Yamna culture in Bačka and Serbian Banat

The Vojvodina area is one of the least explored expansion zones of steppe barrow communities of Eastern European origin. New data on this issue was obtained by implementing the Polish–Serbian project “Danubian Route of the Yamnaya Culture”. As part of the project, two burial mounds located in Bačka, in the Šajkaška region, were examined (Šajkaš, Ciganska Humka, and Žabalj, Medisova Humka). These studies collected comprehensive data on the stratigraphy of the burial mounds and details of the funeral rites and mortuary practices. Materials for bioarchaeological and chronometric analyses were also obtained. The newly discovered graves, along with those from previously examined burial mounds in the territory of Vojvodina, exhibit features typical of the funeral rites of steppe communities from the first half of the third millennium BC, associated with the Yamna culture throughout the Pannonian plain. It is also a rite analogous to the entire Danube–Tisza zone of expansion of this culture. In light of the research, the Pre-Yamna horizon (fourth millennium BC) is poorly visible, including the phase of barrow graves with cremation burials, connected with the Baden–Coţofeni circle. A series of radiocarbon dates were obtained for barrow graves from Bačka and Banat. The results place the dated finds in two time horizons: early Yamna (3000–2900 BC) and late Yamna (2900/2800–2600 BC).