Migrations or cultural contacts: regarding the theory of «Yamna invasion» to the territory of Central Europe
Authors: Ivanova Svitlana , Voitovych Maria 
Published: December 2022

It is noted that some researchers have associated the migration of ancestors of Indo-Europeans to Europe with the Yamna cultural and historical community. It is established that based on a comparison of genomic markers from the remains of the Volga-Ural group of Yamna culture and representatives of European populations from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age, Western geneticists recently proposed their concept of mass migration of bearers of Yamna culture to Central Europe, which led to the emergence of Corded ware culture. It is noted that from the archaeological point of view, neither this large-scale migration nor the origin of the «Corded ware culture people» from the «Yamna culture people» can be traced. It has been suggested that the formation of Corded ware cultures took place along with the formation of Yamna cultural community on a unified genetic substrate. It is noted that the similarity of genetic determinants in YCHC and CWC is not the result of the formation of one culture from another, but indicates a common genetic basis, which arose from complex processes of interaction between agricultural and steppe populations, which later developed according to individual cultural trajectories. The advance of the Yamna population to the west is considered as an intrusion into the local environment, not as its mass migration to Central Europe. It is assumed that there was a «trade colonization» with the formation of enclaves, covering the newcomers and the local population, with a gradual advance to the west. This is supported by the fact that in Central Europe about 20 burials of Yamna culture have been studied, which do not form a unified complex but occur in cemeteries of different cultures. It has been established that the main movement of the population of the Yamna culture to the west was along the Danube and partly through Transylvania, where the sites of CWC are unknown. The initial area from which the intrusion was carried out is the North-Western Black Sea region. It is concluded that such statistical information gives reason to doubt the mass migration of bearers of Yamna culture from the Volga-Ural watershed to Central Europe. It is noted that instead the migration of the Seredniodniprovska culture, which settled on the territory of the Northern Sub-Carpathian region and the Sokal Ridge, is much more clearly expressed. It has been established that the population of this culture joined the local CWC environment, forming syncretic sites with features of two and sometimes three (Yamna/Catacombna) cultures. It is known that after Seredniodniprovska culture the representatives of Catacombna culture penetrated Central Europe in the north-western direction. Their presence is most clearly traced in the environment of Strzyżowska culture. It has been established that the movement of the Babyne culture population to the territory of the Sub-Carpathian region, and especially to the Western Volhynia – to places where flint outcrops are localized, the environment of Horodok-Zdovbytsia and Strzyżowska cultures is increasingly observed. Key words: Yamna culture, Corded ware culture, Catacombna culture, Seredniodniprovska culture, Strzyżowska culture, migration, intercultural contacts, barrow, burial.