Yamnaya culture

File:Yamna burial.png

Typical Yamna burial with the skeleton in supine position, with bent knees. The bodies were typically covered with ochre.

The Yamna (from Russian яма "pit") or Pit Grave or Ochre Grave culture is a late copper age/early bronze age culture of the Bug/Dniester/Ural region, dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts. Domestication of the horse, cattle, sheep and goat, use of plough and carts is attested.

Characteristic for the culture are the inhumations in kurgans, (tumuli) in pit graves with the dead body placed in a supine position with bent knees. The bodies were covered in ochre. 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 early Indo-Europeans, particularly Indo-Iranians.

Approximate culture extent c. 3200-2300 BC.

It is said to have originated in the middle Volga based Khvalynsk culture and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog culture. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb culture; in the east, by the Poltavka culture and the Srubna culture.

the Yamna culture in 4th millennium BC Europe

The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas. It is one candidate for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture. First in Eastern Europe remains of wheeled cart were found in "Storozhova mohyla" kurgan (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, excavated by Trenozhkin O.I) associated with Yamna culture .

Sources

J. P. Mallory, "Yamna Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

See also

• Kurgan
• Ukrainian stone stela
• Cucuteni culture
• Vinča culture
• Beaker culture.