History fans when someone 5,000 years ago made a ritual object.

Artistic Reconstruction of a man of the Fatyanovo-Balanovo Culture (offshoot of eastern Corded Ware Culture).

Cool fact, they had carved bone pins that looked similar to Yamnaya ones. I wanted to showcase that along with ornaments made from bear teeth and a bear claw since related artifacts have been found at their sites (we just do not know for sure how they wore them). For pigmentation, there were many Fatyanovo who had similar skin, hair and eye color to Yamnaya (as did many early CWC) so I presented that here.

So what was the Fatyanovo economy like? It differed a bit from the Yamnaya as it was not a fully nomadic pastoralist culture.

Their forest environment largely affected their economy. While archeologists consider cattle herding to be the most significant part of their economy, evidence of pigs was seen in several sites (especially in earlier sites). This is an important fact as domestic pigs suggested a more settled lifestyle.

It is believed they also practiced some agriculture. Later, their descendants would return to the steppe and become more mobile as they adapted to the environment. Soon I will be posting a new artistic reconstruction of a Fatyanovo man whose skull as featured in the same paper I got the Yamnaya skull from for my last artistic reconstruction.

I am the most boring man on YouTube. You're welcome 🫡

An interesting new linguistic paper ("Indo-Slavic Lexical Isoglosses and the Prehistoric Dispersal of Indo-Iranian" by Axel I. Palmér) proposes the joining of the Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Baltic-Slavic into a branch called Indo-Slavic. In this hypothesis, Fatyanovo may be Indo-Slavic, and Abashevo (the ancestor of Sintashta and Srubnaya) in turn would be Proto-Indo-Iranian. I plan on making a future post discussing this hypothesis. The pdf is open access and free to download (only the printed version has a cost): https://brill.com/display/title/72253?srsltid=AfmBOopo6saxCywro72ra102yA9CkQu_fMikU4ztWzvA-11oTgnaL21f

In David Anthony's book he calls it "the Repin culture" but in recent talks he has clarified that he sees Repin as a local pottery type within the broader Yamnaya culture.

David Anthony said in April 2024 of the Repin site. "Repin I see as a pottery style that developed on the Don... I don't see it as a culture, I see it as a pottery type."

Repin is an early Yamnaya site and pottery style, an early local variant of the emerging Yamnaya technology and way of life.

In some ways though, this is just semantics. Archeologists, especially in decades past, were very liberal in assigning groups to new archeological cultures and there's no reason "the Repin culture" wouldn't fit their criteria. There are "cultures" identified within broader "cultures" in prehistory and ultimately it doesn't really matter what you call them.

The Repin Culture - Ancestor of Afanasievo culture?

The Repin Culture (estimated range 3900–3300 BC) came out of middle Don region of the steppe and is considered a descendent of Sredny Stog that moved eastward. The material culture shares similarities with both its ancestor Sredny Stog and the later Yamnaya. David Anthony theorizes that they may be the ancestor of the Afanasievo. Their material culture is also similar to early Yamnaya.

Material culture of Repin Culture (Source Nina Morgunova - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Materials_of_the_Repin_type.jpg)

I know it's a nice day out but you're gonna have to leave the kids unattended in the paddling pool for half hour, let the sausages burn on the barbecue, and have a sit down to watch this today.

Ad-free sponsor free version now live for Channel Members and Patreon supporters. Cheers!

NEW VIDEO LIVE NOW!

The mystical god-kings of Neolithic Ireland built these enormous monuments we call passage graves.

But they were much more than just tombs for the dead...

I hope you enjoy this amazing story. Shares appreciated!

Cheers!

Neolithic European farmers on the frontier 7,000 years ago ate better than you do.

They also got more beaver.

Typically for my viewers, people wanted more information about the Knowth phallus stone.

Check out my post on YT for details and images.

You like this sort of thing.

Please remember to watch my new film about Newgrange and the entire Irish Neolithic.

I think it's a fascinating story and if you like my videos then you're sure to enjoy this one.

As always, your views, likes, comments and shares are enormously appreciated. Cheers. 🙏