Bret Devereaux

It does argue against horse riding or chariots as the IE killer app though, right? And how viable would steppe nomadism be without riding horses?

Why should you need horses in steppe nomadism? The main problem of nomads is having their stuff transported, I assume, and horses are not the best choice there. When taking over the world - Hun/Mongol style -, horses may come in handy, though.

Very interesting! Is it generally assumed that the Yamnaya nomads were mainly big game hunters? I always pictured them - without much thinking - as cattle nomads.

Yes, cattle nomads indeed. That's not in question.

(sorry, that perhaps sounded a bit dismissive and aggro, which was not my intention at all :-) But semi-nomadic pastoralism is the consensus)

I was responding to the article @bnuyaminim linked, which seemed to focus on nomadic groups that lived mainly from big game hunting - so I thought, this might be a reason why horses are less necessary in a Yamnaya context than in the referred to groups.

Yeah :-)