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]

Yamnaya artifacts from their homeland in Russia and Ukraine include a 3.3 meter (four-foot) -tall anthropomorphic stela from 3000 B.C. featuring axes and horses; knife blades and other tools made of bronze; and necklace made of fish teeth.

May 9, 2024 · As reported by The Economist, the Yamnaya left a lasting impact across Europe and much of Asia, transforming these regions genetically, culturally, and linguistically. Their most significant contribution is perhaps the Indo-European languages, now spoken by nearly half the world's population.

Jun 6, 2019 · The term Yamnaya comes from the Russian expression Yamnaya Kultura which means ‘pit culture’. This is because of the types of graves that they left behind. The Yamnaya were nomadic pastoralists who originally lived on the steppes of Eurasia before moving west.

Dec 6, 2024 · Researchers, including Polish archaeologists, discovered tall men’s bones covered with red dye in two burial mounds in Vojvodina (northern Serbia). These bones probably belonged to people who had come there almost five thousand years ago from the steppes of today’s South Russia or Ukraine.

Metal artefacts (tools, axes, tanged daggers) were mostly made of copper, with some arsenical bronze. Domesticated horses used as pack animal and ridden to manage cattle herds. Coarse, flat-bottomed, egg-shaped pottery decorated with comb stamps and cord impressions. The dead were inhumed in pit graves inside kurgans (burial mounds).

Jan 1, 2025 · The Yamnaya culture, also known as the Pit Grave culture or the Ochre Grave culture, emerged around 3300-2600 BCE in the Pontic-Caspian steppe. This culture is primarily known for its significant role in the spread of Indo-European languages across a …

The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequent prehistoric cultures of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, such as the Khvalynsk, Repin and Yamna (or Yamnaya) cultures. [2]

Three aspects of Yamnaya metallurgy support an EBA designation for early Yamnaya: Yamnaya metal tools and weapons were typologically and technologically unlike the Eneolithic tools and weapons of Chernykh’s Carpatho-Balkan Metallurgical Province; they were derived from EBA Maykop metallurgical innovations; and copper mining and metallurgical ...

Through an examination of burial practices, particularly the use of ochre in graves, this study investigates the cultural and societal implications of Yamnaya customs in the region.