Published April 23, 2026
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Sites of the Corded Ware and Yamnaya Cultures
Authors/Creators
Description
A Map showcasing the Yamnaya and Corded Ware Cultures, ancestors of the majority of Indo-European languages, spoken by over 3.4 billion people alive today.
These cultures, closely related, swept over the steppe and Europe at the turn of the 3rd millenium. It should be noted that this map is anachronistic: Corded Ware and Yamnaya did not exist contemporaneously at their maximum extent. By 2600bc, which is when Corded Ware reaches its zenith, the Yamnaya culture had already been replaced by the Catacomb culture. And during Yamnayas zenith, the Corded Ware were only just starting out.
Methods (English)
Methodology
1. Data sources: Varies greatly, but usually we aim to use up-to-date sources from international but also national research from the country/region that is being mapped. For this, extensive translation and communication with scholars abroad is vital. Sometimes, no up-to-date research exists on a given topic, so old research will have to be used, cross-referenced with modern research from other fields to check its validity where it may apply. Nevertheless, older research is still foundational to all of the modern work, and must be read and analyzed in conjunction with modern scholarship.
2. GIS methodology: Maps are produced in QGIS. Sitemaps from multiple archaeological publications and books are Georeferenced into QGIS and plotted manually site-for-site, compiling all of them into a comprehensive "Master Map" showing all of the data from all available publications in one place. Problematics with this are that not all sitemaps are uniform. Some display only the single icons per site, some display number of finds from certain sites, some do not distinguish at all. Some give names for the sites, and some dont. Due to this, to standardize cataloguing, and due to the extreme volume of data needed to be manually plotted, site names have been ommitted.
3. Cartographic approach: After the Data has been compiled and prepared, it is visually stylised to make the knowledge understandable, accessible, and beautiful while retaining the high information-density and academic usability that is required for topics this complex. Of note is sampling bias, which our Maps sometimes show uncomfortably clearly: When one region or country has more archaeological excavation done in it than others. This can reflect in certain parts of the Map being denser while others are less so while corresponding exactly to natural boundaries, such as, for example, the Site-Density visibly dropping south of the German-Danish border
4. Citation & licensing: Maptism maps are produced for use. Every map in the Maptism map archive is published under [CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Free for academic papers, dissertations, conference presentations, museum exhibits, teaching materials, and other non-commercial contexts, with attribution. Commercial reproductions (textbooks for sale, paid documentaries, revenue-generating exhibits) require a separate license, handled through the [commissions page](https://maptism.org/commissions/).
Other (English)
For full bibliography and more information:
Maptism, 'Corded Ware and Yamnaya,' 2026. https://maptism.org/maps/corded-ware-yamnaya/
Files
Bibliography_CWC_YAKIO.pdf
Additional details
Related works
- Compiles
- Image: 10.5281/zenodo.19817777 (DOI)
References
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