Approximate culture extent c. 3200-2300 BC.

The Yamna culture in 4th millennium BC Europe.

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

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 Turkic culture, and tentaively probably with conjectural elements of both Proto-Indo-Europeans and Proto-Indo-Iranians.

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.

In the 19th century radical European nationalism, and in its later derivatives, the Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas. In that hypothesis, it was one of three candidates for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture.

The earliest remains in Eastern Europe of a wheeled cart were found in the "Storozhova mohyla" kurgan (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, 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 was practised.

Artifacts

References

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

See also

• Kurgan
• Ukrainian stone stela
• Cucuteni culture
• Vin?a culture
• Beaker culture

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