Short answers, pulled from the story.
Russian archaeologist Sergei Teploukhov began digging near a mountain called Gora Afanasieva in 1920. He continued his work there until 1929, uncovering the first evidence of this unique group.
The original location lies submerged under the Krasnoyarsk Reservoir since the late 1960s. This site sat on the first floodplain terrace of the Yenisei river just southeast of Bateni-Yarki village in what is now Bogradsky District, Khakassia, Russia.
Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b predominated among paternal lines while maternal lineages showed 71% West Eurasian origin. Full genome analysis reveals genetic closeness between Afanasievo individuals and Yamnaya populations of the Pontic-Caspian steppe.
Two strains of Yersinia pestis bacteria extracted from human teeth date between 2909 BCE and 2677 BCE. These samples came from a single mass grave containing seven people presumed near-contemporary in life.
Scholars link this culture to Proto-Tocharian languages based on metal use, horses, and wheeled vehicles. Tocharian peoples lived on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang China during the first millennium AD.