
Ixomates was called
Tirgatao, comparable to
Tirgutawiya, a name on a tablet discovered in
Hurrian Alalakh. Ukrainian archaeologists and modern
Hellenists claim that Maeotians were ancient Greeks who established colonies in Maeotia. A Greek historian
Apostolos Vakalopoulos claimed that Greeks settled in the south of present-day
Donbas and later established colonies on the coast of
Kuban. He did not contest the possibility of
Greeks intermixing with the local
Sarmatians.
Karl Eichwald claimed that the Maeotians originated as a "Hindu" (
Indian) colony, but this view is rejected by the majority of scholars.
Soviet archaeologists, historians, and ethnographers concluded that the Maeotians were one of the Circassian tribes.
The Cambridge Ancient History classifies the Maeotians as either a people of
Cimmerian ancestry or as
Caucasian aboriginals. The modern
Adyghe name of the people is . ==Early history==