Yamnaya culture — an archaeological culture of the Late Copper Age — Early Bronze Age (3600—2300 BC). It occupied the territory from the Southern Urals in the east to the Dniester in the west, from the Ciscaucasia in the south to the Middle Volga region in the north. Recent ancient DNA studies identify the inhabitants of the Caucasus and Lower Volga (CLV) as the ancestors of the Yamnaya culture. Emerging approximately 6,500–7,000 years ago, the CLV population contributed about 80% of the genome to the Yamnaya culture, becoming the most important "missing link" in the origin of Indo-European languages .
Economy
The Yamnaya culture was predominantly nomadic, with elements of hoe farming near rivers and in some settlements. The hoes were made from bones (antlers). The Yamnaya created wheeled carts (wagons). The earliest finds in Eastern Europe of the remains of four-wheeled carts were discovered in burial mounds of the Yamnaya culture (for example, the "Storozhevaya Mogila" on the territory of Dnepropetrovsk, a burial ground near the village of Yasski in Odesa region, the Shumaevsky burial ground in Orenburg region, etc.). The Yamnaya obtained metal raw materials from the Caucasus.
Burials
A characteristic feature of the Yamnaya culture is the burial of the deceased in pits under burial mounds, in a supine position with knees bent. The bodies were sprinkled with ochre. Burials in mounds were multiple and often carried out at different times. Burials of animals (cows, pigs, sheep, goats, and horses) have also been found, which is characteristic of Indo-Europeans.
Genetic connections
The Yamnaya culture originates from the Khvalynsk culture in the middle reaches of the Volga and from the Sredny Stog culture in the middle reaches of the Dnieper, and it is also genetically linked to the Funnelbeaker culture. The Yamnaya culture is replaced by the Poltavka culture. In the west, the Yamnaya culture is replaced by the Catacomb culture. In the east, by the Andronovo and Srubnaya cultures.
History
Within the early version of Marija Gimbutas' Kurgan hypothesis, the Yamnaya culture was associated with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans. According to her, the area of the Yamnaya culture was the territory of the Proto-Indo-European language in the Late European period, along with the earlier Sredny Stog culture. Currently, supporters of this version are very few, due to the fact that glottochronology and reconstructed Proto-Indo-European lexicon make it possible to date the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European community to several millennia earlier than the Yamnaya culture. In later versions of the Kurgan hypothesis, the population of the Yamnaya culture is associated with speakers of Aryan languages (ancestors of Indo-Iranians, Dardic, and Nuristani languages).
In the development of the Yamnaya culture, three periods are distinguished:
- First (early) stage (1st half — middle of the 3rd millennium BC)
Throughout the entire territory of the Yamnaya culture, uniform burials with skeletons lying on their backs and sprinkled with ochre, oriented with their heads to the east, pointed-bottom and round-bottom vessels with a high neck, carved, punctured, and stamped ornaments, jewelry made of shells and bone, stone products (including zoomorphic "scepters") are widespread, with an almost complete absence of metal. Settlements are temporary camps of pastoralists. Already at the early stage, certain groups of Yamnaya tribes invaded the Danube region and the Balkan Peninsula.
- Second stage (3rd — beginning of the 4th quarter of the 3rd millennium BC)
Local variants appear. In the Black Sea steppes, along with the features of the early stage, burials on the side with the head oriented to the west, egg-shaped vessels with a low neck, flat-bottomed pots, corded ornament, and copper products (knives, awls) appear. In the west, certain Yamnaya tribes transition to sedentism and create permanent settlements (Mikhailovskoe settlement, Skala Kamenolomnya, and others on the Lower Dnieper).
- Third stage (end of the 3rd — beginning of the 2nd millennium BC)
Local differences increase: archaic ritual features and inventory are preserved only in the Volga-Ural variant. To the west, burials with skeletons not always covered with ochre, with unstable orientation to the cardinal directions, pits with ledges, barrowless cemeteries, and flat-bottomed ceramics are expanded. Large copper products (wedge-shaped axes, hammer axes) and specific complexes of bone ornaments with hammer-shaped pins, and wagons with solid wheels appear. By the end of the third stage, the growth of local features and the spread of new cultures (primarily the Catacomb culture) led to the disappearance of the Yamnaya culture.
Spiritual culture
It is assumed that the Yamnaya performed human sacrifices (the Merheleva Ridge mound in Luhansk region).
Paleoanthropology
Anthropologically, the population of the Yamnaya culture is characterized by sharply Caucasoid features. In particular, anthropologists note that part of the Yamnaya culture bearers had a "dolichocephalic narrow-faced and high-faced" type, with sharp horizontal profiling and a strong nose protrusion, similar to the type widely distributed in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia (Kura-Araxes and Maykop cultures).
Another part of the Yamnaya culture bearers (specifically those who left the Chogray, Lola-Arkhara, and Krivaya Luka burial grounds) had a sharply opposite type — subbrachycranial, with a tendency to brachycephaly, broad-faced and high-faced, with clearly expressed Caucasoid features (which is still preserved in the Caspian region), with analogies to the craniological series from the Jararat burial ground (Armenia).
3200—2300 BC Battle Axe culture