Bell Beaker culture

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Bell Beaker culture
Followed byÚnětice culture, Bronze Age Britain, Nordic Bronze Age,

The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an

Unetice culture. The culture was widely dispersed throughout Western Europe, being present in many regions of Iberia and stretching eastward to the Danubian plains, and northward to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and was also present in the islands of Sardinia and Sicily and some coastal areas in north-western Africa. The Bell Beaker phenomenon shows substantial regional variation, and a study[4]
from 2018 found that it was associated with genetically diverse populations.

The Bell Beaker culture was partly preceded by and contemporaneous with the Corded Ware culture, and in north-central Europe preceded by the Funnelbeaker culture. The name Glockenbecher was coined for its distinctive style of beakers by Paul Reinecke in 1900. The term's English translation Bell Beaker was introduced by John Abercromby in 1904.[5]

In its early phase, the Bell Beaker culture can be seen as the western contemporary of the Corded Ware culture of Central Europe. From about 2400 BC the Beaker folk culture expanded eastwards, into the Corded Ware horizon.[6] In parts of Central and Eastern Europe, as far east as Poland, a sequence occurs from Corded Ware to Bell Beaker. This period marks a period of cultural contact in Atlantic and Western Europe following a prolonged period of relative isolation during the Neolithic.

In its mature phase, the Bell Beaker culture is understood as not only a collection of characteristic artefact types, but a complex cultural phenomenon involving metalwork in

ceramic wares (Begleitkeramik). Nonetheless, according to Lemercier (2018) the mature phase of the Beaker culture represents "the appearance of a kind of Bell Beaker civilization of continental scale".[9]

Origins and expansion

Origins

Bell Beaker artefacts from Spain: ceramics, metal daggers, axe and javelin points, stone wristguards and arrowheads

The Bell Beaker artefacts (at least in their early phase) are not distributed across a contiguous area, as is usual for archaeological cultures, but are found in insular concentrations scattered across Europe. Their presence is not associated with a characteristic type of architecture or of burial customs. However, the Bell Beaker culture does appear to coalesce into a coherent archaeological culture in its later phase.

The origin of the "Bell Beaker" artefacts has been traced to the early 3rd millennium, with early examples of the "maritime" Bell Beaker design having been found at the Tagus estuary in Portugal, radiocarbon dated to c. 28th century BC.[3][10][11] The inspiration for the Maritime Bell Beaker is argued to have been the small and earlier Copoz beakers that have impressed decoration and which are found widely around the Tagus estuary in Portugal.[12] Turek sees late Neolithic precursors in northern Africa, arguing the Maritime style emerged as a result of seaborne contacts between Iberia and Morocco in the first half of the third millennium BC.[13]

More recent analyses of the "Beaker phenomenon", published since the 2000s, have persisted in describing the origin of the "Beaker phenomenon" as arising from a synthesis of elements, representing "an idea and style uniting different regions with different cultural traditions and background."[14][15]

Expansion and Corded Ware contacts

Model of the Castro of Zambujal, Portugal

The initial moves from the Tagus estuary were maritime. A southern move led to the Mediterranean where 'enclaves' were established in south-western Spain and southern France around the Golfe du Lion and into the Po Valley in Italy, probably via ancient western Alpine trade routes used to distribute jadeite axes. A northern move incorporated the southern coast of Armorica. The enclave established in southern Brittany was linked closely to the riverine and landward route, via the Loire, and across the Gâtinais Valley to the Seine Valley, and thence to the lower Rhine. This was a long-established route reflected in early stone axe distributions, and via this network, Maritime Bell Beakers first reached the Lower Rhine in c. 2600 BC.[3][16]

Spain.[17]

Another expansion brought Bell Beaker to Csepel Island in Hungary by about 2500 BC. In the Carpathian Basin, the Bell Beaker culture came in contact with communities such as the Vučedol culture (c. 3000–2200 BC), which had evolved partly from the Yamnaya culture (c. 3300–2600 BC).[note 1] In contrast to the early Bell Beaker preference for the dagger and bow, the favourite weapon in the Carpathian Basin during the first half of the third millennium was the shaft-hole axe.[19] Here, Bell Beaker people assimilated local pottery forms such as the polypod cup. These "common ware" types of pottery then spread in association with the classic bell beaker.[20]

The Rhine was on the western edge of the vast Corded Ware zone (c. 3100 – c. 2350 BC), forming a contact zone with the Bell Beaker culture. From there, the Bell Beaker culture spread further into Eastern Europe, replacing the Corded Ware culture up to the Vistula (Poland).[21][note 2]

Corded Ware, Yamnaya and Sintashta cultures

A review in 2014 revealed that single burial, communal burial, and reuse of Neolithic burial sites are found throughout the Bell Beaker zone.[22] This overturns a previous conviction that single burial was unknown in the early or southern Bell Beaker zone, and so must have been adopted from Corded Ware in the contact zone of the Lower Rhine, and transmitted westwards along the exchange networks from the Rhine to the Loire,[23][24] and northwards across the English Channel to Britain.[3][25]

The earliest copper production in Ireland, identified at Ross Island in the period 2400–2200 BC, was associated with early Beaker pottery.[3][26] Here, the local sulpharsenide ores were smelted to produce the first copper axes used in Britain and Ireland.[3] The same technologies were used in the Tagus region and in the west and south of France.[3][27] The evidence is sufficient to support the suggestion that the initial spread of Maritime Bell Beakers along the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean, using sea routes that had long been in operation, was directly associated with the quest for copper and other rare raw materials.[3]

Migration vs. acculturation

While Bell Beaker (Glockenbecher) was introduced as a term for the artefact type at the beginning of the 20th century, recognition of an archaeological Bell Beaker culture has long been controversial. Its spread has been one of the central questions of the migrationism vs. diffusionism debate in 20th-century archaeology, variously described as due to migration, possibly of small groups of warriors, craftsmen or traders, or due to the diffusion of ideas and object exchange.[28]

Migration

Sewn-plank boat from Ferriby, Britain, c. 2000 BC

Given the unusual form and fabric of Beaker pottery, and its abrupt appearance in the archaeological record, along with a characteristic group of other artefacts, known as the Bell Beaker "package", the explanation for the Beaker culture until the last decades of the 20th century was to interpret it as the migration of one group of people across Europe.

Gold lunula from Ireland, c. 2000 BC

Gordon Childe interpreted the presence of its characteristic artefact as the intrusion of "missionaries" expanding from Iberia along the Atlantic coast, spreading knowledge of copper metallurgy. Stephen Shennan interpreted the artefacts as belonging to a mobile cultural elite imposing itself over the indigenous substrate populations. Similarly, Sangmeister (1972) interpreted the "Beaker folk" (Glockenbecherleute) as small groups of highly mobile traders and artisans. Christian Strahm (1995) used the term "Bell Beaker phenomenon" (Glockenbecher-Phänomen) as a compromise in order to avoid the term "culture".[29]

Heyd (1998) concluded that the Bell Beaker culture was intrusive to southern Germany, and existed contemporarily with the local Corded Ware culture.[30]

The burial ritual which typified Bell Beaker sites appears to be intrusive to Western Europe, from Central Europe. Individual inhumations, often under tumuli with the inclusion of weapons contrast markedly to the preceding Neolithic traditions of often collective, weaponless burials in Atlantic/Western Europe. Such an arrangement is rather derivative of Corded Ware traditions.[13]

Cultural diffusion

Hungary
), c. 2500-2200 BC

British and American archaeology since the 1960s have been sceptical about prehistoric migration in general, so the idea of "Bell Beaker Folk" lost ground. A theory of cultural contact de-emphasizing population movement was presented by Colin Burgess and Stephen Shennan in the mid-1970s.[31]

Under the "pots, not people" theory, the Beaker culture was seen as a 'package' of knowledge (including religious beliefs, as well as methods of copper, bronze, and gold working) and artefacts (including copper daggers, v-perforated buttons, and stone wrist-guards) adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees. This new knowledge may have come about by any combination of population movements and cultural contact. An example might be as part of a prestige cult related to the production and consumption of beer, or trading links such as those demonstrated by finds made along the seaways of Atlantic Europe. Palynological studies including analysis of pollen, associated with the spread of beakers, certainly suggests increased growing of barley, which may be associated with beer brewing. Noting the distribution of Beakers was highest in areas of transport routes, including fording sites, river valleys and mountain passes, Beaker 'folk' were suggested to be originally bronze traders, who subsequently settled within local Neolithic or early Chalcolithic cultures, creating local styles. Close analysis of the bronze tools associated with beaker use suggests an early Iberian source for the copper, followed subsequently by Central European and Bohemian ores.[citation needed]

AOO and AOC Beakers appear to have evolved continually from a pre-Beaker period in the lower Rhine and North Sea regions, at least for Northern and Central Europe.[32]

Renewed emphasis on migration

Pontic-Caspian steppe.[33]

Investigations in the Mediterranean and France recently moved the discussion to re-emphasise the importance of migration to the Bell Beaker story. Instead of being pictured as a fashion or a simple diffusion of objects and their use, the investigation of over 300 sites showed that human groups actually moved in a process that involved explorations, contacts, settlement, diffusion, and acculturation/assimilation.

Illustration of a Bell Beaker period wagon[34]

Some elements show the influence from the north and east, and other elements reveal the south-east of France to be an important crossroad on an important route of communication and exchange spreading north. A distinctive 'barbed wire' pottery decoration is thought to have migrated through central Italy first. The pattern of movements was diverse and complicated, along the Atlantic coast and the northern Mediterranean coast, and sometimes also far inland. The prominent central role of Portugal in the region and the quality of the pottery all across Europe are forwarded as arguments for a new interpretation that denies an ideological dimension.[35]

Genetic findings also lend support to the migratory hypothesis. Price et al. (1998), in a strontium isotope analysis of 86 people from Bell Beaker graves in Bavaria, suggest that 18–25% of all graves were occupied by people who came from a considerable distance outside the area. This was true of children and adults, indicative of some significant migration wave. Given the similarities with readings from people living on loess soils, the general direction of the local movement, according to Price et al., is from the northeast to the southwest.[36]

steppe-related ancestry, resulting in a near-complete transformation of the local gene pool within a few centuries, to the point of replacement of about 90% of the local Neolithic-derived lineages.[37]

Bell Beaker artefacts

The two main international bell beaker styles are: the All Over Ornamented (AOO), patterned all over with impressions, of which a subset is the All Over Corded (AOC), patterned with cord-impressions, and the Maritime type, decorated with bands filled with impressions made with a comb or cord. Later, other characteristic regional styles developed.[38]

The beakers are suggested to have been designed for the consumption of alcohol, and the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fuelled the beakers' spread.[39] Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples. However, not all Beakers were drinking cups. Some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns.[40] They were used as status display amongst disparate elites.[citation needed]

  • Copper dagger, bow-shaped pendant and flint arrowhead, Czech Republic
    Copper dagger, bow-shaped pendant and flint arrowhead, Czech Republic
  • Bell Beaker, France, c. 2500 BC
    Bell Beaker, France, c. 2500 BC
  • Gold lunula, Brittany, France
    Gold lunula, Brittany, France
  • All Over Corded beaker, Scotland
    All Over Corded beaker,
    Scotland
  • Stone wrist-guard with gold studs, England, c. 2200 BC
    Stone wrist-guard with gold studs, England, c. 2200 BC
  • Flint arrowheads, France
    Flint arrowheads, France
  • Bell Beaker bow reconstruction.[41]
    Bell Beaker bow reconstruction.[41]

Postulated linguistic connections

As the Beaker culture left no written records, all theories regarding the language or languages they spoke remain conjectural. It has been suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture, or as the origin of the Vasconic substrate.

James Mallory (2013) notes that the Beaker culture was associated with a hypothetical cluster of Indo-European dialects termed "North-West Indo-European," a cluster which includes the (predecessors of) Celtic, Italic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic branches.[42]

Earlier theories suggested a link to the hypothesised

Proto-Celtic languages.[43]

Physical anthropology

Anthropomorphic stele from Sion, Switzerland, 2700–2150 BC
Stele fragment depicting patterned clothing, Switzerland, 2700-2150 BC

Historical

craniometric. This apparent evidence of migration was in line with archaeological discoveries linking Beaker culture to new farming techniques, mortuary practices, copper-working skills, and other cultural innovations. However, such evidence from skeletal remains was brushed aside as a new movement developed in archaeology from the 1960s, which stressed cultural continuity. Anti-migrationist authors either paid little attention to skeletal evidence or argued that differences could be explained by environmental and cultural influences. Margaret Cox and Simon Mays sum up the position: "Although it can hardly be said that craniometric data provide an unequivocal answer to the problem of the Beaker folk, the balance of the evidence would at present seem to favour a migration hypothesis."[44]

Non-metrical research concerning the Beaker people in Britain also cautiously pointed in the direction of migration.[45] Subsequent studies, such as one concerning the Carpathian Basin,[46] and a non-metrical analysis of skeletons in central-southern Germany,[47] have also identified marked typological differences with the pre-Beaker inhabitants.

Jocelyne Desideri examined the teeth in skeletons from Bell Beaker sites in Northern Spain, Southern France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Examining dental characteristics that have been independently shown to correlate with genetic relatedness, she found that only in Northern Spain and the Czech Republic were there demonstrable links between immediately previous populations and Bell Beaker populations. Elsewhere there was a discontinuity.[48]

Genetics

Bell Beaker burial from Shrewton, England, 2470–2210 BC

Lee et al. (2012) detected

R1b two male skeletons from a German Bell Beaker site dated to 2600–2500 BC at Kromsdorf, one of which tested positive for M269 but negative for its U106 subclade (note that the P312 subclade was not tested for), while for the other skeleton the M269 test was unclear.[49]

Two studies published in 2015 (Haak et al. 2015, Mathieson et al. 2015) found that Bell Beaker individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic had high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe (such as Corded Ware and Yamnaya) and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.[50][51][52] The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269, a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BC.[53] Bell Beaker individuals from Germany analysed by Haak et al. (2015) were found to have less Steppe ancestry than the earlier Corded Ware culture.[51]

Allentoft et al. (2015) found the people of the Bell Beaker culture to be closely genetically related to the Corded Ware culture, the Unetice culture and the Nordic Bronze Age.[54]

A study published in Nature in 2018 confirmed a massive population turnover in western Europe associated with the Bell Beaker culture.[55] In Britain the spread of the Bell Beaker culture introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of the gene pool within a few hundred years. British Beaker-associated individuals showed strong similarities to central European Beaker-associated individuals in their genetic profile.[56] Both men and women with Steppe ancestry participated in the turnover in Neolithic Britain, as evidenced by the rise of the paternal haplogroup R1b and maternal haplogroups I, R1a and U4. The paternal haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals, but represented more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain.[57] The study also found that the Bell Beaker arrivals in Neolithic Britain had significantly higher genetic variants associated with light skin and eye pigmentation than the local population, but low frequencies of the SNP associated with lactase persistance in modern Europeans.[58]

The Amesbury Archer, Stonehenge, England, c. 2300 BC

The earliest Bell Beaker samples in Iberia lacked Steppe ancestry,[55] but between ~2500 and 2000 BC there was a replacement of 40% of Iberia’s ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry.[59] Y-chromosome lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.[59] The most plausible source population for this genetic influx was found to be Germany Bell Beaker.[60] The earliest samples with Steppe ancestry were located in northern Spain and were modelled as deriving 60.2% of their ancestry from Germany Bell Beaker and 39.8% from the Iberian Copper Age, whilst Iberian Bronze Age samples from c. 2000 BC were modelled as 39.6% Germany Bell Beaker and 60.4% Iberia Copper Age.[61] Some Iberian samples had up to 100% Central European Bell Beaker ancestry.[62] A higher percentage of the genetic influx was due to men than women.[63]

Villalba-Mouco et al. (2021) analysed genome-wide data from 136 southern Iberian individuals dating from the Late Neolithic (3300 cal BCE) to the Late Bronze Age (1200/1000 cal BCE). They found that Bronze Age populations, including those from the El Argar culture were "shifted toward populations with steppe-related ancestry from central Europe" compared to preceding Copper Age groups. After 2100 cal BCE, all individuals from all sites carried steppe-related ancestry, in line with R1b-P312 [R1b-M269] becoming the predominant Y-chromosomal lineage. The major additional ancestry source resembled central European Bell Beaker groups, which first contributed ancestry to northern Iberia, followed by a southward spread. According to the authors, "R1b-Z195, the most common Y lineage in BA Iberia, ultimately derives from a common ancestor R1b-P312 in central Europe." The authors propose that the El Argar culture "likely formed from a mixture of new groups arriving from north-central Iberia, which already carried central European steppe-related ancestry (and the predominant Y-chromosome lineage) and local southeastern Iberian CA groups that differed from other regions in Iberian in that they carried excess Iran_N-like ancestry similar to eastern and/or central Mediterranean groups."[64]

Furtwängler et al. (2020) analysed 96 ancient genomes from Switzerland, Southern Germany, and the Alsace region in France, covering the Middle/Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. They confirmed that R1b arrived in the region during the transitory Bell Beaker period (2800-1800 BC), along with Steppe-related ancestry. The vast majority of Bell Beaker R1b samples belonged to the U152 > L2 clade (11 out of 14; the other being P312 or L51).[65]

Burial mounds (barrows), Britain

Papac et al. (2021) found that the earliest Bell Beaker individuals from Bohemia in the Czech Republic had a similar genetic composition to Corded Ware individuals. A closer phylogenetic relationship was observed between the Y-chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 was the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males in Bohemia, and was ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage found in Bell Beaker males.[66]

Allentoft et al. (2024) found that individuals from Denmark dating from the 'Dagger Period' (c. 4300–3700 BC) clustered with central and western European Late Neolithic-Bronze Age individuals dominated by males with lineages of R1b-M269/L51, matching the appearance of Bell Beaker material culture in Denmark at this time.[67] [68]

Olalde et al. (2018) analysed three Bell Beaker-associated individuals (one male and two females) from northern Italy (Parma), dating from 2200–1930 BC. Two of the individuals were found to have around 25% Early Bronze Age Steppe-related ancestry whilst one had none.[69] The male belonged to Y-haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2 (R1b-M269/P312).[70]

A study by Saupe et al. (2021) found that Bronze Age populations from Northern and Central Italy were characterised by a mix of earlier Chalcolithic ancestry and Steppe-related ancestry. The study found an autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups to Late Neolithic Germany, suggesting that Steppe-related ancestry could have arrived through Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe, such as Germany Bell Beaker. Three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which the paternal haplogroup could be determined belonged to haplogroup R1, and two of those were of the R1b-L11 lineage, which was absent in earlier Chalcolithic samples but is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials.[71]

Posth et al. (2021) found that Iron Age Etruscans from central Italy could be modelled as deriving 50% of their ancestry from Central European Bell Beakers (represented by Germany Bell Beaker), with around 25% steppe ancestry. Two Etruscan samples were modelled as having 80% Germany Bell Beaker ancestry. Overall, the Etruscan samples showed ~75% frequency of the Y-haplogroup R1b, mostly represented by R1b-P312 and its derived R1b-L2 lineage "that diffused across Europe alongside steppe-related ancestry in association with the Bell Beaker complex." According to the authors, the Etruscans carried "a local genetic profile shared with other neighboring populations such as the Latins from Rome and its environs despite the cultural and linguistic differences between the two neighboring groups."[72] Antonio et al. (2019) similarly found that 5 out of 7 male Iron Age Roman samples belonged to the R1b-M269 Y-haplogroup, consistent with "the arrival of Steppe ancestry, via migration of Steppe pastoralists or intermediary populations in the preceding Bronze Age.” The Iron Age Roman population showed a clear ancestry shift from the earlier Copper Age, modelled as an introduction of ~30 to 40% steppe ancestry, which was indicative of "large-scale immigration before the Iron Age."[73]

According to Chintalapatia et al. (2022) a majority of Bronze Age samples from Sardinia lacked steppe-related ancestry, though evidence for steppe-related ancestry was found in a few individuals. This ancestry is estimated to have arrived in Sardinia ~2600 BC.[74]

In a 2020 review Fregel et al. identified European Bronze Age ancestry (including Steppe ancestry) in the Guanches from the Canary Islands, which could be explained by "the presence of Bell-Beaker pottery in the North African archaeological record" and "the expansion of European Bronze Age populations in North Africa".[75] Serrano et al. 2023 analysed genome-wide data from 49 Guanche individuals, whose ancestry was modelled as comprising 73.3% Morocco Late Neolithic, 6.9% Morocco Early Neolithic, 13.4% Germany Bell Beaker and 6.4% Mota, on average. Germany Bell Beaker ancestry reached 16.2% and 17.9% in samples from Gran Canaria and Lanzarote respectively.[76] Bell Beaker-related haplogroups identified in the Guanches include Y-DNA R1b-M269, mtDNA U5 and mtDNA H4a1.[77][78][79][80] These haplogroups have also been identified in mummies from Ancient Egypt.[81][82][83][84][85]

Extent and impact

Copper dagger, gold diadem and wristguard, Spain.[86]

Bell Beaker people took advantage of transport by sea and rivers, creating a cultural spread extending from Ireland to the Carpathian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and along the Rhône valley to Portugal, North Africa, and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy.[87] Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Ireland and Great Britain, the Low Countries and Germany between the Elbe and Rhine, with an extension along the upper Danube into the Vienna Basin (Austria), Hungary and the Czech Republic, with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily; there is less certain evidence for direct penetration in the east.

Beaker-type vessels remained in use longest in the British Isles; late beakers in other areas are classified as early Bronze Age (Barbed Wire Beakers in the Netherlands, Giant Beakers (Riesenbecher)). The new international trade routes opened by the Beaker people became firmly established and the culture was succeeded by a number of Bronze Age cultures, among them the Únětice culture in Central Europe, the Elp culture and Hilversum culture in the Netherlands, the Atlantic Bronze Age in the British Isles and the Atlantic coast of Europe, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany–Poland.

Iberian Peninsula

Bell Beaker from Ciempozuelos, Spain

The Bell Beaker phenomenon in the

Bronze Age.[88] A review of radiocarbon dates for Bell Beaker across Europe found that some of the earliest were found in Portugal, where the range from Zambujal and Cerro de la Virgen (Spain) ran c. 2900–2500 BC, in contrast to the rather later range for Andalusia (c. 2500–2200 BC).[89]

Los Millares, Spain

At present, no internal chronology for the various Bell Beaker-related styles has been achieved yet for Iberia.[90] Peninsular corded Bell Beakers are usually found in coastal or near coastal regions in three main regions: the western Pyrenees, the lower Ebro and adjacent east coast, and the northwest (Galicia and northern Portugal).[91] A corded-zoned Maritime variety (C/ZM), proposed to be a hybrid between AOC and Maritime Herringbone, was mainly found in burial contexts and expanded westward, especially along the mountain systems of the Meseta.

With some notable exceptions, most Iberian early Bell Beaker "burials" are at or near the coastal regions. As for the settlements and monuments within the Iberian context, Beaker pottery is generally found in association with local Chalcolithic material and appears most of all as an "intrusion" from the third millennium in burial monuments whose origin may go back to the fourth or fifth millennia BC.

Very early dates for Bell Beakers were found in Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão in Guarda, central Portugal. The site was located on the summit of a spur. A short-lived first occupation of pre-Bell Beaker building phase at c. 3000 BC revealed the remains of a tower, some pavings, and structures for burning. After a break of one or two centuries, Bell Beaker pottery was introduced in a second building phase that lasted to the Early Bronze Age, c. 1800 BC. A third building phase followed directly and lasted to c. 1300 BC, after which the site was covered with layers of stone and clay, apparently deliberately, and abandoned.

The second building phase was dominated by a highly coherent group of pottery within the regional Chalcolithic styles, representing Maritime Bell Beakers of the local (northern Portuguese), penteada decoration style in various patterns, using lines of points, incision or impression. Three of them were carbon dated to the first half of the third millennium BC. The site demonstrates a notable absence of more common Bell Beaker pottery styles such as Maritime Herringbone and Maritime Lined varieties found in nearby sites such as Castanheiro do Vento and Crasto de Palheiros. One non-local Bell Beaker sherd, however, belonging to the upper part of a beaker with a curved neck and thin walls, was found at the bedrock base of this second phase. The technique and patterning are classic forms in the context of pure European and Peninsular corded ware. In the Iberian Peninsula, this AOC type was traditionally restricted to half a dozen scattered sites in the western Pyrenees, the lower Ebro, and the Spanish east coast; especially a vessel at Filomena at Villarreal, Castellón (Spain), has parallels with the decoration. In Porto Torrão, at inner Alentejo (southern Portugal), a similar vessel was found having a date ultimately corrected to c.2823–2658 BC. All pottery was locally made. The lack or presence of Bell Beaker elements is the basis for the division of Los Millares and Vila Nova cultures into two periods: I and II.

A gold lunula with two gold discs was found in Cabeceiras de Basto, Portugal, dating from the Bell Beaker period.[92][93]

In 2016 archaeologists discovered a large circular earthwork enclosure in southern Spain near Carmona (Sevilla), dating from the Bell Beaker period, c.2600–2200 BC. The complex of concentric rings, known as 'La Loma del Real Tesoro II' may have been used for holding rituals.[94][95] Circular earth and timber enclosures are also known from Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands in this period, as well as Stonehenge in England.

Balearic Islands

Beaker with Sun cross on the base.[98]

Radiocarbon dating currently indicates a 1,200-year duration for the use of the Beaker pottery on the Balearic Islands, between about 2475 and 1300 BC.[99] Some evidence exists of all-corded pottery in Mallorca, generally considered the most ancient Bell Beaker pottery, possibly indicating an even earlier Beaker settlement at c. 2700 BC.[100] However, in several regions, this type of pottery persisted long enough to permit other possibilities. Suárez Otero (1997) postulated this corded Beakers entered the Mediterranean by routes both through the Atlantic coast and eastern France. Bell Beaker pottery has been found in Mallorca and Formentera, but has not been observed in Menorca or Ibiza. Collective burials in dolmen structures in Ibiza could be contrasted against the individual burials in Mallorca. In its latest phase (c.1750–1300 cal BC) the local Beaker context became associated with the distinctive ornamented Boquique pottery[101] demonstrating clear maritime links with the (megalithic) coastal regions of Catalonia, also assessed to be directly related to the late Cogotas complex. In most of the areas of the mainland, Boquique pottery falls into the latter stages of the Bell Beaker complex, as well. Along with other evidence during the earlier Beaker period in the Balearics, c. 2400–2000 BC, as shown by the local presence of elephant ivory objects together with significant Beaker pottery and other finds,[102] this maritime interaction can be shown to have a long tradition. The abundance of different cultural elements that persisted towards the end of the Bronze Age, show a clear continuity of different regional and intrusive traditions.

The presence of perforated Beaker pottery, traditionally considered to be used for making cheese, at Son Ferrandell-Oleza [103] and at Coval Simó [104] confirms the introduction of production and conservation of dairy. Also, the presence of spindles at sites like Son Ferrandell-Oleza [105] or Es Velar d'Aprop [106] point to knowledge of making thread and textiles from wool. However, more details on the strategies for tending and slaughtering the domestic animals involved are forthcoming. Being traditionally associated with the introduction of metallurgy, the first traces of copper working in the Balearics were also clearly associated with Bell Beakers.

Central Europe

Bell Beaker dress with gold ornaments, Czech Republic

In their large-scale study on

Early Bronze Age. The Makó-Kosihy-Čaka culture, indigenous to the Carpathians, may be included as a third component.[107]
Their development, diffusion and long range changes are determined by the great river systems.

Gold lunula from Lower Saxony, Germany.[108][109]

The Bell Beaker settlements are still little known, and have proved remarkably difficult for archaeologists to identify. This allows a modern view of them to contradict results of anthropologic research.

Gordon Childe (1940), added rather than replaced local late Neolithic traditions into a cultural package and as such did not always and evenly abandon all local traditions.[110] More recent extensive DNA evidence, however, suggests a significant replacement of earlier populations.[111]

Bell Beaker domestic ware has no predecessors in Bohemia and Southern Germany, shows no genetic relation to the local Late Copper Age Corded Ware, nor to other cultures in the area, and is considered something completely new. The Bell Beaker domestic ware of Southern Germany is not as closely related to the Corded Ware as would be indicated by their burial rites. Settlements link the Southern German Bell Beaker culture to the seven regional provinces of the Eastern Group, represented by many settlement traces, especially from Moravia and the Hungarian Bell Beaker-Csepel group being the most important. In 2002, one of the largest Bell Beaker cemeteries in Central Europe was discovered at Hoštice za Hanou (Moravia, Czech Republic).[112]

The relationship to the western Bell Beakers groups, and the contemporary cultures of the Carpathian basin to the south east, is much less.

Adriatic and the Ionian Sea, including the modern states comprising Belarus, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Albania, North Macedonia and parts of Greece.[114]

Switzerland

The Bell Beaker culture settlements in southern Germany and in the East-Group show evidence of mixed farming and animal husbandry, and indicators such as millstones and spindle whorls prove the sedentary character of the Bell Beaker people, and the durability of their settlements.[113] Some especially well equipped child-burials seem to indicate sense of predestined social position, indicating a socially complex society. However, analysis of grave furnishing, position within the cemetery, and size and deepness of grave pits did not lead to any strong conclusions on the social divisions.

Bell Beaker, Germany

The Late Copper Age is regarded as a continuous culture system connecting the

Nagyrév Culture
of the Carpathian Basin.

During the Bell Beaker period, a border ran through southern Germany, which culturally divided a northern from a southern area. The northern area was oriented around the Rhine and the Bell Beaker West Group, while the southern area occupied much of the Danube river system and was mainly settled by the homogeneous Bell Beaker East Group. This latter group overlapped with the Corded Ware Culture and other groups of the Late Neolithic and early Bronze Age. Nevertheless, southern Germany shows some independent developments of itself.[30]

Pömmelte circular enclosure, Germany, c. 2300 BC.[116][117][118][119]

Although a broadly parallel evolution with early, middle, and younger Bell Beaker Culture was detected, the Southern Germany middle Bell Beaker development of metope decorations and stamp and furrow engraving techniques do not appear on beakers in Austria-Western Hungary, and handled beakers are completely absent. It is contemporary to Corded Ware in the vicinity, that has been attested by associated finds of middle Corded Ware (chronologically referred to as "beaker group 2" or Step B) and younger Geiselgasteig Corded Ware beakers ("beaker group 3" or Step C). Bell Beaker Culture in Bavaria used a specific type of copper, which is characterised by combinations of

trace elements
. This same type of copper was spread over the area of the Bell Beaker East Group.

Previously some archaeologists considered the Bell-beaker people to have lived only within a limited territory of the Carpathian Basin and for a short time, without mixing with the local population. Although there are very few evaluable anthropological finds, the appearance of the characteristic

Carpathian Basin, which could be confirmed with the anthropological Bell Beaker series in Moravia and Germany.[46] In accordance with anthropological evidence, it has been concluded the Bell Beakers intruded in an already established form the southern part of Germany as much as the East Group area.[30]

Around 2300 BC, large circular enclosures were built at Pömmelte and nearby Schönebeck in central Germany. These were important ritual sites which remained in use until c. 1900 BC.[120][121] The main entrances of the Pömmelte enclosure were oriented towards sunrise and sunset midway between the solstices and equinoxes, indicating that Pömmelte served as a monument for "ceremonies linked to calendrical rites and seasonal feasting".[122] The Pömmelte and Schönebeck enclosures formed parts of a 'sacral landscape' with origins in an early 3rd millennium BC sanctuary and elite burial of the Corded Ware culture.[123] The Pömmelte enclosure also has an almost identical diameter and a similar ground plan to Stonehenge in England.[124] According to excavators the two monuments were built by "the same culture" with "the same view of the world".[118]

  • Bell Beaker from the Czech Republic
    Bell Beaker from the Czech Republic
  • Copper dagger from Brandenburg, Germany.[125]
    Copper dagger from Brandenburg, Germany.[125]
  • Gold discs from Eythra, Germany
    Gold discs from Eythra, Germany
  • Gold diadem and jewellery, Germany
    Gold diadem and jewellery, Germany
  • Stone wrist-guards from Central Europe
    Stone wrist-guards from Central Europe
  • House reconstruction, Csepel group, Hungary.[126]
    House reconstruction, Csepel group,
    Hungary.[126]
  • Outline of an Early Bronze Age longhouse, Germany[127][128]
    Outline of an Early Bronze Age longhouse, Germany[127][128]
  • Pottery and implements, Germany
    Pottery and implements, Germany

Ireland

Gold lunula from Blessington, c. 2400 BC

Beakers arrived in Ireland c. 2500 BC and fell out of use c. 1700 BC.

wedge tombs
in the west. Cremation was also common.

The advent of the Bronze Age Beaker culture in Ireland is accompanied by the destruction of smaller satellite tombs at Knowth[131] and collapses of the great cairn at Newgrange,[132] marking an end to the Neolithic culture of megalithic passage tombs.

Beakers are found in large numbers in Ireland, and the technical innovation of ring-built pottery indicates that the makers were also present.[133] Classification of pottery in Ireland and Britain has distinguished a total of seven intrusive[134] beaker groups originating from the continent and three groups of purely insular character having evolved from them. Five out of seven of the intrusive Beaker groups also appear in Ireland: the European bell group, the All-over cord beakers, the Scottish/North Rhine beakers, the Northern British/Middle Rhine beakers and the Wessex/Middle Rhine beakers. However, many of the features or innovations of Beaker society in Britain never reached Ireland.[135] Instead, quite different customs predominated in the Irish record that were apparently influenced by the traditions of the earlier inhabitants.[136] Some features that are found elsewhere in association to later types[137] of Earlier Bronze Age Beaker pottery, indeed spread to Ireland, however, without being incorporated into the same close and specific association of Irish Beaker context.[138] The Wessex/Middle Rhine gold discs bearing "wheel and cross" motifs that were probably sewn to garments, presumably to indicate status and reminiscent of racquet headed pins found in Eastern Europe,[139] enjoy a general distribution throughout the country, however, never in direct association with beakers.

In 1984, a Beaker period copper dagger blade was recovered from the Sillees River near Ross Lough, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.[140] The flat, triangular-shaped copper blade was 171 mm (6.73 in) long, with bevelled edges and a pointed tip, and featured an integral tang that accepted a riveted handle.[140] Flint arrow-heads and copper-blade daggers with handle tangs, found in association with Beaker pottery in many other parts of Europe, have a date later than the initial phase of Beaker People activity in Ireland.[141] Also the typical Beaker wristguards seem to have entered Ireland by cultural diffusion only, after the first intrusions, and unlike English and Continental Beaker burials never made it to the graves. The same lack of typical Beaker association applies to the about thirty found stone battle axes. A gold ornament found in County Down that closely resembles a pair of ear-rings from Ermegeira, Portugal, has a composition that suggests it was imported.[141] Incidental finds suggest links to non-British Beaker territories, like a fragment of a bronze blade in County Londonderry that has been likened to the "palmella" points of Iberia,[134] even though the relative scarcity of beakers, and Beaker-compatible material of any kind, in the south-west are regarded as an obstacle to any colonisation directly from Iberia, or even from France.[134] Their greater concentration in the northern part of the country,[133] which traditionally is regarded as the part of Ireland least blessed with sources of copper,[citation needed] has led many authorities to question the role of Beaker People in the introduction of metallurgy to Ireland. However, indications of their use of stream sediment copper, low in traces of lead and arsenic, and Beaker finds connected to mining and metalworking at Ross Island, County Kerry, provide an escape to such doubts.[142]

Gold lunula and discs from Coggalbeg, Ireland, c. 2300 BC.[143]

The featured "

race of Beaker Folk",[146] although the differences between Irish finds and e.g. the British combination of "round barrows with crouched, unburnt burials" make it difficult to establishes the exact nature of the Beaker People's colonization of Ireland.[135]

Timber circle at Newgrange, Ireland, c. 2000 BC

In general, the early Irish Beaker intrusions do not attest[147] the overall "Beaker package" of innovations that, once fully developed, swept Europe elsewhere, leaving Ireland behind.[148] The Irish Beaker period is characterised by the earliness[141] of Beaker intrusions, by isolation[141] and by influences and surviving traditions of autochthons.[149]

Beaker culture introduces the practice of burial in single graves, suggesting an Earlier Bronze Age social organisation of family groups.[150] Towards the Later Bronze Age the sites move to potentially fortifiable hilltops, suggesting a more "clan"-type structure.[151] Although the typical Bell Beaker practice of crouched burial has been observed,[152] cremation was readily adopted[153] in accordance with the previous tradition of the autochthons.[131] In a tumulus the find of the extended skeleton of a woman accompanied by the remains of a red deer and a small seven-year-old stallion is noteworthy, including the hint to a Diana-like religion.[154] A few burials seem to indicate social status, though in other contexts an emphasis to special skills is more likely.[155]

One of the most important sites in Ireland during the Beaker period is

copper mines from here are the earliest known in Ireland, starting from c. 2500 BC (O'Brien 2004). A comparison of chemical traces and lead isotope analysis from these mines with copper artefacts strongly suggests that Ross Island was the sole source of copper in Ireland between the dates 2500–2200 BC. In addition, two thirds of copper artefacts from Britain also display the same chemical and isotopic signature, strongly suggesting that Irish copper was a major export to Britain.[156] Traces of Ross Island copper can be found even further afield; in the Netherlands it makes up 12% of analysed copper artefacts, and Brittany 6% of analysed copper artefacts[157]
After 2200 BC there is greater chemical variation in British and Irish copper artefacts, which tallies well with the appearance of other mines in southern Ireland and north Wales. After 2000 BC, other copper sources supersede Ross Island. The latest workings from the Ross Island mines is dated to around 1700 BC.

Reconstruction of a halberd from Carn.[158]

As well as exporting raw copper/bronze, there were some technical and cultural developments in Ireland that had an important impact on other areas of Europe. Irish food vessels were adopted in northern Britain in c. 2200 BC and this roughly coincides with a decline in the use of beakers in Britain.[129] The 'bronze halberd' (not to be confused with the medieval halberd) was a weapon in use in Ireland from c.2400–2000 BC.[129] They are essentially broad blades that were mounted horizontally on a meter long handle, giving greater reach and impact than any known contemporary weapon.[159] They were subsequently widely adopted in other parts of Europe,[160] possibly showing a change in the technology of warfare.[161]

Solar symbolism

Ireland has the greatest concentration of

gold lunulae and stone wrist-guards
in Europe. However, neither of these items were deposited in graves and they tend to be found isolated and at random.

In some cases gold lunulae have been found with pairs of gold discs, e.g. at

solar boat, which she compares to the gold boat depicted on the Nebra sky disc and to depictions of solar boats from the Nordic Bronze Age, as well as to depictions on pottery from Los Millares in Spain. According to Cahill, pairs of gold discs found with lunulae may therefore represent "the day and night sun", symbolising the movement of the sun from day to night and from east to west.[165] The double-sun motif has also been linked to the mythological Divine Twins,[166][167] as have ritual depositions of twinned objects, including two swords buried with the Nebra sky disc.[168]

Scientific analyses have shown that gold used to make both the Irish lunulae and the Nebra sky disc originated from Cornwall, providing a further link between these artefacts.[164][169] Cornwall was also the likely source of gold used to make artefacts from the Bush Barrow at Stonehenge.[170] Gold used to make discs from western Asturias (northern Spain) dating from the Bell Beaker period, was similarly found to be of non-local origin and possibly from southern Britain.[171]

  • Gold lunula, c. 2000 BC
    Gold lunula, c. 2000 BC
  • Bronze dagger, c. 1900 BC
    Bronze dagger, c. 1900 BC
  • Gold discs from Tedavnet, c. 2200 BC.[172]
    Gold discs from Tedavnet, c. 2200 BC.[172]
  • Bell Beaker ceramic, c. 2200 BC
    Bell Beaker ceramic, c. 2200 BC
  • Gold ornaments, c. 2200 BC
    Gold ornaments, c. 2200 BC
  • Gold discs
    Gold discs
  • Gold lunula, c. 2000 BC
    Gold lunula, c. 2000 BC
  • Copper axe, c.2300-2000 BC
    Copper axe, c.2300-2000 BC

Britain

Silbury Hill, England, c. 2400 BC
Stonehenge, England, c. 2500 BC

Beakers arrived in Britain in c.2500 BC, with migrations of

Corded Ware-related people, eventually resulting in a near total turnover of the British population.[173] The Beaker-culture declined in use c.2200–2100 BC with the emergence of food vessels and cinerary urns and finally fell out of use around 1700 BC.[129] The earliest British beakers were similar to those from the Rhine,[174] but later styles are most similar to those from Ireland.[175]
In Britain, domestic assemblages from this period are very rare, making it hard to draw conclusions about many aspects of society. Most British beakers come from funerary contexts.

Britain's only unique export in this period is thought to be tin. It was probably gathered in streams in Cornwall and Devon as cassiterite pebbles and traded in this raw, unrefined state.[176] It was used to turn copper into bronze from c. 2200 BC and widely traded throughout Britain and into Ireland. Other possible European sources of tin are located in Brittany and Iberia, but it is not thought they were exploited so early as these areas did not have bronze until after it was well established in Britain and Ireland.[177]

The most famous site in Britain from this period is Stonehenge, which had its Neolithic form elaborated extensively. Many barrows surround it and an unusual number of 'rich' burials can be found nearby, such as the Amesbury Archer and the later Bush Barrow.

Close similarities have been noted between Stonehenge and Pömmelte circular enclosure in central Germany, which was built by Bell Beaker people c. 2300 BC.[124] [118]

mummification,[184][185] burial in log coffins[186][187] and cranial deformation to Britain.[188]

twin gods or an early form of the Divine Twins.[191]

Another site of particular interest in this period is

Humber Estuary, where Europe's oldest sewn-plank boats were recovered, dating from as early as 2030 BC.[192] These are the oldest known sewn-plank boats in the world outside of Egypt.[193][194] A later example is the Dover Boat from southern England, dating from 1550 BC.[195]

Italian Peninsula

Bell Beaker sites in Italy

The Italian Peninsula's most affected areas are the Po Valley, in particular the area of Lake Garda, and Tuscany. The bell-shaped vases appear in these areas of central and northern Italy as "foreign elements" integrated in the pre-existing Remedello and Rinaldone cultures.[203]

Graves with Beaker artefacts have been discovered in the Brescia area, like that of Ca' di Marco (Fiesse), while in central Italy, bell-shaped glasses were found in the tomb of Fosso Conicchio (Viterbo).[204]

The Bell Beaker culture was followed by the Polada culture and Proto-Apennine culture.

Sardinia

Sardinia has been in contact with extra-insular communities in Corsica, Tuscany, Liguria and Provence since the Stone Age. From the late third millennium BC on, comb-impressed Beaker ware, as well as other Beaker material in Monte Claro contexts, has been found (mostly in burials, such as Domus de Janas), demonstrating continuing relationships with the western Mediterranean. Elsewhere, Beaker material has been found stratigraphically above Monte Claro and at the end of the Chalcolithic period in association with the related Bronze Age Bonnanaro culture (1800–1600 BC), for which C-14 dates calibrate to c. 2250 BC. There is virtually no evidence in Sardinia of external contacts in the early second millennia, apart from late Beakers and close parallels between Bonnannaro pottery and that of the North Italian Polada culture.

Like elsewhere in Europe and in the Mediterranean area, the Bell Beaker culture in Sardinia (2100–1800 BC) is characterised by the typical ceramics decorated with overlaid horizontal bands and associated finds: brassards, V-pierced buttons etc.; for the first time gold items appeared on the island (

collier of the tomb of Bingia 'e Monti, Gonnostramatza). The different styles and decorations of the ceramics which succeed through the time allow to split the Beaker culture in Sardinia into three chronological phases: A1 (2100–2000 BC), A2 (2000–1900 BC), B (1900–1800 BC).[205] In these various phases is observable the succession of two components of different geographical origin: the first "Franco-Iberian" and the second "Central European".[206]

It appears likely that Sardinia was the intermediary that brought Beaker culture to Sicily.[207]

Sicily

The Beaker was introduced in Sicily from Sardinia and spread mainly in the north-west and south-west of the island. In the northwest and in the Palermo kept almost intact its cultural and social characteristics, while in the south-west there was a strong integration with local cultures.[209] The only known single bell-shaped glass in eastern Sicily was found in Syracuse.[209]

Greece

Bell Beaker artefacts appear in mainland Greece and the Aegean from c.2200–2000 BC. According to Heyd (2013) and Maran (1998) this is explained by the movement of people from the Adriatic Cetina culture into Greece at the transition from Early Helladic II to III. The Cetina culture was a "syncretistic Bell Beaker culture", splitting off from the Adriatic variant of the Vučedol culture and at the same time incorporating Bell Beaker elements related to those in northern Italy.[210][211] Kristiansen and Larsson (2005) suggest that migrants from both the Adriatic Cetina culture and the Danube area reached Greece in this period, the latter indicated by close similarities in pottery forms to the Mokrin and Nagyrev cultures.[212] New and more intensive exchange of goods subsequently developed after 1900 BC between Greece and Bell Beaker-derived cultures such as the Unetice culture in central Europe and the Wessex culture in Britain.[212] According to Galaty et al. (2015) a 'warrior culture' including "ideas related to warrior aristocracy" spread from Europe to Greece through contact with the Cetina culture, along with the tradition of tumulus burial.[213]

Scandinavia

Gold lunula from Grevinge, Denmark, c.2350-1950 BC.[214]
Late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age house, Denmark, c.1900 BC.[215][216]
Late Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age house remains, Denmark, c. 1900 BC.[215]

In Denmark, large areas of forested land were cleared to be used for pasture and the growing of cereals during the Single Grave culture and in the Late Neolithic Period. Faint traces of Bell Beaker influence can be recognised already in the pottery of the Upper Grave phase of the Single Grave period, and even of the late Ground Grave phase, such as occasional use of AOO-like or zoned decoration and other typical ornamentation, while Bell Beaker associated objects such as wristguards and small copper trinkets, also found their way into this northern territories of the Corded Ware Culture. Domestic sites with Beakers only appear 200–300 years after the first appearance of Bell Beakers in Europe, at the early part of the Danish Late Neolithic Period (LN I) starting at 2350 BC. These sites are concentrated in northern Jutland around the Limfjord and on the Djursland peninsula, largely contemporary to the local Upper Grave Period. In east central Sweden and western Sweden, barbed wire decoration characterised the period 2460–1990 BC, linked to another Beaker derivation of northwestern Europe.

Stone and copper arms trade

Reconstruction of a building at Østbirk, Denmark, c. 1800 BC

Northern Jutland has abundant sources of high quality flint, which had previously attracted industrious mining, large-scale production, and the comprehensive exchange of flint objects: notably axes and chisels. The Danish Beaker period, however, was characterised by the manufacture of lanceolate flint daggers, described as a completely new material form without local antecedents in flint and clearly related to the style of daggers circulating elsewhere in Beaker dominated Europe. Presumably Beaker culture spread from here to the remainder of Denmark, and to other regions in Scandinavia and northern Germany as well. Central and eastern Denmark adopted this dagger fashion and, to a limited degree, also archer's equipment characteristic to Beaker culture, although here Beaker pottery remained less common. This period in Scandinavian prehistory, from 2400-1800 BC, is also known as the Dagger Period.[217]

The spread of metallurgy in Denmark is also intimately related to the Beaker representation in northern Jutland. The LN I metalwork is distributed throughout most of Denmark, but a concentration of early copper and gold coincides with this core region, hence suggesting a connection between Beakers and the introduction of metallurgy. Most LN I metal objects are distinctly influenced by the western European Beaker metal industry, gold sheet ornaments and copper flat axes being the predominant metal objects. The LN I copper flat axes divide into As-Sb-Ni copper, recalling so-called Dutch Bell Beaker copper and the As-Ni copper found occasionally in British and Irish Beaker contexts, the mining region of Dutch Bell Beaker copper being perhaps Brittany; and the Early Bronze Age Singen (As-Sb-Ag-Ni) and Ösenring (As-Sb-Ag) coppers having a central European – probably Alpine – origin.

Connections with other parts of Beaker culture

Bell Beaker, Netherlands

The Beaker group in northern Jutland forms an integrated part of the western European Beaker Culture, while western Jutland provided a link between the Lower Rhine area and northern Jutland. The local fine-ware pottery of Beaker derivation reveal links with other Beaker regions in western Europe, most specifically the Veluwe group at the Lower Rhine (Netherlands). Concurrent introduction of metallurgy shows that some people must have crossed cultural boundaries. Danish Beakers are contemporary with the earliest Early Bronze Age (EBA) of the East Group of Bell Beakers in central Europe, and with the floruit of Beaker cultures of the West Group in western Europe. The latter comprise Veluwe and Epi-Maritime in Continental northwestern Europe and the Middle Style Beakers (Style 2) in insular western Europe.

Bronze Age house reconstruction, Netherlands

The interaction between the Beaker groups on the Veluwe Plain and in Jutland must, at least initially, have been quite intensive. All-over ornamented (AOO) and All-over-corded (AOC), and particularly Maritime style beakers are featured, although from a fairly late context and possibly rather of Epi-maritime style, equivalent to the situation in the north of the Netherlands, where Maritime ornamentation continued after it ceased in the central region of Veluwe and were succeeded c. 2300 BC by beakers of the Veluwe and Epi-Maritime style.[24]

Clusters of Late Neolithic Beaker presence similar to northern Jutland appear as pockets or "islands" of Beaker Culture in northern Europe, such as Mecklenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and southern Norway.[218][219][220][221][222] In northern central Poland Beaker-like representations even occur in a contemporary EBA setting. The frequent occurrence of Beaker pottery in settlements points at a large-scaled form of social identity or cultural identity, or perhaps an ethnic identity.

In 2023 a large circular enclosure dating from c. 2000 BC was discovered near the town of Tiel in the province of Gelderland. Described as the "Stonehenge of the Netherlands", the enclosure consisted of earth banks and ditches with entrances aligned to the solstices and equinoxes. At the centre of the enclosure there was a burial mound containing numerous burials. According to the excavators the enclosure functioned as a solar calendar used to determine "important moments including festival and harvest days". Wooden longhouses and other burial mounds were found in the immediate vicinity of the site. A glass bead from Mesopotamia dating from c. 2000 BC was also found in the enclosure, indicating that long-distance contacts already existed at this time.[223]

Three gold lunulae have been found in Denmark dating from the Bell Beaker period,[224][225] and one in the Netherlands.[226]

  • Bell Beaker artefacts, Netherlands
    Bell Beaker artefacts, Netherlands
  • Amber, Denmark
    Amber, Denmark
  • Hindsgavl flint dagger, Denmark, c. 1900 BC
    Hindsgavl flint dagger, Denmark, c. 1900 BC
  • Bow-shaped pendant, Germany.[227]
    Bow-shaped pendant, Germany.[227]
  • Bell Beaker ceramic, Netherlands
  • Beaker, dagger, wristguard and arrowheads
  • Copper axe, Netherlands
    Copper axe, Netherlands

Burial practices

In eastern Denmark and Scania one-person graves occur primarily in flat grave cemeteries. This is a continuation of the burial custom characterising the Scanian Battle-axe Culture, often to continue into the early Late Neolithic. Also in northern Jutland, the body of the deceased was normally arranged lying on its back in an extended position, but a typical Bell Beaker contracted position occurs occasionally. Typical to northern Jutland, however, cremations have been reported, also outside the Beaker core area, once within the context of an almost full Bell Beaker equipment.

Social transition

The introductory phase of the manufacture and use of flint daggers, c. 2350 BC, must all in all be characterised as a period of social change. Apel argued that an institutionalised apprenticeship system must have existed.[228] Craftsmanship was transmitted by inheritance in certain families living in the vicinity of abundant resources of high-quality flint. Debbie Olausson's (1997) examinations indicate that flint knapping activities, particularly the manufacture of daggers, reflect a relatively low degree of craft specialisation, probably in the form of a division of labour between households.

Noteworthy was the adoption of European-style woven wool clothes kept together by pins and buttons in contrast to the earlier usage of clothing made of leather and plant fibres.[229][230] Two-aisled timber houses in Late Neolithic Denmark correspond to similar houses in southern Scandinavia and at least parts of central Scandinavia and lowland northern Germany. In Denmark, this mode of building houses is clearly rooted in a Middle Neolithic tradition. In general, Late Neolithic house building styles were shared over large areas of northern and central Europe.[231] Towards the transition to LN II some farm houses became extraordinarily large.

End of a distinct Beaker culture

The cultural concepts originally adopted from Beaker groups at the lower Rhine blended or integrated with local Late Neolithic Culture. For a while the region was set apart from central and eastern Denmark, that evidently related more closely to the early Únětice culture across the Baltic Sea. Before the turn of the millennium the typical Beaker features had gone, their total duration being 200–300 years at the most.

A similar picture of cultural integration is featured among Bell Beakers in central Europe, thus challenging previous theories of Bell Beakers as an elitist or purely super-structural phenomenon.

Northern Bronze Age.[237]

See also

Notes

  1. Yamna culture, formed after the incursion of the Yamna people into the Vučedol milieu and the interaction of these peoples for three or four centuries, from circa 3000 BC.[18]
  2. ^ See Anthrogenica, Eurogenes Blog: Hungarian Yamnaya > Bell Beakers?, for a number of maps.

References

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  2. ^ Bradley 2007, p. 144.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Cunliffe 2010.
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  43. ^ "Almagro-Gorbea – La lengua de los Celtas y otros pueblos indoeuropeos de la península ibérica", 2001 p. 95. In Almagro-Gorbea, M., Mariné, M. and Álvarez-Sanchís, J. R. (eds) Celtas y Vettones, pp. 115–121. Ávila: Diputación Provincial de Ávila.
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  45. ^ A Test of Non-metrical Analysis as Applied to the 'Beaker Problem' – Natasha Grace Bartels, University of Albeda, Department of Anthropology, 1998 [1]
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  51. ^ .
  52. .
  53. . The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
  54. . European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
  55. ^ .
  56. . migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
  57. . While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
  58. . Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
  59. ^ . We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high resolution time transect of the Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers prior to the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE, and by ~2000 BCE the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. … the lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.
  60. . We started by modeling the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia (Iberia_CA_Stp), dated to ~2500-2000 BCE. … Only one 2-way model fits the ancestry in Iberia_Copper_Age_Stp: Germany_Beaker (Germany Bell Beaker) + Iberia_CA (Iberia Copper Age). Finding a Bell Beaker-related group as a plausible source for the introduction of steppe ancestry into Iberia is consistent with the fact that some of the individuals in the Iberia_CA_Stp group were excavated in Bell Beaker associated contexts. … For Iberia_BA (Iberia Bronze Age), we added Iberia_CA_Stp to the outgroup set as a possible source. The same Germany_Beaker + Iberia_CA model shows a good fit, but with less ancestry attributed to Germany_Beaker. Another working model is Iberia_CA+Iberia_CA_Stp, suggesting that Iberia_Bronze_Age is a mixture between the local Iberia_CA population and the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia.
  61. .
  62. .
  63. . These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of non-local ancestry on the X-chromosome, a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
  64. .
  65. .
  66. . The earliest Bell Beaker individuals occupy a similar position in PCA as Corded Ware individuals, suggesting a degree of genetic continuity. […] We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage in Bell Beaker.
  67. .
  68. ^ Kristiansen, Kristian (2009). "Proto-Indo-European Languages and Institutions: An Archaeological Approach". In van der Linden, M.; Jones-Bley, C. (eds.). Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, No. 56: Departure from the Homeland. pp. 111–140. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2023.
  69. PMID 29466337
    .
  70. .
  71. . all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker […] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials […] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe […] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
  72. .
  73. .
  74. .
  75. .
  76. .
  77. . Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
  78. .
  79. .
  80. . Retrieved 13 July 2020.
  81. . Takabuti belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1. […] in the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in sixth–fourteenth century CE remains sourced from the Canary Islands, and three additional ancient DNA samples, two from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) at Quedlinburg and Eulau, both in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and one individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria […] Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our findings, which is of great archaeological interest and importance, is the observation of a predominantly European haplogroup in an Egyptian individual located in Southern Egypt.
  82. .
  83. . The haplogroup for three of the investigated mummies, namely Tutankhamun, KV55 (Akhenaten) and Amenhotep III, was R1b
  84. ^ "The Tutankhamun DNA Project". iGenea. Tutankhamun belongs to the haplogroup R-M269, which more than 50% of all men in Western Europe belong to.
  85. S2CID 232315321
    . Haplogroup R1b1a1b [R1b-M269] isolated in the studied samples is also uncharacteristic of the modern Egyptian population; its frequency in the population is less than 1%, while it is found in approximately half of the male population of Western Europe.
  86. ^ "Gold artefacts of the Bell Beaker culture, Iberia".
  87. ^ The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe - Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press (1994), pp. 250–254.
  88. .
  89. ^ .
  90. ^ Jorge, Susana Oliveira (2002). "An all-over corded Bell Beaker in northern Portugal: Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão (Vila Nova de Foz Côa): some remarks" (PDF). Journal of Iberian Archaeology. 4: 107–123. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 January 2005.
  91. . Retrieved 4 October 2015.
  92. ^ Cahill, Mary (Spring 2015). "'Here comes the sun....: solar symbolism in Early Bronze Age Ireland'". Archaeology Ireland. 29 (1): 26–33.
  93. . The Cabeceiras de Basto discs were found with a lunula whose similarities to the Irish series were noted by Cardoso in the first publication of the find (Cardoso, 1930: 6-16, fig. 2). Even if the Cabeceiras de Basto lunula is 'a very peripheral cousin of the British lunula' (Taylor, 1980: 24, pl. 23, b), it is still related. The association of lunula and discs, both types of object that are well known in Ireland (Case, 1977; Cahill, 2015) is unlikely to be coincidental. It has been demonstrated recently in relation to the Coggalbeg, Co. Roscommon find that lunulae and sun discs were sometimes associated in Ireland (Kelly & Cahill, 2010). The pair of gold discs from Oviedo is less well known than the Cabeceiras de Basto finds and although their decoration differs from the Irish discs in detail, they are similar in their shape and size, in having a central cross and central holes, and in having been made as a pair (Macwhite, 1951: 50, lám. viii). These finds seem likely to be broadly contemporary with the Tablada del Rudrón ornaments.
  94. ^ "First Bell Beaker earthwork enclosure found in Spain". University of Tübingen. 2016.
  95. ^ Sanjuán, Leonardo García; Bartelheim, Martin (2017). "Chalcolithic enclosures in the lower Guadalquivir Basin: La Loma del Real Tesoro". Bartelheim, M.; Bueno Ramírez, P. And Kunst, M. (Eds.): Key Resources and Socio-Cultural Developments in the Iberian Chalcolithic, 257-272. Tübingen. University of Tübingen.
  96. ^ Armbruster, Barbara (2015). "Early gold technology as an indicator of circulation processes in Atlantic Europe". The Bell Beaker transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millenium BC. Oxbow Books. pp. 140–149.
  97. PMID 29962659
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  98. ^ "Ciempozuelos beaker geometric patterns: a glimpse into their meaning". 2015.
  99. ^ (Waldren and Van Strydonck 1996).
  100. ISSN 1131-6993
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  101. .
  102. ^ (Waldren 1979 and Waldren 1998),
  103. ^ (Waldren 1998: 95)
  104. ^ (Coll 2000),
  105. ^ (Waldren 1998: 94)
  106. ^ (Carreras y Covas 1984)
  107. .
  108. ^ O'Connor, Brendan (2010). "From Dorchester to Dieskau – some aspects of relations between Britain and Central Europe during the Early Bronze Age". In Meller, Harald; Bertemes, Francoise (eds.). Der Griff nach den Sternen - Wie Europas Eliten zu Macht und Reichtum kamen, 591-602. Halle: Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle.
  109. ^ "Gold lunula from Schulenburg". this crescent-shaped golden necklace from the beginning of the third millennium BC is extremely rare evidence of contact between early Bronze Age elites in Central Europe and the British Isles, as it is possible that the find was imported from Ireland at the time. To date, 69 golden lunulae (Latin lunula = small moon), as the necklace is also called because of its shape, have been found in Ireland alone. The Schulenburg gold jewelry consists of almost pure gold, which was probably driven into a thin sheet by hammering a gold rod, then ground and finally polished. The striking similarity to the crescent moon indicates a corresponding symbolic meaning of this gold jewelry.
  110. .
  111. .
  112. ^ Anthropology of skeletal remains of Bell – Beaker people from Moravia (Czech Republic)
  113. ^ .
  114. ^ The Eastern Border of the Bell Beaker-Phenomenon – Volker Heyd, 2004
  115. .
  116. ^ "Aerial view of the Pommelte enclosure". dw.com. 2020.
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  118. ^ a b c "Stonehenge's Continental Cousin". Archaeology. January 2021.
  119. ^ "The World of the Nebra Sky Disc". Halle State Museum of Prehistory.
  120. .
  121. ^ Meller, Harald (2019). "Princes, Armies, Sanctuaries - The emergence of complex authority in the Central German Únětice culture". Acta Archaeologica. 90 (1): 39–79.
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  123. . the Pömmelte–Schönebeck complex can be best understood as a sacral landscape in which the two enclosures were focal points standing in dialectic relation to each other. This sacral landscape began to be established in the early 3rd millennium BC with a small sanctuary and a burial of a warrior-leader of the Corded Ware Culture.
  124. ^ a b Concepts of cosmos in the world of Stonehenge. British Museum. 2022.
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  126. .
  127. ^ What was life like in the Early Bronze Age? (Digital reconstruction of a Unetice culture longhouse, c. 2200 BC). Terra X.
  128. ^ "Benzingerode longhouse reconstruction, p.192". Tagungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte Halle. 2019.
  129. ^ a b c d Needham, S. (1996). "Chronology and periodisation in the British Bronze Age". Acta Archaeologica. 67: 121–140.
  130. ^ O'Kelly, M.J. (1982). Newgrange: Archaeology, Art and Legend. London: Thames & Hudson.
  131. ^ a b Flanagan 1998, p. 71.
  132. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 99.
  133. ^ a b Flanagan 1998, p. 78.
  134. ^ a b c Flanagan 1998, p. 82.
  135. ^ a b Flanagan 1998, p. 81.
  136. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 94–95.
  137. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 84.
  138. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 85.
  139. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 86–88.
  140. ^
    JSTOR 20568187
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  141. ^ a b c d Flanagan 1998, p. 88.
  142. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 89.
  143. ^ "Coggalbeg Gold Hoard". A History of Ireland in 100 Objects. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  144. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 104.
  145. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 104–105, 111–114.
  146. ^ Male sizes range between 157 and 191 cm (62 and 75 in), to average 174 cm (69 in), comparable to the current male population: Flanagan 1998, p. 116
  147. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 84–85, 116.
  148. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 133.
  149. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 91.
  150. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 150.
  151. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 158.
  152. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 96, 151.
  153. ^ Flanagan 1998, pp. 105–106.
  154. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 156.
  155. ^ Flanagan 1998, p. 155.
  156. ^ Northover, J.P.N.; O'Brien, W.; Stos, S. (2001). "Lead isotopes and metal circulation in Beaker/Early Bronze Age Ireland". Journal of Irish Archaeology. 10: 25–47.
  157. ^ Northover, J.P. (1999). Hauptmann, A.; Pernicka, E.; Rehren, T.; Yalçin, Ü. (eds.). "The earliest metalworking in South Britain". The Beginnings of Metallurgy. Bochum: Dt. Bergbau-Museum: 211–225.
  158. S2CID 249560008
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  159. .
  160. .
  161. .
  162. ^ "Under the Protection of Lunules". D&M Magazine, Europe. 2019. p. 19.
  163. ^ "Gold lunula and discs from Cabeceiras de Basto, Portugal".
  164. ^ a b Urbanus, Jason (2015). "Bronze Age Ireland's Taste in Gold". Archaeology. Retrieved 26 April 2022.
  165. ^ a b Cahill, Mary (Spring 2015). "'Here comes the sun....: solar symbolism in Early Bronze Age Ireland'". Archaeology Ireland. 29 (1): 26–33.
  166. ^ Kristiansen, Kristian (2012). "Rock Art and Religion The sun journey in Indo-European mythology and Bronze Age rock art" (PDF). Adoranten 2012: 69–86.
  167. ^ Lahelma, Antti (2017). "The Circumpolar Context of the 'Sun Ship' Motif in South Scandinavian Rock Art". In Skoglund, Peter; Ling, Johan; Bertilsson, Ulf (eds.). North Meets South: Theoretical Aspects on the Northern and Southern Rock Art Traditions in Scandinavia. Oxbow Books. pp. 144–171.
  168. ^ Kristiansen, Kristian (2011). "Bridging India and Scandinavia: Institutional Transmission and Elite Conquest during the Bronze Age". In Wilkinson, Toby C.; Sherratt, Susan; Bennet, John (eds.). Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to 1st Millennia BC. Oxbow Books. pp. 243–265.
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  175. .
  176. .
  177. ^ Bradley 2007, p. 146.
  178. S2CID 239626106
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  179. . There are cases where the practice of building a barrow could be carried to extreme lengths. The pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt are essentially barrows, of a special sort; maybe Silbury Hill near Marlborough in southern England was a burial mound, though this has never been proven.
  180. ^ Turek, Jan (June 2016). "The Beaker World and Otherness of the Early Civilizations". Musaica Archaeologica. 1 (1): 155–162. on the British Isles the Bell Beaker communities have created monuments such as the late phase of construction of Stonehenge shrine or a giant burial mound of Silbury Hill, which are comparable with Egyptian temples and pyramids.
  181. S2CID 161443252
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  182. ^ Mike Parker Pearson, 'The New Archaeology of Stonehenge' (2021).
  183. ^ Mike Parker Pearson, 'The New Archaeology of Stonehenge' (2021).
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  185. .
  186. .
  187. .
  188. ^ Mike Parker Pearson, 'The New Archaeology of Stonehenge' (2021).
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  191. S2CID 164201703
    . each of the trilithons could be considered conjoined deities, pairs of gods, or an early form of the Divine Twins born at the same time from a single union (Darvill 2006, 144–145). The Great Trilithon to the southwest is the largest and most prominent. It is set astride the principal axis and might cautiously be identified with a pair of deities representing day and night, the sun and moon, summer and winter, life and death, perhaps even the prehistoric equivalents of the twins Apollo and Artemis as they are known in later pantheons across the Old World.
  192. ^ "Bronze Age boat 'oldest in Europe'". BBC News. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
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  194. .
  195. .
  196. ^ "wrist-guard". British Museum.
  197. ^ "Lunula". British Museum.
  198. ^ "Gold lunula". National Museums Scotland.
  199. ^ "Gold lunula". British Museum online.
  200. ^ "ornament". British Museum.
  201. ^ "Gristhorpe Man log coffin". The Gristhorpe log-coffin burial is one of 75 recorded in Britain that range in date from the twenty-third to seventeenth centuries BC. They are found throughout Britain from Scotland to the south coast and from East Anglia to Wales. … the coffin was roughly square cut at the foot end, but the base and lid had been rounded off at the head end. … In 1834 the excavators identified 'a rude figure of a human face' carved into the lid. This carving, now much degraded, is surrounded by a cut which flares, possibly to indicate shoulders. (Melton 2015)
  202. S2CID 53412188
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  206. ^ Ceramiche. Storia, linguaggio e prospettive in Sardegna, Maria Rosaria Manunza, p. 26
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  208. ^ Melis, Maria Grazia. "Monte d'Accoddi and the end of the Neolithic in Sardinia (Italy)". Documenta Praehistorica. 38 (207).
  209. ^ pp. 310–311
  210. .
  211. ^ Heyd, Volker (2008). "When the West Meets the East: The Eastern Periphery of the Bell Beaker Phenomenon and Its Relation with the Aegean Early Bronze Age". Aegean and Balkan Prehistory.
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  213. .
  214. ^ Vandkilde, Helle (2007). "A Review of the Early Late Neolithic Period in Denmark". Offa. The form and decoration of the Danish lunulae are dependent on Anglo-Irish lunulae, which can be attributed to the Beaker Culture of western Europe.
  215. ^ a b Johannsen, Jens (2017). "Mansion on the Hill – A Monumental Late Neolithic House at Vinge, Zealand, Denmark". Journal of Neolithic Archaeology. 19. the Vinge house was approximately 45.5 metres long by 7.2 metres wide, covering an area of approximately 320 m2 … the monumental size of the Vinge house, compared to common Late Neolithic houses, and its position on the elevated plateau with a wide view in all directions and high visibility show that the inhabitants were of special importance. This was likely the residence of a magnate, his family, his farmhands and his livestock, all included in one enormous building. In addition to its practical functions, the house was thus an imposing monument displaying the inhabitant's wealth and power
  216. ^ Kristiansen, Kristian (2009). "Proto-Indo-European Languages and Institutions: An Archaeological Approach". In van der Linden, M.; Jones-Bley, C. (eds.). Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series, No. 56: Departure from the Homeland. pp. 111–140. From ca. 2300 to 1700 BC a new historical period of cultural integration prevailed in south Scandinavia. It was initiated by the migration of Bell Beaker groups into Jutland, who brought with them new skills in mining and sailing, and who started to mine flint in northern Jutland for mass production of flint daggers that were soon distributed to most of Scandinavia. It was later followed by a similar production in southeast Denmark. This period marks the first introduction of metal into Scandinavia, and the dagger production represented an imitation of copper and bronze prototypes. It also represents the introduction of a new more ranked social organization. Large chiefly houses similar to those found in the Unetice Culture appear in south Scandinavia, and speak of a radical reorganization of economy and social organization
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  218. ^ Struve 1955, pl. 22[full citation needed]
  219. ^ Kühn 1979, pl. 11; 18[full citation needed]
  220. ^ Myhre 1978-1979[full citation needed]
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  222. ^ Prescott & Walderhaug 1995[full citation needed]
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  226. ^ Fokkens, Harry (2013). "The Bronze Age in the Low Countries". Oxford Handbooks Online.
  227. ^ Ružičková, Pavla (2009). "Bow-shaped pendants of the Bell Beaker culture". Acta Archaeologica Carpathica. 44: 37–72.
  228. ^ Apel 2001, 42, p. 323 ff
  229. ^ Bender Jørgensen 1992, p. 114
  230. ^ Ebbesen 1995; 2004
  231. ^ Nielsen 2000, pp. 161 ff.
  232. ^ cf. Shennan 1976; 1977
  233. ^ Harrison, R.J. (1980). The Beaker Folk. Thames and Hudson.
  234. ^ Thorpe & Richards 1984
  235. ^ Lohof 1994
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Sources

Further reading

External links