YAMNAYA INTERACTIONS Proceedings of the International Workshop held in Helsinki, 25–26 April 2019 Edited by Volker Heyd, Gabriella Kulcsár, and Bianca Preda-Bălănică, 2021
This study reviews the radiocarbon dates connected with the earliest phase of the Yamnaya culture... more This study reviews the radiocarbon dates connected with the earliest phase of the Yamnaya culture, focusing on the dated settlements of Mikhailovka II and Repin, which have radiocarbon dates earlier than 3000 BC (4350 BP). After the initial definition of the Yamnaya culture in 1907 the early Yamnaya phase was assigned to different chronological periods (Late Neolithic, Eneolithic, Early Bronze Age) and different absolute dates (beginning 3800, 3300, or 3000 BC). Seven radiocarbon dates from early Yamnaya components at three Yamnaya settlements (Repin, Mikhailovka II, and Generalka 2) and 43 radiocarbon dates from early Yamnaya individuals from 27 kurgan cemeteries distributed across the Pontic-Caspian steppes are older than 4350 BP, with calibrated averaged midpoints between 3203–3107 BC. These dates suggest that early Yamnaya sites and assemblages began to appear about 3300–3200 BC,
paired with a new nomadic settlement pattern and a newly simplified animal-protein pastoral diet, as indicated by milk peptides and stable isotopes in Yamnaya teeth and bones. Late Yamnaya, correlated
with Mikhailovka level III, is dated 3000 BC and later. Only 10–20% of Yamnaya radiocarbon dates fall into the early 3300–3000 BC range, so it seems that most Yamnaya sites are late Yamnaya. Fully nomadic communities were scattered across the Pontic-Caspian steppes from the Ural River to the eastern Carpathians at a low density during the early Yamnaya phase. Unoccupied spaces in the steppe landscape were rapidly filled by pastoralists during the late Yamnaya phase after 3000 BC, when
Yamnaya communities expanded eastward to the Altai and westward to Hungary. (Correction: the coordinates for the Repin site on page 29 are incorrect--the site is located 80km downstream from those coordinates in a similar topographic situation on the Don River right bank across from the junction of a Don left-bank tributary, the Ilovaya River, different from the junction with the Medveditsa River described in the paper. My mapping error was derived from written descriptions of the site location, which is not precisely mapped in available Cyrillic-literature sources. The actual location is near a natural ridge shaped like a horse head called Mare's Head Mt., at 49°11'17.79"N 43°48'2.90"E, which might help explain why horses were 80% of the Repin fauna, uniquely among Yamnaya faunal profiles.)
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When the first part of the Eneolithic cemetery (Khvalynsk I) was discovered in 1977–1979, the graves displayed many material and ritual traits that were quickly recognized as similar and probably ancestral to Yamnaya customs, but without the Yamnaya kurgans. With the discovery of a second burial plot (Khvalynsk II) 120 m to the south in 1987–1988, Khvalynsk became the largest excavated Eneolithic cemetery in the Don-Volga-Ural steppes (201 recorded graves), dated about 4500–4300 BCE. It has the largest copper assemblage of the fifth millennium BC in the steppes (373 objects) and the largest assemblage of sacrificed domesticated animals (at least 106 sheep-goat, 29 cattle, and 16 horses); and it produced four polished stone maces from well-documented grave contexts. The human skeletons have been sampled extensively for ancient DNA, the basis for an analysis of family relationships.
This report compiles information from the relevant Russian-language publications and from the archaeologists who excavated the site, two of whom are co-authors, about the history of excavations, radiocarbon dates, copper finds, domesticated animal sacrifices, polished stone maces, genetic and skeletal studies, and relationships with other steppe cultures as well as agricultural cultures of the North Caucasus (Svobodnoe-Meshoko) and southeastern Europe (Varna and Cucuteni-Tripol’ye B1).
Khvalynsk is described as a coalescent culture, integrating and combining northern and southern elements, a hybrid that can be recognized genetically, in cranio-facial types, in exchanged artifacts, and in social segments within the cemetery. Stone maces symbolized the unification and integration of socially defined segments at Khvalynsk.
Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses.
Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2200-2000 BCE, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including
Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BCE driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario
in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BCE Sintashta culture.
DA Comment: The last 2 sentences of this abstract are, I believe, premature and unsupported. I appended Sticky Notes to this pdf explaining where I disagree with the principal co-authors. A re-analysis of the Librado et al data by the Reich lab (reference below) found that the analytical tool used here, as well as the 3-5 admixture events proposed by Librado et al, almost certainly were wrong: "...they fit the f statistic data so poorly that even simple statistics show they cannot be correct." In reference to the claim that Corded Ware horses had no steppe ancestry, the Reich researchers found that "...In the 8-admixture-event best-fitting plausible model, Corded Ware horses actually derive appreciable ancestry from the early domestic horse lineage DOM2 associated with the Sintashta culture...This scenario presents a parallel to the one observed in humans, with individuals associated with the CWC receiving admixture from steppe pastoralists albeit in different proportions: ~75% for humans, versus ~20% in horses." See "On the limits of fitting complex models of population history to genetic data" by Robert Maier, Pavel Flegontov, Olga Flegontova, Piya Changmai and David Reich, https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.08.491072.
paired with a new nomadic settlement pattern and a newly simplified animal-protein pastoral diet, as indicated by milk peptides and stable isotopes in Yamnaya teeth and bones. Late Yamnaya, correlated
with Mikhailovka level III, is dated 3000 BC and later. Only 10–20% of Yamnaya radiocarbon dates fall into the early 3300–3000 BC range, so it seems that most Yamnaya sites are late Yamnaya. Fully nomadic communities were scattered across the Pontic-Caspian steppes from the Ural River to the eastern Carpathians at a low density during the early Yamnaya phase. Unoccupied spaces in the steppe landscape were rapidly filled by pastoralists during the late Yamnaya phase after 3000 BC, when
Yamnaya communities expanded eastward to the Altai and westward to Hungary. (Correction: the coordinates for the Repin site on page 29 are incorrect--the site is located 80km downstream from those coordinates in a similar topographic situation on the Don River right bank across from the junction of a Don left-bank tributary, the Ilovaya River, different from the junction with the Medveditsa River described in the paper. My mapping error was derived from written descriptions of the site location, which is not precisely mapped in available Cyrillic-literature sources. The actual location is near a natural ridge shaped like a horse head called Mare's Head Mt., at 49°11'17.79"N 43°48'2.90"E, which might help explain why horses were 80% of the Repin fauna, uniquely among Yamnaya faunal profiles.)
of mass migration by a faceless horde of savage warriors. Western archaeologists abandoned the faceless migrating horde decades ago as a usually imaginary and substantively worthless explanation for culture change, but Marija Gimbutas’s conception of the Kurgan Culture kept this image alive in archaeological debates about Late Neolithic cultural shifts long after it had disappeared in other contexts. Recent studies of ancient DNA revealed large‑scale, long‑distance migrations from the steppes in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age that have prompted some to ask
the uneasy question of whether Gimbutas was right. This essay places the recent DNA discoveries and the debate about nomads from the steppes in its historical context, and pleads for a processual approach to migration quite different from the single‑event, conquest model of Gimbutas. Written 2 years before publication.
millennium BC have made the origins and nature of the
Yamnaya culture a question of broad relevance across
northern Eurasia. But none of the key archaeological
sites most important for understanding the evolution of
Yamnaya culture is published in western languages. These
key sites include the fifth-millennium BC Khvalynsk cemetery
in the middle Volga steppes. When the first part of
the Eneolithic cemetery (Khvalynsk I) was discovered in
1977–1979, the graves displayed many material and ritual
traits that were quickly recognized as similar and probably
ancestral to Yamnaya customs, but without the Yamnaya
kurgans. With the discovery of a second burial plot
(Khvalynsk II) 120 m to the south in 1987–1988, Khvalynsk
became the largest excavated Eneolithic cemetery in the
Don-Volga-Ural steppes (201 recorded graves), dated about
4500–4300 BCE. It has the largest copper assemblage of
the fifth millennium BC in the steppes (373 objects) and the
largest assemblage of sacrificed domesticated animals (at
least 106 sheep-goat, 29 cattle, and 16 horses); and it produced
four polished stone maces from well-documented
grave contexts. The human skeletons have been sampled
extensively for ancient DNA, the basis for an analysis of
family relationships. This report compiles information
from the relevant Russian-language publications and from
the archaeologists who excavated the site, two of whom are
co-authors, about the history of excavations, radiocarbon
dates, copper finds, domesticated animal sacrifices, polished
stone maces, genetic and skeletal studies, and relationships
with other steppe cultures as well as agricultural
cultures of the North Caucasus (Svobodnoe-Meshoko) and
southeastern Europe (Varna and Cucuteni-Tripol’ye B1).
Khvalynsk is described as a coalescent culture, integrating
and combining northern and southern elements, a hybrid
that can be recognized genetically, in cranio-facial types,
in exchanged artifacts, and in social segments within the
cemetery. Stone maces symbolized the unification and
integration of socially defined segments at Khvalynsk.
Das äneolithische Gräberfeld von Khvalynsk an der Wolga. Mittels genetischer Untersuchungen bestätigte Wanderungen des dritten Jahrtausends v. Chr. zeigen, wie relevant Forschungen zu den Ursprüngen und dem Wesen der Yamnaya-Kultur im nordeurasischen Raum tatsächlich sind. Bislang wurde keine der wichtigsten archäologischen Stätten, die für das Verständnis der Entwicklung der Yamnaya-Kultur von Bedeutung sind, in westlichen Sprachen veröffentlicht. Zu diesen Fundplätzen gehört etwa das in der mittleren Wolga-Steppe gelegene und in das 5. Jahrtausend v. Chr. datierende Gräberfeld von Khvalynsk. Als 1977-1979 der erste Teil des äneolithischen Friedhofs (Khvalynsk I) entdeckt wurde, zeigten die Gräber viele materielle und rituelle Merkmale, die rasch den Yamnaya-Bräuchen zugerechnet wurden, wobei jedoch die ansonsten für die Yamnaya-Kultur typischen Kurgane fehlten. Mit der Entdeckung eines 120 m südlich gelegenen zweiten Gräberfeldes (Khvalynsk II) in den Jahren 1987-1988 wurde Khvalynsk zum größten ergegrabenen äneolithischen Friedhof in der Don-Wolga-Ural-Steppe
When the first part of the Eneolithic cemetery (Khvalynsk I) was discovered in 1977–1979, the graves displayed many material and ritual traits that were quickly recognized as similar and probably ancestral to Yamnaya customs, but without the Yamnaya kurgans. With the discovery of a second burial plot (Khvalynsk II) 120 m to the south in 1987–1988, Khvalynsk became the largest excavated Eneolithic cemetery in the Don-Volga-Ural steppes (201 recorded graves), dated about 4500–4300 BCE. It has the largest copper assemblage of the fifth millennium BC in the steppes (373 objects) and the largest assemblage of sacrificed domesticated animals (at least 106 sheep-goat, 29 cattle, and 16 horses); and it produced four polished stone maces from well-documented grave contexts. The human skeletons have been sampled extensively for ancient DNA, the basis for an analysis of family relationships.
This report compiles information from the relevant Russian-language publications and from the archaeologists who excavated the site, two of whom are co-authors, about the history of excavations, radiocarbon dates, copper finds, domesticated animal sacrifices, polished stone maces, genetic and skeletal studies, and relationships with other steppe cultures as well as agricultural cultures of the North Caucasus (Svobodnoe-Meshoko) and southeastern Europe (Varna and Cucuteni-Tripol’ye B1).
Khvalynsk is described as a coalescent culture, integrating and combining northern and southern elements, a hybrid that can be recognized genetically, in cranio-facial types, in exchanged artifacts, and in social segments within the cemetery. Stone maces symbolized the unification and integration of socially defined segments at Khvalynsk.
Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses.
Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2200-2000 BCE, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including
Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BCE driving the spread of Indo-European languages. This contrasts with the scenario
in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BCE Sintashta culture.
DA Comment: The last 2 sentences of this abstract are, I believe, premature and unsupported. I appended Sticky Notes to this pdf explaining where I disagree with the principal co-authors. A re-analysis of the Librado et al data by the Reich lab (reference below) found that the analytical tool used here, as well as the 3-5 admixture events proposed by Librado et al, almost certainly were wrong: "...they fit the f statistic data so poorly that even simple statistics show they cannot be correct." In reference to the claim that Corded Ware horses had no steppe ancestry, the Reich researchers found that "...In the 8-admixture-event best-fitting plausible model, Corded Ware horses actually derive appreciable ancestry from the early domestic horse lineage DOM2 associated with the Sintashta culture...This scenario presents a parallel to the one observed in humans, with individuals associated with the CWC receiving admixture from steppe pastoralists albeit in different proportions: ~75% for humans, versus ~20% in horses." See "On the limits of fitting complex models of population history to genetic data" by Robert Maier, Pavel Flegontov, Olga Flegontova, Piya Changmai and David Reich, https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.08.491072.
paired with a new nomadic settlement pattern and a newly simplified animal-protein pastoral diet, as indicated by milk peptides and stable isotopes in Yamnaya teeth and bones. Late Yamnaya, correlated
with Mikhailovka level III, is dated 3000 BC and later. Only 10–20% of Yamnaya radiocarbon dates fall into the early 3300–3000 BC range, so it seems that most Yamnaya sites are late Yamnaya. Fully nomadic communities were scattered across the Pontic-Caspian steppes from the Ural River to the eastern Carpathians at a low density during the early Yamnaya phase. Unoccupied spaces in the steppe landscape were rapidly filled by pastoralists during the late Yamnaya phase after 3000 BC, when
Yamnaya communities expanded eastward to the Altai and westward to Hungary. (Correction: the coordinates for the Repin site on page 29 are incorrect--the site is located 80km downstream from those coordinates in a similar topographic situation on the Don River right bank across from the junction of a Don left-bank tributary, the Ilovaya River, different from the junction with the Medveditsa River described in the paper. My mapping error was derived from written descriptions of the site location, which is not precisely mapped in available Cyrillic-literature sources. The actual location is near a natural ridge shaped like a horse head called Mare's Head Mt., at 49°11'17.79"N 43°48'2.90"E, which might help explain why horses were 80% of the Repin fauna, uniquely among Yamnaya faunal profiles.)
of mass migration by a faceless horde of savage warriors. Western archaeologists abandoned the faceless migrating horde decades ago as a usually imaginary and substantively worthless explanation for culture change, but Marija Gimbutas’s conception of the Kurgan Culture kept this image alive in archaeological debates about Late Neolithic cultural shifts long after it had disappeared in other contexts. Recent studies of ancient DNA revealed large‑scale, long‑distance migrations from the steppes in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age that have prompted some to ask
the uneasy question of whether Gimbutas was right. This essay places the recent DNA discoveries and the debate about nomads from the steppes in its historical context, and pleads for a processual approach to migration quite different from the single‑event, conquest model of Gimbutas. Written 2 years before publication.
millennium BC have made the origins and nature of the
Yamnaya culture a question of broad relevance across
northern Eurasia. But none of the key archaeological
sites most important for understanding the evolution of
Yamnaya culture is published in western languages. These
key sites include the fifth-millennium BC Khvalynsk cemetery
in the middle Volga steppes. When the first part of
the Eneolithic cemetery (Khvalynsk I) was discovered in
1977–1979, the graves displayed many material and ritual
traits that were quickly recognized as similar and probably
ancestral to Yamnaya customs, but without the Yamnaya
kurgans. With the discovery of a second burial plot
(Khvalynsk II) 120 m to the south in 1987–1988, Khvalynsk
became the largest excavated Eneolithic cemetery in the
Don-Volga-Ural steppes (201 recorded graves), dated about
4500–4300 BCE. It has the largest copper assemblage of
the fifth millennium BC in the steppes (373 objects) and the
largest assemblage of sacrificed domesticated animals (at
least 106 sheep-goat, 29 cattle, and 16 horses); and it produced
four polished stone maces from well-documented
grave contexts. The human skeletons have been sampled
extensively for ancient DNA, the basis for an analysis of
family relationships. This report compiles information
from the relevant Russian-language publications and from
the archaeologists who excavated the site, two of whom are
co-authors, about the history of excavations, radiocarbon
dates, copper finds, domesticated animal sacrifices, polished
stone maces, genetic and skeletal studies, and relationships
with other steppe cultures as well as agricultural
cultures of the North Caucasus (Svobodnoe-Meshoko) and
southeastern Europe (Varna and Cucuteni-Tripol’ye B1).
Khvalynsk is described as a coalescent culture, integrating
and combining northern and southern elements, a hybrid
that can be recognized genetically, in cranio-facial types,
in exchanged artifacts, and in social segments within the
cemetery. Stone maces symbolized the unification and
integration of socially defined segments at Khvalynsk.
Das äneolithische Gräberfeld von Khvalynsk an der Wolga. Mittels genetischer Untersuchungen bestätigte Wanderungen des dritten Jahrtausends v. Chr. zeigen, wie relevant Forschungen zu den Ursprüngen und dem Wesen der Yamnaya-Kultur im nordeurasischen Raum tatsächlich sind. Bislang wurde keine der wichtigsten archäologischen Stätten, die für das Verständnis der Entwicklung der Yamnaya-Kultur von Bedeutung sind, in westlichen Sprachen veröffentlicht. Zu diesen Fundplätzen gehört etwa das in der mittleren Wolga-Steppe gelegene und in das 5. Jahrtausend v. Chr. datierende Gräberfeld von Khvalynsk. Als 1977-1979 der erste Teil des äneolithischen Friedhofs (Khvalynsk I) entdeckt wurde, zeigten die Gräber viele materielle und rituelle Merkmale, die rasch den Yamnaya-Bräuchen zugerechnet wurden, wobei jedoch die ansonsten für die Yamnaya-Kultur typischen Kurgane fehlten. Mit der Entdeckung eines 120 m südlich gelegenen zweiten Gräberfeldes (Khvalynsk II) in den Jahren 1987-1988 wurde Khvalynsk zum größten ergegrabenen äneolithischen Friedhof in der Don-Wolga-Ural-Steppe