Really? That is very interesting. Do you have any papers I can read? It must be very new.
I'm not able to send you links, but rather authors as Lebedynsky
As for the aformentioned danubian dominant influence over steppe cultures (understood as "Skelia culture"), even if I don't agree with, most important representative should be Yuri Rassamakin
As far as I was aware the Tryphilia culture was
a mixture of WHG and Anatolian farmers, with a slightly greater percentage of WHG than has been found in the Baalberge group.
Lebendynsky is less dwelling on genetics that it would be interesting (he seems a bit critical on its systematical use), in spite being a contemporary historian : he's mostly pointing to physical types of the population which he defines as "mostly mediterranean, doliocephale, with a proto-europid part which would be more obvious on women" which he considers not as a Kurgan or pre-kurgan elements on which I'm more doubtful.
He also points how "these proto-europoid elements seems more present for Trypilla A and B than C".
As for exchanges you do have danubian artifacts (pottery and cooper items) further than danubian cultures, as in below Dniepr; while steppe pottery or zoomorphic scepters appears during stage B.
Now, it's quite possible you had a growing differenciation with time, with both Tiryllia and Yamna getting growingly distant : climatic changes and conflicts (possibly infighting?) would have made mixing going obsolete. That's, however, a wild tought.
As far as I know, skeletal remains from the Tryphila culture are scarce. Although the area today has a high Yamnaya admixture, particularly in the Y-chromosome, its really too large a timespan to be significant.
True, while Mallory classification (more or less corrected) can help determine material and genetical features together, the former part is quite neglected these times, up to a fault I think : ritualistic features of Old Europe (the possible domocide, for exemple) may provide some answers when it comes to their exchanges with their neighbours.
And I was under the impression that they collapsed almost immediately after contact with the edge of the Yamnaya.
Quickly, yes, but not immediatly : Mallory's thesis keeps having some strong points IMO. As in half of a millenia of more or less close contacts (which let several centuries of more direct contects) and there's traces of a gradual tension in western Dniepr basin rather than direct takeover with a grey area in Dniebr basin with presence (a bit, if you allow me the anachronism and the poor equivalence, how Hispano-Romans reacted to Arabo-Berbers historically).
You know, I have over my time here gotten the impression that you know far more about this area than I do.
I really don't. I was interested on this on studies on ancient western mediterranean populations (long story short, it comes down to a work I had to do on statues-menhir some years ago), and I had to go further geographically and historically from there.
Especially on genetics, I've a lot to learn (even if I'm under the impression they're overused these days)
Everyone is mixed, it just depends on how far back you go. The PIE people certainly did pick up local genetics as they expanded.
Indeed, but the question is then more about mixing before their cultural expansion and the disappearence of danubian cultures.
Which may be next to impossible to distinguish from the mixing that happened earlier, unfortunatly. But it makes identification of genes as Old Europe or Indo-Europeans much less affirmative. I think genetic explanation on this matter have certainly gotten too far : as you said, we have too little material to be really clear on this, and it shouldn't be ignoring material culture (even if its relation with genetics is a superficial one)
The question are then if Yammna Culture is representative to what happened everywhere in Europe, or if this model can be assumed even for the whole of Yamna Culture expansion.
Hence, a total population replacement in such regions becomes a distinctly possible scenario.
Possible, yes. A predominantly clear scenario, however : we know too little of pre-IE Europe (would it be mediterranean-danubian ensemble, and a possible caucasian-baltic one) and its demographics.
Furthermore, a replacement population may not only be explained by violent takeover alone : climatic changes could do a lot of harm even to proto-urbanized populations as danubians.
Not that such expansion can spare warlike violence, of course, but we have a set of explanations that were generally less considered before : climate, epidemics, etc.
I would really recommend
this paper to you.
I'll read it, thanks. As said above, I'm too focused on material culture, and not enough on this matters.
Sorry for the too short answers I gave you, this is really an interesting discussion.
