Periodic Reporting for period 3 - YMPACT (The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe)
Período documentado: 2022-01-01 hasta 2023-06-30
The Yamnaya Impact (YMPACT) project is an international and interdisciplinary effort to understand the massive changes taking place in Europe some 5000 years ago, with its reverberations still visible today when it comes to genetic ancestry, social organisation, and European languages. The project first and foremost deals with the Yamnaya and here the western end of its huge distribution area in the steppe landscapes of current-day countries of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary, where also field studies and sample collections will be conducted. The main research objectives address issues such as the funerary archaeology of the Yamnaya kurgans and their material culture; exchange and interaction pattern; physical appearance and population dynamics; mobility, diet, occupation and lifestyle; interplay with the environment; as well as the nature of the wider Yamnaya Impact. Here particularly the transmission of ideas, innovations, customs and genes to regions further to the west and northwest, and thus also the emergence and expansion of the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker complexes, lies in our focus. The project is a team effort, being fully inter/cross-disciplinary from its inception, also reflecting the position of modern prehistoric archaeology as an intermediary discipline between humanities and sciences by incorporating methods, techniques and results from bio-, geo- and environmental sciences. Besides the core funeral archaeology, material culture studies, and landscape approaches, our bio-sciences are covering genetics/ancient DNA, bio-anthropology and isotope biogeochemistry and biomarker lipid analyses. Geo- and environmental sciences are contributing with palaeoclimatology, climate change research, soil formation processes and environmental chemistry.
Although the YMPACT project was badly paralysed by the Covid-19 pandemic between March 2020 and June 2021, we performed work and achieved the following main results:
- about 20 publications out, the far majority of which in peer-reviewed, well-established international journals;
- two books, one of 200 pages published, the other with 550 pages in press, as part of a new monograph series dedicated to 'The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe', with three more books in the pipeline;
- two summer excavations of Yamnaya kurgans, one in Romania 2019, the other in Bulgaria in 2021; several expedition campaigns of assessing skeletons, collecting samples, coring lakes and sampling soil of kurgans in southeast and east-central Europe;
- extensive sampling for bio-sciences; anthropology: more than 150 skeletons assessed; genetics: around 50 fresh petrous bone samples screened for aDNA and evaluated; isotopes/biomarker lipids: c. 100 isotopic bio-samples and 200 EBA potsherds, all collected in summer 2021; analyses and results are in progress;
- extensive sampling and analysing for environmental sciences; palaeoclimatology: coring of lakes in Romania 2019; sampling in Spain 2020; brGDGT analyses in Zurich/Switzerland 2019 & 2020; soil sciences: coring and sampling of kurgan profiles in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary; geochemical analyses in Budapest;
- one international conference organised in 2019; two EAA sessions organised in 2019 and 2020 (virtual); scientific papers given en masse, i.e. in Germany, UK, USA, Sweden, Finland, etc.;
- about a dozen of contributions/mentions in newspapers and magazines, such as eg. Sciencemag, National Geographic and New Scientist, in which the message of 'How migrations 5000 years ago shaped modern Europe' was disseminated; website and social media also used extensively;
- additional activities, neither originally planned nor budgeted for, by colleagues, and former and current students of the main PI, who got interested in the project and its research activities, and want to participate in one way or another; these include a study on the use of artificial intelligence in understanding of the steppe transition in Europe (in the meanwhile funded for 3 years by the German DFG); a MA thesis in the radiocarbon modelling of the Yamnaya expansion and another one in Yamnaya warrior ideology; two pilot projects on Yamnaya tooth calculus (one proteomics, the other phytolites); and finally another one on human stature change.
- about 20 publications out, the far majority of which in peer-reviewed, well-established international journals;
- two books, one of 200 pages published, the other with 550 pages in press, as part of a new monograph series dedicated to 'The Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe', with three more books in the pipeline;
- two summer excavations of Yamnaya kurgans, one in Romania 2019, the other in Bulgaria in 2021; several expedition campaigns of assessing skeletons, collecting samples, coring lakes and sampling soil of kurgans in southeast and east-central Europe;
- extensive sampling for bio-sciences; anthropology: more than 150 skeletons assessed; genetics: around 50 fresh petrous bone samples screened for aDNA and evaluated; isotopes/biomarker lipids: c. 100 isotopic bio-samples and 200 EBA potsherds, all collected in summer 2021; analyses and results are in progress;
- extensive sampling and analysing for environmental sciences; palaeoclimatology: coring of lakes in Romania 2019; sampling in Spain 2020; brGDGT analyses in Zurich/Switzerland 2019 & 2020; soil sciences: coring and sampling of kurgan profiles in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary; geochemical analyses in Budapest;
- one international conference organised in 2019; two EAA sessions organised in 2019 and 2020 (virtual); scientific papers given en masse, i.e. in Germany, UK, USA, Sweden, Finland, etc.;
- about a dozen of contributions/mentions in newspapers and magazines, such as eg. Sciencemag, National Geographic and New Scientist, in which the message of 'How migrations 5000 years ago shaped modern Europe' was disseminated; website and social media also used extensively;
- additional activities, neither originally planned nor budgeted for, by colleagues, and former and current students of the main PI, who got interested in the project and its research activities, and want to participate in one way or another; these include a study on the use of artificial intelligence in understanding of the steppe transition in Europe (in the meanwhile funded for 3 years by the German DFG); a MA thesis in the radiocarbon modelling of the Yamnaya expansion and another one in Yamnaya warrior ideology; two pilot projects on Yamnaya tooth calculus (one proteomics, the other phytolites); and finally another one on human stature change.
Expected results will include insights beyond current understanding in:
- defining Yamnaya; better linking burial customs, material culture and ancient DNA;
- Yamnaya chronology and periodisation; origins and speed of expansion;
- Yamnaya social organisation; Yamnaya women; role of children in inter-generational inheritance;
- Yamnaya and warrior self-esteem; kurgans and stelae as ideological monuments;
- their demographics, also compared to local societies in the southeast of Europe;
- Yamnaya subsistence economy and their domesticates; role of cattle, sheep and horses; their landscape use;
- Yamnaya links with climate change and soils;
- Yamnaya food, diet and way-of-life, but also potential unbalanced diet, malnutrition and diseases;
- interaction with Early Bronze Age locals, regional and temporal admixture pattern;
- Yamnaya bio-properties, activity pattern, bone/joint adaptations and pathologies;
- stature compared with other contemporary societies;
- horse use and riding in Yamnaya society;
- pattern of kurgan destruction in nowadays southeastern Europe;
- Yamnaya and its relation to Corded Ware users; Corded Ware origins and expansion; ultimately also 'steppe' Bell Beaker users, their origin and expansion to the west.
- defining Yamnaya; better linking burial customs, material culture and ancient DNA;
- Yamnaya chronology and periodisation; origins and speed of expansion;
- Yamnaya social organisation; Yamnaya women; role of children in inter-generational inheritance;
- Yamnaya and warrior self-esteem; kurgans and stelae as ideological monuments;
- their demographics, also compared to local societies in the southeast of Europe;
- Yamnaya subsistence economy and their domesticates; role of cattle, sheep and horses; their landscape use;
- Yamnaya links with climate change and soils;
- Yamnaya food, diet and way-of-life, but also potential unbalanced diet, malnutrition and diseases;
- interaction with Early Bronze Age locals, regional and temporal admixture pattern;
- Yamnaya bio-properties, activity pattern, bone/joint adaptations and pathologies;
- stature compared with other contemporary societies;
- horse use and riding in Yamnaya society;
- pattern of kurgan destruction in nowadays southeastern Europe;
- Yamnaya and its relation to Corded Ware users; Corded Ware origins and expansion; ultimately also 'steppe' Bell Beaker users, their origin and expansion to the west.