animals kept included pigs, horses and dogs. During the following centuries, domestic animals from the Dnieper further and further east towards the Volga-Ural steppes, where they appeared ca. 4700-4600 BC. Some scholars suggest that from about 4200 BC, the Dnieper–Donets culture adopted agriculture. Domestic plants that have been recovered include millet, wheat and pea. At the same time, recent evidence suggests that millet did not arrive in west Eurasia until the Bronze Age. Evidence from skeletal remains suggest that plants were consumed. At the same time, systematic evidence of producing economy in DDCC is currently lacking. The presence of exotic goods in Dnieper-Donets graves indicates exchange relationships with the Caucasus. Art The Dnieper–Donets culture produced no female figurines. Burials The Dnieper–Donets culture is well known for about thirty of its cemeteries that have been discovered. This includes several large collective cemeteries of the Mariupol type. These contain around 800 individuals. It is evident that funerals were complex events that had several phases. Burials are mostly in large pits where the deceased were periodically placed and covered with ocher. In some cases, the deceased may have been exposed for a time before their bones were collected and buried. In most cases, however, the deceased were buried in the flesh without exposure. Deceased Dnieper-Donets people sometimes had only their skulls buried, but most often the entire bodies. The variants of Dnieper-Donets burial often appear in the same pits. Animal bones has also been found in the graves. Certain Dnieper-Donets burials are accompanied with copper, crystal or porphyry ornaments, shell beads, bird-stone tubes, polished stone maces or ornamental plaques made of boar's tusk. The items, along with the presence of animal bones and sophisticated burial methods, appear to have been a symbol of power. Certain deceased children were buried with such items, which indicates that wealth was inherited in Dnieper-Donets society. Very similar boar-tusk plaques and copper ornaments have been found at contemporary graves of the Samara culture in the middle Volga area. Maces of a different type than those of Dnieper-Donets have also been found. The wide adoption of such a status symbol attests to the existence of the institute of power in DDCC. Individual, double and triple burials have also been found at DDCC cemeteries. These have been attributed to the earlier period of DDCC. Radiocarbon dates confirm the earlier chronology of individual DDCC burials compared to collective graves in large