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About the Tribe
Yamnaya people dominated Europe from between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago
They had nutritionally rich diets and were tall, muscular and skilled horse riders
It is believed they exploited a continent recovering from disease and death
They spread rapidly, adapting and massacring their way throughout Europe
Slaughtered Neolithic men in prehistoric genocide to ensure their DNA survived
They made their way to Britain and within a few generations there was no remains of the previous inhabitants who built Stonehenge in the genetic record
Ancient DNA reveals these migrants were well nourished, tall and muscular. Some archaeologists also argue that the warrior tribe consisted of skilled horsemen.
‘It looks like they lived mostly on meat and milk products,’ says Professor Kristiansen.
‘They were healthier and probably physically quite strong.’
Joe Pinkstone, “The most violent group of people who ever lived: Horse-riding Yamnaya tribe who used their huge height and muscular build to brutally murder and invade their way across Europe more than 4,000 years ago”, The Daily Mail, March 29, 2019
According to Anthony (2007), the early Yamnaya horizon spread quickly across the Pontic–Caspian steppes between c. 3400 and 3200 BC.[13]
The spread of the Yamnaya horizon was the material expression of the spread of late Proto-Indo-European across the Pontic–Caspian steppes.[14]
[...] The Yamnaya horizon is the visible archaeological expression of a social adjustment to high mobility – the invention of the political infrastructure to manage larger herds from mobile homes based in the steppes.[15]
Importance of Animal Products
"It looks like they lived mostly on meat and milk products," says Professor Kristiansen.
According to Haak et al. (2015), "Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers" (EHG) who inhabited today's Russia were a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high genetic affinity to a c. 24,000-year-old Siberian from Mal'ta–Buret' culture, which in turn resembles other remains of Siberia,[24] such as the Afontova Gora.[7][4] Remains of the "Eastern European hunter-gatherers" have been found in Mesolithic or early Neolithic sites in Karelia and Samara Oblast, Russia, and put under analysis. Three such hunter-gathering individuals of the male sex have had their DNA results published. Each was found to belong to a different Y-DNA haplogroup: R1a, R1b, and J.[8]
Importance of Plants
Too hard to tell, maybe none.
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Transition to Industrialized Food Products
Examination of physical remains of the Yamnaya people has determined that they were Europoid, tall, and massively built. Their cephalic index varies depending on the region, with brachycephaly being prevalent in its southern and southeastern areas, and dolichocephaly being prevalent in its northerneastern areas.[e]
The genetic basis of a number of physical features of the Yamnaya people were ascertained by the ancient DNA (aDNA) studies conducted by Haak et al. (2015), Wilde et al. (2014) and Mathieson et al. (2015): They were genetically tall (phenotypic height is determined by both genetics and environmental factors), overwhelmingly dark-eyed (brown), dark-haired and had a skin colour that was moderately light, though somewhat darker than that of the average modern European.[8][31] Despite their pastoral lifestyle, there was little evidence of lactase persistence.[7]