ЯМНА КУЛЬТУРА: ПОХОДЖЕННЯ ТА МІГРАЦІЇ В КОНТЕКСТІ ТЕОРІЇ ФРОНТИРУ
THE YAMNA CULTURE: ORIGIN AND MIGRATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE FRONTIER THEORY

Summary/Abstract: In the IV millennium BC the tradition of erecting burial mounds (kurgans) began to spread in various parts of Europe. A wide distribution of this tradition is associated with the tribes of the Yamnaya culture (YC) in the early Bronze Age. An analysis of the main components of the YC shows that the carriers of the YC were primarily united by the commonality of the worldview and religious-mythological ideas. Reflected in a unified funeral rite, the «new ideology» became the basis for the formation of a new cultural and historical community, characterized by the bringing together a diverse population based on the adoption of an innovative worldview. There are obvious material culture differences among the local groups of YC, which are manifested in ceramics and other artifacts. The data from genetics also show certain heterogeneity of the carriers of the YC, at the same time indicating core genetic features that most likely reflect the common origin of the representatives of the YC from the Meso-Eneolithic Ponto-Caspian populations infused with genetic determinants characteristic of hunters and gatherers of the Caucasus and Iranian farmers, with varying genetic admixture of Anatolian and European Neolithic farmers. The main idea of the article is to refute, with the help of the Frontier theory and with the use of genetic data, the hypothesis about the formation of the Yamna culture in the Volga-Ural region and the migration of its carriers to the west, including the Northern Black Sea, Southeastern and Central Europe. The article also aims to demonstrate that trade (rather than invasion or conquest) was the determining factor that shaped the cultural-historical as well as genetic foundation of the populations of the Yamna Cultural - Historical Complex on the interactions between populations of the northwest Pontic region and various parts of Europe, forming and spreading along the frontier zone, where social, cultural and ethnic markers intersect. A special role in these processes is given to the Budzhak culture of the North-Western Black Sea coast. One of the main stimuli for the movement of its population in the western direction was the establishment of trade relations and the formation of trade routes.

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