Corded Ware culture

Corded Ware culture
Geographical rangeEurope
PeriodChalcolithic
Datesc. 3000 BC – c. 2350 BC
Major sitesBronocice
Preceded byYamnaya culture, Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, Globular Amphora culture, Funnelbeaker culture, Baden culture, Horgen culture, Volosovo culture, Narva culture, Pit–Comb Ware culture, Pitted Ware culture
Followed byBell Beaker culture, Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture, Abashevo culture, Sintashta culture, Mierzanowice culture, Únětice culture, Nordic Bronze Age,Single Grave Culture, Komarov culture

The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between c.3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the Late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the contact zone between the Yamnaya culture and the Corded Ware culture in south Central Europe, to the Rhine in the west and the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Autosomal genetic studies suggest that the Corded Ware culture originated from the westward migration of Yamnaya-related people from the steppe-forest zone into the territory of late Neolithic European cultures, evolving in parallel with (although under significant influence from) the Yamnaya; while the idea of direct male-line descent between them has not received significant support yet, IBD-sharing between the populations of these two cultures indicates that, at the very least, they came from a recent common ancestor, with a Harvard Magazine article on the find referring to them as "cousins" who were "biologically separated ... by only a few hundred years".

The Corded Ware culture is considered to be a likely vector for the spread of many of the Indo-European languages in Europe and Asia.