[SadCordDrone]

> Still, it is likely that the viking ethos does draw from the culture they inherited from the Yamnaya

This is intuitive to me as well. But my question is, are there evidences in support, eg their language, mythology or "pots" likely being more closer to yamnaya / PIE than others?

[stareatgoats]

I think such "cultural distances" would be really hard to prove, and there are no such attempts that I'm aware of. But I would also be interested if someone were to attempt or know of such a cultural comparison project.

The archeological material from the Yamnaya is not overabundant, and the content of their beliefs and language is largely inferred in ways which leave many things open to debate. But we can likely be certain that different descendant cultures all fanned out culturally, both as a consequence of internal driving forces as well as influences from the other peoples they encountered.

The latter could actually speak in favor of the Scandinavians keeping more of their ancestral culture, since that part of the world was relatively more isolated compared to rest of the Europe.