[2][3][4] It was formed from the local Neolithic Siberian forest cultures, who also showed evidence of admixture from Western Steppe Herders and pre-existing Ancient North Eurasians.

The basis of the population's economic activity was stock-raising and animal husbandry (cattle, sheep, and goats), supplemented by hunting and fishing.

Stone hoes, grain graters and pestles, and a reaping sickle with a copper blade and horn handle all testify to agriculture.

Okunev ceramics are typically flat-bottomed, with notable continuous ornamentation of the body, the bottom, edge of the rim and its inner side.

A bronze spear was found at the late Okunevo cultural site, the socket of which was forged with two loose ends.

[17] The Okunevo culture is represented mostly by mounds burial structures, which were composed of small, rectangular surface enclosures made of stone slabs or sandstone tiles placed vertically in the ground.

The buried were laid, as in Afanasiev's time, on their backs with legs strongly bent at the knees and arms extended along the body.

Petroglyphs of the Okunev period are located in the narrow mountain valleys of Khyzyl Khaya and Khurtuy Khola, on the banks of now-dry streams in the modern Kazanovka Museum-Reserve.

On the shore of the lake near the village of the same name Maly Kyzykul, during excavations in the Okunev layer, archaeologists in 1973 discovered the remains of a burnt log structure and fragments of ceramic dishes.

However, almost no genetic traces of Afanasevtsy have been found in the Okunev genotype, meaning Afanasiev population was displaced by the alien Okunevtsy.

In the rock art of the Minusinsk Basin, images of early (end of the 3rd millennium BC) two-wheeled carts with a composite drawbar of two poles converging at an angle, which simultaneously form the body frame, are common.

In his opinion, the appearance of the Okunev people was formed as a result of the mixing of the local Neolithic population with an influx of Afanasyevtsy from the territory of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

The Okunev people of the Minusinsk Basin were descendants of the local Neolithic population, which was distinguished by its significant originality against the background of the races of the first order.

[18] Maksimentkov suggested that Okunevo culture was developed by the local Neolithic tribes of the Krasnoyarsk - Kansk forest-steppe who lived to the north of the Minusinsk Basin.

The second theory that is supported at the present time by most researchers suggests that Okunevo culture resulted from the interaction of local Neolithic hunter-gatherers with Western Steppe Herders.

Autosomal DNA analysis found that the Okunevo people formed predominantly from a lineage originating from the admixture of Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA) with Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), with around 10-20% genetic admixture from Western Steppe Herders, as represented by the Yamnaya or Afanasievo cultures.

The Western Steppe Herder ancestry is absent from the X chromosome of Okunevo spcecimens, suggesting it was inherited from mostly male ancestors.

[7] The Okunevo population showed also genetic affinities with the Botai culture, some of the Tarim mummies, and Altai hunter-gatherers.

[8] The results of the analysis of the origin of the ancient steppe populations of nomads of the Eurasian steppe (from the Urals to Altai), including representatives of the Bronze Age Okunev culture from the Sayan-Altai, showed that the samples contained components that were most pronounced in Ancient North Eurasian, Eastern hunter-gatherers, Caucasian hunter-gatherers from Georgia and also occur from the component that is most pronounced among the Nganasans (Samoyedic people) and is widely distributed among various modern people from Siberia and Central Asia.

In representatives of the Okunev culture from the burial ground of Syda V (Minusinsk Basin), a variety of mitochondrial DNA variants was determined.

The impressive stone steles were originally erected at gravesites and were subsequently reused more than a millennium later in the Scythian-era kurgans of Tagar Culture.

[38] The vivid character of the art of the Okunev culture is created by monumental stone sculptures and steles carved with anthropomorphic images.

[42] A fantastic mask looks at the viewer from it: three eyes, nostrils, a huge mouth, horns, long ears and all kinds of processes.

It was discussed that vertical steles might be used as the ancient tool of orientation in space - time milestones and gnomons - sundial of solar hours calendars.

A graphical drawing of vertical sundial can be seen in the divergent rays on sun-facing stele, where the tooth is a benchmark for the accurate determination of noon.

This is consistent with Janhunen’s convincing arguments that the Ural-Altaic typological profile of Uralic and the primary split between Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric point to an eastern origin (2001; 2009), and it would be just in time for Finno-Ugric to split off and move west towards the Ural Mountains, where this branch was influenced by Proto-Indo-Iranian (e.g. Kuz’mina 2001).

"[53][8][54] A. G. Kozintsev (2023) argues that the Okunevo culture is better associated with a Yeniseian-related group, possibly Burushaski or an extinct Yeniseian branch.