5th—4th millennium BC) is a Mesolithic and later Neolithic archaeological culture found north of the Black Sea and dating to ca.

At that time Dmytro Telehin worked at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1952 – 1990).

[7] A much larger horizon from the upper Vistula to the lower half of Dnieper to the mid-to-lower Volga has therefore been drawn.

[6] Among the sources of food hunted and foraged by the Dnieper-Donets people were aurochs, elk, red deer, roe, wild boar, fox, wildcat, hare, bear and onager.

[6] During the following centuries, domestic animals from the Dnieper further and further east towards the Volga-Ural steppes, where they appeared ca.

[9] At the same time, recent evidence suggests that millet did not arrive in west Eurasia until the Bronze Age.

The items, along with the presence of animal bones and sophisticated burial methods, appear to have been a symbol of power.

Very similar boar-tusk plaques and copper ornaments have been found at contemporary graves of the Samara culture in the middle Volga area.

Radiocarbon dates confirm the earlier chronology of individual DDCC burials compared to collective graves in large pits.

[19] The Dnieper–Donets culture continued using Mesolothic technology, but later phases see the appearance of polished stone axes, later flint and the disappearance of microliths.

[20] In accordance with the original Kurgan hypothesis, J. Mallory (1997) suggested that the Dnieper-Donets people were Pre–Indo-European-speakers who were absorbed by Proto-Indo-Europeans expanding westwards from steppe-lands further east.

[9] According to David W. Anthony, the Indo-European languages were initially spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe, such as the Dnieper-Donets people.

[9][a] They are predominantly characterized as late Cro-Magnons[24] with large and more massive features than the gracile Mediterranean peoples of the Balkan Neolithic.

[27] The authors reported mtDNA haplogroups of two individuals from the Mykilske (Nikols'skoye in Russian) and Yasynuvatka (Yasinovatka) DDCC cemeteries.

The authors linked the appearance of east Eurasian haplogroups with potential influence from northern Lake Baikal area.

Mathieson et al. (2018) analyzed 32 individuals from three Eneolithic cemeteries at Deriivka, Vilnyanka and Vovnigi,[28] which Anthony (2019a) ascribed to the Dnieper–Donets culture.

[29] At the same time, several Eneolithic individuals from the Deriivka I cemetery carried Anatolian Neolithic Farmer (ANF) - derived, as well as WSH ancestry.

According to Anthony, this suggests that the Indo-European languages were initially spoken by EHGs living in Eastern Europe[31] The Dnieper–Donets culture was succeeded by the Sredny Stog culture, its eastern neighbor, with whom it co-existed for a time before being finally absorbed.