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Yamna culture
 
 
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The Yamna (from Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
/Ukrainian
Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
 ???, "pit"; also known as Pit Grave or Ochre Grave culture) is a late copper age/early Bronze Age
Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
 culture of the Bug/Dniester
Dniester

The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe....
/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC.






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Corded Ware Culture
Ie5500bp
The Yamna (from Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
/Ukrainian
Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
 ???, "pit"; also known as Pit Grave or Ochre Grave culture) is a late copper age/early Bronze Age
Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
 culture of the Bug/Dniester
Dniester

The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe....
/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The culture was predominantly nomad
Nomad

Nomadic people, , also known as nomads, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than Settler in one location....
ic, with some agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
 practiced near rivers and a few hillforts.

Characteristics


Characteristic for the culture are the inhumations in kurgans (tumuli) in pit graves with the dead body placed in a supine position
Supine position

The supine position is a position of the human body; lying down with the face up, as opposed to the prone position, which is face down. When used in surgical procedures, it allows access to the peritoneal, thoracic and pericardium regions; as well as the head, neck and extremities....
 with bent knees. The bodies were covered in ochre
Ochre

Ochre or Ocher is a color, usually described as Gold -yellow or light yellow brown....
. Multiple graves have been found in these kurgans, often as later insertions.

Significantly, animal grave offerings were made (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and horse), a feature associated with both Proto-Indo-Europeans
Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, and likely lived around 4000 BC, during the Copper Age and the Bronze Age, or possibly earlier, during the Neolithic or Paleolithic eras....
 and Proto-Indo-Iranians. .

The earliest remains in Eastern Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 of a wheel
Wheel

A wheel is a circular device that is capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation whilst supporting a load , or performing labour in machines....
ed cart were found in the "Storozhova mohyla" kurgan
Kurgan

Kurgan is the Russian language word for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood.The distribution of such tumuli in Eastern Europe corresponds closely to the area of the Pit Grave or Kurgan culture in South-Eastern Europe....
 (Dnipropetrovsk
Dnipropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk is Ukraine's third largest city with 1.1 million inhabitants. It is located southeast of Ukraine's capital Kiev on the Dnieper River, in the south-central region of the country....
, Ukraine
Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south....
, excavated by Trenozhkin A.I.) associated with the Yamna culture.

The recently discovered Luhansk sacrificial site has been described as a hill sanctuary where human sacrifice
Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the act of killing human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general....
 was practised.

Spread and identity


The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans
Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, and likely lived around 4000 BC, during the Copper Age and the Bronze Age, or possibly earlier, during the Neolithic or Paleolithic eras....
 (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis
Kurgan hypothesis

The Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language....
 of Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas

Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeology known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old European Culture", a term she introduced....
. It is the strongest candidate for the Urheimat
Urheimat

Urheimat is a Linguistics term denoting the original homeland of the speakers of a proto-language....
 (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the unattested, linguistic reconstruction common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans....
, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture
Sredny Stog culture

The Sredny Stog culture dates from the 5th millennium BC-3500 BC. It was situated just north of the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and the Don River, Russia....
, now that archaeological evidence of the culture and its migrations has been closely tied to the evidence from linguistics.

It is said to have originated in the middle Volga based Khvalynsk culture
Khvalynsk culture

The Khvalynsk culture was an Eneolithic culture of the first half of the 5th millennium BC, discovered at Khvalynsk on the Volga in Saratov Oblast, Russia....
 and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog culture
Sredny Stog culture

The Sredny Stog culture dates from the 5th millennium BC-3500 BC. It was situated just north of the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and the Don River, Russia....
. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb culture
Catacomb culture

The Catacomb culture, ca. 2800-2200 BC, refers to an early Bronze Age culture occupying essentially what is present-day Ukraine. It was related to the Yamna culture, and would seem more of an areal term to cover several smaller related archaeological cultures....
; in the east, by the Poltavka culture
Poltavka culture

Poltavka culture, 2700—2100 BC, an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture of the middle Volga from about where the Don-Volga canal begins up to the Samara bend, with an easterly extension north of present Kazakhstan along the Samara River valley to somewhat west of Orenburg....
 and the Srubna culture
Srubna culture

The Srubna culture , was a Late Bronze Age culture. It is a successor to the Yamna culture, the Catacomb culture and the Abashevo culture.It occupied the area along and above the north shore of the Black Sea from the Dnieper eastwards along the northern base of the Caucasus to the area abutting the north shore of the Caspian Sea, across t...
.

Artifacts

Hermitage Museum
Hermitage Museum

The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia is one of the largest museums in the world, with 3 million works of art , and one of the oldest art gallery and museums of human history and culture in the world....
 collections >


See also

  • Kurgan
    Kurgan

    Kurgan is the Russian language word for a tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a burial chamber, often of wood.The distribution of such tumuli in Eastern Europe corresponds closely to the area of the Pit Grave or Kurgan culture in South-Eastern Europe....
  • Ukrainian stone stela
  • Cucuteni culture
    Cucuteni culture

    The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, also known as Cucuteni culture , Trypillian culture or Tripolie culture , is a late Neolithic archaeological culture that flourished between ca....
  • Vinca culture
    Vinca culture

    The Vinca culture was an early culture of Europe , stretching around the course of Danube in what today is Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans, parts of Central Europe and Asia Minor....
  • Beaker culture
    Beaker culture

    The Bell-Beaker culture , ca. 2800 – 1900 BC, is the term for a widely scattered cultural phenomenon of prehistoric Europe western Europe starting in the late Neolithic Europe running into the early Bronze Age Europe....