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#57 A Bronze Age Mystery: When Nomads Conquered Europe - Volker Heyd | University of Helsinki
Dr. Volker Heyd is a Professor of Achaeology at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He studies past cultures in the bronze age using tools from genetics, archaelogy, and anthropology. In this interview, we talk about the Yamnaya people of Eurasia and the complexity of understanding how they spead across two contintents!
To learn more about the Dr. Heyd's work, see here
Timeline:
00:00 Introduction
03:09 Who are the Yamnaya people?
05:38 Why did the Yamnaya spread?
08:20 Geography of the Yamnaya's Lands
10:00 Cousins of the Yamnaya
11:48 A Cultural Mystery
15:41 Using Biology in Archaelogy
19:36 Challenges in Archaeology
24:07 What's next in the field
P.S. Some fancy words Dr. Heyd used:
- Prehistoric: time period before written history
- Genes: Instructions in the human body for particular outcomes (ex: how to create eye colour)
- Genepool: all the genes that are found in a population of people
- Final centuries of the 4th millennium BC: 4700-5000 BCE
- Eurasian steppe: a geographic region stretching from China to Hungary that is mostly flat grassland.
- Yamnaya people: a culture of nomadic people that lived on the Eurasian Steppe over 6500 years ago.
- Corded Ware people: a culture related to the Yamnaya that expanded into Europe over 4500 years ago
- Kurgans: monuments used on Yamnaya burial sites (like gravestones)
- Bronze age: the time period where humans first created metal tools
- Stone age: the time period where humans first created stone tools
- Ecozone: a geographical region with similar ecosystems
- Admixture: when several individuals from isolated populations move between each other, mixing the genes of both populations.
- Material culture: A description of a society based on the materials and objects it has. Just like a society's musical culture, for example.
- Megalith: a large stone that forms part of a structure (like a burial site)
- Radiocarbon dating: A method to find the age of organic matter that measures the amount of a radioactive version of carbon present in a sample. Details here
- Old wood effect: an issue with radiocarbon dating used to find the age of samples of wood. Since wood grows in rings and the inner layers may be centuries older than the outer layers. Details here
- Reservoir effect: an issue with radiocarbon dating where samples of different ages are mixed together, such as when a living organism in the ocean absorbs older silt from the seabed. Details here
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By The Knowledge ArchivesDr. Volker Heyd is a Professor of Achaeology at the University of Helsinki in Finland. He studies past cultures in the bronze age using tools from genetics, archaelogy, and anthropology. In this interview, we talk about the Yamnaya people of Eurasia and the complexity of understanding how they spead across two contintents!
To learn more about the Dr. Heyd's work, see here
Timeline:
00:00 Introduction
03:09 Who are the Yamnaya people?
05:38 Why did the Yamnaya spread?
08:20 Geography of the Yamnaya's Lands
10:00 Cousins of the Yamnaya
11:48 A Cultural Mystery
15:41 Using Biology in Archaelogy
19:36 Challenges in Archaeology
24:07 What's next in the field
P.S. Some fancy words Dr. Heyd used:
- Prehistoric: time period before written history
- Genes: Instructions in the human body for particular outcomes (ex: how to create eye colour)
- Genepool: all the genes that are found in a population of people
- Final centuries of the 4th millennium BC: 4700-5000 BCE
- Eurasian steppe: a geographic region stretching from China to Hungary that is mostly flat grassland.
- Yamnaya people: a culture of nomadic people that lived on the Eurasian Steppe over 6500 years ago.
- Corded Ware people: a culture related to the Yamnaya that expanded into Europe over 4500 years ago
- Kurgans: monuments used on Yamnaya burial sites (like gravestones)
- Bronze age: the time period where humans first created metal tools
- Stone age: the time period where humans first created stone tools
- Ecozone: a geographical region with similar ecosystems
- Admixture: when several individuals from isolated populations move between each other, mixing the genes of both populations.
- Material culture: A description of a society based on the materials and objects it has. Just like a society's musical culture, for example.
- Megalith: a large stone that forms part of a structure (like a burial site)
- Radiocarbon dating: A method to find the age of organic matter that measures the amount of a radioactive version of carbon present in a sample. Details here
- Old wood effect: an issue with radiocarbon dating used to find the age of samples of wood. Since wood grows in rings and the inner layers may be centuries older than the outer layers. Details here
- Reservoir effect: an issue with radiocarbon dating where samples of different ages are mixed together, such as when a living organism in the ocean absorbs older silt from the seabed. Details here