rms2
04-20-2018, 05:51 PM
The following quote is from Kathryn Krakowa, "Prehistoric pop culture: Deciphering the DNA of the Bell Beaker Complex", Current Archaeology, Issue 338, May 2018, pp. 19-20:
Wherever the team [Olalde et al] looked, throughout the various populations of Continental Europe, the results painted a striking picture: despite some genetic mixing, for the most part the Beaker-practising groups in Iberia were unrelated to those in central Europe or Britain. This indicates that the Beaker Complex predominantly spread across the Continent not through the migration of a homogenous group of people, but through social interactions and the transmission of ideas. If so, this would be in direct contrast to other earlier or contemporaneous cultures like the early Bronze Age Yamnaya of the Eurasian steppe and the Corded Ware Complex of central and eastern Europe (which overlapped both geographically and chronologically with the Bell Beaker Complex). These appear to have expanded primarily through population movement.
(I placed some of Krakowa's words in the quote above in bold and underlined others for emphasis.)
How does one read The Beaker Complex and the Genomic Transformation of Northwest Europe and come away with the notion that "the Beaker Complex predominantly spread across the Continent not through the migration of a homogenous group of people, but through social interactions and the transmission of ideas . . . in direct contrast to . . . the early Bronze Age Yamnaya of the Eurasian steppe and the Corded Ware Complex of central and eastern Europe . . . [which] appear to have expanded primarily through population movement"?
It seems to me the only way to do that - that is, to be almost completely oblivious to the very obvious Steppe or Kurgan Bell Beaker expansion via migration - is to first be wedded to the idea that Bell Beaker began in Iberia. If it began in Iberia, then surely, if it shows up elsewhere, it first spread there from Iberia. If dna testing like that engaged in by Olalde et al demonstrates that early Iberian Bell Beaker did not spread its genetic material to central Europe or Britain, then it must have transmitted its Bell Beaker ideas via some form of "social interactions".
I'm going to step out on a limb and say I think assuming that Bell Beaker began in Iberia is a fundamental and profound mistake. Obviously there are numerous experts arrayed against me on that, but I (humbly, with fear and trembling) think they are mistaken.
In numerous posts in years past I gave my opinion that early Iberian Bell Beaker and the fully developed Kurgan Bell Beaker were not the same and represented two different peoples. Here (https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=102728&viewfull=1#post102728) is one of those posts from 2015, well before even the Olalde et al pre-print appeared.
I do not know how the relatively simple, relatively unadorned Maritime bell beakers ended up in settlements in Portugal and in old, collective Neolithic tombs lacking the warrior package that accompanied Kurgan Bell Beaker burials elsewhere, with longheaded (dolichocephalic) people of small stature who had gracile skeletons. But they were a different people from the Kurgan Bell Beaker people. Olalde et al demonstrated that through genomic testing of ancient remains.
Kurgan Bell Beaker people also differed from early Iberian Bell Beaker people physically. The former were tall for the period, had robust skeletons, and many of them were roundheaded (brachycephalic). They buried their important dead in single graves in pits under round burial mounds, often accompanied by a warrior's kit, which included an archer's wristguard, arrowheads, and stone and copper daggers. They also often included beakers with corded decoration and pottery of Danubian origin called (perhaps in error) Begleitkeramik (German for "accompanying ceramics").
IMHO, the error of the Iberian origin of Bell Beaker got going in the first place because early researchers focused on Iberia. They found Kurgan Bell Beaker burials in Iberia and evidence of Maritime bell beakers among people who would otherwise have been regarded as Neolithic farmers, and they linked the two, deriving the former from the latter. Then they looked beyond those Neolithic farmers and saw in the Iberian Cultura de las Cuevas the ultimate root of the Bell Beaker phenomenon.
This is a hypothesis the objective bases of which are anything but firm at this stage of reasoning, and it is important that this be remembered. There is, at the moment of its emergence, and later during its phase of consolidation, not a single clear reason to locate the cradle of the Bell Beaker in the south-western part rather than in the north-western or eastern parts of its area of distribution, except the mentioned studies on Bell Beaker 14C dates. In order to understand this, we have to go back to the initial reasoning, the one developed by Bosch-Gimpera. According to this author, the earlier date in the Iberian Peninsula and, consequently, the intrusive character of the Bell Beaker everywhere else are demonstrated by the evolutive link established between the Bell Beaker decoration and that of the Cultura de las Cuevas. Today we know that this hypothesis is un-founded as the former Cultura de las Cuevas corresponds to Cardial pottery, an Early Neolithic culture which disappeared more than 2,000 years prior to the emergence of the Bell Beaker. Nonetheless, this narrow view, exclusively based on stylistic comparison, prevailed and then for decades strongly influenced the perception of the Bell Beaker phenomenon and the research approaches, and this influence lasted a long time, even once the senselessness of the theory of filiation Cultura de las Cuevas – Bell Beaker had been demonstrated.
I don't want to turn this into a term paper or a thesis (then nobody will read it), but here's a paper that should get your careful attention, especially now that its author's ideas have been bolstered by the Olalde et al results:
The dogma of the Iberian origin of the Bell Beaker: attempting its deconstruction (https://www.academia.edu/11325848/The_dogma_of_the_Iberian_origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker _attempting_its_deconstruction)
Wherever the team [Olalde et al] looked, throughout the various populations of Continental Europe, the results painted a striking picture: despite some genetic mixing, for the most part the Beaker-practising groups in Iberia were unrelated to those in central Europe or Britain. This indicates that the Beaker Complex predominantly spread across the Continent not through the migration of a homogenous group of people, but through social interactions and the transmission of ideas. If so, this would be in direct contrast to other earlier or contemporaneous cultures like the early Bronze Age Yamnaya of the Eurasian steppe and the Corded Ware Complex of central and eastern Europe (which overlapped both geographically and chronologically with the Bell Beaker Complex). These appear to have expanded primarily through population movement.
(I placed some of Krakowa's words in the quote above in bold and underlined others for emphasis.)
How does one read The Beaker Complex and the Genomic Transformation of Northwest Europe and come away with the notion that "the Beaker Complex predominantly spread across the Continent not through the migration of a homogenous group of people, but through social interactions and the transmission of ideas . . . in direct contrast to . . . the early Bronze Age Yamnaya of the Eurasian steppe and the Corded Ware Complex of central and eastern Europe . . . [which] appear to have expanded primarily through population movement"?
It seems to me the only way to do that - that is, to be almost completely oblivious to the very obvious Steppe or Kurgan Bell Beaker expansion via migration - is to first be wedded to the idea that Bell Beaker began in Iberia. If it began in Iberia, then surely, if it shows up elsewhere, it first spread there from Iberia. If dna testing like that engaged in by Olalde et al demonstrates that early Iberian Bell Beaker did not spread its genetic material to central Europe or Britain, then it must have transmitted its Bell Beaker ideas via some form of "social interactions".
I'm going to step out on a limb and say I think assuming that Bell Beaker began in Iberia is a fundamental and profound mistake. Obviously there are numerous experts arrayed against me on that, but I (humbly, with fear and trembling) think they are mistaken.
In numerous posts in years past I gave my opinion that early Iberian Bell Beaker and the fully developed Kurgan Bell Beaker were not the same and represented two different peoples. Here (https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=102728&viewfull=1#post102728) is one of those posts from 2015, well before even the Olalde et al pre-print appeared.
I do not know how the relatively simple, relatively unadorned Maritime bell beakers ended up in settlements in Portugal and in old, collective Neolithic tombs lacking the warrior package that accompanied Kurgan Bell Beaker burials elsewhere, with longheaded (dolichocephalic) people of small stature who had gracile skeletons. But they were a different people from the Kurgan Bell Beaker people. Olalde et al demonstrated that through genomic testing of ancient remains.
Kurgan Bell Beaker people also differed from early Iberian Bell Beaker people physically. The former were tall for the period, had robust skeletons, and many of them were roundheaded (brachycephalic). They buried their important dead in single graves in pits under round burial mounds, often accompanied by a warrior's kit, which included an archer's wristguard, arrowheads, and stone and copper daggers. They also often included beakers with corded decoration and pottery of Danubian origin called (perhaps in error) Begleitkeramik (German for "accompanying ceramics").
IMHO, the error of the Iberian origin of Bell Beaker got going in the first place because early researchers focused on Iberia. They found Kurgan Bell Beaker burials in Iberia and evidence of Maritime bell beakers among people who would otherwise have been regarded as Neolithic farmers, and they linked the two, deriving the former from the latter. Then they looked beyond those Neolithic farmers and saw in the Iberian Cultura de las Cuevas the ultimate root of the Bell Beaker phenomenon.
This is a hypothesis the objective bases of which are anything but firm at this stage of reasoning, and it is important that this be remembered. There is, at the moment of its emergence, and later during its phase of consolidation, not a single clear reason to locate the cradle of the Bell Beaker in the south-western part rather than in the north-western or eastern parts of its area of distribution, except the mentioned studies on Bell Beaker 14C dates. In order to understand this, we have to go back to the initial reasoning, the one developed by Bosch-Gimpera. According to this author, the earlier date in the Iberian Peninsula and, consequently, the intrusive character of the Bell Beaker everywhere else are demonstrated by the evolutive link established between the Bell Beaker decoration and that of the Cultura de las Cuevas. Today we know that this hypothesis is un-founded as the former Cultura de las Cuevas corresponds to Cardial pottery, an Early Neolithic culture which disappeared more than 2,000 years prior to the emergence of the Bell Beaker. Nonetheless, this narrow view, exclusively based on stylistic comparison, prevailed and then for decades strongly influenced the perception of the Bell Beaker phenomenon and the research approaches, and this influence lasted a long time, even once the senselessness of the theory of filiation Cultura de las Cuevas – Bell Beaker had been demonstrated.
I don't want to turn this into a term paper or a thesis (then nobody will read it), but here's a paper that should get your careful attention, especially now that its author's ideas have been bolstered by the Olalde et al results:
The dogma of the Iberian origin of the Bell Beaker: attempting its deconstruction (https://www.academia.edu/11325848/The_dogma_of_the_Iberian_origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker _attempting_its_deconstruction)