The Afanasevo culture was an early Bronze Age or Copper Age culture of the Altai and Minusinsk basin in southern Siberia and Mongolia, named after Afanasieva Mountain near Minusinsk where its graves were first found. Its people buried their dead in round pits under small mounds, kept cattle, sheep and horses, and used copper tools and pottery with simple patterns. Genetic studies have shown that they were closely related to the Yamnaya culture of the western steppe, from which they migrated across Eurasia. It is sometimes suggested that the Afanasevo people spoke an early form of the language group later known as Tocharian, which was spoken in the Tarim Basin, though this is debated. The Okunevo culture later succeeded it.
Before and after
- c. 3,550 BCEEruption of Pinatubo
- from 36th century BCE to 18th century BCECaral–Supe civilization
- c. 3,501 BCEPeople first tame horses on the steppe
- from c. 3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCEOrigins of Brú na Bóinne
- from c. 3,500 BCE to 2,500 BCEAfanasevo culture
- 34th century BCEWriting is invented in Mesopotamia
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 600 BCEBronze Age
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 1,100 BCEMinoan civilization
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 2,600 BCEYamnaya culture
More in Evolution & life
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- from about 15,000 years ago to 1st millennium BCEJōmon period
- about 12,000 years agoHolocene extinction
- from 10th millennium BCE to 6th millennium BCEMesolithic
- from 56th century BCE to 20th century BCESumer
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.