How the Yamnaya Made War, Money, and the West

The opening question is not simply who the Yamnaya were. The sharper question is what changed Source trail 0:00 Okay, so last class, we talked about Maria Kumbotas, who is an anthropologist, and she makes the argument that for the longest time, for most of its history, Europe was egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic. But today, we... . Old Europe is presented as egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic; the present is patriarchal, unequal, and at war. The Yamnaya matter because they are the answer to that reversal.

Agriculture begins in the Near East as a religious technology. Source trail 0:001:332:54 Okay, so last class, we talked about Maria Kumbotas, who is an anthropologist, and she makes the argument that for the longest time, for most of its history, Europe was egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic. But today, we...our very first class, it was because humans are a religious people, and farming allows us to celebrate our religion, okay? And the reason why farming was founded in the Near East is, for the longest time, there's an ice... Humans farm because humans are religious people, and farming lets religion take material form. When climate changes push people outward, Europe is close enough in geography that migrants can carry the same crops, tools, and Mother Goddess religion with them.

That religion says unity first. We are the same as animals and plants. Source trail 2:54 Because the geography of Europe was not that different from the geography of the Near East. So they could take their religion, they could take their technology, move over to Europe, and still be about the same, okay? Th... Nature is not raw material but the gift of the Mother Goddess, and the soul survives death. In such a world, women matter because they give life; peace is possible because resources feel sufficient; art becomes the place where intellectual energy celebrates the divine order.

The problem starts when people move into the steppes, a huge ocean of grassland Source trail 4:58 they were considered in many ways superior to men, and the political class was mainly governed by women, okay? They were peaceful. They really didn't have to fight each other because they felt their resources was enough... . Europe and the Near East can sustain agriculture. The steppes cannot, at least not easily. The grass is everywhere, but people cannot eat grass. Scarcity becomes the teacher.

Evolution, for this lecture, means open, cooperative competition Source trail 6:21 So you may have heard the term evolution. I want to explain what the term evolution means for our class, because we will refer to it a lot as we progress through human history, okay? So for us, evolution means open, coo... . Open means there is no central authority, no great power, no hegemon. Competition means groups are trying to survive under pressure. Cooperative means they still trade, communicate, exchange gifts, marry across groups, and learn from each other. This is why the steppes can create innovation.

The pattern repeats in Chinese, Greek, and Sumerian cases: many competing centers create innovations, but the final winner is often an outsider on the margin Source trail 10:3911:48 Does that make sense? They are the most ruthless in adopting all innovations for the sole purpose of destroying others and becoming the sole hegemon, okay? So we saw this with the Greek city -states where for hundreds o...I'm sure you know who he is, but you may not know he was Macedonian. Who's the most famous Greek you've heard of? Yeah, he was actually Macedonian, okay? Alexander the Great, okay? And what's amazing is we see the same... . Macedon watches the Greek city-states, absorbs their military breakthroughs, and conquers them. Akkad watches Sumer, absorbs its technology, and builds empire. The Yamnaya are placed into that same pattern.

Innovation is not innocent in this model. The group that triumphs is the group most open to adopting innovation in order to destroy others Source trail 9:06 lot of time on the Greek city -states like Athens and Sparta and Thebes because before, we actually thought the origin of Western civilization were the Greek city -states, okay? We no longer believe that, but for the lo... . Creativity produces the tools; ruthlessness decides who keeps them.

The first solution is pastoralism. Cows, sheep, and goats can eat the grass that humans cannot, and humans can eat them. Then comes dairy. Most people cannot drink milk, but lactose tolerance turns milk into food. Protein and milk become body-making technologies Source trail 15:35 What happens to your body? Exactly, okay? You become very tall, very strong, okay? So because of these two innovations, the people in the steppes were on average, okay, just average, 20 centimeters taller than the farme... : taller, stronger people emerge from a different food system.

The horse solves distance, and the wheel turns mobility into a system. Horse plus wheel gives the wagon. Wagon plus herd gives nomadic pastoralism: a society no longer stuck in one place Source trail 16:50 But they kept on trying because the ability to ride horses was very important for their society and their economy. And so now they have the ability to ride horses. That's the third big innovation. Then they invented the... , because when cattle eat the grass, the whole economy can move to the next grassland.

Mobility also creates conflict. If cattle eat grass, grass becomes territory. If cattle are wealth, theft becomes strategy. Source trail 17:50 If you move from place to place and the cows are eating all the grass, what happens usually? Conflict, right? Because you are now in competition for what we call grazing rights. Grazing rights. If your cows go into a gr... Grazing rights and cattle raids pull men to the center of society, because men are expected to protect wealth and take wealth. The economy begins to teach patriarchy before the religion names it.

Private property is the decisive break. In the Mother Goddess world, the farm and earth belong to a shared order. In the steppe world, the cow belongs to you and only you Lens point civilization-inner-order Civilization becomes inner order when material survival, sacred explanation, sex, violence, property, memory, language, and status cohere into a world that trains people what life means and what kind of human being they must become. civilization-inner-order Inner order changes when a material innovation reorganizes economy, sex, inheritance, violence, and religion at the same time; the new tool becomes a new world because it changes what people must protect, worship, and fight for. Source trail 19:22 So women were more important. But in this society, where there's a lot of violence, there's a lot of conflict, men became more important, okay? So with these innovations, they start to change their economy, their societ... . Once wealth can be owned privately, it has to be defended privately, inherited privately, and fought over privately.

Private property creates the inheritance problem. If ten sons divide one hundred cattle, the family becomes poorer each generation. Primogeniture solves the arithmetic by giving everything to the eldest son. The other nine sons get nothing. They are told, in effect, too bad Source trail 20:44 So let's just say I have 10 sons, and I have 100 cattle, and I die. Who gets my cattle? Who gets my wealth? It has to be the older son. Why? The eldest son, why? Exactly, okay? So we need 100 cattle to survive as a fami... .

Those younger sons now have to build wealth elsewhere, and in this world building wealth means stealing cows Source trail 22:03 You have to go build your own wealth. And that means basically stealing cows from other people, okay? So this creates a war culture, a war culture, right? So does that make sense? That's your society. This is a society... . A war culture follows: men above women, private property celebrated, young men encouraged to expand civilization by fighting. The social order needs a new god to match it.

So the Mother Goddess gives way to the Sky Father. The old religion says nature gives life and must be protected. The new religion says the male sky god gives cattle, money, and wealth, and asks people to fight each other for the right to have wealth Lens point civilization-inner-order Inner order changes when a material innovation reorganizes economy, sex, inheritance, violence, and religion at the same time; the new tool becomes a new world because it changes what people must protect, worship, and fight for. civilization-inner-order Inner order becomes civilizationally decisive because religion can protect interconnection, harmony, equality, and art, or be rearranged into a world that worships wealth, power, and war. Source trail 23:22 That's the first change. The second change is whereas the mother goddess gave us everything, right? Nature. The Sky Father gave us cows, cattle, money, and wealth, okay? So the third change is whereas the mother goddess... . Zeus and Jupiter appear here as later names for the same religious shift.

This is why the Yamnaya win. They do not adopt one isolated tool. They adopt the whole package until religion, society, and economy align Lens point civilization-inner-order Inner order changes when a material innovation reorganizes economy, sex, inheritance, violence, and religion at the same time; the new tool becomes a new world because it changes what people must protect, worship, and fight for. Source trail 24:29 And when they adopt all these innovations, then what happens is their religion becomes aligned with their society, which becomes aligned with their economy, okay? And so this is a people who are obsessed with collecting... . A people obsessed with collecting wealth, fighting wars, and expanding territory can move across the steppes as a culture, even when it is not one people or one nation.

Europe should have had the advantage. Source trail 24:2925:39 And when they adopt all these innovations, then what happens is their religion becomes aligned with their society, which becomes aligned with their economy, okay? And so this is a people who are obsessed with collecting...What's the major advantage that Europe has? If you have farming, what happens to your population? It grows very fast, right? So in other words, Europe has more population than the steppes. Does that make sense? Okay? So... Farming grows population quickly, and old Europe has more people than the steppes. In theory, a larger farming population could withstand a smaller militarized pastoral one.

The advantage turns into weakness because farms concentrate people, animals, rats, waste, and disease. The plague is everywhere in the connected world, but it does not strike every way of life equally. Settled density makes Europe vulnerable Source trail 25:3927:23 What's the major advantage that Europe has? If you have farming, what happens to your population? It grows very fast, right? So in other words, Europe has more population than the steppes. Does that make sense? Okay? So...Now the thing is, though, the plague spread around the world. Okay? Because remember, what's important to remember is, these people in the steppes, in the Near East, in Europe, were all in contact with each other becaus... ; mobility and distance make the steppes less vulnerable.

Climate change adds pressure from the other side. A mini ice age hurts farmers and pushes steppe people farther into Europe. The conquest is not only men choosing violence in the abstract; it is plague hollowing out villages, climate pushing expansion, and young men with no wives and no wealth Source trail 29:41 Was actually the plague, right? Europeans had these diseases they brought over and that killed most of the local population, okay? So the plague was the main culprit that destroyed all Europe. Then climate change, and t... looking for wives and property.

At village scale, the conquest is brutal: kill the men, marry the women Source trail 30:46 And what do they do? You have a hundred men and a hundred women in this village. So what do you do? No, yeah, but... Yeah, they kill the men, okay, guys? Okay? And then they married all the women. And that's what happen... . But it is not one army executing one plan. It is a culture of different groups trying different strategies, sometimes sparing men, sometimes provoking retaliation, always pushing the violence forward until Europe and England are inside the new world.

The conquest spreads into India, Iran, and Mongolia, but not China. Horses do not cross the Himalayas. Source trail 31:58 They conquered England, okay? And then not only did they conquer Europe, then they went to conquer India and Iran. So this spread everywhere. And even Mongolia, okay? But not to China. Why didn't it impact China? What w... Geography saves China, and population helps too. The result is a long divergence: China remains comparatively isolated from the world stretching from Europe to India.

Inside that Europe-to-India zone, conquest leaves a common language, Proto-Indo-European, and a common religious world. This is what the lecture calls the West: not just Europe, but a connected space trading ideas, people, and gods Source trail 33:27 This language is what we call Proto -Indo -European. That's a language they spoke, okay? Now they have a common religion. So from this point on, this world, okay, stretching from Europe all the way to India, was in cons... .

The plague explanation returns because it makes the ancestry claim intelligible. Source trail 34:5536:31 Okay, let's talk about the plague, okay? The plague, yes. It killed most Europeans, yes. Because Europeans were living on farms, right? So they were living together. Yeah, because it reduced the population of Europe, so...And there's like 10,000 people who might live on a farm, okay? That's a lot of people who live very closely together. They're also living with animals. So it's very unclean. But if you're living in the steppes, okay? Fi... Farmers live densely with animals and rats; steppe people live farther apart, drink milk, and move. The disease weakens Europe before the invaders arrive. That is why the lecture can say that nearly all Europeans, and also Indian and Iranian peoples, descend from the Yamnaya, with only a few exceptions.

The conquered farmers have three responses. Fight and get killed. Cooperate. Move somewhere else. Source trail 37:44 The first response is, let's fight them. And then they got killed. The second response is, let's try to cooperate with them, okay? The third major response is, let's move somewhere else. So the people who moved to islan... Islands like Sardinia matter because escape leaves traces in DNA: less Yamnaya ancestry, less total absorption. If there is nowhere to run, the lecture's verdict is stark: you get wiped out.

The spread takes hundreds of years because it is a culture adapting, not one nation marching Source trail 37:4438:49 The first response is, let's fight them. And then they got killed. The second response is, let's try to cooperate with them, okay? The third major response is, let's move somewhere else. So the people who moved to islan...So what's happening was, as they conquered different territories, they had to adapt themselves to that territory because the geography is different, okay? So in the steppes, you're leading a, nomadic pastoral lifestyle.... . In Norway, the attempt to replicate steppe life by burning forests fails. Local geography forces mixture. Nomadic pastoralism bends toward agriculture, and conquest absorbs the technologies it lacks.

That is why boats matter. The Yamnaya do not begin with shipbuilding, but they conquer people who have access to the sea, kill them, learn the technology Source trail 39:58 And then they stole the technology. They killed the people, and they learned the technology, okay? Once they had the technology, then they sailed off to England and killed everyone in England. Does that make sense? Okay... , and then sail to England. The conquest does not merely destroy local worlds. It steals what it needs from them.

This is the final claim of the episode. Greek and Roman civilization come from this world. Before the Yamnaya, humans are described as egalitarian, peaceful, and artistic. With the Yamnaya come patriarchy, war, and money. That is why the lecture can end by saying this marks a new history for humanity Source trail 41:14 So this marks a new history for humanity. When we come back from the break, we'll start exploring this history, okay? .