Yamnaya culture

The Yamnaya (, YAM-ny-ə), or Yamna (, YAM-nə), culture, 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. It was discovered by Vasily Gorodtsov following his archaeological excavations near the Donets River in 1901–1903. Its name derives from its characteristic burial tradition: yamnaya (ямная) is a Russian adjective that means 'related to pits' (яма, yama), as these people buried their dead in tumuli (kurgans) containing simple pit chambers. Research in recent years has found that Mikhailovka, on the lower Dnieper River in Ukraine, formed the core Yamnaya culture (c. 3600–3400 BC).

The Yamnaya culture is of particular interest to archaeologists and linguists, as the widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis posits that the people who produced the Yamnaya culture spoke a stage of the Proto-Indo-European language. The speakers of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language embarked on the Indo-European migrations, which gave rise to today's widely dispersed Indo-European languages.

The Yamnaya economy was based upon animal husbandry, fishing and foraging and the manufacture of ceramics, tools and weapons. The people of the Yamnaya culture were nomads or semi-nomads, who were organised in a chiefdom system and relied on riding horses to manage large herds, as well as on wheeled carts and wagons for long-distance travel. They are also closely connected to Final Neolithic cultures, which later spread throughout Europe and Central Asia, especially the Corded Ware people and the Bell Beaker culture, as well as the peoples of the Sintashta, Andronovo and Srubnaya cultures. Back migration from Corded Ware also contributed to Sintashta and Andronovo.