Yamnaya culture

Largest expansion of the Yamna(ya) culture. Modified from [14] c. 3500 origins of Usatovo culture; 3300 origins of Yamna; c. 3300–3200 expansion of Yamna across the Pontic-Caspian steppe; c. 2700 end of Trypillia culture,[15] and transformation of Yamna into Corded Ware in the contact zone east of the Carpathian mountains; 3100–2600 Yamnaya expansion into the Danube Valley.[16][17][18]

The Yamnaya culture was defined by Vasily Gorodtsov in order to differentiate it from 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 the emergence of chiefdom-type nomadic social structures" which in turn intensified inter-group contacts between essentially heterogeneous social groups.[19]

The origin of the Yamnaya culture continues to be debated, with proposals for its origins pointing to both the Khvalynsk and Sredny Stog cultures.[20] The Khvalynsk culture (4700–3800 BC)[21] (middle Volga) and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BC)[22] in 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).[23][24]

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,[25][2] preceded by the middle Volga-based Khvalynsk culture and the Don-based Repin culture (c. 3950–3300 BC),[22][2] arguing that late pottery from these two cultures can barely be distinguished from early Yamnaya pottery.[26] 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:[25]

The spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes.[27]
[...] 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.[28]

Alternatively, Parpola (2015) relates both the Corded ware culture and the Yamnaya culture to the late Trypillia (Tripolye) culture.[29] He hypothesizes that "the Tripolye culture was taken over by PIE speakers by c. 4000 BC,"[30] 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.[31] Dmytro Telegin viewed Sredny Stog and Yamna as one cultural continuum and considered Sredny Stog to be the genetic foundation of the Yamna.[32]

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).

• Maps of the origins of Yamnaya culture
• 
  Sredny Stog culture (c.4500-3500 BC)
• 
  Usatovo culture (c. 3500–3000 BC)
• 
  Khvalynsk culture (c. 4900–3500 BC)
• 
  Early Yamnaya culture (3400 BC), according to Anthony (2007)

Yamnaya culture grave, Volgograd Oblast

The Yamnaya culture was nomadic[4] or semi-nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers, and a few fortified sites, the largest of which is Mikhaylivka.[33]

Characteristic for the culture are the burials in pit graves under kurgans (tumuli), often accompanied with animal offerings. Some graves contain large anthropomorphic stelae, with carved human heads, arms, hands, belts, and weapons.[34] The dead bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Some kurgans contained "stratified sequences of graves".[35] Kurgan burials may have been rare, and were perhaps reserved for special adults, who were predominantly, but not necessarily, male.[36] Status and gender are marked by grave goods and position, and in some areas, elite individuals are buried with complete wooden wagons.[37] Grave goods are more common in eastern Yamnaya burials, which are also characterized by a higher proportion of male burials and more male-centred rituals than western areas.[38]

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.[39][40] For instance, several Yamnaya skeletons exhibit specific characteristics in their bone morphology that may have been caused by long-term horseriding.[39]

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.[37]

Stable isotope ratios of Yamna individuals from the Dnipro Valley suggest the Yamna diet was terrestrial protein based with insignificant contribution from freshwater or aquatic resources.[41] Anthony speculates that the Yamnaya ate meat, milk, yogurt, cheese, and soups made from seeds and wild vegetables, and probably consumed mead.[42]

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 the existence of specific classes such as priests, warriors, and farmers.[43]

• 
  Corded ware pot
• 
  Daggers, arrowheads and bone artefacts
• 
  Yamanaya decorative artifacts.
• 
  The Kernosivsky idol (late Yamnaya)
• 
  Illustration of a Yamnaya wagon
• 
• 
• 
  Northern Caucasus, Early Bronze Age artifacts, 3rd millennium BC.
• 
  Ceramic vessel
• 
  Horses were domesticated on the Pontic-Caspian steppe.[44]

Main genetic ancestry of Western Steppe Herders (Yamnaya pastoralists): a confluence of Eastern Hunter-Gatherers (EHG) and Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers (CHG).[45]

Admixture proportions of Yamnaya populations. They combined Eastern Hunter Gatherer (  EHG), Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer (  CHG), Anatolian Neolithic ( ) and Western Hunter Gatherer (  WHG) ancestry.[46]

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[10] and a population of "Caucasus hunter-gatherers" (CHG) who probably arrived from the Caucasus[47][7] or Iran.[48] Each of those two populations contributed about half the Yamnaya DNA.[11][7] 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 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.[49][50]

Haplogroup R1b, especially subclades of R1b-M269, is the most common Y-DNA haplogroup found among both the Yamnaya and modern-day Western Europeans.[1][10] Additionally, a minority are found to belong to haplogroup I2.[11] They are found to belong to a wider variety of mtDNA haplogroups, including U, T, and haplogroups associated with Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and Early European Farmers.[51][52]

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.[53][54] A 2022 study by Lazaridis et al. found that the typical phenotype among the Yamnaya population was brown eyes, brown hair, and intermediate skin colour. None of the Yamnaya samples were predicted to have either blue eyes or blonde hair,[55] while the people of the Corded Ware culture, which is regarded as to have originated from the Yamnaya people, had a higher proportion of blue eyes and blonde.[56][57] 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 the source of this mutation.[58] A study in 2015 found that Yamnaya had the highest ever calculated genetic selection for height of any of the ancient populations tested.[59][60] 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.[61][62][63][64]

The geneticist David Reich has argued that 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.[65] 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 the latter.[9] Reich also argues that the genetic evidence shows that Yamnaya society was an oligarchy dominated by a small number of elite males.[66]

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[67] and Balanovsky et al.,[68] who note a lack of male haplogroup continuity between the people of 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 the geneticists' hypothesis is correct.[69]

Marija Gimbutas identified the Yamnaya culture with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in her Kurgan hypothesis. The Pontic-Caspian steppe is the strongest candidate for the Urheimat (original homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, and evidence from linguistics[70] and genetics[10][71] suggests that the Yamnaya culture may be the homeland of the Indo-European languages, with the possible exception of the Anatolian languages.[72][13]

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[73] and implies that the Indo-European languages were the result of "a dominant language spoken by EHGs that absorbed Caucasus-like elements in phonology, morphology, and lexicon."[74] It has also been suggested that the PIE language evolved through trade interactions in the circum-Pontic area in the 4th millennium BCE, mediated by the Yamna predecessors in the North Pontic steppe.[75]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yamna culture.

• "Genetic study revives debate on origin and expansion of Indo-European Languages". Science Daily. March 2015.
• "First Horse Warriors". PBS.org NOVA series. 15 May 2019.