Pontic steppe: Srubnaya → Scythians → Sarmatians
The Srubnaya culture held the steppe from the Dnieper to the Urals in the 18th–13th centuries BCE. The Scythians came to the northern Black Sea coast from Central Asia in the 9th–8th centuries BCE, and from the 3rd century BCE the steppe belonged to the Sarmatians. For 94% of Srubnaya samples the branch, or one under it, is also found among the Scythians, and Scythians and Sarmatians share 68%, with R1a in the lead in both.
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Y-DNA: paternal lines
Table of shares
mtDNA: maternal lines
Table of shares
How to read the chart
Each sample is cut to its ancestor at the chosen depth; a sample whose test did not reach that deep stays on its own branch. An asterisk: in this culture the branch also has samples further down. “A → B” is the share of A's samples with a branch of the same line in B: the same branch, its ancestor or a branch under it. A sample whose test stopped higher could belong to any branch under it, so it matches them. The frequency overlap sums the smaller share of every shared branch, such a sample's share split among the branches under it by their shares in both cultures together; it is less swayed by single samples. By age, a sample moves up to the ancestor whose branch had already split off by the chosen year (branch ages are Discover estimates), so every letter is cut at the same time. “Auto” takes the time of the oldest culture chosen, or earlier if a column would not read otherwise. Maternal lines follow the Mitotree tree of FTDNA Discover.
The chain in numbers #
Y-DNA, tree depth 11. Similarity is the overlap of branch frequencies with the culture before.
| Culture | Samples | Leading groups | Similarity with the previous |
|---|---|---|---|
| Srubnaya | 33 | R1a 54.5%, Q 45.5% | — |
| Scythians | 72 | R1a 50.0%, R1b 13.9%, E1b1b 8.3% | 46.3% |
| Sarmatians | 119 | R1a 47.1%, R1b 14.3%, I2b 9.2% | 67.6% |
Other chains
- Iberian Peninsula: Neolithic Iberian → Chalcolithic Iberian → Bell Beaker culture → Bronze Age Iberian
- Carpathian Basin: Avars, early period → Avars, late period → Hungarians → Medieval Hungarian
- Central Europe, Bronze and Iron Age: Unterwölbling culture → Urnfield culture → Hallstatt culture → La Tène culture
- Central Europe, dawn of the Bronze Age: Corded Ware culture → Bell Beaker culture → Únětice culture
- Danube, first farmers: Iron Gates Mesolithic → Starčevo culture → Linear Pottery culture
- Steppe from the Dnieper to the Urals: Yamnaya culture → Catacomb culture
- Italy: Etruscan civilization → Roman people → Medieval Italian
- Scandinavia and Rus’: Iron Age Scandinavian → Viking Age Swedish → Viking Age Russian