CO-MOVE is a project funded by the German Research Foundation (2021–2026) and conducted with the Palaeogenetics Laboratory of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
Co-Move – Cultures on the Move? New approaches to the archaeology and genetics of the Yamnaya to Corded Ware burial transition
Contact person: Maxime Brami (mbrami@uni-mainz.de)
Beaker-period adult-child graves of Altwies and Dunstable Downs (credit: Zedda et al. 2023) 
Shared IBD (identity-by-descent) DNA segments between newly analyzed Beaker-period graves and existing genomes (credit: Zedda et al. 2023) 
Burial orientations analyzed with the AutArch software (credit: Klein et al. 2025) 
Orientation of ‘Corded Ware’ graves in Bohemia and Moravia (Czech Republic) using AutArch (credit: Klein et al. 2025) 
Artistic reconstruction of the grave of Altwies (credit: A.-L. Titze)
COOPERATIONS
- Univ.-Prof. Dr. Joachim Burger (JGU Mainz)
- Professor Dr. Volker Heyd (University of Helsinki)
- Prof. Dr. Ralf Lämmel (Universität Koblenz)
- Dr. Katie Meheux (University College London)
- Dr. Antoine Muller (University of Bergen)
- Professor Dr. Felix Riede (Aarhus University)
- Dr. David Shankland (Royal Anthropological Institute)
The project explores how people and innovations spread around the turn of the 3rd millennium BC, focusing on the cultural and genetic impact of the “Yamnaya” steppe migrations in Central and Eastern Europe. The project uses data mining and machine learning to refine cultural classifications and test whether steppe pastoralists and new burial practices spread together.
Zedda et al. 2023.
Publications
Blöcher, J.; Brami, M.N.; 13 others and Burger, J. 2023, Descent, marriage and residence practices of a 3800-year-old pastoral community in Central Eurasia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120: 10.1073.
Klein, K.; Muller, A.; 5 others and Brami, M.N. 2025, An AI-assisted workflow for object detection and data collection from archaeological catalogues, Journal of Archaeological Science 179 (2025), 106244.
Zedda, N.; Meheux, K.; 12 others and Brami, M.N. (2023), Biological and substitute parents in Beaker period adult-child graves. Scientific Reports 13, 18765.