Corded Ware Culture

3000 BCE – 2350 BCE

The Corded Ware culture is thought to have originated from the westward migration of Yamnaya-related people from the steppe-forest zone into the territory of late Neolithic European cultures. Chiefly identified by its specific burial rites, the Corded Ware Culture spanned most of central Europe and exhibits demographic and cultural associations to the Yamnaya culture.

The term Corded Ware culture is named after the cord-like impressions or ornamentation characteristic of its pottery.

Recent genetic studies suggest that the people of the Corded Ware culture share significant levels of ancestry with Yamnaya as a consequence of a supposed “massive migration” from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the people of both cultures may be directly descended from a genetically similar pre-Yamnaya population.

Quick Facts

  • Also known as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture.
  • Associated with the diffusion of Proto-Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers.
  • Blend of cultural elements of the earlier Funnelbeaker culture in the North European Plain with the PIE steppe culture (Yamna).
  • A Mobile pastoral economy, relying mostly on cattle and occasional cereal cultivation.
  • Regular use of horses and ox-drawn wagons. Presence of copper and bronze artifacts as well as stone battle-axes.
  • Coarse pottery is typically decorated with twisted cord impressions and sometimes with other types of impressions or incisions. Use beakers and cups for drinking.
  • The dead were inhumed in flat graves inside a small mound. Bodies were laid on their side with bent knees. Wagons/carts and sacrificed animals were present in graves.

Yamnaya Culture

3300–2600 BCE

Quick Facts

  • Also known as the Yamnaya Culture, Pit Grave Culture, or Ochre Grave Culture.
  • Generally considered by linguists as the homeland of the Proto-Indo-European language.
  • They Probably originated between the Lower Don, the Lower Volga, and North Caucasus during the Chalcolithic, around what became the Novotitorovka culture (3300-2700 BCE) within the Yamna culture.
  • Highly mobile steppe culture of pastoral nomads relying heavily on cattle (dairy farming). Sheep were also kept for their wool. Hunting, fishing and sporadic agriculture were practiced near rivers.
  • First culture (along with Maykop) to make regular use of ox-drawn wheeled carts. Metal artifacts (tools, axes, tanged daggers) were mostly made of copper, with some arsenical bronze. Domesticated horses were used as pack animals and ridden to manage cattle herds.
  • Coarse, flat-bottomed, egg-shaped pottery decorated with comb stamps and cord impressions.
  • The dead were inhumed in pit graves inside kurgans (burial mounds). Bodies were placed in a supine position with bent knees and covered in ochre. Wagons/carts and sacrificed animals (cattle, horse, sheep) were present in graves, a trait typical of later Indo-European cultures.