Theory of the “WAVES”
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Reassessing Marija Gimbutas’s Old Europe Vision @ Bianca Preda-Bălănică, a Romanian archaeologist and academic researcher currently based at the University of Helsinki in Finland. She works in the field of prehistoric archaeology, especially focusing on the Yamnaya period and the impact of steppe populations in southeastern Europe as part of the Yamnaya Impact on Prehistoric Europe research project.
Reviewing Marija Gimbutas’s theory of the “waves” of migration of our ancestors: the Kurgan Theory developed by Marija Gimbutas still makes waves in current archaeological debates. The year 2025 marked 104 years since the birth of one of the most interesting and prolific archaeologists of the last century: Marija Gimbutas.
She left behind an immense legacy, consisting of several monumental books and hundreds of articles, and many aspects of her research have sparked lively discussions in academic circles: from her views on goddess-centered Neolithic societies in Old Europe, fueling a controversial feminist movement, to her archaeomythology methodology, to her steppe hypothesis of the Indo-European homeland and the process of Indo-Europeanization.
Given the rapid pace of publication of new excavations, DNA studies, and stable isotope analyses today, our current knowledge will be significantly modified in the coming years. We can already state that it is necessary to radically change our vision of migrations and invasions throughout all historical periods. On this aspect, Marija Gimbutas herself worked continuously over more than 40 years of activity, because science evolves alongside new archaeological discoveries.
For us, this period is important because it marks the transition from matriarchal agricultural societies (Cucuteni) to patriarchal-type societies (kingdoms). The purpose of these lines is to analyze the theory of migration waves and to revise Marija Gimbutas’s theory of the three waves of migration from the steppe from the perspective of current archaeological research, while also including perspectives offered by DNA studies. The subject is, of course, very complex and would require a much more detailed analysis than a simple blog post like this one. Those who have the patience to read these lines to the end will learn new things about our ancestors from the time horizon 4500-2500 BC, when we can speak of Carpatho-Balkan farmers and proto-Getae who chose to build mounds (kurgans) here, after migrating into this space.
The information emerging from the research of our ancestors’ funerary horizon may be boring for some and fundamental for others in discovering realities from more than 5000-6000 years ago. And we argue only on the basis of the precious information that increasingly reveals the absence of weapon-specific trauma on the bones of these study subjects, sufficient to first reconsider the kurgan theory as well as our knowledge of this period. This study, like others, is hoped to stimulate discussions and further investigations into the increasingly complex archaeological and genetic data to which we now have access. Marija Gimbutas defined migration waves as singular events involving the movement of large populations.
In an article, David Anthony already noted that the use of the word wave, meaning something that „sweeps the beach as a short event and randomly washes the non-oceanic space, invading the space of terrestrial life, but without knowledge, planning, objectives or direction – a purely mechanical movement,” is instructive for the simplistic way in which Marija Gimbutas perceived migrations. It also suggests that she did not differentiate between the triggering factors of the three supposed migrations, but saw them as a simple repetition of the same mechanism. She did not explain why and how these migrations from the steppe occurred.
Nevertheless, from the archaeological evidence presented very briefly below, we can reasonably deduce that, spanning two millennia, from 4500 to 2500 BC, the interactions between the Lower Danube and the Balkan region, on the one hand, and the steppes, on the other, unfolded quite differently. The concept of „waves of migrations” only conceals the diversity of forms of mobility that took place. Each of the three periods that indeed show an intensification of contacts must be evaluated in its particular context to understand the processes that produced the respective archaeological evidence. In the second half of the 5th millennium BC, interactions most likely involved the effective mobility of special categories of people, high-status individuals who built specialized exchange networks in the trade of exotic and prestige goods between regions. In the last third of the 4th millennium BC, the appearance of objects and funerary practices of steppe origin at the Lower Danube does not seem to involve massive population movements, but rather processes of cultural transmission. Nevertheless, the movement of groups of people did take place, as happened at the end of the 4th millennium and the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, when Yamnaya burials appear in the same region.
However, even in this case, migration, seen as a single episode of movement of a large population, must be nuanced in the context of the increasing number of available C14 data, which give this process a certain temporal depth. For all these periods, the various directions of mobility must also be considered – coming from the steppes into southeastern Europe and conversely, returning to the steppes. The study of archaeological records can provide information about the circulation of raw materials or finished objects between regions. New DNA studies have added another dimension, that of genetic flow, already evident starting from the 5th millennium BC. However, the relationship between biological ancestors and the identity of individuals should not be assumed, but investigated, as proven by several examples mentioned below. In conclusion, we should attempt to answer the question from which this work began: „Was Marija Gimbutas right?” This question cannot be answered simply with yes or no.
Marija Gimbutas was quite intuitive—a quality she considered essential for any archaeologist—in recognizing three periods of more intense interactions between people living in the steppe and those inhabiting what she called Old Europe: the second half of the 5th millennium BC, the last third of the 4th millennium BC, and the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, and in this sense she was right. She also possessed an impressive capacity for synthesis, and the scenario of her migration waves covered the entire European continent. However, this approach caused an excessive simplification of interpretations and prevented her from recognizing the specificity of the archaeological records she used to construct each of her „waves.”
Therefore, in this respect, she was not right: there were not three waves of migration from the steppes, but rather more complex processes of individual or group mobility, mixing, and cultural transmission, which we have only just begun to uncover how they occurred. In her famous model, Marija Gimbutas argued that three waves of migration from the steppes into southeastern Europe took place in three different periods: the second half of the 5th millennium BC, the last centuries of the 4th millennium BC, and the first centuries of the 3rd millennium BC. To evaluate whether her model finds support in the archaeological archive, we will provide an overview of the discoveries from steppe-type regions in southeastern Europe in the period corresponding to the supposed migration waves. For each phase, we will also advance other possible interpretations that could explain this archaeological archive involving different types of mobility/migration or processes of cultural transmission. She considered the latter as the result of three migration waves that could be identified archaeologically, coming from the steppes into southeastern Europe between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC and completely restructuring the cultural foundations of Europe. The saga of her Kurgan hypothesis has been and still is profoundly influenced by a long history of over a century in which archaeology has periodically entered and exited migration.
In the 19th century and in more than half of the 20th century, migration was one of the most used tools to explain changes in material culture in the culture-historical paradigm, only to be completely abandoned starting in the 1960s with the emergence of a New Archaeology that criticized cultural history and rejected migrationism. It was exactly in this inopportune context that Marija Gimbutas formulated her theory about the migration and destruction of Old European cultures by Kurgan peoples. It is not surprising that her ideas were not well received by Western archaeologists. However, they found support among Eastern European researchers.
The problem remained unresolved for decades. Recently, advances in stable isotope analysis and especially in DNA have brought migration back as one of the main research interests in archaeology. In 2015, two articles based on DNA analyses claimed that a massive migration from the steppe into southeastern Europe occurred at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Other works followed this topic in the subsequent years. The new interpretations brought migration back with a familiar culture-historical emphasis, perceived as an „event occurring over a relatively short period, involving large-scale population displacement, long-distance travel, and profound cultural impact on receiving areas.”
Moreover, images of invasions led by violent men carving their way into the heart of Europe, killing and replacing local populations, were revived. Marija Gimbutas’s life’s work is once again in the spotlight, and given that publications written by prestigious teams of geneticists and archaeologists seem to confirm parts of her theory, it is fair to ask, as David Anthony recently did: was she right after all? Examining the results of the most recent research from southeastern Europe in light of her model is a timely attempt.
Archaeological excavations of funerary mounds carried out in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary in the last ten years have significantly changed our understanding of the steppe’s impact on the region, while DNA analyses have begun to shed light on the biological ancestors of individuals. Therefore, in these lines, we will analyze Marija Gimbutas’s theory of migration waves, focusing on its archaeological implications and without addressing the Indo-European issue, which we consider beyond the scope of this study. First, we will present the model and how it crystallized in publications spanning several decades. Next, we will provide an overview of steppe-related discoveries in southeastern Europe in the period of the supposed migration waves and evaluate whether the available archaeological and genetic evidence supports the model.
For each phase, we will explore alternative interpretations that could explain the presented archaeological records, considering more theoretical approaches to migration as a social process.
I. The Three Waves of the Migration Theory Marija Gimbutas developed and crystallized her ideas in several publications in which she extensively presented the invasions of „patriarchal, hierarchical, and warrior” horsemen from the Eurasian steppe, bringing the dissolution of the old European „matrilinear, egalitarian, peaceful” civilization.
She placed them under the umbrella of the „Kurgan tradition” which she considered a general term for the culture of patriarchal semi-nomadic pastoralists who built round funerary mounds between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC. She postulated that there were three chronologically distinct waves of migration of these „Kurgan people” into southeastern Europe. The first wave was linked to the spread of populations from the Lower Volga and Lower Ural steppe region westward, around the middle of the 5th millennium BC, evidenced largely in burials. In the Lower Dnieper basin, this new type of burial was labeled Srednij Stog II. These were characterized by the supine position of the deceased with bent or extended legs, scattered ochre, the presence of flint daggers or lances and pointed-base cups, shell-tempered pottery, stylized horse heads carved in stone placed as grave goods.
From there, they infiltrated the territory west of the Black Sea around 4400–4300 BC. The supposed impact varied from region to region, as the Cucuteni civilization survived the „First Wave,” while the event proved catastrophic for the Varna and Karanovo communities in Bulgaria, Gumelnița and Turdaș-Vinča in Romania, as well as Lengyel in Pannonia, which were dislocated in a chain reaction. The appearance of the Cernavodă I culture, dated to the first half of the 4th millennium BC and considered a „kurganic complex,” is seen as a consequence of this first wave.
The second wave was dated to the second half of the 4th millennium BC, and the invaders came from the north-Pontic / north-Caucasian region. It is assumed to have had a profound impact on the Cucuteni culture, which had survived the first wave but yielded and was transformed by the second. The appearance of kurgans in the plains of Romania and Bulgaria is considered a consequence of this wave. At the same time, the reoccupation of tell settlements such as Ezero, Nova Zagora or Sitgaroi is seen as evidence of Kurgan domination over Old Europe, culturally unifying Central and Eastern Europe, Macedonia, and even western Anatolia. Gimbutas found similarities between the settlements and funerary practices of the Baden culture and this kurganic horizon and saw a process of kurganization at work. Conversely, she considered the Coțofeni culture as a remnant of the old European tradition, as sedentary farmers living in solidly built houses, using copper tools, and still producing red polished and white painted pottery.
The third wave was dated between 3000–2800 BC, and the populations came from the Volga steppes. The Yamnaya wave is described as a „massive infiltration that caused drastic changes” in the broader Balkan region. In Gimbutas’s view, the Yamnaya populations, whose presence in the region is evidenced by hundreds of burials, reached central-eastern Europe up to eastern Hungary and northern Yugoslavia, causing the Baden-Vučedol communities to move northwest and south, to Bohemia and central Germany, the Adriatic coast, northern Italy. She claimed that the kurgans who arrived in Greece at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC were descendants of these Baden-Vučedol populations, which were a product of the Indo-Europeanization process of the second wave. She considered the cultural elements of the Bell Beaker as deriving from Vučedol and Yamnaya traditions. Conversely, she did not consider the appearance of Corded Ware pottery as a consequence of steppe intrusions, but was rather inclined to see it as a later phase of the Globular Amphora complex, pushed north and northeast by the Yamnaya influx, and most of the population as consisting of indigenous remnants of old Europeans, with a few exceptions of individuals of steppe origin. However, in a later publication, she left the issue of the formation of the Corded Ware complex as an open question that „has not yet been resolved clearly.”
Almost four decades passed between the first description of the so-called „Kurgan culture” by Marija Gimbutas in 1956 and her last publication in 1993. In the first two decades, she had already formulated several ideas about the migrations of steppe groups, but only in the 1970s did she fully articulate the three waves of the migration theory (1970; 1977; 1979), which she later updated based on new research and discoveries. Although her ideas did not change much over time, Marija Gimbutas not only adjusted the relative and absolute chronology of cultures and discoveries, but also introduced more subtle and nuanced changes in the terminology she used.
In 1963 (invasion, intrusion, conquest, waves of expansion, waves of invasions) from population movements to the description of the Kurgan population (patriarchal intruders and invaders) In 1970 from (invasion of hordes, infiltration, expansions and conquests) to (pastoralists, wanderers, living from war and plunder – similar to the Thracians) In 1977 from (migratory waves, repeated incursions, three phases of kurganic intrusion, kurganic advance into Old Europe, kurganic penetrations, massive invasion) to (horse-riding warriors who glorified the lethal power of the sharpened blade, horse-riding warriors).
In 1979 from (three waves of kurganic infiltration, invasion, kurganic intrusions) to (Kurgan people of semi-nomadic horse-riders, Kurgan people, high-ranking patriarchal horse-riders and warriors, invading horse-riding warriors).
In 1991 from (continuous flow of influences, three waves of infiltration, people flowed, the third Kurganic offensive) to (Kurgan horse-riders, invading warriors, warriors, patriarchal and hierarchical). In 1993 from (intrusion, continuous flow of influences, three waves of infiltration, incursions) to (steppe pastoralists – warriors, patriarchal and hierarchical).
It can be observed how in earlier publications Marija Gimbutas used words conveying stronger and more violent meanings, while in later articles her discourse became more attenuated. Thus, the „Kurgan people” shifted from „wanderers,” „invaders,” „horse-riding warriors who glorified the lethal power of the sharpened blade” to „steppe pastoralists – warriors, patriarchal and hierarchical,” while the „waves of invasion” of „hordes” slowly transformed into „waves of infiltration” or even a „continuous flow of influences.” However, the general theme of the three waves of migration was preserved.
II. Archaeological Archives in Southeastern Europe
Following this brief presentation, several questions arise. Can we archaeologically identify three waves of migrations from the steppes into southeastern Europe, as Marija Gimbutas claimed, by analyzing the burials? What does the archaeological archive of these supposed waves look like? Is the word „waves” appropriate to describe the processes taking place? In the lines below, we will provide an overview of the archaeological archive from southeastern Europe in the second half of the 5th millennium BC, the last centuries of the 4th millennium BC, and the beginning of the 3rd millennium, in the interval 4500-2800 BC, the periods of the supposed migration waves. This includes those discoveries and features that have been interpreted as evidence of the movements of groups or individuals originating from the steppe into this region, presenting distinctive steppe characteristics of the funerary ritual and grave goods. When available, DNA analyses informing about the biological ancestors of individuals will also be discussed.
II.1. The First Wave In the second half of the 5th millennium BC, flourishing societies populated southeastern Europe, for which Gimbutas coined the term „Old Europe.” Impressive settlements in the Eastern Balkans and the Lower Danube area formed as a result of building dwellings over previous ones (tells), while in other areas flat settlements used for shorter periods are attested; houses had detailed painted decorations and in some cases comprised two floors, craftsmen created refined painted pottery, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, as well as refined flint tools. Copper and gold objects were displayed in rich cemeteries, such as Varna I, in the coastal region near the Black Sea. At the same time, in the northwest-Pontic steppe, apparently suddenly, a new type of individual burials emerged, sometimes remarkably endowed, which also reached the Lower Danube and the Balkans. This would explain Gimbutas’s first wave.
The origin of the individuals from these burials has been debated, with some researchers claiming they came and moved west from the Volga-Don region or the Lower Dnieper region, even advancing the hypothesis that they represent a local steppe elite that emerged in the northwest-Pontic region. Therefore, their cultural attribution has also been different, being considered either an elite group within the Sredni Stog culture, called the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka complex, or part of the Skelya steppe culture. The graves present a funerary custom focused on the individual, the most frequent body position being supine with bent legs, but extended position is also attested, ochre being used intensively, sometimes covered with small mounds; in some cases the graves contained impressive inventories consisting of jewelry such as shell chains, copper artifacts, rarely gold, refined copper and flint tools, as well as weapons, and only very rarely pottery (see for example the Giurgiulești cemetery).
Based on the Suvorovo grave, zoomorphic stone scepters considered representations of „horse heads” are also included in this funerary horizon. In southeastern Europe, several graves have been interpreted as the result of migration, as they find no precedent in the local archaeological archive, but have the characteristics of the steppe burials mentioned above. Let us briefly examine these graves now. The flat grave from Csongrád-Kettőshalom, in Hungary, contained an adult individual in supine position with legs bent at the knees, and a considerable amount of ochre was found on the skeleton and inside the funerary pit.
The grave goods included a 13.2 cm long obsidian blade, limestone and Spondylus shell beads, beads made from curved copper plate, and a piece of ochre. Similar characteristics can be observed in the cemetery from Decea Mureșului, in Transylvania. Here too, individuals were placed in supine position with raised knees, ochre being used abundantly; grave goods consisted of pots, long flint blades, strings of beads from bent copper sheet, Unio shell beads, and a four-knobbed stone mace was attested in grave 12. Two graves were found in Kiulevcha, Bulgaria, numbers 27 and 33, and in both graves the individuals were lying on their backs with raised knees and were covered with ochre; grave goods were found only in grave 33, consisting of a flint blade and a scepter made from a zoomorphic-looking axe attached to a long bone handle. The grave from Reka Devnya, not far from Varna, was particularly rich in grave goods, consisting of 27 flint objects such as lance tips, blades, blade tips, four copper objects, 31 beads made from Spondylus, Dentalium, and copper, 34 gold rings, and a copper ingot. The exact position of the individual is unknown, however, ochre was found on bones and grave goods. In several cases, kurgans were raised over the graves, and these are the oldest attested in the entire southeastern Europe. In a destroyed mound from Casimcea, in Romanian Dobrogea, together with ochre-colored red bones, archaeologists recovered an impressive inventory consisting of a zoomorphic stone scepter, three lance tips, two whole and one fragmentary knife blades, a griddle, and two flint axes.
In Tărgoviște-Gonova Mogila, Bulgaria, the main grave contained an individual covered with ochre and, most likely, accompanied by a long obsidian blade and strings of copper and shell beads. The graves from Fălciu and Fundeni-Lungoci in Romanian Moldova could be added, although they were destroyed and only ochre-covered red bones and grave goods were recovered. Alongside the graves, an additional steppe impact can be observed through the spread of horse-head shaped scepters or their local imitations, found in the Balkans, Lower Danube, and Eastern Carpathian Basin in settlements or isolated, the presence of four-protrusion stone mace heads, together with possible evidence of habitation and ritual activities in the Șeușa-Gorgan site in Transylvania, a Skelya tradition vessel (from the Don bend area) found at Pietrele, and Cucuteni C-type pottery with shell appearance, similar to Skelya culture pottery, found in Cucuteni settlements and later spread south to Bulgarian Thrace.
C-type pottery has been interpreted as a sign of contacts with the steppe or even as a sign of the real presence of steppe populations or persons within the Cucuteni-Tripolie and KGK VI world. Returning to the graves described above, we do not know whether the individuals buried in them were real migrants from the steppes or not.
Perhaps in the future DNA and isotope analyses will provide additional clues regarding their ancestors and mobility during life. For example, mtDNA (female) from two of the burials at Decea Mureșului (graves 10 and 12) do not seem to confirm a steppe migration of these individuals, as it belongs to haplogroup K, an mtDNA haplogroup associated with Anatolian Neolithic farmers. However, this is particularly interesting because even if they were not direct migrants, during their burial they were attributed a different identity from that usually encountered in local cemeteries.
The mourners were familiar with steppe funerary practices, the rules being strictly followed: ochre was procured and sprinkled in large quantities over the bottom of the pit and over the deceased, individuals were placed on their backs with raised knees, and typical grave goods were placed next to them. If funerary rituals are a means not only to reflect or demonstrate the identities the deceased had in life, but also to manipulate or actively construct them, then a steppe identity was symbolized for the buried persons. Information about their paternal ancestry would help clarify if there was indeed a connection to the steppe, but such analyses are missing for now. However, even if the rest of the mentioned individuals were migrants with steppe origins, the quite isolated and small number of graves hardly justifies the word „wave” to describe their migration.
In the steppe region up to the Volga and North Caucasus, the presence of Balkan raw materials and objects is visible in rich burials, endowed with metal articles, especially copper but also gold, high-quality flint, as well as ornamental shells. We mention here sites such as Novodanilovka, Chapli, Petro-Svistunovo, and Khvalinsk, indicating a return from migration. As Y. Rassamakin has already emphasized, the burials could explain the mobility of a special category of high social status individuals who controlled a network of exchange of prestige and luxury objects between the Balkans and the steppe.
To date, no other persons with supposed steppe origins have been tested, but the situation is likely to change in the near future. However, the hypothesis finds indirect support in recent results showing that three persons from the Varna region in Bulgaria had steppe ancestors. One of them is the richest grave in Varna, grave 43, although in his case the steppe origin was quite distant. The other two, grave 158 from Varna and grave 29 from Smyadovo had a recent steppe origin, similar to that found in individuals from the Volga region, and the ancestors with steppe origins were most likely males. However, in these cases, the biological ancestors of the individuals were not recognized in any way in the funerary ritual, and they were buried according to local customs. We do not know if the steppe origin was remembered or part of the deceased’s identity in any way.
Given the richness of their funerary equipment, the ancestors of these individuals have been interpreted as a sign of occasional marriages between the ruling elites of southeastern European agricultural societies and steppe people from the Volga region. To date, the results do not confirm the hypothesis of a major role played by people from the Dnieper rivers, the Skelya culture area, in this process. These alliances would have ensured the existence of exchange networks which, in turn, transformed the steppe as well. Indeed, researchers parallel the Varna and Giurgiulești cemeteries not only chronologically but also in terms of structure, suggesting that access to new raw materials, technologies, and knowledge from the Danube and Balkans stimulated a similar reaction in steppe societies. According to available C14 datings for the 14th century, this interaction lasted several centuries, covering most of the second half of the 5th millennium BC. Therefore, we cannot speak of a migration wave as a singular, unidirectional, and catastrophic event, but rather, in David Anthony’s words, a complex, multigenerational human process that created social dynamics both at home and at the destination, including new types of socio-political hierarchy. It was a period of exchanges and enrichments during which steppe populations explored Old Europe, adopted luxury goods, absorbed and adapted ideas.
It is not clear if, ultimately, these led to the collapse of Eneolithic societies around 4250 BC, when settlements were burned and abandoned north and south of the Lower Danube, in the Balkans, on the Aegean coast, and even in Greece, as Marija Gimbutas imagined. Other explanations have focused on environmental factors, such as the decline of agriculture, probably triggered by significant climate changes with cold years, or environmental degradation caused by human exploitation, or internal societal factors such as growing social inequality or low economic growth. However, it must be noted that, at the same time, rich assemblages from the steppe region also disappeared. II.2. The Second Wave Following the collapse of Eneolithic societies at the end of the 5th millennium BC, the archaeological evidence is elusive, vast regions of the Balkans barely showing traces of human habitation. In the first half of the 4th millennium BC, the only somewhat consistent discoveries belong to the Cernavodă I culture, with few settlements with thick archaeological deposits and small cemeteries, isolated burials or small kurgans, sometimes surrounded by circular stone rows or even ditches.
Gimbutas defined it as a „kurganic complex”, while I. Manzura suggested that it developed based on local traditions of the Eneolithic world, while for now no aDNA study includes samples from Cernavodă I contexts. The origins and nature of the next phase, the Cernavodă III-Boleráz phenomenon (approximately between 3600 and 3300 BC), are also a matter of ongoing debate, as is the potential existence of burials under mounds in this period, which could actually be connected with the Usatovo culture. Traces of habitation become more consistent in the last third of the 4th millennium BC, when transregional phenomena such as Baden, Coțofeni-Kostolac in Central Europe and Central Balkans, and Ezero-Karanovo VII in Bulgaria appear; similarities refer mainly to pottery, while funerary practices show variations between regions, both incineration and inhumation being attested.
North of the Danube, in eastern Muntenia, Dobrogea, and southern Moldova, the archaeological evidence consists of Cernavodă II and Foltești sites, and further north, in central and northern Moldova, settlements and graves of CII Trypillia groups such as Horodiștea, Erbiceni, and Gordinești can be found. Gimbutas dated the second wave of migration from the steppes between 3400–3200 BC in her 1979 article and after 3500 BC in her 1993 article. The supposed invaders came from the north-Pontic / north-Caucasian region, an opinion that has not received much support. However, recent excavations have considerably enriched the available data, and an increasing number of discoveries attest to the appearance of a kurgan burial horizon around Gimbutas’s second wave. The dating of this horizon in the last third of the 4th millennium BC and even the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC is now secured both by absolute and relative chronology. There is a significant amount of C14 data available, relevant stratigraphic positions in mounds (always primary burials or even if secondary, always earlier than Yamnaya graves), as well as grave goods with analogies in other securely dated contexts.
These graves present certain regional particularities, especially regarding grave goods. Thus, in Moldova some contain typical vessels of Trypillia CII groups (e.g. Liești) or Cernavodă II/Foltești II pottery (for example Vânători, Bolotești), the latter also found south of the Danube (in Pliska). Although not very consistent archaeologically, this picture could only reflect the current state of research. More consistent data come from graves with typical Coțofeni culture vessels from the regions of Muntenia, Oltenia, and south of the Danube. Intensive research carried out in the last ten years in northern Muntenia is particularly relevant. There, the mounds have revealed a very specific set of funerary practices: circular gravel structures built around the main burials, individuals mostly placed crouched on one side, usually with bent arms, oriented in various directions, sometimes ochre is found. Collective burials are frequent and, in many cases, post-mortem manipulation of the deceased is attested (for example, grave 5 from Aricești IV). The most interesting is the diversity and richness of grave goods, comprising several categories: pottery with good analogies from the third phase of the Coțofeni culture, found either in graves or in mound elements (Aricești VI); varied ornaments such as copper torques, necklaces formed from spectacle-shaped pendants, Dentalium and Unio beads, tubular copper beads; silver spiral hair rings are also common; and weapons such as flanged copper axes or stone shaft-hole axes. These burials illustrate a local aspect of a process that spans a much wider geographical range, as similarly features have been found south of the Danube as well.
The Gabrova mound, near the village of Kamen, had two main burials: a collective grave with seven persons indicating post-mortem manipulation of corpses (Grave 24) and another collective burial with four persons placed in extended position (Grave 30). The inventory of grave 30 is special and comprises silver spiral hair rings, askos vessels, two chisel-axes and two arsenic bronze daggers, boar tusk amulets. Another example is Mound I from Tîrnava, to which M. Gimbutas also referred, which contains incineration burials and typical Coțofeni III pottery. It should be mentioned here that the association between incineration burials with Coțofeni pottery and kurgans is attested in other sites, such as Silvașu or mound II from Tîrnava. Moreover, in this period cord decoration reappears on pottery, especially on Coțofeni III pottery, but also on Kostolac pottery from the Banat, Timok, Kraina, Oltenia, and western Bulgaria regions. Although less visible due to the lack of inventories, other burials must be mentioned. Examples come from all regions, and their dating is supported by 14th century analyses and relative chronology. We mention here grave 3 from Păulești II, in Muntenia, dated in the 14th century, and grave 12 of the Sárrétudvari-Örhalom kurgan, from the Hungarian plain. To these are added burials that are either primary or stratigraphically older in mounds that are taken over by Yamnaya communities at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, such as those from Boyanovo. In these graves, the deceased are usually placed in a crouched position on one side. However, the same period also includes burials with individuals lying in extended supine position. This ritual is not so common in the region, but can be found at the end of the 4th millennium BC and even survives into the 3rd millennium BC, with good examples at Vitănești (Romania), Tiszavasvári-Deákhalom (Hungary), Kalugeritsa (Bulgaria), and perhaps also in Šajkaš (Serbia).
Most of the kurgan burials presented above present a mixture of elements with apparently different origins. As we have already mentioned, the vessels are mainly linked to various local pottery traditions; some of the metal weapons and ornaments and shells, such as spectacle pendants, flanged axes, Dentalium beads, and copper torque, could be linked to Transylvania or Central Europe. In addition, the similarity of some grave goods and ritual elements with Baden burials has already been highlighted. On the other hand, the central burial under a kurgan, perhaps the presence of stone/gravel structures surrounding the main graves, silver spiral hair rings, the presence of ochre, indicate a steppe connection.
In the second half of the 4th millennium BC, the closest approximately contemporary northwest Pontic characteristics are the Usatovo graves, dated in the third quarter of the 4th millennium BC. Deeper in the steppe, sites of the Lower Mihailovka and Kvityana cultures can be found to the east and north, the Konstantinovska culture on the Lower Don, and in the North Caucasus elements of the Maikop-Novosvobodnaia region. At both ends of this territory, striking similarities between Usatovo and Maikop-Novosvobodnaia graves must be noted in terms of their monumental architecture, funerary rituals, grave goods, and the presence of arsenic bronzes. A little later, Zhivotilovka graves acquired a truly transregional character, crossing the steppes from the North Caucasus to the Eastern Carpathians, uniting previously isolated steppe areas and covering the areas of all the cultures mentioned above by means of wheeled transport. Both Usatovo and Zhivotilovka groups buried people under kurgans. Rich Usatovo graves had complex stone structures and contained prestige goods such as metal weapons and various ornaments, including silver hair rings. In addition, arsenic bronze metal objects are a trademark of Usatovo burials, sometimes combined in „funerary kits” together with pottery. We mention a similar situation in the Gabrova mound from Kamen presented above, where each individual in grave 30 had as grave goods silver spiral hair rings, daggers and arsenic bronze axes, and askos vessels, in various combinations. The deposition of corpses in crouched position is typical for Lower Mihailovka, Usatovo, and Zhivotilovka graves, and the presence of double or collective burials, together with the practice of scattering ochre, is documented in the latter as well. However, contemporary double and collective burials, in some cases with post-mortem manipulation of bodies, are also attested in the Baden culture. Regarding the mentioned extended burials, they present funerary practices typical of the Kvityana steppe tradition.
The question that arises is who are the individuals buried in kurgans in the steppe regions of southeastern Europe? Are they, as Marija Gimbutas assumed, migrants from the north-Pontic / north-Caucasian region, who incorporated local pots, weapons, and ornaments in their graves? Or are they local populations who adopted steppe funerary practices? To date, no DNA analyses have been published to inform us about the ancestors of these individuals.
To the east, three individuals from Povrovca and Gordinești, dated to the second half of the 4th millennium BC, in late Cucuteni-Trypillia contexts, showed considerable steppe ancestry. The real mobility of some individuals or small groups from and along the steppe in this period is very likely. However, the particularity and local aspects that these graves take suggest a different interpretation. It is more likely that the presence of kurgans with local inventories in southeastern Europe is better explained by the adoption of the custom of mound burials, reflecting the desire of local individuals to display their status and wealth. The appearance of funerary characteristics with steppe attributes does not have to involve a wave of migration from the North Caucasus or Dnieper region, as M. Gimbutas predicted, but may rather be the result of intensified circulation of goods, ideas, and new technologies within interregional networks, stimulated by the invention of wheeled transport. For now, genetic evidence also speaks against a flow of pastoralists from Maikop into the steppe. There are also other points in Gimbutas’s second migration wave that do not contradict the data available today. She considered individuals associated with the Baden and Globular Amphora cultures as steppe migrants, but DNA analyses indicate that most of them were genetically almost entirely descendants of local farmers. She also described the Coțofeni culture as a remnant of the old European tradition, with sedentary farmers living in solidly built houses, but the rich kurgan burials with Coțofeni pottery, weapons, and ornaments suggest that this was a simplification that blurs more complex processes.
II.3. The Third Wave Marija Gimbutas dated the third wave of migration from the steppes to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC and connected it to the Yamnaya pastoralists. Their graves cover a vast area of the European continent, extending from the Ural Mountains in the east to the Pannonian Plain in the west. Based on certain variations in the funerary ritual or material culture, researchers have distinguished variants or regional particularities, such as the nine regions defined by N. Merpert, or even attributed them to separate cultures, such as the Budjac-type graves between the Prut and Dniester. For this reason, references related to Yamnaya in archaeological publications often use terms such as region / cultural-historical community, horizon, or phenomenon. The origins, chronology, material culture, and funerary ritual have been studied and classified for more than a century, sparking in-depth debates.
Most researchers agree that the Yamnaya funerary ritual has its origin in the steppes, although the exact region is not yet clear, spreading rapidly throughout the north-Pontic area, although an alternative hypothesis of a transformation of the system of local cultures or groups in the formation of a more or less unified and constant phenomenon has also been advanced. Funerary practices included a central grave under a kurgan, the deceased in supine position with raised knees, ochre spots on the grave floors near the feet, hips, and head, body orientation from northeast to east or west in other regions, no distinction between men and women in the funerary rite, and arrangement of the funerary chamber with mats and wood. In the Volga-Don steppes, funerary inventories consisted of egg-shaped vessels, from shells, sometimes decorated with cord impressions, knives with handles, flat cast axes, bone pins.
In other regions, various grave goods are included. For example, metal objects are more frequent in the Volga-Ural region, which is rich in copper deposits, anthropomorphic stone stelae in regions close to the Kemi-Oba culture, especially between the Lower Bug and Dnieper, cups and amphorae in the Dniester-Prut interval. The movement of people was accompanied by the dissemination of a set of funerary practices that absorbed local elements of material culture, thus creating its different aspects and local variants. Differences include economic strategies such as the predominance of cattle or sheep and the already mentioned regional variability in material culture. The fact that a migration into southeastern Europe did indeed take place is the most accepted part of Marija Gimbutas’s theory, mainly due to the presence of thousands of kurgans north and south of the Lower Danube, in Thrace, and the Pannonian Plain, of which several hundred have been excavated revealing typical Yamnaya burials. No settlements are linked to the kurgans in this region, so the graves remain the only source of information. The Yamnaya ritual between the Prut and Tisa rivers consisted of central burials under kurgans, predominance of male graves, supine with raised knees, west-east orientation, no gender differentiation between male and female burial ritual, ochre coloring, arrangement of funerary chamber with mats and wood, limited grave goods usually vessels, hair rings, and necklaces from animal teeth. Archaeological research carried out in the last decade has considerably increased both the quantity and quality of information regarding secured mound stratigraphy, a significant amount of C14 datings, bioanthropological determinations, etc. However, it was not archaeological research that brought Marija Gimbutas back into the spotlight, but the development of new methods in archaeogenetics.
The paper published by W. Haak and his team in Nature in 2015 seemed to confirm her theory in her own words, using the term „massive migration” in the title. A similar study by M. Allentoft and colleagues supported the results obtained by Haak’s team. The new publications sparked various reactions. Some researchers enthusiastically embraced the new method, new concepts are introduced, and a new type of archaeological language seems to find its way into publications. Others have pointed out the shortcomings in the ways archaeological concepts were used in interpreting genetic data. Ancient DNA studies have brought migration back as the main research topic, and many researchers have emphasized the lack of theoretical approaches in archaeology regarding migration as a process.
The very formula of „massive migration” has been questioned again. In her earlier publications, Gimbutas described the Yamnaya migration as a „massive invasion that wiped out the Baden culture from Central Europe and led to the extermination of Old European strongholds in the Aegean.” Only in her later articles did she change this view to a less violent one, speaking of a „massive infiltration that caused drastic changes in the ethnic configurations of Europe.” Interestingly, immediately after the publication of the new DNA results, archaeological discourse returned to her initial view that Yamnaya individuals were violent criminals causing population changes. Kristiansen and his colleagues advanced the hypothesis of an initial migration of young people who formed bands of young warriors, kidnapped women, and engaged in conflicts with local men.
Starting in 2015, DNA studies have revealed an increasing complexity of data. In the initial publication, steppe ancestors (initially called Yamnaya) were modeled as a mixture of EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherers) and a population related to the Near East, later defined as CHG (Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers). A subsequent study by Mathieson and colleagues, published in 2018, found evidence of ancestry related to northwest Anatolia and Neolithic (labeled AF – Anatolian Farmers) in individuals associated with Yamnaya, confirmed further by a study by Wang and colleagues in 2019. The authors of the latter study discovered that Yamnaya individuals exhibited 10-18% Anatolian farmer ancestry, probably derived from Globular Amphora and/or late Cucuteni groups. One of the samples analyzed by Mathieson’s team, showing a significant amount of steppe ancestors, comes from Mednikarovo (Bulgaria), mound 2, grave 1.
The feature was the main grave of the mound, containing an individual lying on his back with bent legs, arms along the body, and ochre over and around the skull. The absolute chronology of graves presenting typical Yamnaya ritual characteristics from southeastern Europe is now secured by a consistent number of C14 datings and has been divided into several phases. The earliest date from the end of the 4th millennium BC and the first century of the 3rd millennium BC. Their presence is visible in different regions of the steppe such as Muntenia, the Pannonian Plain, and even reached south of the Balkan Mountains.
The next phase, in which most C14 datings fit, covered the interval approximately between 2850–2600 BC, while the more recent graves, which also present a change in the funerary ritual towards the lateral crouched position of individuals and the predominance of secondary burials in already existing mounds, were dated around 2650–2450 BC. Therefore, graves with a typical Yamnaya ritual lasted approximately 500 years in the region. In this interval, kurgans continued to be raised or only used, but we must not assume that all individuals buried under them represent migrants from the steppe. Some graves could belong to locals who adopted the steppe burial ritual. An indication in this direction is given by feature 3/mound 5 from Beli Breyag, which contained two individuals oriented west, one lying supine with raised knees and the other slightly crouched on the left side.
The samples analyzed for these individuals (Bul 6 and Bul 8) showed predominantly northwest Anatolian and Neolithic-related ancestry. Moreover, Mathieson and colleagues’ study stated that Bronze Age individuals from the Balkans had approximately 30% (confidence interval: 26-35%) steppe-related ancestry, but early Bronze Age individuals showed the lowest descent, and the highest proportions were actually encountered in late Bronze Age individuals. These results, although incipient, do not support a scenario in which local farmers were „wiped out” following the Yamnaya migration. A particularly violent lifestyle would also lead to violence-related injuries visible in skeletal remains.
Apuseni Seasonal Transhumance
For now, there is no osteological study covering all persons buried in kurgans in the region; however, individual site reports do not attest to a remarkable presence of traumatic injuries. On the other hand, interactions are visible in the archaeological evidence from the form of local pots and ornaments present in kurgan burials, as well as typical Yamnaya ochre spirals with hair rings documented in flat burials. An isotopic study of the Sárrétudvari-Őrhalom kurgan revealed a complex scenario of kurgan occupation in the second quarter of the 3rd millennium BC by communities originating from the Apuseni Mountains engaged in seasonal transhumance.
This brief presentation already speaks against a „migration wave” with a single event, as Gimbutas predicted, and in favor of a multi-phase process. C14 data suggest an initial phase of exploration (or scouting) at the end of the 4th millennium and beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, followed by a more consistent occupation of the region in subsequent centuries and its dissolution towards the middle of the same millennium. Only a handful of samples of individuals buried in kurgans in this region have been analyzed and published in genetic and isotopic studies, while a few others are under study.
The initial migration of Yamnaya groups into the steppe areas of southeastern Europe and its regional impact are still largely unknown processes. The wider continental impact is also undergoing a reevaluation process, given that Yamnaya may not be the only source of steppe ancestors in individuals associated with the Corded Ware tribe in Central Europe, as previously suggested. In M. Gimbutas’s opinion, the kurgans who arrived in Greece at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC were descendants of the Baden-Vucedol populations, which were a product of the Indo-Europeanization process of the second migration wave.
A recent DNA study does not support this hypothesis for now, as samples from individuals dated to the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC showed that they mainly descend from Neolithic farmers, and the Pontic-Caspian steppe-like genetic flow reached the Aegean later, in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. We continue reassessing Marija Gimbutas’s vision of Old Europe through AI, real prehistory / archaeology facts, ethnography, myths, legends, traditions and regional history, with the help of AI and machine learning. © Thraxus Ares 2025 @ Bianca Preda-Bălănică.
