Yamnaya

English

Alternative forms

• Yamna

Etymology

From Russian Ямная (Jamnaja), an adjective formed from яма (jama, “pit”), referring to the culture's burial practices.

Proper noun

Yamnaya

1. A late Copper Age to early Bronze Age archaeological culture of the region between the Southern Bug, Dniester, and Ural rivers (the Pontic steppe), dating to 3300–2600 BCE.
   • 2015, Nature, Allentoft et al., Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia:

     Although European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other (Fig. 2), they still display a cline of genetic affinity with Yamnaya, with highest levels in Corded Ware, lowest in Hungary, and central European Bell Beakers being intermediate (Fig. 2b and Extended Data Table 1).

Noun

Yamnaya pl (plural only)

1. The people of the Yamnaya culture.
   • 2015, Nature 522 (7555), Haak, W. et al, Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe:

     This pattern is also seen in ADMIXTURE analysis (Fig. 2b, SI6), which implies that the Yamnaya have ancestry from populations related to the Caucasus and South Asia that is largely absent in 38 Early or Middle Neolithic farmer s but present in all 25 Late Neolithic or Bronze Age individuals.

   • 2016, David W. Anthony (translator), Pavel F. Kuznetsov, Oleg D. Mochalov, Chapter 4: The Samara Valley in the Bronze Age: A Review of Archaeological Discoveries, David W. Anthony, Dorcas R. Brown, Aleksandr A. Khokhlov, Pavel F. Kuznetsov, Oleg D. Mochalov (editors), A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes: The Samara Valley Project, UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, page 81,

     Archaeologists by 2002 had identified 17 Yamnaya cemeteries in the Samara Valley containing 45 kurgans and 51 graves (Figure 4.2).

   • 2017, David W. Anthony, 2: Archaeology and Language, Pam J. Crabtree, Peter Bogucki (editors), European Archaeology as Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, page 55,

     The tested Corded Ware individuals are modeled as having an ancestry 79% derived from Yamnaya, 4% from WHG,^{[Western Hunter-Gatherers]} and 17% from EEF^{[Early European Farmers]} (Haak et al. 2015).

   • 2018, David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here, Oxford University Press, page 108:

     The increase in the intensity of the human use of the steppe lands coincided with a nearly complete disappearance of permanent settlements—almost all the structures that the Yamnaya left behind were graves, huge mounds of earth called kurgans.

Adjective

Yamnaya (not comparable)

1. Of or relating to the Yamnaya people or culture.