From about 3300 BC, the Yamnaya, pastoralists living between the Dnieper and Ural rivers on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, herded cattle and sheep, used horses and wagons with solid wheels, and buried their leaders under large mounds called kurgans. Ancient DNA studies published in 2015 showed that around 2900 BC groups with Yamnaya ancestry spread to central and northern Europe, replacing a large part of the farming population, as the Corded Ware culture, and eastward to Siberia and Central Asia. Most scientists believe they spoke Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor of languages such as English, Latin, Greek, Persian and Sanskrit, now spoken by about half the world.
Before and after
- from c. 3,100 BCE to 2,686 BCEEarly Dynastic Period of Egypt
- from 31st century BCE to 14th century BCEConstruction of Stonehenge
- from 31st century BCE to 20th century BCECorded Ware culture
- c. 3,000s BCEThe Austronesian expansion begins from Taiwan
- c. 3,000s BCEYamnaya herders spread across Europe and Asia
- c. 3,000 BCECuneiform
- from c. 3,000 BCE to 1,800 BCEIndus Valley Civilization
- from c. 3,000 BCE to 2,240 BCEEbla
- from 30th century BCE to 18th century BCEMari
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The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires.