Project description DEENESFRITPL A closer look at horse-riding cattle herders from Russia What do we know about the massive changes that took place in Europe some 5 000 years ago? Its reverberations as regards genetic ancestry, social organisation and European languages remain visible. By focusing on the Yamnaya, horse-riding cattle herders from Russia, the EU-funded YMPACT project will study their distribution in the steppe landscapes of modern-day Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia. The research team will also conduct field studies and sample collections. Specifically, the project will shed light on their interaction pattern, physical appearance and population dynamics as well as their mobility, diet, occupation and lifestyle. It will study the data from 320 excavated burial mounds and more than 1 000 burials to calibrate these changes. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Dramatic migrations in the third millennium BC re-shaped Europe, modifying its economy, society, ethnicity and ideological structure for ever. The best incentive proxy are populations that moved from the steppes of Russia, spreading as far west as Hungary, implanting a pastoral economy with widespread innovations. These dynamic people covered thousands of kilometres within a few centuries, and organised direct physical relations over the steppes for the first time. This synchronism is promoted by a society organised to fit to this lifestyle, with new herding techniques, likely use of wagons and domesticated horses, and a protein-rich diet, whose adaptive advantages are evident from the physical record in human skeletons and territorial extensions. This is the Yamnaya complex, whose impact remains visible today in the European gene pool and apparently the propagation of Indo-European languages. This international and interdisciplinary project examines the data from 320 excavated burial mounds and c.1350 burials to calibrate these changes, also against a control sample of supposedly local and neighbouring populations. The archaeological, biological and environmental information allows large, new datasets to be built, whose systematic interrogation and modelling should reveal the formative processes behind these changes. Assessing funeral archaeology, material culture, and exchange pattern defines their culture and impact. Scientific analyses of skeletons expose relations of origin, degrees of consanguinity, diet, and histories of individual mobility over single lifetimes with new precision and replicability. They should also act as proxy datasets for environmental changes using further analytical techniques in a context of landscape evolution. Diachronic patterns within these sets should link with aspects of the internal social dynamics, such as the creation of new status positions, visible later in the Pan-European Corded Ware and Bell Beaker groups. Fields of science humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistorysocial sciencessociologyanthropologyethnologymedical and health scienceshealth sciencesnutritionhumanitieshistory and archaeologyarchaeology Keywords Migration ancient DNA bio-anthropology isotope geochemistry landscape archaeology palynology pedology cultural heritage language change Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-2017-ADG - ERC Advanced Grant Call for proposal ERC-2017-ADG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant Coordinator HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO Net EU contribution € 1 681 159,00 Address Yliopistonkatu 3 00014 Helsingin yliopisto Finland See on map Region Manner-Suomi Helsinki-Uusimaa Helsinki-Uusimaa Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 Beneficiaries (5) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO Finland Net EU contribution € 1 681 159,00 Address Yliopistonkatu 3 00014 Helsingin yliopisto See on map Region Manner-Suomi Helsinki-Uusimaa Helsinki-Uusimaa Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 245 786,00 Address Beacon house queens road BS8 1QU Bristol See on map Region South West (England) Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath area Bristol, City of Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 151 509,00 Address Gower street WC1E 6BT London See on map Region London Inner London — West Camden and City of London Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 SZENT ISTVAN EGYETEM Hungary Net EU contribution € 60 000,00 Address Pater karoly utca 1 2100 Godollo See on map Region Közép-Magyarország Pest Pest Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00 JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ Germany Net EU contribution € 355 755,00 Address Saarstrasse 21 55122 Mainz See on map Region Rheinland-Pfalz Rheinhessen-Pfalz Mainz, Kreisfreie Stadt Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Other funding € 0,00