Archaeological Evidence of Indo-European Migrations of the Yamnaya Archaeological Complex into Dagestan and Further into the South Caucasus.
In coastal Dagestan, there are kurgans near the village of Utamysh dated to the end of the third millennium BC. A remarkable feature of these kurgans is that one of them contained a wooden timber chamber with a wagon holding a sarcophagus inside. This type of burial was not characteristic of the earlier Kura-Araxes culture but finds parallels in burials of the South Caucasus, such as the Bedeni culture, where wagons were also used in graves.
These South Caucasian burials belonged to the Bedeni culture, which later developed into the Trialeti-Vanadzor culture and subsequently the Lchashen-Metsamor culture. Archaeologist A. N. Gey notes that these cultures emerged as a result of the migration of people from the Novotitarovskaya culture or populations culturally close to it. The Novotitarovskaya culture, in turn, is linked to the Yamnaya culture and, according to A. N. Gey, was Indo-European.
Notably, genetic data are now available from a kurgan in the Levashi District of Dagestan, west of Utamysh, dated to the second half of the third millennium BC, making it roughly contemporary with the Utamysh kurgans. The individual buried there belonged to the paternal lineage R1b-M269, typical of both the Yamnaya culture and the above-mentioned Indo-European cultures of the South Caucasus.
Given the presence of such burials in Dagestan, we may be observing the migration route of Indo-Europeans moving south, eventually reaching the South Caucasus. According to genetic and linguistic evidence, the South Caucasian cultures associated with this migration were likely connected with speakers of the Proto-Armenian language. Related groups of the people who created the Utamysh kurgan culture in Dagestan later developed into the local variant of the Kayakent-Kharachoy culture, contributing to the ethnogenesis of the peoples of Dagestan.
Sources:
1. Askerkhan about Dagestan.
2. Novotitarovskaya Culture. A. N. Gey.
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1July 31, 2026 533 1 3
