The big bubble: Indoeuropean Yamnayans

[MarkoZ]

To restate the obvious, that's much later and has nothing to do with Corded Ware, so to say that the chariot had nothing to do with the early Indo-European expansion in Europe is correct.

Then again, one still needs to explain why the chariot arose to such prominence in the various Indo-European cultures of Europe. Not only did it become a valued status symbol, the Indo-European deity par excellence - Indra and his European permutations Ares, Thor, Mars et cetera - was thought of as riding a chariot. How did these cultures arise from Corded Ware in biomes that generally do not lend themselves to chariot warfare? These are among the reasons champions of the IE-chariot connection like Robert Drews see the appearance of the chariot as coinciding with the earliest arrival of the Indo-Europeans in Europe.