Massive DNA research: Jamna from Ukraine are ancestors of Europe

Not until about 3000 BC. Jamna started moving from east to west, blurring the dividing line. They were the world's first nomads and were traditionally considered the inhabitants of the Pontic steppes between Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. New DNA research has traced its origins to the area around the Don River in Ukraine.

“They had covered bullock carts like covered wagons, and they could move across the steppe with their animals – and in this way they were the first to exploit the steppe and develop it economically. They were not really engaged in agriculture, but during their migration From the Pontic steppe they learned from the locals to grow a little barley.”

When the Jamna first sailed west, it spread rapidly. From Bohemia, in what is now the Czech Republic, it took only 50 years to cover a distance of approximately 900 kilometers to present-day Holland and North Jutland.

“They burned forests everywhere so they could practice semi-agricultural agriculture – with a few crops, mostly barley, and with livestock like oxen and sheep,” Christiansen says.