Yamnaya culture

"Yamna culture" redirects here. Not to be confused with the Yamna language of Papua, Indonesia.

Yamnaya culture
Alternative names
  • Pit Grave culture
  • Yamna culture
  • Ochre Grave culture
  • Yamnaya Horizon
Geographical rangePontic–Caspian steppe in Europe
PeriodCopper Age, Bronze Age
Datesc. 3300 – 2600 BC
Preceded bySredny Stog culture, Samara culture, Khvalynsk culture, Dnieper–Donets culture, Repin culture, Maykop culture, Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, Cernavodă culture, Usatove culture, Novosvobodnaya culture
Followed by
North: Corded Ware culture [1]

West: Catacomb culture, Vučedol culture

East: Poltavka culture
Defined byVasily Gorodtsov

The Yamnaya culture[a] or the Yamna culture,[b] 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.[2] It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near 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).[3]

The Yamnaya economy was based upon animal husbandry, fishing, and foraging, and the manufacture of ceramics, tools, and weapons.[4] 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.[5] They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture,[5] as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo, and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo.[6] In these groups, several aspects of the Yamnaya culture are present.[c] Yamnaya material culture was very similar to the Afanasievo culture of South Siberia, and the populations of the two cultures are genetically indistinguishable.[1] This suggests that 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.[7]

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)[d] and people related to hunter-gatherers from the Caucasus (CHG) in roughly equal proportions,[8] an ancestral component which is often named "Steppe ancestry", with additional admixture from Anatolian, Levantine, or Early European farmers.[9][10] 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.[1][11][12][13]

According to the widely-accepted Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, the people that produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto-Indo-European language, which later spread eastwards and westwards as part of the Indo-European migrations.

  1. ^ a b c Allentoft 2015.
  2. ^ Morgunova & Khokhlova 2013.
  3. ^ Reich, David, (24 April, 2024). "The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans", in: The Transfomation of Europe in the Third Millennium BC, International Conference, HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeology, Budapest.
  4. ^ Shishlina, Natalia I. (11 May 2023), Kristiansen, Kristian; Kroonen, Guus; Willerslev, Eske (eds.), "Yamnaya Pastoralists in the Eurasian Desert Steppe Zone: New Perspectives on Mobility", The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 34–41, doi:10.1017/9781009261753.006, ISBN 978-1-00-926175-3, retrieved 2023-05-23
  5. ^ a b Anthony, David W. (11 May 2023), Kristiansen, Kristian; Kroonen, Guus; Willerslev, Eske (eds.), "The Yamnaya Culture and the Invention of Nomadic Pastoralism in the Eurasian Steppes", The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited (1 ed.), Cambridge University Press, pp. 13–33, doi:10.1017/9781009261753.005, ISBN 978-1-00-926175-3, retrieved 2023-05-13
  6. ^ Novembre 2015, "evidence to support theories of a back-migration from Corded Ware-related populations that contributed to the origins of the Sintashta culture in the Urals and their descendants, the Andronovo."
  7. ^ Hermes, Taylor R.; Tishkin, Alexey A.; Kosintsev, Pavel A.; Stepanova, Nadezhda F.; Krause-Kyora, Ben; Makarewicz, Cheryl A. (1 December 2020). "Mitochondrial DNA of domesticated sheep confirms pastoralist component of Afanasievo subsistence economy in the Altai Mountains (3300-2900 cal BC)". Archaeological Research in Asia. 24: 100232. doi:10.1016/j.ara.2020.100232. ISSN 2352-2267. S2CID 225136827.
  8. ^ "Europe's fourth ancestral 'tribe' uncovered". BBC. 16 November 2015.
  9. ^ Wang, Chuan-Chao; Reinhold, Sabine; Kalmykov, Alexey; Wissgott, Antje; Brandt, Guido; Jeong, Choongwon; Cheronet, Olivia; Ferry, Matthew; Harney, Eadaoin; Keating, Denise; Mallick, Swapan (4 February 2019). "Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions". Nature Communications. 10 (1): 590. Bibcode:2019NatCo..10..590W. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-08220-8. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6360191. PMID 30713341.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lazaridis2022 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Haak et al. 2015.
  12. ^ Mathieson, et al. 2015.
  13. ^ Gibbons, Ann (10 June 2015). "Nomadic herders left a strong genetic mark on Europeans and Asians". Science. AAAS.


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