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71-668: West: Catacomb culture , Vučedol culture The Yamnaya culture or the Yamna culture , also known as the Pit Grave culture or Ochre Grave culture , is a late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug , Dniester , and Ural rivers (the Pontic–Caspian steppe ), dating to 3300–2600  BC . It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near

142-808: A few fortified sites, the largest of which is Mikhaylivka . Characteristic of the culture are the burials in pit graves surmounted by kurgans ( tumuli ), often accompanied by animal offerings. Some graves contain large anthropomorphic stelae , with carved human heads, arms, hands, belts, and weapons. The bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre . Some kurgans contained "stratified sequences of graves". Kurgan burials may have been rare, and were perhaps reserved for special adults, who were predominantly, but not necessarily, male. Status and gender are marked by grave goods and position, and in some areas, elite individuals are buried with complete wooden wagons. Grave goods are more common in eastern Yamnaya burials, which are also characterized by

213-427: A higher proportion of male burials and more male-centred rituals than western areas. The Yamnaya culture had and used two-wheeled carts and four-wheeled wagons, which are thought to have been oxen-drawn at this time, and there is evidence that they rode horses. For instance, several Yamnaya skeletons exhibit specific characteristics in their bone morphology that may have been caused by long-term horseriding. The evidence

284-436: A labor perhaps that led to a value being placed upon them. Whether they were money is not known. The hard goods leave no record of any great richness. There is some evidence that wealth may have consisted of perishable goods. In fact, in many similar cultures of later times, wealth was reckoned in livestock. A recent study of the surface of the pottery (also of many cultures), which recorded contact with perishable material while

355-883: A mixture of Yamnaya-related ancestry and an East Asian -related component, which most closely corresponds to the modern North Siberian Nganasan people of the lower Yenisey River , to varying degrees, but generally higher among Eastern Scythians. Catacomb culture Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Catacomb culture ( Russian : Катакомбная культура , romanized :  Katakombnaya kul'tura , Ukrainian : Катакомбна культура , romanized :  Katakombna kul'tura )

426-568: A population of " Caucasus hunter-gatherers " (CHG) who probably arrived from the Caucasus or Iran. Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA. This admixture is referred to in archaeogenetics as Western Steppe Herder (WSH) ancestry. Admixture between EHGs and CHGs is believed to have occurred on the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe starting around 5,000 BC, while admixture with Early European Farmers (EEF) happened in

497-464: A subclade of U4 . A male from the contemporary Sredny Stog culture was found to have 80% WSH ancestry of a similar type to the Khvalynsk people, and 20% Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry. Among the later Yamnaya culture , males carry exclusively R1b and I2 . A similar pattern is observable among males of the earlier Dnieper-Donets culture , who carried only R and I and whose ancestry

568-412: Is Late Eneolithic. Asko Parpola regards Khvalynsk culture to be c. 5,000 to 3,800 BCE. Nina Morgunova regards Khvalynsk I as Early Eneolithic, contemporary with the second stage of Samara culture called Ivanovka and Toksky stage, which pottery was influenced by Khvalynsk culture, as calibrated period of this second stage of Samara culture is 4,850–3,640 BCE. Marija Gimbutas , however, believed Samara

639-603: Is a Middle Copper Age Eneolithic culture (c. 4,900 – 3,500 BC) of the middle Volga region. It takes its name from Khvalynsk in Saratov Oblast . It was preceded by the Early Eneolithic Samara culture . A number of calibrated C-14 readings obtained from material in the graves of the type site date the culture certainly to the approximate window, 5,000–4,500 BCE. This material is from Khvalynsk I, or Early Khvalynsk. Khvalynsk II, or Late Khvalynsk,

710-484: Is a mixture of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) and Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG) ancestry. This admixture appears to have happened on the eastern Pontic–Caspian steppe starting around 5,000 BC. Mathieson et al. (2015, 2018) found in three Eneolithic males buried near Khvalynsk between 5,200 BC and 4,000 BC the Y-haplogroups R1b1a and R1a1 , and the mt-haplogroups H2a1 , U5a1i , and Q1a and

781-438: Is a porphyry axe-head with lugs and a haft hole. These artifacts are of types that not too long after appeared in metal. There is also plenty of evidence of personal jewelry: beads of shell, stone and animal teeth, bracelets of stone or bone, pendants of boar tusk. The animals whose teeth came to decorate the putative Indo-Europeans are boar, bear, wolf, deer and others. Some of these teeth must have been difficult to acquire,

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852-540: Is disputed by archaeozoologist William T. Taylor, who argues that domestication of the horse long postdates the Yamnaya culture. Metallurgists and other craftsmen are given a special status in Yamnaya society, and metal objects are sometimes found in large quantities in elite graves. New metalworking technologies and weapon designs are used. Stable isotope ratios of Yamna individuals from the Dnipro Valley suggest

923-485: Is most commonly found in male Yamnaya specimens cannot be found in modern Western Europeans, or in males from the nearby Corded Ware culture . This makes it unlikely that the Corded Ware culture can be directly descended from the Yamnaya culture, at least along the paternal line. Autosomal tests also indicate that the Yamnaya are the vector for "Ancient North Eurasian" admixture into Europe. " Ancient North Eurasian "

994-671: Is named for its burials. These augmented the shaft grave of the Yamnaya culture with burial niche at its base. This is the so-called catacomb. Such graves have also been found in Mycenaean Greece and parts of Eastern Europe . Deceased Catacomb individuals were typically buried in a flexed position on their right side. They were often accompanied by ornaments such as silver rings, and weapons such as stone and metal axes, arrows, daggers and maces. Animal sacrifices, including head and hooves of goats, sheep, horses and cattle, occur in about 16% of Catacomb graves. Cattle sacrifices in

1065-636: Is of particular interest to researchers, as the widely-accepted Kurgan hypothesis posits that the people that produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto-Indo-European language . The speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language embarked on the Indo-European migrations , that gave rise to the Indo-European languages of today. The Yamnaya culture was defined by Vasily Gorodtsov in order to differentiate it from

1136-596: Is the name given in literature to a genetic component that represents descent from the people of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture or a population closely related to them. That genetic component is visible in tests of the Yamnaya people as well as modern-day Europeans. In the Baltic, Jones et al. (2017) found that the Neolithic transition  – the passage from a hunter-gatherer economy to a farming-based economy – coincided with

1207-575: The Catacomb and Srubnaya cultures that existed in the area, but were considered to be of a later period. Due to the time interval to the Yamnaya culture, and the reliance on archaeological findings, debate as to its origin is ongoing. In 1996, Pavel Dolukhanov suggested that the emergence of the Pit-Grave culture represents a social development of various different local Bronze Age cultures, thus representing "an expression of social stratification and

1278-696: The Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture , as well as the peoples of the Sintashta , Andronovo , and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo. In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present. Yamnaya material culture was very similar to the Afanasievo culture of South Siberia, and the populations of the two cultures are genetically indistinguishable. This suggests that

1349-573: The Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: Я́мная ( romanization : yamnaya ) is a Russian adjective that means 'related to pits ( yama )', as these people used to bury their dead in tumuli ( kurgans ) containing simple pit chambers. Research in recent years has found that Mikhaylovka , in lower Dnieper river, Ukraine, formed the Core Yamnaya culture (c. 3600–3400 BC). The Yamnaya economy

1420-638: The East Asian mtDNA haplogroup C4 . People of the Yamnaya culture are believed to have had mostly brown eye colour, light to intermediate skin, and brown hair colour, with some variation. Some Yamnaya individuals are believed to have carried a mutation to the KITLG gene associated with blond hair, as several individuals with Steppe ancestry are later found to carry this mutation. The Ancient North Eurasian Afontova Gora group, who contributed significant ancestry to Western Steppe Herders , are believed to be

1491-737: The Indo-European languages were the result of "a dominant language spoken by EHGs that absorbed Caucasus-like elements in phonology, morphology, and lexicon." It has also been suggested that the PIE language evolved through trade interactions in the circum-Pontic area in the 4th millennium BC, mediated by the Yamna predecessors in the North Pontic steppe. Guus Kroonen et al. 2022 found that the "basal Indo-European stage", also known as Indo-Anatolian or Pre- Proto-Indo-European language , largely but not totally, lacked agricultural-related vocabulary, and only

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1562-770: The Middle Dnieper culture . Stone battle-axes of the Catacomb culture are similar to those of the Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture . Khvalynsk culture Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Khvalynsk culture

1633-636: The Multi-cordoned ware culture and was eventually succeeded by the Srubnaya culture . The Catacomb culture emerged on the southern part of the Pontic steppe in 2,500 BC, as a western descendant of the Yamnaya culture . Influences from the west appear to have had a decisive role on the formation of the Catacomb culture. In addition to the Yamnaya culture, the Catacomb culture displays links with

1704-645: The Seima-Turbino phenomenon emerged as a result of interaction between the Abashevo culture , the Catacomb culture and the early Andronovo culture . Evidence of Catacomb influence has been discovered far outside of the Pontic steppe. Its burial chambers, metal types and figurines are very similar to those appearing in Italy and the eastern Mediterranean , while the hammer-head pin, a characteristic ornament of

1775-567: The "North-Western Indian & Pakistani" populations (PNWI) showed significant Middle-Late Bronze Age Steppe (Steppe_MLBA) ancestry along with Yamnaya Early-Middle Bronze Age (Steppe_EMBA) ancestry, but the Indo-Europeans of Gangetic Plains and Dravidian people only showed significant Yamnaya (Steppe_EMBA) ancestry and no Steppe_MLBA. The study also noted that ancient south Asian samples had significantly higher Steppe_MLBA than Steppe_EMBA (or Yamnaya). According to Narasimhan et al. (2019),

1846-530: The Afanasievo culture may have originated from the migration of Yamnaya groups to the Altai region or, alternatively, that both cultures developed from an earlier shared cultural source. Genetic studies have suggested that the people of the Yamnaya culture can be modelled as a genetic admixture between a population related to Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and people related to hunter-gatherers from

1917-544: The Catacomb culture are more frequent than in the Yamnaya culture. Similar horse burials also appeared in the earlier Khvalynsk culture , and in the Poltavka culture. Catacomb burials are occasionally covered with Kurgan stelae . This practice was also common in the Yamnaya culture. Some three hundred stelae have been found from the Yamnaya culture and the Catacomb culture. Catacomb burials are sometimes accompanied by wheeled vehicles. Such wagon burials are attested in

1988-499: The Catacomb culture, has been found in Central Europe and Italy. Based on these similarities, migrations or cultural diffusion from the Catacomb culture to these areas have been suggested. Similarities between the Catacomb culture and Mycenaean Greece are particularly striking. These include types of socketed spear-heads, types of cheekpieces for horses, and the custom of making masks for the dead. The Catacomb culture

2059-489: The Caucasus (CHG) in roughly equal proportions, an ancestral component which is often named " Steppe ancestry ", with additional admixture from Anatolian, Levantine, or Early European farmers. Genetic studies also indicate that populations associated with the Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, Sintashta, and Andronovo cultures derived large parts of their ancestry from the Yamnaya or a closely related population. The Yamnaya culture

2130-480: The DNA of Corded Ware skeletons from Central and Eastern Europe. Yamnaya–related ancestry is found in the DNA of modern Central , and Northern Europeans (c. 38.8–50.4 %), and is also found in lower levels in present-day Southern Europeans (c. 18.5–32.6 %), Sardinians (c. 2.4–7.1 %), and Sicilians (c. 5.9–11.6 %). However, according to Heyd, et al. (2023), the specific paternal DNA haplogroup that

2201-550: The Don-based Repin culture ( c.  3950 –3300 BC), arguing that late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamnaya pottery. Earlier continuity from eneolithic but largely hunter-gatherer Samara culture and influences from the more agricultural Dnieper–Donets II are apparent. He argues that the early Yamnaya horizon spread quickly across the Pontic–Caspian steppes between c.  3400 and 3200  BC : The spread of

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2272-405: The Khvalynsk culture one finds group graves, which can only be communal on some basis, whether familial or local or both is not clear. With the advent of better methods of recovering ancient DNA , perhaps someday it will be. Although there are disparities in the wealth of the grave goods, there seems to be no special marker for the chief. This deficit does not exclude the possibility of a chief. In

2343-611: The Sredny Stog and Yamnaya. The people of the Dnieper-Donets culture further west on the other hand, were even more powerfully built than the Yamnaya. Recent genetic studies have shown that males of the Khvalynsk culture carried primarily the paternal haplogroup R1b , although a few samples of R1a , I2a2 , Q1a and J have been detected. They belonged to the Western Steppe Herder (WSH) cluster, which

2414-599: The Yamnaya culture and the contemporary populations of Europe. Klejn has also suggested that the autosomal evidence does not support a Yamnaya migration, arguing that Western Steppe Herder ancestry in both contemporary and Bronze Age samples is lowest around the Danube in Hungary, near the western limits of the Yamnaya culture, and highest in Northern Europe, which Klejn argues is the opposite of what would be expected if

2485-619: The Yamnaya culture to the late Trypillia (Tripolye) culture . He hypothesizes that "the Tripolye culture was taken over by PIE speakers by c. 4000 BC," and that in its final phase the Trypillian culture expanded to the steppes, morphing into various regional cultures which fused with the late Sredny Stog (Serednii Stih) pastoralist cultures, which, he suggests, gave rise to the Yamnaya culture. Dmytro Telegin viewed Sredny Stog and Yamna as one cultural continuum and considered Sredny Stog to be

2556-439: The Yamnaya diet was terrestrial protein based with insignificant contribution from freshwater or aquatic resources. Anthony speculates that the Yamnaya ate meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, and soups made from seeds and wild vegetables, and probably consumed mead . Mallory and Adams suggest that Yamnaya society may have had a tripartite structure of three differentiated social classes, although the evidence available does not demonstrate

2627-526: The Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes. [...] The Yamnaya horizon is the visible archaeological expression of a social adjustment to high mobility – the invention of the political infrastructure to manage larger herds from mobile homes based in the steppes. Alternatively, Parpola (2015) relates both the Corded ware culture and

2698-534: The Yamnaya-related ancestry, termed Western_Steppe_EMBA, that reached central and south Asia was not the initial expansion from the steppe to the east, but a secondary expansion that involved a group possessing ~67% Western_Steppe_EMBA ancestry and ~33% ancestry from the European cline. This group included people similar to that of Corded Ware , Srubnaya , Petrovka , and Sintashta . Moving further east in

2769-731: The Z2103 subclade of R1b-L23, is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among the Yamnaya specimens. This haplogroup is rare in Western Europe and mainly exists in Southeastern Europe today. Additionally, a minority are found to belong to haplogroup I2 . They are found to belong to a wider variety of West Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups, including U , T , and haplogroups associated with Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and Early European Farmers . A small but significant number of Yamnaya kurgan specimens from Northern Ukraine carried

2840-637: The arrival en masse of individuals with Yamnaya-like ancestry. This is different from what happened in Western and Southern Europe, where the Neolithic transition was caused by a population that came from Anatolia, with Pontic steppe ancestry being detected from only the late Neolithic onward. Per Haak et al. (2015), the Yamnaya contribution in the modern populations of Eastern Europe ranges from 46.8% among Russians to 42.8% in Ukrainians . Finland has

2911-540: The central steppe, it acquired ~9% ancestry from a group of people that possessed West Siberian Hunter Gatherer ancestry, thus forming the Central Steppe MLBA cluster, which is the primary source of steppe ancestry in South Asia, contributing up to 30% of the ancestry of the modern groups in the region. According to Unterländer et al. (2017), all Iron Age Scythian Steppe nomads can best be described as

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2982-486: The clay was wet, indicates contact with cords and embroidered woven cloth, which the investigators suggest were used to decorate the pot. Early examination of physical remains of the Khvalynsk people determined that they were Caucasoid . A similar physical type prevails among the Sredny Stog culture and the Yamnaya culture , whose peoples were powerfully built. Khvalynsk people were however not as powerfully built as

3053-487: The earlier Sredny Stog culture , the Afanasievo culture and the Poltavka culture . The Catacomb culture was distributed on the Pontic steppe , an area that had earlier been occupied by the Yamnaya culture. This was a large area, and on the basis of ceramic styles and burial practices, regional variants have been found. On this basis, the Catacomb culture has by some been designated as a "cultural-historical area" with

3124-475: The earlier Yamnaya culture, and later among Iranian peoples ( Scythians ), Celts , and Italic peoples . Aspects of the burial rite of the Catacomb culture have been detected in the Bishkent culture of southern Tajikistan . In some cases, the skull of deceased Catacomb people was modelled in clay. This involved the filling of the mouth, ears and nasal cavity with clay and modeling the surface features of

3195-490: The eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the closely related Sredny Stog culture ( c.  4500 –3500 BC) in the western Pontic-Caspian steppe, preceded the Yamnaya culture (3300–2500 BC). Further efforts to pinpoint the location came from Anthony (2007), who suggested that the Yamnaya culture (3300–2600 BC) originated in the Don – Volga area at c.  3400 BC , preceded by the middle Volga-based Khvalynsk culture and

3266-544: The emergence of chiefdom-type nomadic social structures" which in turn intensified inter-group contacts between essentially heterogeneous social groups. The origin of the Yamnaya culture continues to be debated, with proposals for its origins pointing to both the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures. The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BC) (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture ( c.  3950 –3300 BC) in

3337-446: The existence of specific classes such as priests, warriors, and farmers. According to Jones et al. (2015) and Haak et al. (2015), autosomal tests indicate that the Yamnaya people were the result of a genetic admixture between two different hunter-gatherer populations: distinctive " Eastern Hunter-Gatherers " (EHG), from Eastern Europe, with high affinity to the Mal'ta–Buret' culture or other, closely related people from Siberia and

3408-605: The face. This practice is associated with high-status burials containing prestige items. The practice was performed on men, women, and children. It has been suggested that these clay masks may have served as a prototype for the later gold masks found in Mycenaean Greece. The economy of the Catacomb culture has been based mostly on stockbreeding. Remains of cattle, sheep, goat, horse and some pigs have been found. Plant remains are exceedingly rare, but traces of wheat, such as einkorn and emmer , have been found. Wooden ploughs have been found at Catacomb burials, indicating that agriculture

3479-407: The genetic data supports the likelihood that the people of the Yamnaya culture were a "single, genetically coherent group" who were responsible for spreading many Indo-European languages. Reich's group recently suggested that the source of Anatolian and Indo-European subfamilies of the Proto-Indo-European ( PIE ) language may have been in west Asia and the Yamna were responsible for the dissemination of

3550-417: The genetic foundation of the Yamna. The Yamnaya culture was succeeded in its western range by the Catacomb culture (2800–2200 BC); in the east, by the Poltavka culture (2700–2100 BC) at the middle Volga. These two cultures were followed by the Srubnaya culture (18th–12th century BC). The Yamnaya culture was nomadic or semi-nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers, and

3621-535: The geneticists' hypothesis is correct. Marija Gimbutas identified the Yamnaya culture with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in her Kurgan hypothesis . In the view of David Anthony, the Pontic-Caspian steppe is the strongest candidate for the Urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language , citing evidence from linguistics and genetics which suggests that the Yamnaya culture may be

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3692-483: The graves were covered with stone cairns. Sacrificial areas were found similar to those at Samara, containing horse, cattle and sheep remains. An individual grave was found in 1929 at Krivoluchie with grave goods and the remains placed on ochre , face up, knees contracted. Khvalynsk evidences the further development of the kurgan . It began in the Samara with individual graves or small groups sometimes under stone. In

3763-485: The highest Yamnaya contributions in all of Europe (50.4%). Studies also point to the strong presence of Yamnaya descent in the current nations of South Asia, especially in groups that are referred to as Indo-Aryans. Lazaridis et al. (2016) estimated (6.5–50.2 %) steppe-related admixture in South Asians, though the proportion of Steppe ancestry varies widely across ethnic groups. According to Pathak et al. (2018),

3834-616: The homeland of the Indo-European languages, with the possible exception of the Anatolian languages. On the other hand, Colin Renfrew has argued for a Near Eastern origin of the earliest Indo-European speakers. According to David W. Anthony , the genetic evidence suggests that the leading clans of the Yamnaya were of EHG (Eastern European hunter-gatherer) and WHG (Western European hunter-gatherer) paternal origin and implies that

3905-480: The later "core Indo-European languages " saw an increase in agriculture-associated words. According to them, this fits a homeland of early core Indo-European within the westernmost Yamnaya horizon, around and west of the Dnieper , while its basal stage, Indo-Anatolian, may have originated in the Sredny Stog culture , as opposed to the eastern Yamnaya horizon. The Corded Ware culture may have acted as major source for

3976-491: The later kurgans, one finds that the kurgan is exclusively reserved for a chief and his retinue, with ordinary people excluded. This development suggests a growing disparity of wealth, which in turn implies a growth in the wealth of the whole community and an increase in population. The explosion of the kurgan culture out of its western steppe homeland must be associated with an expansion of population. The causes of this success and expansion remain obscure. We do know that metal

4047-407: The latter. Reich also argues that the genetic evidence shows that Yamnaya society was an oligarchy dominated by a small number of elite males. The genetic evidence for the extent of the role of the Yamnaya culture in the spread of Indo-European languages has been questioned by Russian archaeologist Leo Klejn and Balanovsky et al., who note a lack of male haplogroup continuity between the people of

4118-400: The regional variants classified as distinct cultures in their own respect. In the east the Catacomb culture neighbored the Poltavka culture, which was an eastern descendant of the Yamnaya culture. The Catacomb culture influenced the development of the Poltavka culture. Throughout its existence, the Catacomb culture expanded eastward and northward. Elena Efimovna Kuzmina suggests that

4189-407: The source of this mutation. A study in 2015 found that Yamnaya had the highest ever calculated genetic selection for height of any of the ancient populations tested. It has been hypothesized that an allele associated with lactase persistence (conferring lactose tolerance into adulthood ) was brought to Europe from the steppe by Yamnaya-related migrations. A 2022 study by Lazaridis et al. found that

4260-409: The southern Bug . It has three large structures with foundations of stone. On the island of Bayda in the Dnieper river, a stone-built fortress of the late Catacomb period with a surrounding ditch has been found. Catacomb ceramics are more elaborate than those of the Yamnaya culture. Low footed vessels that have been discovered in female burials are believed to have been used in rituals that included

4331-408: The southern parts of the Pontic-Caspian steppe sometime later. More recent genetic studies have found that the Yamnaya were a mixture of EHGs, CHGs, and to a lesser degree Anatolian farmers and Levantine farmers, but not EEFs from Europe due to lack of WHG DNA in the Yamnaya. This occurred in two distinct admixture events from West Asia into the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Haplogroup R1b , specifically

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4402-540: The spread of later Indo-European languages, including Indo-Iranian , while Tocharian languages may have been mediated via the Catacomb culture . They also argue that this new data contradicts a possible earlier origin of Pre-Proto-Indo-European among agricultural societies South of the Caucasus, rather "this may support a scenario of linguistic continuity of local non-mobile herders in the Lower Dnieper region and their genetic persistence after their integration into

4473-414: The successive and expansive Yamnaya horizon". Furthermore the authors mention that this scenario can explain the difference in paternal haplogroup frequency between the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures, while both sharing similar autosomal DNA ancestry. Genetic studies have found that Yamnaya autosomal characteristics are very close to the Corded Ware culture people, with up to 75% Yamnaya-like ancestry in

4544-511: The typical phenotype among the Yamnaya population was brown eyes, brown hair, and intermediate skin colour. None of their Yamnaya samples were predicted to have either blue eyes or blond hair, in contrast with later Steppe groups in Russia and Central Asia, as well as the Bell Beaker culture in Europe, who did carry these phenotypes in high proportions. The geneticist David Reich has argued that

4615-552: The use of narcotic substances such as hemp . Catacomb ceramics appears to have influenced the ceramics of the Abashevo culture and the Sintashta culture . Evidence of early composite bows have been yielded from the Catacomb culture. Quivers with space for ten to twenty arrows have also been found. Its arrowheads may have influenced those of the Sintashta culture. Its hollow-based flint arrowheads are similar to those of

4686-425: Was a Bronze Age culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe in 2,500–1,950 BC. Originating on the southern steppe as an outgrowth of the Yamnaya culture , the Catacomb culture came to cover a large area. It was probably Indo-European -speaking, with some linguists associating it with Tocharian . Influences of the Catacomb culture have been suggested to be found as far as Italy, Greece, and Syria. It spawned

4757-434: Was available both in the Caucasus and in the southern Urals . The Khvalynsk graves included metal rings and spiral metal rings. However, there is no indication of any use beyond ornamental. The quality of stone weapons and implements reaches a high point. The Krivoluchie grave, which Gimbutas viewed as that of a chief, contained a long flint dagger and tanged arrowheads, all carefully retouched on both faces. In addition there

4828-409: Was based upon animal husbandry , fishing , and foraging , and the manufacture of ceramics , tools , and weapons . The people of the Yamnaya culture lived primarily as nomads, with a chiefdom system and wheeled carts and wagons that allowed them to manage large herds. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia , especially

4899-558: Was earlier and placed Khvalynsk I in the Developed Eneolithic. Not enough Samara culture dates and sites exist to settle the question. After c. 4,500 BCE, Khvalynsk culture united the lower and middle Volga sites keeping domesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and maybe horses. The Khvalynsk type site is a cemetery, 30 m by 26 m, containing about 158 skeletons, mainly in single graves, but some two to five together. They were buried on their backs with knees contracted. Twelve of

4970-433: Was exclusively EHG with Western Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) admixture. The presence of EEF and CHG mtDNA and exclusively EHG and WHG Y-DNA among the Yamnaya and related WSHs suggest that EEF and CHG admixture among them was the result of mixing between EHG and WHG males, and EEF and CHG females. This suggests that the leading clans among the Yamnaya were of EHG paternal origin. According to David W. Anthony , this implies that

5041-465: Was practiced. The types of tools used by the Catacomb people suggest that the culture included several craft specialists, including weavers, bronze workers and weapons manufacturers. Similar metal types to those of the Catacomb culture later appears among the Abashevo culture. Little evidence of Catacomb settlements has been found. These are mostly seasonal camp-sites located near sources of water. A larger settlement has been found at Matveyevka on

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