Middle Dnieper culture
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The Middle Dnieper culture is an eastern extension of the Corded Ware culture, ca. 3200—2300 BC of northern Ukraine and Belarus. As the name indicates, it was centered on the middle reach of the Dnieper River and is contemporaneous with the latter phase and then a successor to the Yamna culture, as well as to the latter phase of the Tripolye culture.
Geographically it is directly behind the area occupied by the Globular Amphora culture (south and east), and while commencing a little later and lasting a little longer, it is otherwise contemporaneous with it.
More than 200 sites are attested to, mostly as barrow inhumations under tumuli; some of these burials are secondary depositions into Yamna-era kurgans. Grave goods included pottery and stone battle-axes. There is some evidence of cremation in the northerly area. Settlements seem difficult to define; the economy was much like that of the Yamna and Corded Ware cultures, semi-to-fully-nomadic pastoralism.
Within the context of the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, this culture is a major center for migrations (or invasions, if you prefer) from the Yamna culture and its immediate successors into Northern and Central Europe.
Certainly, the relatively easy journey up to the headwaters the Dnieper, which are close to the headwaters of the Vistula (the San River) and those of the Tisza (tributary to the middle Danube), offer very easy access to the heart of Middle Europe. This area (approximately, Transcarpathian Ruthenia) is in fact a classic invasion route, and is historically all but indefensible.
[edit] Sources
J. P. Mallory, "Middle Dnieper Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
