[9] Afanasievo burials have been found as far as Shatar Chuluu in central Mongolia, confirming a further expansion about 1,500 km beyond the Altai Mountains.

[10] According to David W. Anthony the Afanasevan population was descended from people who migrated c. 3700–3300 BCE across the Eurasian Steppe from the pre-Yamnaya Repin culture of the Don-Volga region.

[13] Because of its geographical location and dating, Anthony and earlier scholars such as Leo Klejn, J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair have linked the Afanasevans to the Proto-Tocharian language.

[13] The Shirenzigou culture (410–190 BC), just northeast of the Tarim Basin, also appears to have been derived from the Afanasievans, which, in addition to linguistics, further reinforces an Afanasievo hypothesis for the Tocharians.

[7] The original Afanasievo site was on the first floodplain terrace of the Yenisei river near Gora Afanasieva, 1 km to the southeast from the village of Bateni-Yarki, and is now submerged in the flood zone of the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir since 1960-67.

[28] Afanasievo cemeteries include both single and small collective burials with the deceased usually flexed on their back in a pit.

[14] The Afanasievans are now considered as the earliest herders of East Asia, who were instrumental in the establishment of the long tradition of pastorialism in Mongolia.

[29] Afanasievo burials include metal artifacts in copper, bronze (awls, knives), gold and silver, as well the remains of disassembled carts.

[39][40] The analysis of the full genome of Afanasievo individuals has shown that they were genetically very close to the Yamnaya population of the Pontic–Caspian steppe.

This indicates that the Afanasievo culture was brought to the Altai region via migration from the western Eurasian steppe, which occurred with little admixture from local populations.

The Yamnaya-related lineages and ancestry in Afanasievo disappeared in the course of the Bronze Age in the Altai region and Mongolia, being replaced by the migrating populations from the Sintashta culture arriving from the west.

[48][49] The Afanasievo people, accompanied by their pastoralist technologies, are one of the major foreign contributors to the genetic profile of the modern northwestern Chinese.

[8] Several scholars propose the Afanasievo culture as the ancestors of the Tocharians, who lived on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (in present-day Xinjiang, China) in the first millennium AD.

The Yamnaya component suggest a strong probability that the Shirenzigou populations were derived from the Afanasievo culture to the north, and spoke an Indo-European language.