Yamnaya Expansion — The European Genocide That Paved the Path For Future Genocides and Colonization
The year was roughly 3000 B.C.E., Europe was populated by peoples who were a hybrid of two main genetical components: an indigenous group known as Western European Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) and Early European Farmers (EEF). Early European Farmers had migrated into Europe from the Anatolian Region (present day Turkey) and blended genetically with the indigenous Western Hunter-Gatherers to create the peoples whom lived in Neolithic Europe at this time.
During this Neolithic era in Europe, technology appears to have not been predicated on advanced weaponry and battle. To the contrary, focus seems to have been directed toward farming techniques, fishing, animal domestication, ceramics, art, and additionally the miraculous feat of erecting megaliths throughout the continent that can still be seen today. It was during this time that such sites as Stonehenge in modern-day England, and Perperikon in modern-day Bulgaria began to be erected. The knowledge in such things as metallurgy and warfare were limited, but the comprehension of stewardship for the land was advanced.
At this same time, further to the East, a group of peoples were culturally advancing in ways that would prove to brutally change the course of European history. A culture that would be collectively known as Ancient North Eurasians(ANE), or more commonly Yamnaya, lived in what is now the modern day Pontic Steppes/Caucasus/North Iran Region. Yamnaya were less interested in stewarding the land and more in-line with warfare technology, metallurgy, domestication of the horse, and nomadic pastoralism of the first domesticated cattle. There were no great megalith monuments that were erected in Yamnaya homeland; instead, a genesis of great stature of men, the first bronze battle axes and the first wheeled chariots came into existence.
In waves, the Yamnaya pushed into Europe. Without any notion of diplomacy, these people of the Eurasian Steppes entered first into Eastern Europe, gradually into Central Europe and finally stopping in Western Europe. With their arrival, came the first horses Neolithic Europeans had ever seen, and additionally the first chariots. The stone and wooden tools of Neolithic Europeans were no match for the bronze daggers and axes wielded by Yamnaya, and the Europeans were hardly a match for the giant stature of these new eastern invaders. Their presence in Europe was marked by an abrupt end of indigenous cultural practices and a radical transformation to Yamnaya cultural practices such as Kurgan style burials. Another marker of Yamnaya presence in Europe was mass deforestation. As to create pastoral conditions familiar to them in their new lands, they cleared entire regions of land, some of which remain treeless to this day (as is in parts of modern-day Denmark).
Above all, the total genetic make-up of Europe was forever changed with this migration. Y Chromosome analysis of modern day Europeans show that the R1a/R1b haplogroup brought in with Yamnaya, appears to be dominant in 50% of all modern day Europeans. This evidence points toward the grim possibility that most of the male populations of Neolithic Europe were murdered and replaced by the invading Yamnaya; thereby, making this elongated event one of the biggest genocides in world history.
More importantly, the language carried by these people of the Eastern Steppes became the root of over 400 modern day European languages (English included). The language of the Yamnaya was the Proto-Indo-European language. What would become Hellenized Cultures such as Spartans, Greeks and Macedonians were born of Yamnaya invaders; this also follows for other ancient Eastern, Central and Western European groups such as Slavs, Scythians, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Celts, Franks, Thracians and most ancient European populations. What can be seen with ancient descendent groups of Yamnaya is a pronounced occurrence of war and colonization of territories. The invasive approach of many European groups mimicked the pattern of their Yamnaya forefathers who implanted not only a pronounced warlike culture into the heart of a vulnerable Neolithic Europe, but also left an impactful genetic imprint.
