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3 - Yamnaya Pastoralists in the Eurasian Desert Steppe Zone: New Perspectives on Mobility

from Part I - Early Indo-European and the Origin of Pastoralism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2023

By
Natalia I. Shishlina
Edited by
Kristian Kristiansen ,
Guus Kroonen  and
Eske Willerslev
Kristian Kristiansen
Affiliation:
Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
Guus Kroonen
Affiliation:
Universiteit Leiden
Eske Willerslev
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Summary

The Yamnaya culture of the Lower Don is a Bronze Age culture dated between 2900 and 2600 cal BC. Its population inhabited the Eurasian desert steppe belt, where their main subsistence activity was pastoralism. The Yamnaya population developed a distinctive economic model based on new principles of pasture rotation, landscape use, and individual mobility. The focus of this study is the analysis of the specific landscapes and geographical features of one of the Eurasian Steppe regions located between the Lower Don and Lower Volga regions, i.e. the Sal-Manych Ridge (Fig. 3.1); it includes the settlement pattern and economic model that the mobile Yamnaya pastoralists developed to adapt to this region, the resources of the steppes they exploited and the system of seasonal migration reflected in the mobility of individual Yamnaya groups.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Indo-European Puzzle Revisited
Integrating Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics
 , pp. 34 - 41
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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