Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b

[angscoire]

Waiting, waiting . . .

14208

Remember the Allentoft paper ? Presentation followed by publication within a day or two . I'm hoping history repeats itself next month after the Reich talk.

[rms2]

Remember the Allentoft paper ? Presentation followed by publication within a day or two . I'm hoping history repeats itself next month after the Reich talk.

When and where is Reich's talk supposed to take place? I remember hearing about it, but I don't remember those details.

[angscoire]

When and where is Reich's talk supposed to take place? I remember hearing about it, but I don't remember those details.

Either JeanM or Generalissimo gave the precise date of Reichs talk in March, somewhere in the US if I remember rightly .

[Finn]

No problem. As regards the Anglo-Saxon advent, I wouldn't build too much on genuine Celtic place-names in what is now Germany either. They just suggest that Celts lived there before the pre-Proto-Germanic speakers pushed south out of Jutland and southern Sweden. By the time Caesar turned up in Gaul and decided to take the place, the Germani had pushed south far enough to eject the Celtic Boii from Bohemia, and west as far as the Rhine, and in some cases actually into Gaul. That was centuries before the Angles, Saxons and Jutes made their move on England.

This does not mean that there was no Germanic-Celtic mixing as they moved. We don't really know.
I guess when it comes to a Germanic-Celtic mix, the Elp culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elp_culture)/ Sögel Wohlde Kreis (German) has the best papers. This is a Bronze Age culture from Northern Netherlands, Northwestern Germany up to Jutland.

The archeologist Prof. H. Fokkens pointed at this (1998):''The northern Netherlands is part of the northern group (NW Germany and Denmark) especially of the Sögeler Kreis characterized by a number of distinctive men's graves. The Drouwen grave is the best known Dutch example. It's remarkable that the Elp culture has never been presented as the immigration of a new group of people. Because clearly this period was a time when a number of new elements made their entry while others disappeared. The disappearance of beakers, the appearance of the Sögel men's graves with the first 'swords', among other things, the fully extended burial posture, under barrows; all the factors have been reason enough in the past to conclude that the Elp culture was an immigration of Sögel warriors."

See also the Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age (https://books.google.nl/books?id=6ZQeAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA735&dq=Sogel+Wohlde+culture&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl397dwLrRAhXGXRQKHXIhDx8Q6AEIHzAA#v=on epage&q=Sogel%20Wohlde%20culture&f=false)

Kristian Kristiansen and Thomas B. Larsson give in the Rise of Bronze Age Society (Cambridge 2004) a clear reconstruction.

They describe two dominant interaction Bronze Age zones:
1. the Steppe corridor (more north eastern Europe, Yamna related )
2. the Mediterranean corridor (from East Med to England, with an Mycenaean/ Minoan dominance)

With the Carpathian/Hungarian region with the early Bronze age tell culture as a kind of hub in the middle.

The linking pin with Northwestern Europe (=Southern Scandinavia, NW Germany and North Dutch) was the tumulus culture. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumulus_culture) and later the urnfield culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urnfield_culture) In Northwestern Europe the Bronze Age packages of the two interactions zones 'cumulated' trough the tumulus culture.

"The adaptions in Scandinavia of new chiefly institutions and of new technological skills in metallurgy, house building, ship construction etc. we have to envisage a fairly massive inflow of southern, foreign artisans and chiefs during this period. But a similar movement southwards of Scandinavian chiefs and artisans who stayed away for years to become skilled artisans and warriors was part of the operation of network."

"If we add to this the Mycenaean and Minoan evidence so strongly manifest in the Scandinavian tradition we are confronted with direct and indirect evidence of a directional transmission of goods people and knowledge."

The Sögel warriors had this type of swords:
http://i63.tinypic.com/1zyy3d0.jpg

Wiki: "Swords found together with the Nebra skydisk, ca. 1600 BC. Typologically, these swords are of the Sögel type, but their shape and decoration shows influence of the Hajdúsámson-Apa type found in Hungary."
and
"Typologically, the swords from Nebra and Vreta belong to the Sögel blades, which copy the shape and decoration of Hajdúsámson-Apa swords [...] Concerning the provenance of the swords, the area between the rivers Danube and Tisza in present-day Hungary and Romania has been suggested, as also the production in present Germany [...] Vandkilde (1996:240) proposed that these swords and daggers of the Sögel and Wohlde type in southern Jutland could have been manufactured locally." Roland Schwab, Inga Ullén, Christian-Heinrich Wunderlich, A sword from Vreta Kloster, and black patinated bronze in Early Bronze Age Europe, Journal of Nordic Archaeological Science 17, 27–35 (2010)."

These Sögel warrior were all well groomed with Mycenaean kind of razor blades, see:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/div-classtitlethe-nordic-razor-and-the-mycenaean-lifestylediv/E7C1E8A4C0C0F3FC14D54427C83BF046
http://dc.uwm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1505&context=etd

and a dissertation about women in the Sögel Bronze Age:
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:197017/FULLTEXT01.pdf

So the tumulus and urnfield culture were a major impuls for the Nordic Bronze Age and forms a warrior culture with long distance trade, marriage and prestige network even up until the Hungarian region. No wonder that after the Corded Ware there was with the Tumulus Culture again a major impuls of Yamna genes streamed right up the Northwest!?

Euler(2009) stated that there were lots of loan-words from Celtic into Germanic. But he was in the conviction that the Celtic influence was more or less a cultural and commercial relationship. Based on the archeological and genetic facts and figures we can presume that the influence was bigger, most probably a migration of at least a warrior elite. And the loanwords of Euler fit in the environment of this elite (from about 1000 BC, so during the Elp or Sogel-Wohlde culture).

From the Frisians til the Cimbri, the Celtic influence was always suspected. And sometimes called 'in between German and Celtic.' And based on the Frisian history the definitive Germanisation was not earlier than in the 4th century AD (along the Anglo Saxon invasion of England). But this is all never fully recognized....why? May be it's all due to the Roman Julius Casear who stated that east of the Rhine were "en bloc" Germans....;) Or?

PS just corrected the invalid links, excuse!

[Finn]

A partly related posting to this subject you can find here: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9373-While-we-wait-the-Bell-Beaker-s-results-what-about-the-Western-Atlantic-R1b-clusters/page11

"May be I can give an assist.

On Eurogenes David made clear that German Bell beakers had a considerable amount of Iberian genes (http://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2016/06/german-bell-beakers-in-context-of.html). When we take a look at the European aDNA than the amount of "West-Med" (in the Gedmatch Eurogenes K15) gives a significant difference between modern 'Baltic' Northeast Europe (lower amount "west med") and modern 'North Sea' Northwest Europe (higher amount of "West-Med"). As we saw from findings of Gokhem Sweden during the neolithic there was already an influx from the Mediterranean farmers to the Northwest, the (Maritime) Bell Beakers could be a second impuls from the Western Mediterranean.

I presume that the significant difference in R1b (U106/S21) was not the product of the Bell Beaker but of the Carpathian/Hungarian Bronze Age (partly Yamna heirs), which had trough the Unetice/Tumulus/Urnfield cultures a tremendous impact on Northwest Europe.

My aDNA is a nice example of this. The core of my ancestors are from North(east) Dutch stock. This means influence from the Ertebølle/Swfterbant culture (HG), Funnelbeaker (Neolithic, partly EEF), Corded Ware/Single Grave (Northeast European rooted, Yamna related), Bell Beaker (partly Iberian Bronze Age) and finally Tumulus/Urnfield (Bronze Age Southeastern Europe).

This last culture was connected with the so called Sögel-Wohlde/Elp culture. This was a typical warrior culture. It's presumable that this warriors were 'responsible' for a Y-DNA R1b (U106/S21) dominance. In Northwestern mDNA and aDNA we can find the old layers (Ertebølle/Swifterbant etc etc) more easily.

My aDNA admixture of Gedmatch MDLP K11 gives a nice example of this:
Using 1 population approximation:
1 Halberstadt_LBA @ 1.753964
2 Alberstedt_LN @ 1.883032
3 Bell_Beaker_Germany @ 2.323992
4 Bell_Beaker_Czech @ 3.536243
5 British_Celtic @ 4.103508
6 British_AngloSaxon @ 5.348632
7 British_IronAge @ 5.791267
8 Nordic_MN_B @ 5.830501
9 Nordic_LN @ 6.482782
10 Unetice_EBA @ 6.646599
11 BenzigerodeHeimburg_LN @ 7.364402
12 Nordic_BA @ 7.622099
13 Corded_Ware_Proto_Unetice_Poland @ 9.647816
14 Nordic_IA @ 9.705606
15 Nordic_BattleAxe @ 10.145643
16 Nordic_LBA @ 10.386439
17 Bell_Beaker @ 11.158558
18 Irish_BA @ 11.898989
19 Corded_Ware_Estonia @ 12.246681
20 Unetice_MBA @ 14.425732


So if I had to gamble I would set my cards on the Carpathian-Hungarian Bronze age (Yamna and Southeast Europe mixture) influence (in stead of the Bell Beakers) which caused a major impuls of R1b (especially R1b U106/S21) into Northwest Europe."

[rms2]

I'm still betting that R1b-U106 was part of Corded Ware and came round the north side of the Carpathians. It was P312 or the ancestors of P312 who came round the south side of the Carpathians with Yamnaya. I could be wrong, of course, but thus far the oldest known U106 is from the Nordic Battle Axe cemetery of Lille Beddinge in Sweden, c. 2300 BC.

Bell Beaker has produced several P312+ results, and Bell Beaker is supposed to be derived from Yamnaya.

[Finn]

I'm still betting that R1b-U106 was part of Corded Ware and came round the north side of the Carpathians. It was P312 or the ancestors of P312 who came round the south side of the Carpathians with Yamnaya. I could be wrong, of course, but thus far the oldest known U106 is from the Nordic Battle Axe cemetery of Lille Beddinge in Sweden, c. 2300 BC.

Bell Beaker has produced several P312+ results, and Bell Beaker is supposed to be derived from Yamnaya.

When this is the case: why isn't Poland/Balticum R1b U106/S21 dominated?
How would you explain the Iberian influence in the German Bell Beakers?

The spread of the Bronze Age was male dominated (http://dx.doi.org.sci-hub.cc/10.1073/pnas.1616392114). Tumulus/ Urnfield = Elp/Sögel-Wohlde culture was very very obvious male 'warrior' dominated. So R1b 106/S21 could basically be a Bronze Age Southeast European product (also Yamna influenced!).

What are arguments in favor of CW spread of R1b (U106/S21)?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

When this is the case: why isn't Poland/Balticum R1b U106/S21 dominated?
How would you explain the Iberian influence in the German Bell Beakers?

The spread of the Bronze Age was male dominated (http://dx.doi.org.sci-hub.cc/10.1073/pnas.1616392114). Tumulus/ Urnfield = Elp/Sögel-Wohlde culture was very very obvious male 'warrior' dominated. So R1b 106/S21 could basically be a Bronze Age Southeast European product (also Yamna influenced!).

Wat are arguments in favor of CW spread of R1b (U106/S21)?

What are you basing the said Iberian influence?
The MNE in Beaker could be Balkan or something like Baalberg.

[Finn]

What are you basing the said Iberian influence?
The MNE in Beaker could be Balkan or something like Baalberg.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2016/06/german-bell-beakers-in-context-of.html

And you can look into the K15 results, West Med is in NW ('Northsea") Europe significant higher than in NE ('Balticum') Europe. Partly Neolithic EEF but (Maritime) Bell Beaker could also tribute....

[Gravetto-Danubian]

http://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2016/06/german-bell-beakers-in-context-of.html

And you can look into the K15 results, West Med is in NW ('Northsea") Europe significant higher than in NO ('Balticum') Europe. Partly Neolithic EEF but (Maritime) Bell Beaker could also tribute....

True. But looking at all the comments everyone had a slightly different opinion on what it meant.

I recall Chad thinks Iberia MN-Chal doesn't feature too heavily in BB
Neither did Kale's recent run (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?8066-DISCUSSION-THREAD-FOR-quot-Genetic-Genealogy-and-Ancient-DNA-in-the-News-quot/page50)
I got something similar with nMonte

But granted perhaps we should have expect Iberian in BB (?)

[rms2]

When this is the case: why isn't Poland/Balticum R1b U106/S21 dominated?

Surely you can answer that for yourself: a lot has happened since the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. Besides, I never said Corded Ware was 100% R1b-U106. Obviously it had a lot of R1a in it.



How would you explain the Iberian influence in the German Bell Beakers?

As something I have my doubts about, at least about the over emphasis you are giving to it.

As Gravetto-Danubian has mentioned, others are getting different results, and the Eurogenes post you pointed to dates to back in June. Things change rapidly in the confusing and somewhat subjective world of autosomal dna. For example, we know now that the HG in Beaker is actually pretty close to the recently tested ancient Latvians rather than to WHG. That's a shift away from Iberia, wouldn't you say?



The spread of the Bronze Age was male dominated (http://dx.doi.org.sci-hub.cc/10.1073/pnas.1616392114). Tumulus/ Urnfield = Elp/Sögel-Wohlde culture was very very obvious male 'warrior' dominated. So R1b 106/S21 could basically be a Bronze Age Southeast European product (also Yamna influenced!).

What are arguments in favor of CW spread of R1b (U106/S21)?

Gimbutas said Bell Beaker was derived from Yamnaya, and Heyd says it was derived from Yamnaya. We know Yamnaya came around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube Valley, yet no U106 has yet been found in Bell Beaker, but U106 has been found contemporaneous with Bell Beaker in a non-Bell Beaker setting, i.e., the Nordic Battle Axe cemetery of Lille Beddinge in Sweden. Nordic Battle Axe is supposed to have been derived from Corded Ware.

Of course, what we really need are some ancient y-dna results from Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin. Maybe we'll get some soon from that Carpathian Basin Project that Gravetto-Danubian mentioned elsewhere here.

[Finn]

Surely you can answer that for yourself: a lot has happened since the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age. Besides, I never said Corded Ware was 100% R1b-U106. Obviously it had a lot of R1a in it.



As something I have my doubts about, at least about the over emphasis you are giving to it.

As Gravetto-Danubian has mentioned, others are getting different results, and the Eurogenes post you pointed to dates to back in June. Things change rapidly in the confusing and somewhat subjective world of autosomal dna. For example, we know now that the HG in Beaker is actually pretty close to the recently tested ancient Latvians rather than to WHG. That's a shift away from Iberia, wouldn't you say?



Gimbutas said Bell Beaker was derived from Yamnaya, and Heyd says it was derived from Yamnaya. We know Yamnaya came around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube Valley, yet no U106 has yet been found in Bell Beaker, but U106 has been found contemporaneous with Bell Beaker in a non-Bell Beaker setting, i.e., the Nordic Battle Axe cemetery of Lille Beddinge in Sweden. Nordic Battle Axe is supposed to have been derived from Corded Ware.

Of course, what we really need are some ancient y-dna results from Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin. Maybe we'll get some soon from that Carpathian Basin Project that Gravetto-Danubian mentioned elsewhere here.

Thanks for your reply!

That's indeed the intriguing question: Bell Beaker and/or the Yamna people? How were they related?

First of all these kind of things can be set in a genetic big data pattern, but sometimes they are streams in a jacuzzi, more messy than well ordered.
Second the came from a phase in which this kind of things were explained by a "cultural package", immigration theory, popular in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century was not 'en vogue'. But with the DNA data immigration theories get a revival.
Last but not least I'm convinced that you must always place the data in a context. In this case in the context of archeological findings.

That said what would be my educated guess?
I've read this work of Volker Heyd from 2007. See:https://www.academia.edu/1249547/_2007_R.J._Harrison_and_V._Heyd_The_Transformation _of_Europe_in_the_Third_Millennium_BC_The_Example_ of_Le_Petit_Chasseur_I_III_Sion_Valais_Switzerland _._Praehistorische_Zeitschrift_82_2_2007_p._129-214

See picture 51 page 205, this is very clear it shows the probability of a pre Beaker package from Iberia which went into Southwest Europe. He delivered no genetic evidence at that time.

It's very possible that this Iberian pre-Beaker package fused with the Corded ware to a Bell Beaker package. So both wit a Yamna package. But there were regional differences. Different horizons. it's not one movement:

1. In Central Europe: Eastern Bell Beakers the southwestern pre Bell Beakers met the Baden Culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden_culture) and it's heir the Vucedol culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vučedol_culture). This lays on the crossroads from Eastern Yamna cultures and heirs and more Balkan (East Med) routes. At that time the "Eastern" Bell Beakers could trough the influx of more Southeastern Yamna people be 'loaded' with R1b (so Gimbuta and Reyd are right).

The question is if at the the Eastern Bell Beakers, at the moment of formation,went to the Northwest, to the North Sea area. I don't think so.

2. In Northwest Europe:Northern Bell Beakers. Based on the literature I've read of Bell Beakers in my aDNA region Northern Netherlands/NW Europe is my impression that the North Dutch also had a kind of Corded Ware/ Single Grave. Also rooted in Yamna but in this case they came from the Northern European Plain. They settled there and afterwards, trough the influence of the Iberian pre Bell Beaker package (coastal climbed up), they fused into the Northern Bell Beakers. That's all gradual not sharp. Even in the Bell Beaker period more Corded styled pottery could be seen in the North Dutch Bell Beakers.

But later on during the middle and later Bronze Age these different horizons came together. How?

Eastern Bell Beakers followed by the Unetice/Tumulus/Urnfield> streamed up to the NW: Elpculture/Sögel warriors
As said in Northwest Europe, the North Sea area, the influence of the Tumulus culture. was not gradual but very sharp. Again Prof. H. Fokkens (1998):''The northern Netherlands is part of the northern group (NW Germany and Denmark) especially of the Sögeler Kreis characterized by a number of distinctive men's graves. The Drouwen grave is the best known Dutch example. It's remarkable that the Elp culture has never been presented as the immigration of a new group of people. Because clearly this period was a time when a number of new elements made their entry while others disappeared. The disappearance of beakers, the appearance of the Sögel men's graves with the first 'swords', among other things, the fully extended burial posture, under barrows; all the factors have been reason enough in the past to conclude that the Elp culture was an immigration of Sögel warriors."

This Sögel warriors came (seen from NW Europe) from the south-east from central Europe. So from the Central European Bronze Age cultures (= mix Steppe Yamna and East Med roots). It's very likely at the time of the funding Unetice/Tumulus/Urnfield culture this heartland region was a "R1b bubble".

These Sögel warrior, rooted in central European area's, caused a R1b founder effect. The Sögel male warriors were militair, technologic and economic superior, to the Northern Bell Beakers. The warriors tumulus/umfield culture made a lasting impression in the proces of turning NW Europe area into a Bronze Age culture.

And ok it's no mathematical prove but thinking the other way around, how could a immigration of Sögel warriors with such an evident lasting impression on NW Europe, not have left a genetical Y-DNA print?

[rms2]

Sorry, but I never heard of Sögel before you mentioned it. I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to it. Kind of hard to say much about it definitively without some ancient y-dna from some of its remains. Rather later than Bell Beaker, wasn't it?

[Finn]

Sorry, but I never heard of Sögel before you mentioned it. I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to it. Kind of hard to say much about it definitively without some ancient y-dna from some of its remains. Rather later than Bell Beaker, wasn't it?

No problem, this is what the Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age stated about the Sögel-Wohlde culture:
https://books.google.nl/books?id=6ZQeAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA735&dq=Sogel+Wohlde+culture&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl397dwLrRAhXGXRQKHXIhDx8Q6AEIHzAA#v=on epage&q=Sogel%20Wohlde%20culture&f=false

[Finn]

Sorry, but I never heard of Sögel before you mentioned it. I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to it. Kind of hard to say much about it definitively without some ancient y-dna from some of its remains. Rather later than Bell Beaker, wasn't it?


And one add, my autosomal DNA is a remain of this culture....all my ancestors (at least from the last known 500 years) came form the Northern Netherlands (core) and partly from NW Germany. All within 100km or so.

[rms2]

The Barbing Bowman from Bayern (Bavaria) in Germany must have avoided carbohydrates: look at how nice his teeth are.

14240

[Heber]

Jan Turek & Jakub Vintr 2016: New radiocarbon dates for the Maghreb Neolithic - Neolit Maghrebu ve světle nových radiokarbonocých dat, Živá archeologie 18, pp. 10-15

Google Translate
This article summarizes findings settlements of the Maghreb since the late Paleolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age. The most important findings are related to the occurrence of Bell Beaker, documenting contacts between this region and Europe. Of the localities of El-Kiffen and Skhirat comes oldest documents stamped decorations dating back to the late Neolithic Age. This výzdobný style apparently became the basis for later Bell Beaker decorations. Zvoncovité own cups apparently arose because of communication between areas Estremadure and northwest Africa.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/51582081/ZA_18-2016_Turek_Vintr_separat.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIW OWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1488179218&Signature=2Xmw9i1eByutf0oIC%2BNf0SDfQ7I%3D&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3DJan_Turek_a nd_Jakub_Vintr_2016_New_radio.pdf

[Romilius]

I can't find the exact date of the Reich lecture in the USA... I also searched on the web, but I couldn't find anything.

As for the new paper by Turek... so, if I understood correctly, the beaker of Morocco developed in the direction of European beaker only in Late Neolithic?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I can't find the exact date of the Reich lecture in the USA... I also searched on the web, but I couldn't find anything.

As for the new paper by Turek... so, if I understood correctly, the beaker of Morocco developed in the direction of European beaker only in Late Neolithic?

Can't be bothered reading (translating) it but he has what is probably a similar paper in English
https://www.academia.edu/1988928/Turek_J._2012_Chapter_8_-_Origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker_phenomenon._The_Morocca n_connection_In_Fokkens_H._and_F._Nicolis_eds_2012 _Background_to_Beakers._Inquiries_into_regional_cu ltural_backgrounds_of_the_Bell_Beaker_complex._Lei den_Sidestone_Press

He is basically a version of the fusion / hybrid model which seems to predominate amongst specialists
(a "proto-Beaker" package forming in Iberia with some Moroccan contacts, fusing with single grave culture around the Rhine).

[Romilius]

Can't be bothered reading (translating) it but he has what is probably a similar paper in English
https://www.academia.edu/1988928/Turek_J._2012_Chapter_8_-_Origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker_phenomenon._The_Morocca n_connection_In_Fokkens_H._and_F._Nicolis_eds_2012 _Background_to_Beakers._Inquiries_into_regional_cu ltural_backgrounds_of_the_Bell_Beaker_complex._Lei den_Sidestone_Press

He is basically a version of the fusion / hybrid model which seems to predominate amongst specialists
(a "proto-Beaker" package forming in Iberia with some Moroccan contacts, fusing with single grave culture around the Rhine).

Thanks!

[Finn]

Sorry, but I never heard of Sögel before you mentioned it. I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to it. Kind of hard to say much about it definitively without some ancient y-dna from some of its remains. Rather later than Bell Beaker, wasn't it?

I don't like "racial qualifications" or stereotypes. But certain (more or less dominant) features may be can give a hint where people are rooted....

About four years ago you posted this quote from Louwe Kooijmans, The Rhine/Meuse Delta (1974):
"In the Early Bronze Age we find in the Adlerberg Culture a similar assortment of skull types as was formerly found in the Bell Beaker Culture. The new type, the planoccipital Steilkopf, is also present (though in small numbers) in other Early Bronze Age groups (particularly the Unetice Culture). The Molenaarsgraaf skeletons show a similar late presence of the typical Bell Beaker skull in the Netherlands.
The Bell Beaker skull type contrasts strongly with that of the preceding Single Grave Culture.
The important differences in cultural remains and grave ritual between Single Grave and Bell Beaker Culture are therefore accompanied by a clear anthropological change from a fairly homogeneous dolichomorphic people to a varied population with the (hyper)brachymorphic planoccipital Steilkopf as a leading element. The transition from Bell Beaker Culture to the Early Bronze Age cultures is very gradual in every respect. We must therefore consider the appearance of the Bell Beaker Culture as a real immigration: the penetration of entirely new population elements with their own material culture, just as centuries earlier the bearers of the Battle Axe Culture penetrated Central and Western Europe. In this connection Gerhardt made a number of interesting remarks about the constitution of the BB population. It consists of the fusion of a number of "races" without any clear intermixing. Of the men particularly the majority have the typical planoccipital Steilkopf, while the women are mainly responsible for the heterogeneous character of the whole. It looks as if a group of male foreigners frequently recruited women from an existing population."

According to me this makes a few things clear:
1. The Steilkopf didn't belong to the Corded Ware/Single Grave/Schnurkeramik. So not to the "North European Plain Yamna horizon".
2. The Steilkopf did belong to the Eastern Bell Beaker/ Unetice (=Adlerberg!!!)/ Tumulus/Urnfield. So to the "Central European North Pontic Yamna horizon".
3. The quote from Kooijmans in 1974 "It looks as if a group of male foreigners frequently recruited women from an existing population" equals the most recent Haak c.s. finding "there were some 10 men for every woman who participated in the Yamnaya migration".

Kurt Gerhardt speculated in a symposium about the Bell Beaker in 1974 about 'a special position' or 'even special behavior' of BB men with a flat occipital. The men of the flat occupations got special gifts, according to Gerhardt. May be something to do with religious/ruler rites? Has this caused some kind of natural selection?

Thesis: was it the 'Central European Yamna horizon' which spread the partly R1b "Steilkopf" warrior ;) into N-W Europe!? But also was the Steppe influence already working in the Bell Beaker phase not only in the Eastern Bell Beaker group but also in the Rhenish (German) one!?

[Romilius]

Thesis: was it the 'Central European Yamna horizon' which spread the partly R1b "Steilkopf" warrior ;) into N-W Europe!? But also was the Steppe influence already working in the Bell Beaker phase not only in the Eastern Bell Beaker group but also in the Rhenish (German) one!?

Well... Rhenish Beakers are earlier than Eastern Beakers... so a steppe influence from Ukraine to Rhenish plains is possible. About that, I'm curious about those two Beaker sites in Alsace and in Iberia that, according to Heyd, are a an extraordinary discover.

[Finn]

Well... Rhenish Beakers are earlier than Eastern Beakers... so a steppe influence from Ukraine to Rhenish plains is possible. About that, I'm curious about those two Beaker sites in Alsace and in Iberia that, according to Heyd, are a an extraordinary discover.

Sorry, but I never heard of Sögel before you mentioned it. I'm not sure how much significance one should attach to it. Kind of hard to say much about it definitively without some ancient y-dna from some of its remains. Rather later than Bell Beaker, wasn't it?


Some recent research!
Hawkes (2014):
https://books.google.nl/books?id=whEcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT277&lpg=PT277&dq=rhenish+tumulus&source=bl&ots=6acvmBySh3&sig=2AIffzwMLYWx8eRefp05WQ3hTYY&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz8bqN_7TSAhVJLhoKHYFXBEcQ6AEIGjAA#v=on epage&q=rhenish%20tumulus&f=false
Sanders (2015):
https://books.google.nl/books?id=rxdEBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=rhenish+tumulus&source=bl&ots=-qhprX0D3R&sig=yauzr1Ea0t78KficxLHf1NmifIU&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz8bqN_7TSAhVJLhoKHYFXBEcQ6AEIHzAB#v=on epage&q=rhenish%20tumulus&f=false

add: although recent....Hawkes original is from 1940....;)

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Thanks for your reply!

That's indeed the intriguing question: Bell Beaker and/or the Yamna people? How were they related?

First of all these kind of things can be set in a genetic big data pattern, but sometimes they are streams in a jacuzzi, more messy than well ordered.
Second the came from a phase in which this kind of things were explained by a "cultural package", immigration theory, popular in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century was not 'en vogue'. But with the DNA data immigration theories get a revival.
Last but not least I'm convinced that you must always place the data in a context. In this case in the context of archeological findings.

That said what would be my educated guess?
I've read this work of Volker Heyd from 2007. See:https://www.academia.edu/1249547/_2007_R.J._Harrison_and_V._Heyd_The_Transformation _of_Europe_in_the_Third_Millennium_BC_The_Example_ of_Le_Petit_Chasseur_I_III_Sion_Valais_Switzerland _._Praehistorische_Zeitschrift_82_2_2007_p._129-214

See picture 51 page 205, this is very clear it shows the probability of a pre Beaker package from Iberia which went into Southwest Europe. He delivered no genetic evidence at that time.

It's very possible that this Iberian pre-Beaker package fused with the Corded ware to a Bell Beaker package. So both wit a Yamna package. But there were regional differences. Different horizons. it's not one movement:

1. In Central Europe: Eastern Bell Beakers the southwestern pre Bell Beakers met the Baden Culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden_culture) and it's heir the Vucedol culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vučedol_culture). This lays on the crossroads from Eastern Yamna cultures and heirs and more Balkan (East Med) routes. At that time the "Eastern" Bell Beakers could trough the influx of more Southeastern Yamna people be 'loaded' with R1b (so Gimbuta and Reyd are right).

The question is if at the the Eastern Bell Beakers, at the moment of formation,went to the Northwest, to the North Sea area. I don't think so.

2. In Northwest Europe:Northern Bell Beakers. Based on the literature I've read of Bell Beakers in my aDNA region Northern Netherlands/NW Europe is my impression that the North Dutch also had a kind of Corded Ware/ Single Grave. Also rooted in Yamna but in this case they came from the Northern European Plain. They settled there and afterwards, trough the influence of the Iberian pre Bell Beaker package (coastal climbed up), they fused into the Northern Bell Beakers. That's all gradual not sharp. Even in the Bell Beaker period more Corded styled pottery could be seen in the North Dutch Bell Beakers.

But later on during the middle and later Bronze Age these different horizons came together. How?

Eastern Bell Beakers followed by the Unetice/Tumulus/Urnfield> streamed up to the NW: Elpculture/Sögel warriors
As said in Northwest Europe, the North Sea area, the influence of the Tumulus culture. was not gradual but very sharp. Again Prof. H. Fokkens (1998):''The northern Netherlands is part of the northern group (NW Germany and Denmark) especially of the Sögeler Kreis characterized by a number of distinctive men's graves. The Drouwen grave is the best known Dutch example. It's remarkable that the Elp culture has never been presented as the immigration of a new group of people. Because clearly this period was a time when a number of new elements made their entry while others disappeared. The disappearance of beakers, the appearance of the Sögel men's graves with the first 'swords', among other things, the fully extended burial posture, under barrows; all the factors have been reason enough in the past to conclude that the Elp culture was an immigration of Sögel warriors."

This Sögel warriors came (seen from NW Europe) from the south-east from central Europe. So from the Central European Bronze Age cultures (= mix Steppe Yamna and East Med roots). It's very likely at the time of the funding Unetice/Tumulus/Urnfield culture this heartland region was a "R1b bubble".

These Sögel warrior, rooted in central European area's, caused a R1b founder effect. The Sögel male warriors were militair, technologic and economic superior, to the Northern Bell Beakers. The warriors tumulus/umfield culture made a lasting impression in the proces of turning NW Europe area into a Bronze Age culture.

And ok it's no mathematical prove but thinking the other way around, how could a immigration of Sögel warriors with such an evident lasting impression on NW Europe, not have left a genetical Y-DNA print?

I agree. There is definitiely some notable structure in Bronze Age tenperate Europe after the expansive Beaker & CWC horizons, at an autosome genome-wide level, and Y haplogroup patterns, with northern , Alpine, eastern, Rhenish groups, etc.

For example, RISE 471 was initially classed as a CWC outlier, but he is actually from the MBA Tumulus culture, or something pre-Unstrutt, R1b - M269 & plots considerably more south than earlier Beaker groups and other later Bronze Age individuals like the one from Halberstadt (R1a-Z280).
Whilst CWC was mostly R1a and BB Germany is R1b, Unetice is mostly I2, but is said to descend from CWC - BB. I think the new papers will clarify the patterns more clearly.

[Finn]

I agree. There is definitiely some notable structure in Bronze Age tenperate Europe after the expansive Beaker & CWC horizons, at an autosome genome-wide level, and Y haplogroup patterns, with northern , Alpine, eastern, Rhenish groups, etc.

For example, RISE 471 was initially classed as a CWC outlier, but he is actually from the MBA Tumulus culture, or something pre-Unstrutt, R1b - M269 & plots considerably more south than earlier Beaker groups and other later Bronze Age individuals like the one from Halberstadt (R1a-Z280).
Whilst CWC was mostly R1a and BB Germany is R1b, Unetice is mostly I2, but is said to descend from CWC - BB. I think the new papers will clarify the patterns more clearly.

Right!!

Your story is an illustration of my autosomal DNA, according to the MDLP K11 admixture:

1 Halberstadt_LBA @ 1.753964
2 Alberstedt_LN @ 1.883032
3 Bell_Beaker_Germany @ 2.323992
4 Bell_Beaker_Czech @ 3.536243
5 British_Celtic @ 4.103508
6 British_AngloSaxon @ 5.348632
7 British_IronAge @ 5.791267
8 Nordic_MN_B @ 5.830501
9 Nordic_LN @ 6.482782
10 Unetice_EBA @ 6.646599


Nr. 1 Halberstadt is clearly Urnfield. Nr. 2. Alberstedt seems to be a CW/BB mix.

[Romilius]

Some recent research!
Hawkes (2014):
https://books.google.nl/books?id=whEcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT277&lpg=PT277&dq=rhenish+tumulus&source=bl&ots=6acvmBySh3&sig=2AIffzwMLYWx8eRefp05WQ3hTYY&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz8bqN_7TSAhVJLhoKHYFXBEcQ6AEIGjAA#v=on epage&q=rhenish%20tumulus&f=false
Sanders (2015):
https://books.google.nl/books?id=rxdEBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=rhenish+tumulus&source=bl&ots=-qhprX0D3R&sig=yauzr1Ea0t78KficxLHf1NmifIU&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjz8bqN_7TSAhVJLhoKHYFXBEcQ6AEIHzAB#v=on epage&q=rhenish%20tumulus&f=false

add: although recent....Hawkes original is from 1940....;)

Ok, I read those links... I see that Sogel is, more or less, Unetice... so, for me, a too late period to state a R1b expansion.

[Finn]

Ok, I read those links... I see that Sogel is, more or less, Unetice... so, for me, a too late period to state a R1b expansion.

The tumulus culture looks crucial in the creation of the modern NW European. Especially in the North Sea region. Elp or Sögel is a tumulus/urnfield offspring from about 1800 BC. But I guess stil a good candidate for the spread of R1b U106/S21 in NW Europe. And even caused a founder effect.

A very recent an excellent comment from G. Dekaen on Eurogenes gives in this respect a clue. i recommend to read the full posting. (https://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2015/02/massive-migration-from-steppe-is-source.html?m=0&commentPage=3)

As said in my previous posting my autosomal DNA comes close to: 1 Halberstadt_LBA

Here is what G. Dekaen stated:
"- Discontinuity between BA Unetice and LBA Halberstadt, which is unlike any non-southern European population in that it lacks HG. However, a 50-50 mix of Unetice descendants and Halberstadt would seem to perfectly match Czech's component distribution. I wonder what is the archaeological affiliation of Halberstadt? It's funny, Halberstadt looks like it's Early Hallstatt/Late Urnfield which I figured would be the descendants of, and hence quite similar to Unetice, yet Halberstadt is quite different from Unetice.
- It is only in the Late Bronze Age however that we begin to see samples that are truly "modern" and reflective of the final transformations of the European gene pool (as I have argued). Notice BR2, 1300-1100BC has zero "western" HG and 35% EHG as well as LBA Halberstadt, 1100-1000BC having zero "western" HG and 35% EHG. I think this is pretty clear evidence of a post-2000BC/MBA influx of EHGs from somewhere north of Yamna and E. of German Corded, very likely in the Fatyanovo-Balanovo zone that I have postulated. Cultures that followed Unetice probably played a big role in this, namely Tumulus and Urnfield, and maybe we can even incorporate the Seima-Turbino phenomenon in this since IIRC, it has some sort of connection with Tumulus and seems like a pretty good candidate for bringing an MBA, super-EHG influx into Europe considering it originated way far east. "

[Finn]

Becaus it's so crucial for this topic, I will publish this excellent posting of G. Dekaen from on Eurogenes from 25 feb 2017 in full extent. It's a reaction to "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe" (Haak et al. 2015 preprint).

I hope he agrees with it....

"Judging from Figure 3, we can see that:

Early Neolithics: 90-100% farmer, 0-10% HG
Middle Neolithics: 80% farmer, 20% HG (Esperstedt with 40% HG is outlier)
LN Corded: 80% Yamna, 15% farmer, 5% HG
LN Bell Beaker: 45% Yamna, 40% farmer, 15% HG
LN Karsdorf: 75% Yamna, <5% farmer, 20% HG (outlier, likely Yamna+HG)
LN Benzingerode/Aberstedt: 40% Yamna, 60% farmer
EBA Unetice: 45% Yamna, 25% farmer, 30% HG
LBA Halberstadt: 55% Yamna, 45% farmer
Modern Czechs (closest we have to Germans) : 50% Yamna, 35% farmer, 15% HG
Modern Belarussian (to compare to Corded): 50% Yamna, 25% farmer, 25% HG

CA Hungary: 80% farmer, 20% HG
BA Hungary: 15% Yamna, 50% farmer, 35% HG (Note: K16 shows that the two individuals that make up BA Hungary are very different, one seemingly 0% Yamna, 50% farmer, 50% HG (!) and the second being 30% Yamna, 50% farmer, 20% HG which might show a significant HG bounceback here along with the possibility that mixing in Hungary was not complete yet by 1600BC)
Iron Age Hungarian (from K16): 60% Yamna, 40% farmer
Modern Hungarians: 45% Yamna, 40% farmer, 15% HG

Some ideas:

1. Corded and Bell Beaker are quite different, with the latter potentially being the by-product of a 50-50 cross of Corded and MNE.

2. Bell Beaker and Unetice are somewhat discontinuous as there seems to be a substantial reduction in farmer DNA with a concomitant rise in HG DNA with apparent stability in Yamna ancestry. At first, I thought this would lend credence to my idea that Unetice derives in large part from a source NE. of the Steppe in E. Corded/Fatyanovo-Balanovo as a result of interaction between this possibly non-IE culture and NW IE. Catacomb culture from the south. However, Unetice's Y-DNA is clearly WHG and NOT from NE. Europe, so it could represent a local resurgence of HGs in C. Europe.

3. Discontinuity between BA Unetice and LBA Halberstadt, which is unlike any non-southern European population in that it lacks HG. However, a 50-50 mix of Unetice descendants and Halberstadt would seem to perfectly match Czech's component distribution. I wonder what is the archaeological affiliation of Halberstadt? It's funny, Halberstadt looks like it's Early Hallstatt/Late Urnfield which I figured would be the descendants of, and hence quite similar to Unetice, yet Halberstadt is quite different from Unetice.

4. There seems to have been a significant change between Corded Ware and modern Belarussians (let alone Lithuanians or Estonians). There was at least a 40% demic displacement following Corded that culminated in the creation of Belarussians. The cumulative change of this/these population(s) was (40-90% displacement): 5-45% Yamna, 40-26.1% farmer, 55-27.2% HG. Given that the absolute minimum HG input was 27%, we need to look for a very strongly HG population which eliminates almost all of W. Europe (BB only had 15% HG, Norwegians only have 15% HG, Scots are the only ones close with 20-25% HG, Icelanders have 20% HG, followed by Orcadians who have about 17% HG). Intriguingly, Unetice basically seems to fit the bill at 45% Yamna, 25% farmer, 30% HG, and if we accept this, it would mean an 80-90% replacement by Unetice; the existence of Y-DNA I2 in Belarus today at 10-20% would seem to indicate an influx from the West at some point, but probably not an 80-90% replacement, so we can probably rule this out. There could have been a separate resurgence of EHG in Corded territory with Y-DNA R1a instead. On a similar note, I have a feeling this post-Corded change came from E. Corded/Fatyanovo-Balanovo along with the BA expansion of blue eyes; that population likely had a moderate amount of Yamna, moderate farmer and high HG to fit the requirements perfectly. In-fact, it seems that all modern N. Euro populations differ considerably from Corded in having much higher HG, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was a second major population expansion after Yamna that involved a group with much higher HG, from a population with roughly similar proportions as Unetice, but with possibly different Y-DNA (Unetice can't explain post-Corded change). In-fact, maybe we need to look for a dual expansion, one from resurgent C. Euro HGs/Unetice that re-expanded I2 and a separate E. Corded expansion of R1a, both of which increased blue eyes throughout Europe. This reminds me of this map from the ancient Bulgarian study that showed some sort of expansion out of C. Europe post-3000BC:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/05/ancient-dna-from-balkans-iron-age-thrace.html

5. Building on the above, considering that both EBA Unetice and BA Hungary show a sizable increase in HG in the EBA/MBA, the post-2500BC resurgence in HG can possibly be traced back to Central Europe/Pannonia and with an expansion of Y-DNA I specifically (Carpathians/Alps mountain refuge?). This seems to match all the Unetice samples being Y-DNA I2, along with IIRC the vast majority of Y-DNA from later Urnfield as well, which AFAIK is generally considered to have expanded from roughly the same area as Unetice, S. Germany/Czech/Austria etc. It seems that Y-DNA I2 is particularly associated with this phenomenon, so I'm not sure how Y-DNA I1 fits in and how it went from C. Europe to Scandinavia.

6. Between the CA and BA, Hungarians acquired significant HG mixture separate from the Yamna influx. I wonder what the cause was behind this simultaneous increase in HG in C. Europe 2200-1500BC?

7. Modern Hungarians can be modeled pretty successfully as a 50-50 mix of IA Hungarian with the more Yamna-like BA Hungarian. This would also seem to confirm that Yamna influence into the Balkans was much weaker (30%) compared to its expansion across N. Europe (German Beaker 45% Yamna).
or is it Basal Eurasian?
kept in Extended Data Table 2.

I forgot to mention for point 4 that, the study indicates that Corded was the result of a single, major expansion from Yamna and not a gradual process, which would seem to indicate that Corded was a pretty homogeneous culture (except perhaps its Eastern fringes?). This is the reason why I think we can directly compare these German Corded samples with Belarussians from farther East.

I was also just thinking that if there was a post-Yamna double expansion of HG from C. Europe/Unetice and E. Corded, this would help explain why fringe populations in NW. Europe like Scots and Norwegians have higher Yamna than Belarussians, Czechs, Hungarians - who were closer to Yamna and hence would be expected to have more Yamna - because these people were right in the heart of Europe, at the center of these two later, Yamna diluting expansions.

Here is my K16 breakdown (I used a ruler for proportions, so it should be reasonably accurate, sample size in brackets):

W.C.S.N HGs (14): 0% NE, 100% HG, 0% C. Asian
EHG (2): 0% NE, 80% HG, 15% C. Asian, 5% S. American
Early Neolithics (27): 75-85% NE, 15-20% HG, mostly zero, but trace elements (10 and 5%) C. Asian in Stuttgart/EN Hungary
Middle Neolithics (9): 70% NE, 30% HG, 0% C. Asian
Yamnaya (9): 0% NE, 50% HG, 50% C. Asian
LN Corded (4): <5% NE, 60% HG, 35% C. Asian
LN Karsdorf (1): 0% NE, 60% HG, 40% C. Asian
LN Bell Beaker (6): 25% NE, 55% HG, 20% C. Asian
LN Benzingerode Bell Beaker (3): 15% NE, 60% HG, 25% C. Asian
LN Alberstedt Bell Beaker (1): 30% NE, 50% HG, 20% C. Asian
EBA Unetice (7): 20% NE, 55% HG, 25% C. Asian
LBA Halberstadt (1): 20% NE, 55% HG, 25% C. Asian
Modern Czechs (closest we have to Germans): 25% NE, 50% HG, 25% C. Asian
Modern Belarussians (to compare to Corded): 20% NE, 55% HG, 25% C. Asian

CA Hungary (CO1) (1): 70% NE, 30% HG, 0% C. Asian
BA Hungary (BR1) (1): 35% NE, 60% HG, 5% C. Asian
BA Hungary (BR2) (1): 35% NE, 45% HG, 20% C. Asian
IA Hungary (IR1) (1): 20% NE, 40% HG, 35% C. Asian, 5% Siberian
Modern Hungarians: 30% NE, 45% HG, 25% C. Asian

CA Iceman (1): 75% NE, 25% HG, 0% C. Asian
Modern Bergamo: 40% NE, 35% HG, 25% C. Asian
So, western, central, southern and northern HGs seem to be 100% HG whereas the NE. Euro HGs would seem to have minor traces of the Teal C. Asian component, slightly more in Samara than in Karelia. The existence of pretty basal R1a and R1b among these EHGs testifies to R1a/b being either native to EHGs in NE. Europe OR was brought into NE. Europe via the C. Asian component and was gradually diluted/"decoupled" from its original ancestral background. I think we can effectively eliminate an origin of R1a/b among the ancestors of Neolithics in the Mid. East/West Asia proper. As some have been correct to point out, many of the most basal lineages of R1, R1a and R1b are located in N. Iran (was it also E. Turkey?) which is more strongly associated with the C. Asian than NE component, the former being around 50% with the latter 30% in Iran. Combined with Malta being R* (and IIRC, a basal Bhutanese R1b) and the general scarcity/absence of any R among farmers in Europe, I think we can generally rule out a "West Asian/Mid. East" origin of R1a/b and opt instead for either a C. Asian or NE. European. The Spanish R1b may simply be an early/rare case of R1b decoupling from its C. Asian roots and gradually making its way west with the spread of agriculture; this might also explain how we find an early Y-DNA H2 in C. Europe 5500BC which maybe came from close to Iran and also traveled westward. Alternatively, the Spanish R1b could be decoupled from EHGs that traveled westwards and were assimilated by Neolithics. I'm not sure which is more likely.

I also find the K20 interesting in that it distinguishes between "western" and "eastern" HGs. The "eastern" HG seems to be a merger of parts of the old HG and steals 50-70% from the Teal C. Asian component. This could be further evidence linking Teal C. Asia and EHGs together with R1a/b as the boundaries between these seem to be smaller - and hence, prospective gene flow increases/is more likely - than between the EHGs and the NE component. La Brana, the SHGs and the Hungarian HG seem to be purely "western," whereas curiously, Loschbour is shown as a 50% "western" and 40% "eastern" mix (with 10% NE). This might mean that the Hungarian HG may have been a little more representative of SE. HGs rather than C. HGs and that C. HGs had influence from EHGs, which might be attested by the finding of mtDNA U2e and U4 among Mesolithic German HGs. Still, it's even more curious why Motala and other SHGs show up as 100% "western" when they SHOULD be far more "eastern" shifted than Loschbour since they have vast amounts of mtDNA U2a and U4. As for the EHGs, they turn out to be 60% "eastern," 35% "western" and 5% S. American. Whatever the minutia, the point I'm trying to make here is that if you look at the ancient and modern samples, you see some very interesting changes. Among Neolithic cultures, you see that about 100% of all assimilated HGs are of the western/southern variety. This changes entirely with Yamna and ALL following cultures showing a massive shift to "eastern" HGs until finally we get to modern populations where the Grey "western" HG component is entirely missing/extinct. Mysteriously, it seems to even disappear/not exist among pre-IE peoples like Sardinians, Basques or people with no IE connection like NW Africans. How did this happen and what does it suggest?

Well, if we extract the Teal C. Asian component (based on K19) from "eastern" HGs to leave only the EHG component in Blue, we can see that EHGs have a frequency ratio of 35:55 "western" HG to "eastern" HG, Loschbour/C. Euro HGs are 50:40, and La Brana/Hungary/Swedish HGs are 100:0. Yamna is 5:20 meaning they absorbed EHGs and not WHGs (we obviously knew that already). Corded is 10:20 also suggesting EHGs (unsurprising because Corded is completely intrusive in Germany). Bell Beaker is 10:25 and Benzingerode Beaker is 15:25 again suggesting EHG influx rather than a contribution from local Loschbour-like HGs. Unetice is 15:35 indicating a continued increase in the EHG:WHG ratio over time until finally, we get to BA Hungarian and LBA Halberstadt which provide the strongest evidence for my hypothesis. I pointed out earlier that the BA Hungarian sample has two very different samples (BR1 and BR2); I believe the earlier 2200-2000BC BR1 to represent the first sample which has a ratio of 25:25 reflecting probably a C. + S. Euro HG mixture. It is only in the Late Bronze Age however that we begin to see samples that are truly "modern" and reflective of the final transformations of the European gene pool (as I have argued). Notice BR2, 1300-1100BC has zero "western" HG and 35% EHG as well as LBA Halberstadt, 1100-1000BC having zero "western" HG and 35% EHG. I think this is pretty clear evidence of a post-2000BC/MBA influx of EHGs from somewhere north of Yamna and E. of German Corded, very likely in the Fatyanovo-Balanovo zone that I have postulated. Cultures that followed Unetice probably played a big role in this, namely Tumulus and Urnfield, and maybe we can even incorporate the Seima-Turbino phenomenon in this since IIRC, it has some sort of connection with Tumulus and seems like a pretty good candidate for bringing an MBA, super-EHG influx into Europe considering it originated way far east.

The IA Hungarian (IR1) sample shows a 20:15 ratio. This individual is obviously heavily derived from the Steppe given he has the highest C. Asian of any ancient sample in K20 (and a decently high K16). Given how high his WHG is in K20 (20%), it's very likely that all of IR1's NE (25%) together with his WHG descends from the Balkans, perhaps, the last stragglers of BR1? The question I have is, is the 15% EHG a part of the "native" Balkanites (since BR1 also had 25% EHG), but that would leave no EHG to remain on the Steppe (and I consider it unlikely IR1 came without any EHG), or was the EHG brought with IR1 and the "native" Balkanites had primarily NE+WHG composition.

Overall, K20 shows us that the HG "resurgence" in BA Europe came not from native/"western" HGs, but rather from "eastern" HGs. Furthermore, the changes from the BA to now show that there was a continued influx of "eastern" HG post-BA that ended up completely replacing "western" HG. That would seem to lend credence to my idea that Fatyanovo-Balanovo was the source of further population expansions post-Yamna and possibly the springboard for at least NW IE languages from Catacomb culture.

Yamna completely lacks the Neolithic component found in every other EN and MN culture! Neolithic European cultures therefore did not penetrate into Yamna as far as the Volga. Conversely, given the complete absence of Teal/C. Asian among Euro EN and MN cultures, this component was not present in the Middle East responsible for the Neolithic migration wave into Europe until after 6000BC. Teal likely didn't come through the Caucasus into Yamna because all the Caucasus peoples have 20-30% Neolithic and 50-60% Teal components, so if Teal came through the Caucasus into Yamna, Yamna would also have NE but they don't, therefore the Teal in Yamna must've come through C. Asia. You can try to make the case that the Caucasus was 100% Teal at that time, but I don't find that believable, I'm almost certain they had NE. This also means that all the mtDNA H found in Yamna was either C. Asian or less likely, EHG and had little to do with Euro/Mid East Neolithics unless it became "decoupled." Furthermore, if NE didn't reach Volga Yamna, I think that strengthens my case that the later Fatyanovo-Balanovo even further north also lacked NE, probably had even more EHG than Yamna and was responsible for an MBA increase in EHG and very likely, also blue eyes and blonde hair throughout C./N. Europe. IIRC, the northernmost pigmentation samples from Yamna near the Volga-Kama had 33% blue eyes, the highest anywhere in the Yamna cultural horizon.

I believe PIE existed in the N. Caucasus mountains from 3500-3000BC. Yamna shows essentially zero genetic contact with the Caucasus meaning either IE didn't spread into Yamna OR it spread through elite dominance. Since it's much easier/simpler for a language to spread via the momentum of population expansion rather than a complex process of political domination, I think it unlikely PIE spread into Yamna via elite dominance (although given the wealth of Maykop, it IS still possible!). Instead, I think the evidence is stronger for IE languages spreading from the Caucasus into Catacomb culture. The existence of mtDNA R1 at 8.3% in Catacomb may hint at the start of a Caucasus-->Catacomb movement of IE speakers and so we should see the NE component start showing up in Catacomb; we know that at some point, NE must've showed up in the Volga/Urals pre-Slavic expansion because all the Volga populations have it to some degree, Catacomb would be a strong candidate for this. IF this did not happen, then we have two main possibilities: PIE was spoken in another mountainous area with yew trees, the plough, cart, and copper around 3000-3500BC which can only be the Carpathians/Crimea(?) OR PIE transferred their language to Yamna/Catacomb via elite dominance. PIE originating with C. Asian component in C. Asia is impossible since there are no yew trees there (nor carts etc.), the closest ones are in Tajikistan. Here is a distribution map of the yew tree groups:
http://www.worldbotanical.com/TAXNA_files/image002.gif

It's interesting to examine the sequence of K16 changes from culture to culture post-Yamna in C. Europe (Germany, Hungary, N. Italy). The CA Hungarian and MN Farmers sample show us a ratio of 2.5:1 NE:HG among C. Euro CA farmers just before the Yamna expansion. Using that, we can see that German Corded represented a minimum 95% replacement of CA/MN farmers (no farmer substrate). Also, given the 1:1 HG:C. Asian ratio in Yamna, only 35% out of the 60% of HG in Corded could be explained by Yamna influx, meaning that as the Yamnayans crossed through Belarus/Poland into Germany, they brought an additional 25% HG with them (significant EHG substrate). That could explain the LN Karsdorf sample as a straight Yamna-EHG hybrid (and in-fact, Karsdorf at K20 has a 10:30 WHG:EHG ratio, testifying to its eastern provenance and NOT being native to Germany). German Bell Beaker shows a significant bounce-back of NE and a drop in HG and C. Asian and can be pretty successfully modeled as a mixture of 35% MN/CA Farmer and 65% LN Corded. I doubt this farmer contribution was TRB (or anything more western) because the EHG:WHG ratio between Corded and Beaker doesn't change much (if anything, HGs become slightly MORE EHG during Bell Beaker), so I wouldn't be surprised if Bell Beaker might be some sort of Globular Amphora + Corded combo. Benzingerode Beakers are more Corded, being about 80% Corded and 20% MN/CA Farmer. Using Yamna instead of Corded is less successful in modeling Bell Beaker as a mix with MN/CA Farmers, but that could be due to the Yamna samples being so far east.

From Bell Beaker to Unetice, we see relative continuity with a steady increase in the EHG:WHG ratio indicating continued migrations from NE. Europe. The same applies from EBA Unetice to LBA Halberstadt, the K16 proportions remain identical, but WHG at K20 disappears completely due to continued migrations involving EHGs, making LBA Halberstadt direct ancestors of C. Euros like Czechs/Germans.

As for Belarussians and Corded Ware, post-Corded we see a minimum of 30% total demic displacement. Going from 30-90% replacement, the cumulative change is from (a) population(s) with 64.2-23.1% NE, 34.2-51.7% HG, 1.8-25.1% CAS. Considering that after 3000BC, there aren't really any cultures left in E./C. Europe without any Central Asian (CAS), we can increase the minimum to at least 40% replacement with the following cumulative requirements: 48.5-23.1% NE, 40.8-51.7% HG, 10.6-25.1% CAS. This doesn't really help to narrow down possibly migrations too much considering we're looking at a 5000 year timeframe, but we can essentially eliminate any migration from S. of the Alps/Carpathians or the Caucasus. At some point, Belarus must have gone from ultra-low NE during Corded to 20% present NE, maybe that was with Urnfield/Lusatian considering Urnfield seems to have been a major player and source of migrations during the MBA. Also, at some point, the remaining WHG in Belarus (which almost certainly existed since it was present in Yamna/Corded) must've disappeared from a migration from further east.
The change from CA Hungary to BR1 is really an oddity. BR1 indicates at least a 50% replacement of previous CO1 inhabitants (max. of 50% CO1 substrate in BR1) with a doubling of HG compared to CO1.This HG had a WHG:EHG frequency ratio of 25:25, and this combined with its only 5% CAS makes it extremely unlikely that this overall HG increase came from the east. It seems to reflect a local (and short-lived), perhaps combined C. Euro + S. Euro HG resurgence. BR1 is likely a dead end, that was neither IE nor left too many descendants today. BR2 represents an entirely new population with zero WHG, attesting to some sort of NE. Euro migration and can be pretty successfully modeled as a mixture of 50% CO1 with 50% of a NE. Euro population north of Yamna with 10% more HG and 10% less CAS. BR2, like LBA Halberstadt seems like a perfect, direct ancestor of Hungarians, with only a minor change of -5% NE and +5% CAS, so we seem to have a relatively stabilized European gene pool by 1000BC and major changes taking place between 2000-1000BC. IR1 doesn't seem to have affected the Hungarian population after BR2 given it has 5% Siberian, N1c Y-DNA, G2a mtDNA, and a 20:5 WHG:EHG ratio, all of which are extremely uncharacteristic of modern Hungarians. Yet again, another dead end IMO.

Nevertheless, IR1 may be pretty useful in determining the genetic composition of the Steppe and at what point it ceased to play a major demographic role in Europe. If IR1 truly represents Cimmerians, given its date of 800-1000BC, we can associate it with at least the Novocherkassk/Chernogorovka culture and assert that this culture and the Steppe from then on (given the gradual increase in Asiatic DNA) had a minimal demographic impact on Europe. If IR1 had 5% Siberian and if we estimate that its 20% WHG and 25% NE were picked up in the Balkans, then we can estimate that Steppe cultures from at least 1000BC in Ukraine probably had around 10% Siberian and zero/little NE, and therefore couldn't be the ancestors of basically any Europeans today. Even populations that experienced Steppe invasions for 1000 years (Moldavians/Romanians, Bulgarians, Hungarians) display only the faintest traces of Siberian <1%. It should've been obvious to everyone judging from the very Asiatic Scythian mtDNA circa 500BC and their likely R1a-Z93 that Scythians are not the ancestors of basically anyone in Europe. This same analysis is relevant for later Turkic peoples. I have previously postulated that Srubna may also have been the source of some MBA migrations between 2000-1000BC as a result of Catacomb+Fatyanovo-Balanovo mixture and a back-migration onto the Steppe followed by an expansion into Europe increasing blue eyes/blonde hair in a similar manner as Andronovo. The question on my mind is, did Srubna - which ended 1200BC - also have this 10% Siberian or did it end via migrations from further east by people who brought the 10% Siberian DNA, i.e. Andronovo/Karasuk. Maybe it was the very last major migration from the Steppe before nomadism became dominant?

Following Otzi, 3300BC, N. Italy experienced a cumulative population change of at least 50% to the modern day. The cumulative genetic proportion of this change ranging from 50-90% replacement was: 12-40.4% NE, 40-32.9% HG, 60-26.7% CAS. This strongly points to the most significant migration post-3000BC coming from around the Steppes.

As for C. Asia itself, we can confirm HG (specifically EHG) throughout the entire C. Asia as far South as Afghanistan and into Gujaratis and Sindhis, but no further. It seems to be a pretty constant 5-10% (elevated 15% among Tajik Pamirs). However, Burusho also seem to have 10% HG, did this come from Indo-Iranians? I doubt it, Burusho have shown to be tied with Kalash for having the most ANE in the Old World and I find it extremely unlikely that Burusho got their 35% ANE entirely from the powerful Indo-Iranian people without also switching their language like just about everyone else in the region. Furthermore, Burusho have high R1a (25%), R1b* (10%), C (8%), have a strong Siberian and E. Asian autosomal component and alleged links with Yeniseian languages farther north which might hint at time spent on the Steppe. The question is when? It's possible they could've been on the Steppe as early as Andronovo since Andronovo will likely have some E. Asian component due to having Y-DNA C (although no E. Asian seems to have filtered through to the 1000BC IR1 sample). Alternatively, Burusho E. Asian/Siberian ancestry (both absent in all I-I peoples) could perhaps be via Turkic contacts since there are Turkic loanwords into Burusho. This pre-I-I HG substrate could explain why Tajiks have a bit more HG than the other C. Asians (who could be mostly pre-II substrate descended like Pathans, Gujarats, Sindhs or have had their HG diluted by Turkic migrations, Turkmen, Uzbek) because Tajiks have HG from both the pre-I-I substrate and the later I-Is themselves. So, maybe HG already existed in C. Asia at 5-10% with the Indo-Iranian people bringing an additional 5-10%. Either way, if the Yamnayan 1:1 ratio between HG and CAS holds, then roughly 10-30% of C. and S.C. Asian genes derive from Yamna Indo-Iranians.

On a similar note, I found it interesting that Chuvash almost completely lack the E. Asian component that generally exists at a ratio of 1:2 E. Asian:Siberian (K16) among Oghuz Turks like Altaians/Tubalars. It's not entirely absent though because we can see it at trace frequencies in K17, 18 and 20. Given that Chuvash have 20% Siberian (a large part of which may derive from their Mari substrate who are known to have around 25% Siberian), we should expect to see about 10% of the Yellow component. Either Chuvash is yet another case of elite dominance by a Steppe people and language shifting by the local substrate OR Oghur Turks were noticeably different from their Oghuz cousins in being much less E. Eurasian. I consider the elite dominance model the most likely since that seems to be a pattern among modern Turkic-speaking peoples (Turks, Azerbaijans, Kumyks, Gagauz etc. all are predominantly "natives" of non-Turkic ancestry). We know many/most of the "Turkic" loans into Mongol came from an unknown Oghuric language, so they interacted closely early on. That makes it unlikely that Oghuz became "Mongolified" with extra E. Asian while somehow Oghurs escaped that fate. Therefore, Oghurs were likely just as E. Asian as Oghuz Turks. What's also interesting is that Altai Turks (assumed to be the Turkic homeland) differ considerably from their alleged Altaic relatives, the Tungus and Mongols in having what seems to be genuinely Yamna ancestry (1:1 HG: CAS ratio) in the amount of 30% for Tubalars and about 20% for Altaians and Kyrgyz (with some extra CAS not Yamna-derived). We can compare this to Tajik Pamiris who likely have 35% Yamna ancestry. Mongols like the Daur and Oroqen have none, nor do Tungus like the Hezhen and Ulchi. It's tempting (and sensible) to say that this Yamna component in Oghuz Turks reflects the Indo-Iranian Steppe substrate that was assimilated by Turks. Alternatively, it's possible, this could partially represent Turks having slightly higher W. Eurasian, non-Yamna substrate from pre-IE HGs that existed in Siberia since we know Euro HGs existed far to the east.
Also of interest is that the K16 has seven Uralic samples and not one (not even the far eastern Mansi and Ket-admixed Selkups) have any of the yellow East Asian component. Nor do the Yukaghirs, which I think suggests (given the ubiquity of this yellow E. Asian component among all Altaics) that Uralo-Yukaghiric did not originate/spread from the Baikal (IIRC, Jaska's idea), but further west and was not associated with Altaic languages (IIRC Janhunen's idea), OR Altaic was associated with Uralo-Yukaghiric and was primarily Siberian, only later absorbing E. Asian OR that Uralo-Yukaghiric WAS in the Baikal before Altaic moved in. I think all in all, this evidence strengthens cases of Uralic homelands further north and west of the Baikal. Even the Mansi which are among the eastern-most of Uralic peoples (apart from small tribes of Samoyeds) have about 30% HG, 20% C. Asian, 40% Siberian, 5% Far East Siberian. Some of that HG-C. Asian might be Yamna derived as Ugrics allegedly have a pastoralist history (max 40% Yamna ancestry). Saami in comparison are 50% WHG, 20% C. Asian, 20% Siberian, 10% N. Eastern, 5% Far East Siberian. It would've been great if they tested those 1500BC HGs from Karelia as well to see how much Siberian and Far E. Siberian pre-Saamic peoples had, maybe Saami/F-U people lowered Siberian rather than raised it in Finland? What is Uralic's connection to Far E. Siberian? I wouldn't be surprised if in both Mansi/Saami cases, they acquired this from some pre-Uralic contact/substrate.

Some other observations:

-Karelia HG is 60-62% WHG, 38-40% ANE in comparison to Motala12 being 80% WHG, 20% ANE. If we know EHGs were 60% WHG, 40% ANE and we know that Armenians (15% ANE) are 5% HG and 50%, we can calculate how much ANE CAS has. So, 2% of Armenian ANE comes from HGs, and the remaining 13% comes from their 50% CAS meaning CAS is 26% ANE. Surprisingly, that's less than EHG. Yamna is 50% HG, 50% CAS, so they likely had about 33% ANE.

-As for R1a, maybe it was more popular to the N. of the Steppe and expanded after R1b? We should remember that all these R1b samples come from a small area and are probably not fully representative of all Yamna. I'm confident that R1a WILL be found in the Yamna culture because Samara and Karelia seem to be very close, so I would imagine R1a/b existing in a single population; furthermore, Corded Ware which is supposed to be 75-80% Yamna has 3/3 R1a samples it seems which almost certainly guarantees R1a existing in Yamna as well.

-No Haplo I or N from the Steppe or E. Euro forest-zone/HGs prior to 3000BC. Y-DNA N's absence from the Steppe until 1000BC (Gamba IR1) could mean that it expanded across N. Eurasia 3000-1000BC through the Forest-Belt and gradually filtered onto the Steppes. N is fairly infrequent among Turkic groups AFAIK, so could this be an indication that early Steppe Nomads like Cimmerians and Scythians were Ugrics or had a very strong Ugric substrate (Scythian mtDNA is also super-eastern, mtDNA F1b, A4, D, that doesn't even fit Uralics, might even be Turkic!) Either way, I think we're seeing some pretty solid evidence for early Turkic and Ugric substrate/peoples all the way in the western Steppes as early as 1000-500BC.

-Starcevo had Y-DNA H2! I'm not too familiar with H, but could this mean either H was introduced into India via the Neolithic (possibly with Dravidian languages?) OR this H2 originates from India/S.C. Asia, and traveled westward with agriculture. Given Starcevo lacks the CAS component in K16, could this mean ANE was absent in/near India/South-Central Asia 5000-6000BC? Stuttgart has 10% CAS, we also see it in one EN Hungary sample at <5%, so maybe it just got diluted/decoupled and there WAS CAS/ANE in India? Interestingly, Stuttgart's HG admixture seems to be EHG-derived, not WHG, so maybe some of the CAS comes from the assimilated EHGs? Judging by the absence of CAS in Munda-speaking Kharia, I think we can say that prior to Dravidians, India probably didn't have CAS and low ANE (Lodhi are also supposed to be Munda speaking, but they look admixed which explains their CAS; MA1 is mostly HG and CAS, only about 10% S. Asian which is the dominant component among all S. Asian Aryan speakers, so S. Asian is not very strong in ANE). Kalash lack the NE component that exists in other Iranic peoples like Tajiks and Pashtuns, not sure why (maybe they have less non-Yamnayan/I-I substrate?). It also looks like there may be a second H2, I0405 from Spain_MN that can be either I2a1a1 or H2. If it is I2a1a1, it is of the type popular among Sardinians and SW. Euros/Basques.

-The absence of Y-DNA J and E3b once again points to these lineages likely being largely confined to SE. Europe until maybe the MBA or EBA.

-They confirmed what many (including myself) have speculated before, that mtDNA I, T1, W, U2e, U4, U5a (and probably R1 & C1g IMO) strongly represent the inflow of ANE into Europe. Both EHGs and Yamna have mtDNA C, yet lack the Siberian component which I think means we can consider at least C1g/C4a6 as ANE. IIRC, we also have an mtDNA C sample from PPNB in Syria. It's interesting that they list H (certain subclades) as also being representative of ANE. That might explain the H found in Karelian HGs earlier. It's also interesting that they don't associate mtDNA J with Early Neolithics, I wonder where that leaves it? In the Fernandez study on PPNB from Syria, J was noticeably absent while being present in Mesolithic Greece, so could it be a southern HG marker?

-P. 51 confirms the presence of mtDNA H among Southern HGs (Spanish?) at a remarkably high frequency of 38.5%; U5b is another 38.5%, N* 15.4% and U4 (!) 7.7% and NO U5a. C. Euro HGs (I guess Germany) are equal parts U5a, U5b 32.1% each, followed by U 14.3%, U2 10.7%, U4 7.1%, U8 3.6%. E. Euro HGs are equal parts U5a and U4, 26.7% each followed by 20% U2, 20% C, 6.7% H.

-I hope they manage to add pigmentation data for the final print. Given the large scale of this study in time and geographic scope, it could really help settle many questions, like the timing/expansion of blue eyes, light skin and blonde/red hair, especially given the odd results we've seen from Yamna/Catacomb compared to later Andronovo. There must be some serious discrepancy there. I'm interested to see what pigmentation these EHGs and Samaran Yamnayans had; it's one of the main reasons I'm skeptical of Yamna being the last major demic displacement in Europe and accounting for the spread of IE. My theory is that blue eyes and blonde hair was likely spread by EHGs, especially during the MBA. Western HGs are universally dark-skinned, dark-haired and blue-eyed, but we saw from some of the Swedish HGs (IIRC, Motala12 and StoraForvar11) that some were light-skinned - and I consider it no coincidence that SHGs who are partially EHG are also partially light-skinned - meaning EHGs could also have been light-skinned, in addition to Andronovans being very blonde and heavily EHG derived. I think the connection is strong. EHG also seems to correlate almost perfectly with the European peaks in blonde hair and blue eyes, NE. Europe. Lastly, the Volga Yamna sample from a previous pigmentation study found the highest amount of blue eyes there out of the entire Yamna, 33%."

[rms2]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I seldom read lengthy tomes here at Anthrogenica. You might want to pace your posts a little bit and break them up into digestible chunks. I won't read anything that long unless it comes from someone who has already established himself or herself through many shorter posts as worth the extra effort, and even then I might not do it.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

You have some interesting ideas, but break it up by Topic.
I think it might be worth waiting for the new BA Europe / BB paper(s) with all the new samples, in a devoted thread

[Generalissimo]

Becaus it's so crucial for this topic, I will publish this excellent posting of G. Dekaen from on Eurogenes from 25 feb 2017 in full extent. It's a reaction to "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe" (Haak et al. 2015 preprint).

Dekaen rambles too much and gets many of the basics wrong.

[Finn]

Dekaen rambles too much and gets many of the basics wrong.
His assumption that tumulus culture spread many "yamna rooted" genes doesn't look odd to me. Others puzzled also why the Yamna influence in parts of NW Europe seems higher than in parts of NE Europe.
His findings are totally at ease with archeological, historical findings. So at the end not to be easliy swept away.
I'am not able to check his facts and figures, the mathematical part, may be you can? Where does he, in essence, go wrong?

[Finn]

Let me recapture it in just simple statements and in exaggerated form. Aimed to be an impulse for the discussion here.

Thesis: the tumulus culture (1600-1200 BC) is a key figure in spreading the Bronze Age in Europe and left a clear “genetic footprint” in specific NW Europe.

Why?
1. The tumulus culture spread from central Europe the “Bronze age package” to NW Europe.
2. The tumulus culture is (at least partly) rooted in Yamna, had Steppe roots.
3. Recent findings confirm that the spread of the Bronze is basically a “men’s world” (ratio 1:10), so: “tumulus warrior”.
4. NW Europe is well known for its “tumulus warrior” burials (known as Sögel-Wohlde, Elp-culture etc etc).
5. In parts of NW Europe the genetic impact of Yamna on modern people looks greater than in parts of NE Europe even if the last area is geographically closer to the Yamna heartland.
6. Last but not least about Y-DNA R1B S21/U106: who else than the “tumulus warrior” could be responsible for a fast spread, and even a founder effect in NW Europe, of it?

Does this survive a cross fire? Where did I go wrong?

[Generalissimo]

His assumption that tumulus culture spread many "yamna rooted" genes doesn't look odd to me. Others puzzled also why the Yamna influence in parts of NW Europe seems higher than in parts of NE Europe.
His findings are totally at ease with archeological, historical findings. So at the end not to be easliy swept away.
I'am not able to check his facts and figures, the mathematical part, may be you can? Where does he, in essence, go wrong?

He's made a lot of assumptions, and many of them were false. He makes very basic errors.

I'm not talking specifically about his theories about Tumulus, but his general MO, which leaves a lot to be desired. He's not someone who's opinions I would consider valid.

[Finn]

He's made a lot of assumptions, and many of them were false. He makes very basic errors.

I'm not talking specifically about his theories about Tumulus, but his general MO, which leaves a lot to be desired. He's not someone who's opinions I would consider valid.

Ok....but that doen't rule out that he has in the Tumulus case a point, doesn't it? Right or wrong in general or about his assumptions could be nice to discuss....but not so relevant I guess. I want to focus here on the topic/ the thesis: the tumulus culture (1600-1200 BC) is a key figure in spreading the Bronze Age in Europe and left a clear “genetic footprint” in specific NW Europe.

I have made these thesis, and 6 statements. Which are most probably odd, wrong or whatsoever? And most of all....why?

Some pictures say more than 1000 words:
the big picture:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284811960_Connected_Histories_the_Dynamics_of_Bron ze_Age_Interaction_and_Trade_1500-1100_bc/figures?lo=1
the dutch picture (my roots lay in Northeastern part, red tumulus, blue urnfield):
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Verspreiding_grafheuvels-urnenvelden_Nederland.svg/1200px-Verspreiding_grafheuvels-urnenvelden_Nederland.svg.png
my aDNA subregion:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Grafheuvel_tussen_Borger_en_Drouwen.jpg

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Ok....but that doen't rule out that he has in the Tumulus case a point, doesn't it? Right or wrong in general or about his assumptions could be nice to discuss....but not so relevant I guess. But I want to focus here on the topic/ the thesis: the tumulus culture (1600-1200 BC) is a key figure in spreading the Bronze Age in Europe and left a clear “genetic footprint” in specific NW Europe.

I have made these thesis, and 6 statements. Which are most probably odd, wrong or whatsoever? And most of all....why?

If you're wanting discussion about fine-details of BA Europe & subsequent ethnogenesis of historic groups and specific language groups, then seeking the opinion of 'the General' isn't the way to go.
It is well beyond his knowledge, and I doubt he can even manage to get his neck of the woods right. His analyses pretty much end at the steppe migration, which is his pre-occupation.

Nothing you have said is actually incorrect, although I cannot comment on the actual figures quoted by that Daekon chap. As I mentioned, more data from Tumulus culture is coming, and luckily it is from the top teams in corroboration with archaeologists; so we don't have to rely on the personal visions of self-proclaimed internet experts.

[Finn]

If you're wanting discussion about fine-details of BA Europe & subsequent ethnogenesis of historic groups and specific language groups, then seeking the opinion of 'the General' isn't the way to go.
It is well beyond his knowledge, and I doubt he can even manage to get his neck of the woods right. His analyses pretty much end at the steppe migration, which is his pre-occupation.

Nothing you have said is actually incorrect, although I cannot comment on the actual figures quoted by that Daekon chap. As I mentioned, more data from Tumulus culture is coming, and luckily it is from the top teams in corroboration with archaeologists; so we don't have to rely on the personal visions of self-proclaimed internet experts.

All true Gravetto. This is a non academic setting. And the prove of the pudding is in the eating (=findings of R1b in Tumulus). So according to academic rules....nothing proven yet. And may be bullshit.

But what I see is sometimes an extreme focus on facts and figures. Don't understand me wrong I don't state that you don't need accurate facts and figures (that's why I quoted Dekaen). But in the Haak e.a. 2015 case (and I could go on ) according to me they don't place it enough in context.

The combination of facts and figures and the archeological and historic narrative makes it to a kind of complete picture. Sometimes it comes to my mind that some whiz kids make their mathematical patterns whit exact outcomes....but in this case the reconstruction of migration patterns etc, they sometimes seem to forget that Y-DNA is not a simple number, it are real men, groups, cultures which spread it. I know that in theorie they know that's a simple truth, but back behind the pc....;) And otherwise archeologist who only consider "cultural packages" or even "stucked to pottery etc..." tend to mis the boat also.

I'am convinced that with the "collective knowledge" on this kind of of fora we are able to make associate and make linkages....often far besides reality....but I guess not every time. Trial and error! This is at least my part of the "fun".

(I hope my message comes through, not native speaker, so in some way "disabled" not fluent ;)

[Gravetto-Danubian]

All true Gravetto. This is a non academic setting. And the prove of the pudding is in the eating (=findings of R1b in Tumulus). So according to academic rules....nothing proven yet. And may be bullshit.

But what I see is sometimes an extreme focus on facts and figures. Don't understand me wrong I don't state that you don't need accurate facts and figures (that's why I quoted Dekaen). But in the Haak e.a. 2015 case (and I could go on ) according to me they don't place it enough in context.

The combination of facts and figures and the archeological and historic narrative makes it to a kind of complete picture. Sometimes it comes to my mind that some whiz kids make their mathematical patterns whit exact outcomes....but in this case the reconstruction of migration patterns etc, they sometimes seem to forget that Y-DNA is not a simple number, it are real men, groups, cultures which spread it. I know that in theorie they know that's a simple truth, but back behind the pc....;) And otherwise archeologist who only consider "cultural packages" or even "stucked to pottery etc..." tend to mis the boat also.

I'am convinced that with the "collective knowledge" on this kind of of fora we are able to make associate and make linkages....often far besides reality....but I guess not every time. Trial and error! This is at least my part of the "fun".

(I hope my message comes through, not native speaker, so in some way "disabled" not fluent ;)

Nothing wrong with fora for fun & discussion, at least with individuals who are not conceited and biased. Anyway, good luck, we shall talk soon.

[Finn]

Nothing wrong with fora for fun & discussion, at least with individuals who are not conceited and biased. Anyway, good luck, we shall talk soon.

In some way we are all biased Gravetto-Danubian....as long as it doesn't lead to "fanatic blindness" nothing wrong with it. I must admit that my style is sometimes associative, fast, hasty and sometimes pretty straight and superficial it looks pretty convinced (North Sea failure ;). But I always try to separate the matter and the person....so never ad hominem. Pleased to see you here again!

[Huijbregts]

I expect that, when the Bell Beaker behemoth finally has arrived, the most important data will soon be available in the Eurogenes Global10 dataset.
The usual way to study Global10 is with PCA and nMonte methods. I often have the feeling that with these methods you loose dimension related information.
So I have experimented with a method to specifically visualize the data by all the dimensions.
Here I present a comparison of the Bell_Beaker cluster with Europe_MN samples (4 Iberian, 2 Baalberge, Salzmende, Esperstedt, Nordic_MN_B)
14324
The Bell_Beaker and Europe_MN groups share a moderately high value on the dimensions 1 and 2; on the higher dimensions the differences are considerable. The Bell_Beakers have a minimum on dimension 4 and a maximum on dimension 9. Europe_MN has a maximum on dimension 6.
Nordic_MN_B:RISE61 is the oddball (dimensions 4,6,7). Maybe he(?) is BA and a descendant rather than an ancestor of Bell_Beakers.
The most striking detail is that the Bell Beakers have a deep negative peek on dimension 4, where European_MN is about zero.
It is hard to see how Bell Beaker could have inherited this component from Europe_MN; but see the second graph.
Also interesting is how from dimension 6 onwards the variance increases. Yet in on dimension 9 the data do not have a zero average, so this is probably not noise.

The second graph compares the Bell Beakers with Corded Ware and the recently published ancient Baltic samples. (Note that the color code of the Bell Beakers is different from the first graph; I could not easily fix that)
14325
This graph is a bit messy, because Bell_Beakers and Corded_Ware are only separated on the dimensions 4 and 6.
The most striking is that Baltic_ancient has peaks on the same dimensions as Bell Beaker and Corded Ware (4,6,7), but more extreme.
This is consistent with the idea that Baltic_ancient might be ancestral to the other two.

[Jean M]

In some way we are all biased

Yes indeed. Psychologists tell us that bias is inevitable, so the best an individual can do is be aware of his or her biases. For example I loathe war. So as an historian, I have to be careful not to airbrush out the violence in history. Plus I can seek a second (and third or however many necessary) opinion, which I do. In science, all published work should have been read by at least one expert referee before publication, but that is just the start of the process of checks and balances. Once published, work will be reviewed by a lot of other eyes. Pushing back the boundaries of knowledge is a collective process.

[bicicleur]

Pushing back the boundaries of knowledge is a collective process.

true for archeology and archeogenetics

not so for maths and exact sciences

and necessary for social studies which are full of bias and where feedback still don't work

[rms2]

. . . Pushing back the boundaries of knowledge is a collective process.

Although I agree with you, sometimes the process begins with a single individual or just a few individuals standing athwart the collective.

Often pushing back the boundaries of knowledge is like a border collie steering the herd in the right direction and convincing it that is where it wanted to go all along.

[Jean M]

Although I agree with you, sometimes the process begins with a single individual or just a few individuals standing athwart the collective.

Indeed. Often what is needed to make a breakthrough is not more data, but the ability to see a pattern in the data that others have not seen. That is a lonely position, until and unless others are convinced.

[Finn]

I expect that, when the Bell Beaker behemoth finally has arrived, the most important data will soon be available in the Eurogenes Global10 dataset.
The usual way to study Global10 is with PCA and nMonte methods. I often have the feeling that with these methods you loose dimension related information.
So I have experimented with a method to specifically visualize the data by all the dimensions.
Here I present a comparison of the Bell_Beaker cluster with Europe_MN samples (4 Iberian, 2 Baalberge, Salzmende, Esperstedt, Nordic_MN_B)
14324
The Bell_Beaker and Europe_MN groups share a moderately high value on the dimensions 1 and 2; on the higher dimensions the differences are considerable. The Bell_Beakers have a minimum on dimension 4 and a maximum on dimension 9. Europe_MN has a maximum on dimension 6.
Nordic_MN_B:RISE61 is the oddball (dimensions 4,6,7). Maybe he(?) is BA and a descendant rather than an ancestor of Bell_Beakers.
The most striking detail is that the Bell Beakers have a deep negative peek on dimension 4, where European_MN is about zero.
It is hard to see how Bell Beaker could have inherited this component from Europe_MN; but see the second graph.
Also interesting is how from dimension 6 onwards the variance increases. Yet in on dimension 9 the data do not have a zero average, so this is probably not noise.

The second graph compares the Bell Beakers with Corded Ware and the recently published ancient Baltic samples. (Note that the color code of the Bell Beakers is different from the first graph; I could not easily fix that)
14325
This graph is a bit messy, because Bell_Beakers and Corded_Ware are only separated on the dimensions 4 and 6.
The most striking is that Baltic_ancient has peaks on the same dimensions as Bell Beaker and Corded Ware (4,6,7), but more extreme.
This is consistent with the idea that Baltic_ancient might be ancestral to the other two.

Ok and what about the Tumulus/Urnfield like Halberstadt-LBA, see (from Haak e.a. 2015):

http://i65.tinypic.com/2n1s461.jpg

[Finn]

Indeed. Often what is needed to make a breakthrough is not more data, but the ability to see a pattern in the data that others have not seen. That is a lonely position, until and unless others are convinced.

And in this respect wha's your opinion about my thesis? Convinced or not?
Thesis: the tumulus culture (1600-1200 BC) is a key figure in spreading the Bronze Age in Europe and left a clear “genetic footprint” in specific NW Europe.

Why?
1. The tumulus culture spread from central Europe the “Bronze age package” to NW Europe.
2. The tumulus culture is (at least partly) rooted in Yamna, had Steppe roots.
3. Recent findings confirm that the spread of the Bronze is basically a “men’s world” (ratio 1:10), so: “tumulus warrior”.
4. NW Europe is well known for its “tumulus warrior” burials (known as Sögel-Wohlde, Elp-culture etc etc).
5. In parts of NW Europe the genetic impact of Yamna on modern people looks greater than in parts of NE Europe even if the last area is geographically closer to the Yamna heartland.
6. Last but not least about Y-DNA R1B S21/U106: who else than the “tumulus warrior” could be responsible for a fast spread, and even a founder effect in NW Europe, of it?

Does this survive a cross fire? Where did I go wrong?

[Finn]

I expect that, when the Bell Beaker behemoth finally has arrived, the most important data will soon be available in the Eurogenes Global10 dataset.
The usual way to study Global10 is with PCA and nMonte methods. I often have the feeling that with these methods you loose dimension related information.
So I have experimented with a method to specifically visualize the data by all the dimensions.
Here I present a comparison of the Bell_Beaker cluster with Europe_MN samples (4 Iberian, 2 Baalberge, Salzmende, Esperstedt, Nordic_MN_B)
14324
The Bell_Beaker and Europe_MN groups share a moderately high value on the dimensions 1 and 2; on the higher dimensions the differences are considerable. The Bell_Beakers have a minimum on dimension 4 and a maximum on dimension 9. Europe_MN has a maximum on dimension 6.
Nordic_MN_B:RISE61 is the oddball (dimensions 4,6,7). Maybe he(?) is BA and a descendant rather than an ancestor of Bell_Beakers.
The most striking detail is that the Bell Beakers have a deep negative peek on dimension 4, where European_MN is about zero.
It is hard to see how Bell Beaker could have inherited this component from Europe_MN; but see the second graph.
Also interesting is how from dimension 6 onwards the variance increases. Yet in on dimension 9 the data do not have a zero average, so this is probably not noise.

The second graph compares the Bell Beakers with Corded Ware and the recently published ancient Baltic samples. (Note that the color code of the Bell Beakers is different from the first graph; I could not easily fix that)
14325
This graph is a bit messy, because Bell_Beakers and Corded_Ware are only separated on the dimensions 4 and 6.
The most striking is that Baltic_ancient has peaks on the same dimensions as Bell Beaker and Corded Ware (4,6,7), but more extreme.
This is consistent with the idea that Baltic_ancient might be ancestral to the other two.
And one add about the Bell Beaker, archeology shows regional differation, based on the North Dutch situation, Bell Beakers evolved out of CW. With also an influx from the Southwest, like the Martime Beakers who came probably from Iberia, see;
http://eurogenes.blogspot.nl/2016/06/german-bell-beakers-in-context-of.html
The CW component has indeed, not surprisingly a high NE Europe 'Baltic' component, rooted in Yamna.

[Jean M]

And in this respect wha's your opinion about my thesis?

I have not had time to consider it, but I would like to welcome you to the forum, and endorse the suggestion above that a new thread might be created for the idea. That would attract those interested in it, who might not expect to find it on a thread about Bell Beaker.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

HI All
Some one a few days ago linked an article about the beginnings of single, furnished inhumations in BB contexts of Iberia (focussing on a site in Eastern coastal Iberia). I cant find it in any related thread, for the life of me. I think its a very important article. Any recollections ?

[Chad Rohlfsen]

And in this respect wha's your opinion about my thesis? Convinced or not?
Thesis: the tumulus culture (1600-1200 BC) is a key figure in spreading the Bronze Age in Europe and left a clear “genetic footprint” in specific NW Europe.

Why?
1. The tumulus culture spread from central Europe the “Bronze age package” to NW Europe.
2. The tumulus culture is (at least partly) rooted in Yamna, had Steppe roots.
3. Recent findings confirm that the spread of the Bronze is basically a “men’s world” (ratio 1:10), so: “tumulus warrior”.
4. NW Europe is well known for its “tumulus warrior” burials (known as Sögel-Wohlde, Elp-culture etc etc).
5. In parts of NW Europe the genetic impact of Yamna on modern people looks greater than in parts of NE Europe even if the last area is geographically closer to the Yamna heartland.
6. Last but not least about Y-DNA R1B S21/U106: who else than the “tumulus warrior” could be responsible for a fast spread, and even a founder effect in NW Europe, of it?

Does this survive a cross fire? Where did I go wrong?

What do you mean by Bronze Age package? Bell Beaker already produced bronze weapons. Even the fully British-style daggers are developed by 2200BCE, suggesting that bronze working was likely known by the first migrants to Britain. U106 is likely spread all over NC and part of NW Europe with the Single-Grave Culture. I'm not sure you would need something as late as Tumulus to explain its distribution.

[sweuro]

Ok and what about the Tumulus/Urnfield like Halberstadt-LBA, see (from Haak e.a. 2015):

http://i65.tinypic.com/2n1s461.jpg
This table will be soon outdated. As per Lalueza et al. Spaniards should be 50% EEF, 20% WHG and 30% Steppe.

[cacarlos]

Hi,

I just wanted to add a hypothesis I have published, related to this thread:

Indo-European diffusion model (Research Gate) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314216807_Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model)

(or if you prefer, in Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/31707046/Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model) )

It will certainly be wrong in many aspects, but still I think the simplified picture of what we know today is nearer to this. Until we get more aDNA samples, and everything changes, of course...

[rms2]

Hi,

I just wanted to add a hypothesis I have published, related to this thread:

Indo-European diffusion model (Research Gate) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314216807_Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model)

(or if you prefer, in Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/31707046/Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model) )

It will certainly be wrong in many aspects, but still I think the simplified picture of what we know today is nearer to this. Until we get more aDNA samples, and everything changes, of course...

Wow! I was only able to scan through your paper, but I plan to print it out as soon as I get the chance and give it a proper reading, armed with a highlighter and a red pen. Not sure I will agree with everything, but it is impressive.

[razyn]

It will certainly be wrong in many aspects, but still I think the simplified picture of what we know today is nearer to this.

I wonder if the caption for Fig. 18 (in the table of contents, as well as where it actually occurs in the document) was supposed to refer to U152, rather than DF27 again? Fig. 13 seems much closer to what followers of Myres 2011 might suppose was the case. Not that I agree, and "Alpine DF27" is an OK concept; but even I don't think it's all that evident that there was such a thing, anciently, crying out for such a map.

[MitchellSince1893]

Hi,

I just wanted to add a hypothesis I have published, related to this thread:

Indo-European diffusion model (Research Gate) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314216807_Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model)

(or if you prefer, in Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/31707046/Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model) )

It will certainly be wrong in many aspects, but still I think the simplified picture of what we know today is nearer to this. Until we get more aDNA samples, and everything changes, of course...

Still reading through it to page 68, but from a layman's perspective I found it well written with timely references to recent work in the field, and logical.

This is a quote related to "R1b-U152 (formed ca. 2400 BC, TMRCA ca. 2400 BC):
Alpine WEP (AWEP)."


Únětice elites controlled trade routes from the Baltic Sea shores to
Aegean Sea artisans, with Úněticean daggers found all over Europe and in Anatolia, and
the nature of weapons and metal work suggest a chronic state of warfare and the
emergence of a warrior class until its demise by the Tumulus culture, born in the area
previously occupied by Únětice groups in Southern Germany.
Central European groups from southern Germany would then in this context correspond
to a community with a common West Indo-European language ancestral to Italic and
Celtic (Kortlandt 2007), whose continuous development and dialectal development is to
be followed into the Tumulus culture (ca. 1600-1200 BC). The Tumulus culture was
eminently a warrior society which expanded eastward with new chiefdoms east into the
Carpathian Basin (up to the river Tisza) and northward into Polish and central European
and Únětice territories, with dispersed settlements centered around fortified structures
(see above Figure 15).
In the subsequent period of crisis, it developed into bands of raiders and mercenaries, and
took control of peasant societies, as happened in several regions during the Urnfield and
La Tène periods, and similar to the society of mercenaries and warring city states in the
Celtic period (Kristiansen 2000). The European world ca. 1450-1100 BC has been
compared to the Viking Age, with population pressure and lack of land for young sons
with no inheritance leading to war-bands that engage in seasonal raiding, trading, and
piracy; followed up by more massive colonizing ventures and migrations; and a political
economy based on a chiefdom form of society where free farmers were the dominant
class, with commoners and slaves as dependent groups (Kristiansen 2016).
61
Exogamous and endogamous strategies and variable distances of marriage exchanges to
maintain alliances complicate this picture further in the Tumulus/Nordic traditions
(Kristiansen 2000), which suggests that post-Únětice societies could especially benefit
from more aDNA samples and the application of admixture analysis.
The Urnfield culture (ca. 1300-750 BC) is associated with the rise of a new warrior elite,
and the formation of new farming settlements and their urnfields. In some areas there is
continuity from Tumulus to Urnifield culture, with narrowing and concentration of
settlements along the river valleys, but there is also wide-ranging migrations (Figure 17).
These migrations are similar to those seen later in La Tène culture (Kristiansen 2000).
Urnfield migrations south of the Pyrenees may have brought the pre-Celtic Sorothaptic
language believed to be behind certain toponyms and inscriptions around the Pyrenees
(Coromines 1976).
Scarce aDNA from Late Urnfield populations from its northeastern territories in Saxony
– near the Lusatian culture –, show a mixture of lineages, which suggest genetic
continuity with older cultures: ECW ancestry was found in Halberstadt (ca. 1193-979),
and of the eight males studied from the Lichtenstein cave (ca. 1000 BC), five were of
European hunter-gatherer, two of EEHG, and one of WE ancestry (Schilz 2006).
Given the modern distribution of Alpine WEP ancestry (see below Figure 18), its
expansion is probably to be connected to the spread of the Urnfield culture and later
offshoots Hallstatt and Villanovan cultures.

[MitchellSince1893]

I wonder if the caption for Fig. 18 (in the table of contents, as well as where it actually occurs in the document) was supposed to refer to U152, rather than DF27 again? Fig. 13 seems much closer to what followers of Myres 2011 might suppose was the case. Not that I agree, and "Alpine DF27" is an OK concept; but even I don't think it's all that evident that there was such a thing, anciently, crying out for such a map.

Agree, it's a typo. Author states on page 18 that


R1b-DF27 (formed ca. 2400 BC, TMRCA ca. 2400 BC):
Gallic WEP (GWEP).
• R1b-U152 (formed ca. 2400 BC, TMRCA ca. 2400 BC):
Alpine WEP (AWEP).
• R1b-L21 (formed ca. 2400 BC, TMRCA ca. 2400 BC):
Atlantic WEP (AtWEP).

And refers to Figure 18
Given the modern distribution of Alpine WEP ancestry (see below Figure 18),

[castle3]

Hi,

I just wanted to add a hypothesis I have published, related to this thread:

Indo-European diffusion model (Research Gate) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314216807_Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model)

(or if you prefer, in Academia.edu (https://www.academia.edu/31707046/Indo-European_demic_diffusion_model) )

It will certainly be wrong in many aspects, but still I think the simplified picture of what we know today is nearer to this. Until we get more aDNA samples, and everything changes, of course...

Been on the Guinness all night at the pub. Woke up this morning feeling like death, but this has cheered me up! Just wish my hid didn't ache!

[cacarlos]

Thank you for the comments. And yes, Fig. 18 is an error, it should read R1b-U152. It's the problem with writing "Alpine WEP" and the like: apart from being inexact and arbitrary in the names, you get a lot of similar errors, but I believe writings in anthropology are difficult to follow if you stick with the formal names... Also, I haven't dedicated enough time to revise it, and it hasn't got a peer review, so there are many mistakes - I've already found some minor ones myself since posting it.

I have received a private message about the raw maps I have used, but I cannot answer (not enough messages apparently), so here it goes:

- I have used public domain raster maps from Natural Earth (http://www.naturalearthdata.com/), with Photoshop. If I were to do them again, I would think about selecting maps centered on Eurasia (or even Europe alone), since the distortion (width) turns to be quite annoying, compared to more "natural-looking" maps. On the other hand, the distortion had in fact some use when putting more than Y-DNA sample in the same location, since I could place them in a horizontal row without too much problem.
- I would think twice before using Photoshop and raster images. Maybe vector images are the best option, especially for type and vector layers, which were a pain as they grew in number. I selected photography software because I was used to it from previous works with photographs (because of my work in anatomy for the thesis), and it seemed to me easier option. Of course the professional option is QGIS or similar GIS software. Also, the vector images from Natural Earth have more data on lakes and rivers, and I believe they would have provided valuable information to draw borders more exactly.
- These were my first drawn maps (at least the first I have actually dedicated hours to), and they were only drawn to illustrate a point, so I don't think the end result is actually bad, but indeed improvable; it's just that I don't have too much time for anything lately.

I also posted the full images in an old blog, in case anyone wants to reuse them: http://indo-european.info/indoeuropean/2017/03/recent-maps-on-indo-european-migration/

Carlos

[MitchellSince1893]

...and it hasn't got a peer review...

Is it too late to wait and incorporate the Big Bell Beaker paper that is expected around April? That would be a huge resource for you.

Thank you for the link to your maps. They are some of the most detailed I have seen.

[Romilius]

Does someone know when in this month Professor Reich will have the famous lecture about Bell Beaker results?

[Heber]

Excellent paper. Makes a lot of sense to me and is written in a very clear manner. I would agree with a previous comment, integrate the findings from expected Bell Beaker paper.

http://pin.it/fvCtjKX

[angscoire]

Does someone know when in this month Professor Reich will have the famous lecture about Bell Beaker results?

Is this lecture just a bad meme ? Unless someone can provide evidence to the contrary......Time and place anyone ? Better wait for the paper maybe this month or next ? Goodness knows we need it.

[rms2]

Check out this post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9903-Parallel-ancient-genomic-transects-reveal-complex-population-history-of-early-Europea&p=218527&viewfull=1#post218527) based on the new paper, Parallel ancient genomic transects reveal complex population history of early European farmers (http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/06/114488).

In that post, jeanL points out that three very early Iberian Bell Beaker skeletons were recovered from a collective megalithic tomb at El Soltillo in Spain. All three belonged to y haplogroup I: one simply I and the other two to I2a2a.

This is something Alan, Mike W, and I have guessed at before and have mentioned a number of times in this thread, i.e., that the very earliest Iberian Bell Beaker people were probably not R1b and would not have much if any steppe autosomal dna.

I'm going to quote myself from a fairly recent post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9698-from-western-Yamna-to-Europe-a-I2a2-R1b-M269-joined-venture&p=215055&viewfull=1#post215055) on this subject:



I've pointed out quite a few times that the very earliest Bell Beaker burials in Iberia were in collective Neolithic tombs without the steppe array of weapons, horse bones, etc., and contained skeletons that were short in stature, long headed, and gracile, of a type called Mediterranean, like what is typical of Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers. These facts separate them from the kurgan-style Bell Beaker people, who tended to be tall, robust, and round headed, and who buried their important dead, especially males, in pits in single graves, accompanied by weapons and horse bones and under a round tumulus . . .

This leads me to suspect that the earliest Iberian BB people are a different people from the later BB people and that perhaps they were non-R1b and had little or no steppe autosomal dna.

[moesan]

are these Y haplo's sure? If true, it would confirm the gueeses of someones (me among them) that saw some link between male BBs and Y-I2a2 of some lineage, in Germany/Switzerland, Moldovia, why not in Scandinavia and UK, and even Steppes? I would be glad to have the subclades which, only, can confirm or infirm... Y-I2a(-1b or -2) can be involved in the 'dinaricization' process of some kind of 'mediterranean' pop, and the N-E Carpathians would be a nice place, sooner than West Balkans? Just for the fun...

[moesan]

concerning types, I had not red the description of gracile 'mediter' types you give for first BBs; but are this the mean description of only the types of the males tested here for Y-I2a2? My guess could very soon by completely ruined!

[rms2]

concerning types, I had not red the description of gracile 'mediter' types you give for first BBs; but are this the mean description of only the types of the males tested here for Y-I2a2? My guess could very soon by completely ruined!

I don't think anyone has made the connection yet between the Mediterranean physical type and I2a2a. I was simply talking about what I have read about the earliest Iberian BB and the Neolithic people of the long barrows in Britain.

For example, I quoted Coon from his book, The Races of Europe, page 150:



Where Bell Beaker burials are found in central Europe, the skeletons are almost always of the same tall brachycephalic type which we have already studied in the eastern Mediterranean and Italy. In Spain, however, they are frequently of the Megalithic race.

[R.Rocca]

Check out this post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9903-Parallel-ancient-genomic-transects-reveal-complex-population-history-of-early-Europea&p=218527&viewfull=1#post218527) based on the new paper, Parallel ancient genomic transects reveal complex population history of early European farmers (http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/06/114488).

In that post, jeanL points out that three very early Iberian Bell Beaker skeletons were recovered from a collective megalithic tomb at El Soltillo in Spain. All three belonged to y haplogroup I: one simply I and the other two to I2a2a.

This is something Alan, Mike W, and I have guessed at before and have mentioned a number of times in this thread, i.e., that the very earliest Iberian Bell Beaker people were probably not R1b and would not have much if any steppe autosomal dna.

I'm going to quote myself from a fairly recent post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9698-from-western-Yamna-to-Europe-a-I2a2-R1b-M269-joined-venture&p=215055&viewfull=1#post215055) on this subject:

As I've stated previously, it is hard to call these skeletons found in collective megalithic tombs Bell Beaker "People", since items could have been placed there after the fact.

[rms2]

As I've stated previously, it is hard to call skeletons found in collective megalithic tombs Bell Beaker "People", since items could have been placed there after the fact.

If that is the case, then we cannot say the first Bell Beaker people lived in Iberia, because the very earliest Iberian BB finds come from collective Neolithic tombs.

Perhaps later arrivals from central Europe placed them there and it has been throwing us off, when in fact the earliest BB people lived in Eastern Europe.

That would suit me fine and would certainly make things a lot simpler and more sensible.

[Jean M]

If that is the case, then we cannot say the first Bell Beaker people lived in Iberia, because the very earliest Iberian BB finds come from collective Neolithic tombs.

No. We have BB pottery from settlement sites, notably Leceia hut FM, dated to the 2nd quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. i.e. 2700s. This is an ideal site, as it was not mixed with the Neolithic layer beneath it, which was several hundred years earlier, and all the pottery was BB. See Cardoso 2014.


That .. would certainly make things a lot simpler and more sensible.

So true. ;) But I have had to struggle with complex facts as best I can. I'm waiting to see if the coming BB papers make it any easier, or just more horribly complex.

[rms2]

No. We have BB pottery from settlement sites, notably Leceia hut FM, dated to the 2nd quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. i.e. 2700s. This is an ideal site, as it was not mixed with the Neolithic layer beneath it, which was several hundred years earlier, and all the pottery was BB. See Cardoso 2014.

Not trying to contradict you, but that is not what I have read, at least in terms of Bell Beaker burials, and this find dates from 2916-2714 BC, which makes it at least as old as those pottery finds you named, if not older.

The BB pottery from settlement sites was not from burials, I take it. Is that correct? Or was it recovered from burials?

Were there kurgan-type BB burials associated with these early Iberian BB settlement sites? How about the skeletons associated with those sites? Were they gracile Mediterraneans or tall and robust like classic BB skeletons?




So true. ;) But I have had to struggle with complex facts as best I can. I'm waiting to see if the coming BB papers make it any easier, or just more horribly complex.

Hard to avoid the fact that these skeletons were I and I2a2a, that there was BB pottery inside the megalithic tomb in which they were found, and that at least one of them dates to 2916-2714 BC.

[Jean M]

Not trying to contradict you, but that is not what I have read, at least in terms of Bell Beaker burials, and this find dates from 2916-2714 BC, which makes it at least as old as those pottery finds you named, if not older.

Hard to avoid the fact that these skeletons were I and I2a2a, that there was BB pottery inside the megalithic tomb in which they were found, and that at least one of them dates to 2916-2714 BC.

Sorry Rich, I just read your post without looking at the previous ones. I gave up on adding the Lipson 2017 data to my tables, in order to focus on my book. I now see that El Sotillo is labelled Beaker Period and has some BB pottery. There is a patch of Bell Beaker shown in that region on the map on p. 49 in Blood of the Celts. It is not a region where I would expect the earliest BB, but who knows?


The BB pottery from settlement sites was not from burials, I take it. Is that correct? Or was it recovered from burials?

Leceia hut Fm was a domestic site. There are no burials there. When dealing with burials, we need to be sure that the burial site was BB from the start, or that the BB insertion can be clearly distinguished from earlier human remains there, which is often the case. Lipson 2017 supplementary info says that El Sotillo actually began in the Late Chalcolithic, which is very promising for this to be totally BB. Plus it sounds like a round barrow, not a Neolithic long barrow.

[rms2]

I need to reread the details, but El Soltillo was described as a megalithic tomb. I do recall that.

[rms2]

Here is the description of El Soltillo from page 36 of the supplementary info (http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2017/03/06/114488.DC1/114488-1.pdf) of Lipson et al:



It is a megalithic tomb with a corridor and an almost circular chamber, formed by nine slab stones,
a corridor and a tumulus of eleven meters of diameter. During the excavation, numerous lithic tools
were uncovered, including six pedunculated arrowheads of silex, a bone and a metal arrowheads, a
metal burin, retouched flakes, two fragments of foliaceous projectile points, etc. There are some
Bell Beaker pottery remains and a cup with incised decorations.


That sounds like a Neolithic megalithic tomb and not like a kurgan-type pit grave under a round tumulus.

[Generalissimo]

His assumption that tumulus culture spread many "yamna rooted" genes doesn't look odd to me. Others puzzled also why the Yamna influence in parts of NW Europe seems higher than in parts of NE Europe.
His findings are totally at ease with archeological, historical findings. So at the end not to be easliy swept away.
I'am not able to check his facts and figures, the mathematical part, may be you can? Where does he, in essence, go wrong?

I've seen too many wayward theories from him to take him seriously now.

I just ignore his posts.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Re-freshing some of my reading, starting with this book (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qKSVAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA7&dq=similar+but+different+beakers&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=similar%20but%20different%20beakers&f=false) ('Similar but different..").


1) Chase's chapter deals with the emergence of the Maritime beaker Pot. From what I understand, he sees it as it emerging in the Tagus region due to a confluence of cultural influences (with some individuals moving also): local Copos, Northwest African pottery (shell impressions), and Corded Ware Pot designs from the lower Rhine (overall shape); all largely sea-mediated.

2) Expansion of Maritime Beaker to rest of Europe
Some areas of Iberia rejected it/ did not consume BB ceramics (eg Alentejo), in others it was added to local repertoires, and local modifications of original Maritime Beaker design. Early & quick appearance in SE France noted.
Diffusion of Maritime Beaker to the lower Rhine created the syncretic AOC Beaker, which was a secondary radiation point (purple).

14478

3) The Bell Beaker culture:
Consists of tanged copper knives (a development from Iberian Chalcolithic traditions); Stone wrist guards; piercing flint arrowheads, Palmella points - all argued by Chase to be Iberia, at least 'Atlantic' in origin; and as a whole oppositional to the Corded Ware set (Battle Axes, etc); whose symbolism ultimately derives from the notion of Man as Hunter (elite males).

Salanova's chapter continues:

4) However, the complete set described in (3) is actually very rare. For France: only 10 or so wristguards or copper daggers have been found in Brittany or the Paris basin (not for lack of research).
Otherwise, they are all just pottery assemblages (Maritime Baker & variants) in Megalithic graves; used throughout M3 (p 66); and such Beaker ware deposits are largely skewed toward Brittany (Which even develops in its own regional sub-style) than central France (Seine)- where Megalithic collective graves continue, but by & large lack Beaker ware.

The full Beaker set is also uncommon in Portugal (which by contrast has the densest concentration of Beaker vessels & greatest variety of designs). Only ~ 50 Copper daggers and Palmella points have been found, mostly concentrated in Estremadura. (p 68). In Portugal, despite high absoulte number of Beakers, they occur only in select sites, north of the Tagus, which are regions lacking raw materials for their actual production.

5) The Funerary domain. Elsewhere Salanova deals with the issue of collective vs single burials. (e.g. Behind the warriors: Bell Beakers and identities in Atlantic Europe (third millennium B.C.))
She describes the well known division of megalithic/ collective graves of Atlantic & Mediterranean Europe - essentially a continuity from the Neolithic - and individual graves in northern & eastern Europe; with UK & France in between.
The collective burials in the 'western sphere' continue until 2200 BC, at least.

Individuals graves in France are found north -east of the Seine, and begin after 2600 BC and continue to 2000 BC; with sexual dimorphism - male placed on left, females on right (NB opposite to usual Corded Ware practice; We should noted that in southern Sweden, eg, males were placed left, females on right; and many collective burials found also - Furholt). No such orientation attention in collective graves, where positioning was more related to chronology & kin relations.

In France - the 'overlap region' - individual graves occur by & near collective ones, and co-exist in time; but single inhumations are always isolated (in contrast to CWC region, where numerous single grave cemeteries & family plots occur). Salanova argues those interred individual are people who did not have access / right to be interred in collective graves. Some individual graves which contained the 'classic BB set (daggers, wrist guards, arrowheads) could be professional warriors.

Other individual burials could be different identities, however; such as 3 individuals buried with Corded ware culture orientation & AOC pots- which could be assumed to be Dutch CWC traders exchanging Grand Pressigny flint. However this network abrubtly ends, c. 2400 BC, replaced by copper daggers. Others still were professional craftsmen.

So If I am understanding this right, it appears the real BB package emerges, for the first time, in northern France; reifying western European cultural artefacts but adopting single grave as status markers (? copied from CWC), but as if in opposition. So was northern France like a militarized march ? If the individually inhumed 'warriors' are to be distinguished from Dutch Corded Ware traders- are they locals or migrants from further along the Danube ?
She doesn't mention Yamnaya, but here is where Heyd might come into play...

14477

[Jean M]

Re-freshing some of my reading, starting with this ('Similar but different..").

That was first published in 2004, and was then reprinted in memory of Case in 2014. Meanwhile thinking has moved on. Essentially Case was keen on the idea of of BB from the west picking up certain ideas from CW. His theory continues to circulate, but problems with it have gradually emerged.


The idea the BB pottery developed from Copper Age copos in Portugal and therefore was an evolution from the native Iberian Neolithic pottery. This has two problems. The copos were not Neolithic, but Copper Age. And, as pointed out by Heyd, there was no tradition in Iberia of cord decoration on pottery. Cord decoration can appear on Maritime BB pots, as well as AOC pots. Both appear in Portugal. Cord decoration has a long tradition on the steppe, right back to the first hunter-gatherer pottery arriving in the Samara region.
The idea that there is an absolute distinction between individual burial and collective burial. A couple of papers have ripped that one up. Even where a BB burial is inserted in a Neolithic barrow, there is often a clear difference, with some separation between the two, for example BB placement in a peripheral part of the monument, or an additional chamber, followed by the deliberate blocking of the Neolithic tomb. Newgrange in Ireland is an example. That is a bit of a clue that the practice was not confined to Portugal. :) Below is a map from Catriona Gibson, Closed for business or cultural change?, Celtic from the West 3, ed. Koch and Cunliffe (2016), which is bang up to date on the topic.


14482

[Romilius]

That was first published in 2004, and was then reprinted in memory of Case in 2014. Meanwhile thinking has moved on. Essentially Case was keen on the idea of of BB from the west picking up certain ideas from CW. His theory continues to circulate, but problems with it have gradually emerged.


The idea the BB pottery developed from Copper Age copos in Portugal and therefore was an evolution from the native Iberian Neolithic pottery. This has two problems. The copos were not Neolithic, but Copper Age. And, as pointed out by Heyd, there was no tradition in Iberia of cord decoration on pottery. Cord decoration can appear on Maritime BB pots, as well as AOC pots. Both appear in Portugal. Cord decoration has a long tradition on the steppe, right back to the first hunter-gatherer pottery arriving in the Samara region.
The idea that there is an absolute distinction between individual burial and collective burial. A couple of papers have ripped that one up. Even where a BB burial is inserted in a Neolithic barrow, there is often a clear difference, with some separation between the two, for example BB placement in a peripheral part of the monument, or an additional chamber, followed by the deliberate blocking of the Neolithic tomb. Newgrange in Ireland is an example. That is a bit of a clue that the practice was not confined to Portugal. :) Below is a map from Catriona Gibson, Closed for business or cultural change?, Celtic from the West 3, ed. Koch and Cunliffe (2016), which is bang up to date on the topic.


14482

1) May I ask from where hunter-gatherers groups brought that kind of pottery in Siberia? From the West? Could they be 100% WHG migrants encountering 100% ANE locals?

2) So, if I understand correctly, BB people did a sort of cultural and physical apartheid in Neolithic collective tombs, where they remained separated from Neolithic burials?

[Jean M]

1) May I ask from where hunter-gatherers groups brought that kind of pottery in Siberia? From the West? Could they be 100% WHG migrants encountering 100% ANE locals?


The pottery-making hunter-gatherers in Samara were the first people in Europe to make pottery. This pottery was a pointed-base type made earlier around Lake Baikal in Siberia and even earlier in China. We already have DNA from some of the Samara potters. They carried ANE.
These are the same type of pottery-making foragers who moved northward from the Urals to create the Narva culture in the Baltic region. We have some DNA from some Narva people too.
Later than the Samara pottery, farmers brought a different type of pottery from the Near East. From that stemmed various types of farmer flat-based pottery, which spread all over Europe except in the far north, which was not suitable for farming. So there was plenty of pottery in Neolithic Iberia, stemming from Cardial Ware or whatever, which was nothing like the ceramics descending from Siberian pottery.

[Jean M]

2) So, if I understand correctly, BB people did a sort of cultural and physical apartheid in Neolithic collective tombs, where they remained separated from Neolithic burials?

The thinking behind this might be cultural or purely practical. Bear in mind that the Neolithic tomb could be already full when the BB people wanted to use it. In some cases an extension was built on to house the BB burial(s). In other cases the BB burial was squeezed into a corridor or entrance, rather than the main chamber used earlier. In other cases the previous burials were carefully moved to adjacent chambers or thick layers of soil used to cover earlier interments and prevent disturbance by new insertions. As Gibson says


None of this indicates a deliberate attempt by new groups to stake their own claims and legitimacy onto existing monuments, through erasing earlier memories and destroying those buried there.

I would suggest that incoming Yamnaya-origin Copper Age males had married into the local community centuries before, so that the earliest BB people in Iberia were by that time biologically related to their Neolithic predecessors.

[rms2]

That was first published in 2004, and was then reprinted in memory of Case in 2014. Meanwhile thinking has moved on. Essentially Case was keen on the idea of of BB from the west picking up certain ideas from CW. His theory continues to circulate, but problems with it have gradually emerged.


The idea the BB pottery developed from Copper Age copos in Portugal and therefore was an evolution from the native Iberian Neolithic pottery. This has two problems. The copos were not Neolithic, but Copper Age. And, as pointed out by Heyd, there was no tradition in Iberia of cord decoration on pottery. Cord decoration can appear on Maritime BB pots, as well as AOC pots. Both appear in Portugal. Cord decoration has a long tradition on the steppe, right back to the first hunter-gatherer pottery arriving in the Samara region.
The idea that there is an absolute distinction between individual burial and collective burial. A couple of papers have ripped that one up. Even where a BB burial is inserted in a Neolithic barrow, there is often a clear difference, with some separation between the two, for example BB placement in a peripheral part of the monument, or an additional chamber, followed by the deliberate blocking of the Neolithic tomb. Newgrange in Ireland is an example. That is a bit of a clue that the practice was not confined to Portugal. :) Below is a map from Catriona Gibson, Closed for business or cultural change?, Celtic from the West 3, ed. Koch and Cunliffe (2016), which is bang up to date on the topic.


14482

I don't doubt all that, but there is one pretty clear distinction in the very earliest collective BB burials in Iberia, and that is the clear difference between the skeletons of the former and those of the single grave, kurgan-style BB burials.

As I have mentioned before, the early collective BB burials in Iberia feature short, gracile, long headed Mediterraneans very much in the physical tradition of Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers. The kurgan-style BB burials feature tall, robust, round headed skeletons. Now we have an instance of the former lacking y-dna R1b and yielding I and I2a2a results. We have quite a few of the kurgan-style BB burials that have yielded R1b results.

[Jean M]

As I have mentioned before, the early collective BB burials in Iberia feature short, gracile, long headed Mediterraneans very much in the physical tradition of Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers.

Scarcely surprising if they descended from a couple of hundred years of intermarriage with the locals, as I am pretty sure I must have mentioned before. ;)

We just seem to be going around in circles here.

[rms2]

Scarcely surprising if they descended from a couple of hundred years of intermarriage with the locals, as I am pretty sure I must have mentioned before. ;)

We just seem to be going around in circles here.

Well, or the alternative is true that very early Iberian BB was neither steppic nor R1b. It is possible that early Iberian BB went east, or its pottery did, and encountered people in Central Europe, probably in the Carpathian Basin, who carried R1b, steppe autosomal dna, and kurgan culture. A new BB culture and people emerged and then spread west and north.

I mean it is possible that what we think of as Bell Beaker, that is, the horse riding, kurgan Beaker, just did not originate in Iberia at all.

[Jean M]

I mean it is possible that what we think of as Bell Beaker, that is, the horse riding, kurgan Beaker, just did not originate in Iberia at all.

It just depends how one looks at it. In my view, as stated at considerable length in Ancestral Journeys (2013, 2015) and Blood of the Celts (2015), the Bell Beaker culture derives from the Yamnaya culture, those horse-riding, kurgan-builders of the European steppe and right up the Danuble into the Carpathian Basin. I feel sure that you agree. So everything else is detail.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

That was first published in 2004, and was then reprinted in memory of Case in 2014. Meanwhile thinking has moved on. Essentially Case was keen on the idea of of BB from the west picking up certain ideas from CW. His theory continues to circulate, but problems with it have gradually emerged.


The idea the BB pottery developed from Copper Age copos in Portugal and therefore was an evolution from the native Iberian Neolithic pottery. This has two problems. The copos were not Neolithic, but Copper Age. And, as pointed out by Heyd, there was no tradition in Iberia of cord decoration on pottery. Cord decoration can appear on Maritime BB pots, as well as AOC pots. Both appear in Portugal. Cord decoration has a long tradition on the steppe, right back to the first hunter-gatherer pottery arriving in the Samara region.
The idea that there is an absolute distinction between individual burial and collective burial. A couple of papers have ripped that one up. Even where a BB burial is inserted in a Neolithic barrow, there is often a clear difference, with some separation between the two, for example BB placement in a peripheral part of the monument, or an additional chamber, followed by the deliberate blocking of the Neolithic tomb. Newgrange in Ireland is an example. That is a bit of a clue that the practice was not confined to Portugal. :) Below is a map from Catriona Gibson, Closed for business or cultural change?, Celtic from the West 3, ed. Koch and Cunliffe (2016), which is bang up to date on the topic.


14482

Yes I agree. With regard to both points, however, I don't think there is any contradiction with Case or Salanova.

For point (1), Case distinctly states that the idea of Cord decoration derives from CWC on the Rhine (see post #3575), and as we've all discussed amply, ultimately from Dereivka, C-T, etc.

(2) The distinction between collective burial and single burials ?
The distinction between older collective burials & BB single burials should not be ripped up, in fact, the re-use of older Megaliths is one of the key points.
The fact that later, BB, burials re-used older Megaliths, caves, etc, in fact confirms distinction between 2 different groups. It might seem paradoxical, but (sometimes) re-use of old burial monuments, which had become abandoned hundreds of years earlier, suggests the arrival of new groups trying to lay claim to new land, or more specifically, new individuals. As you describe, this intrusions are physically separate to older burials.

Overall, actual BB appears to arrive in Iberia c. 2400 BC at the earliest, which means the BB culture never began in Iberia.

[Jean M]

For point (1), Case distinctly states that the idea of Cord decoration derives from CWC on the Rhine (see post #3575)

Does not compute. CW and BB meet on the Rhine c. 2400 BC. Earliest BB pottery without any doubt i.e. Leceia sealed domestic context c. 2700 BC. Case was just thinking of AOC, I expect. I don't have time to reread, but that was a common idea, before AOC turned up in Iberia, and it was realised that cord could be used on Maritime.


Overall, actual BB appears to arrive in Iberia c. 2400 BC at the earliest

Some confusion here I think between the pottery and the idea of the 'complete package'. What we have to explain, as Heyd realised, is how the cord decoration got to Iberia millennia earlier than the 'reflux' BB from somewhere in Central Europe. What the reflux carried was accompanying pottery from the Carpathian Basin, not the idea of cord decoration.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Some confusion here I think between the pottery and the ideal of the 'complete package'. What we have to explain, as Heyd realised, is how the cord decoration got to Iberia millennia earlier than the 'reflux' BB from somewhere in Central Europe. What the reflux carried was accompanying pottery from the Carpathian Basin, not the idea of cord decoration.

I think we are again in agreement. The 'BB package' we are obviously referring to the package of single burials, more & better quality metallurgy, etc, whatever the pottery accompanying - which is probably a less important ethnographic aspects than inhumation details, the metallurgical techniques, dwelling types.


Does not compute. CW and BB meet on the Rhine c. 2400 BC. Earliest BB pottery without any doubt i.e. Leceia sealed domestic context c. 2700 BC. Case was just thinking of AOC, I expect. I don't have time to reread, but that was a common idea, before AOC turned up in Iberia.

No, Case is aware that AOC first appears in Iberia. He envisages seaborn contact between CWC/ Single Grave communities and the Tagus, before BB & CWC physically met in 2400 BC (but in the pre-Beaker Tagus stage; and early Rhineish CWC - 2750 BC). He felt that CWC pottery could have influenced some aspects of the Maritime Beaker. Apart from possible ceramic influences, there are the odd perforated Battle Axe appearing in northern Iberia at this early period. ..

This was the very point my original post implies: we're seeing potentially two distinct episodes of contact (2800 BC) Chalcolithic Tagus & Rhenish CWC (& Morrocan influences) to create the Maritime Beaker pot; (2) post 2300 BC arrival of actual 'BB people' to Iberia .

[Jean M]

No Case is aware that AOC first appears in Iberia. He envisages seaborn contact between CWC/ Single Grave communities and the Tagus, before BB & CWC physically met in 2400 BC (but in the pre-Beaker Tagus stage; and early Rhineish CWC - 2750 BC). He felt that CWC pottery could have influenced some aspects of the Maritime Beaker. Apart from possible ceramic influences, there are the odd perforated Battle Axe appearing in northern Iberia at this early period. ...

But we do not need to imagine anything so unlikely. Both the shaft-hole axe and cord decoration on pottery descend from Yamnaya, together with metallurgy and various other little clues to their cultural origin, like horse domestication, gold hair-binders and anthropomorphic stelae. There is nothing in the BB "complete package" which is distinctively CW, rather than Yamnaya descended. Whereas there are elements in the Late BB package suggestive of the Yamnaya-descended Carpathian Basin cultures, as I feel sure that rms2 will be happy to explain. I don't have time to go into detail. But I will just mention wrist-guards in Vučedol.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

But we do not need to imagine anything so unlikely. Both the shaft-hole axe and cord decoration on pottery descend from Yamnaya, together with metallurgy and various other little clues to their cultural origin, like horse domestication, gold hair-binders and anthropomorphic stelae. There is nothing in the BB "complete package" which is distinctively CW, rather than Yamnaya descended. Whereas there are elements in the Late BB package suggestive of the Yamnaya-descended Carpathian Basin cultures, as I feel sure that rms2 will be happy to explain. I don't have time to go into detail. But I will just mention wrist-guards in Vučedol.

No one is saying the 'Bell Beaker package' is from CWC (!); but that there might have been direct contact between CWC and Atlantic Europe. it would be a highly unusual position on your behalf to deny such possibility, given it was there 200 year earlier.
Have you been even reading my posts (maybe look at the pictures, might help you understand) ? :)

[Jean M]

there might have been direct contact between CWC and Atlantic Europe. it would be a highly unusual position on your behalf to deny such possibility, given it was there 200 year earlier.

But we don't have evidence of CW contact with Atlantic Europe.

And no I don't read all your posts, or all of anyone's posts here. There is only so much time that I can spare. No need to take offence.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

And no I don't read all your posts, or all of anyone's posts here. There is only so much time that I can spare. No need to take offence.

None taken, but if you don't read posts, there isn't a point in (wrongly) debating them for the heck of it. Otherwise its all rather silly.




But we don't have evidence of CW contact with Atlantic Europe.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=14502&d=1489320322

"France also has a few authentic examples of Single Grave Culture burials as far west as the Loire basin...
More important is the dilated process by which collective burials are abandoned in favour of single ones that takes place over the third millennium. By 2800 BC the distribution of Grand-Pressigny flint daggers connects the mines in the west of France to centers as far away as the lower Rhine and Switzerland...

There are two remarkable hafted battle axes of copper from Brittany (Kersoufflet; Bon Amour),


Even in the south west of Europe, there are clear signs of the first transformation horizon, connecting Iberia to Atlantic France and the Rhine delta. Scattered across northern Spain are a few perforated battle axes, of various styles, dated to the first half of the third millennium BC; they are clearly exotic pieces, well outside their usual range of distribution"" - V. Heyd

[Jean M]

There are two remarkable hafted battle axes of copper from Brittany (Kersoufflet; Bon Amour)

Oh I see. You are calling the Low Countries Atlantic Europe. And you envisage a trickle of CW from there all the way around to Central Portugal without any evidence of same. No the 'battle axes' are not evidence, as far as I know. As I said, shaft-hole axes are descended from Yamnaya.

But be assured that you are in very good company. The ideas of BB as either an offshoot of CW (the Dutch model) or a mixture with CW (Case at al.) have been favoured since the 1970s. Most archaeologists would simply follow some such theory without question. Harrison and Heyd 2007 should have been a wake-up call, as it demonstrates that both CW and BB are descended culturally from Yamnaya. However, it is a rather dense and difficult paper, published in not the best-known journal. Heyd 2017 may have more of an impact. But we shall see.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Oh I see. You are calling the Low Countries Atlantic Europe.

Yes, Netherlands & Belgium are on the Atlantic, just as Switzerland is 'western Europe'.


And you envisage a trickle of CW from there all the way around to Central Portugal without any evidence of same
Quote's have been given for cultural contacts between the lower Rhine, Brittany & north Iberia in 2800 BC. The only eastern group which existed in the lower Rhine at this time was CWC. Is there a reason why Heyd, Case and Salanova are wrong ?


But be assured that you are in very good company. The ideas of BB as either an offshoot of CW (the Dutch model) or a mixture with CW (Case at al.) have been favoured since the 1970s. Most archaeologists would simply follow some such theory without question.


To repeat. I am NOT suggesting that the BB culture derives from CWC. I have pointed this out several times, so Im not sure why you keep bringing it up.
My suggestions are:

1) potentially some low-intensity between Corded Ware communities on the Rhine and the Atlantic coast early in the M3 (who lived in the lower Rhine in 2800 BC - it was Corded Ware) ; mostly cultural & limited to the coast.

2) The BB people come to SW Europe a little later, and this is a demic impact. They indeed derive mostly from Yamnaya (and ultimately Majkop).

Im not insisting this is correct, but it is simple enough to follow, one would have thought.


Harrison and Heyd 2007 should have been a wake-up call, as it demonstrates that both CW and BB are descended culturally from Yamnaya. However, it is a rather dense and difficult paper, published in not the best-known journal. Heyd 2017 may have more of an impact.

But we're not discussing if CWC does or deosn't derive from Yamnaya. Why the tangentializing ?
Yamnaya didn't reach the Atlantic, the first people to do so were distinctly & fully formed Corded Ware folk, this is basic stuff.

[Humanist]

Please keep the discussion civil. Thank you.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Delete

[alan]

No one is saying the 'Bell Beaker package' is from CWC (!); but that there might have been direct contact between CWC and Atlantic Europe. it would be a highly unusual position on your behalf to deny such possibility, given it was there 200 year earlier.
Have you been even reading my posts (maybe look at the pictures, might help you understand) ? :)

Although I dont see much to persuade me that the earliest bell beaker culture in Iberia has much if anything in the way of steppe characteristics or even central European ones, there is the issue of the pots themselves. Noone has ever truly nailed the origin of the pots to everyone's satisfaction. However, it is very interesting that the 1st beaker pots in Iberia appear to be dated almost exactly the same date as the 1st Corded Ware on to reach the Rhine c. 2750BC. It does seem to me unlikely to be coincidence and it seems likely that one derives from the other or they both derive from a common source.

Personally I feel some contacts were established between CW and Iberia c. 2750BC and the beaker pot is part of that. However the two societies remained very different and my suspicion is alliance and trade with a small amount of high status women (who usually were the potters) moving in each direction. The evidence is very scant but I suspect the early AOC beakers with their non-Atlantic distribution in Iberia may be a faint echo of women coming from the CW world into Iberia. Who knows the axes may have some link too. The shape of beakers is another thing whose origins have been debated forever and they could also derive from similar contact.

Note too that there are now very early dates from beaker in the eastern part of Iberia too so there is not a need to see a leap all the way to the west of Iberia and the main unexplained element of any form of input into Iberia to central Europe is the lack of evidence in France. France has always been the problem in that most of it lacks either early beaker 2750-2550BC or CW despite it siting on its doorstep since 2750BC.

Anyway my take on it is there were contacts c. 2750BC or so between newly arrived western CW at the Rhine and early Beaker Iberia (by some route or other) but this was largely an exchange of wives with pottery being the main thing influenced and little else. I dont see this as connected with R1b or male lineages from central Europe but a little autosomal central European/steppe DNA would have trickled in through those kind of marriages. The main reason I believe this is that pottery ideas seemed to be moving but little else changed. Iberia still looked like an Atlantic Neolithic (albeit copper using) society until late in the beaker period so I dont think movements of the sort that deeply changed society reached Iberia until the end of the beaker period.

As for why copper age peoples in Iberia and the western edge of CW might be marrying off their daughters to each other c. 2750BC, I can only think of metal as the reason. The curious thing about CW metalwork is it seemed extremely reliant on Carpathian sources. Now, if you were living on the Rhine at the very end of the chain that passed the copper through the CW world you may have been at something of a disadvantage. You may have thought about looking for alternative sources. The odd thing is that there is no evidence of CW people using the Alps etc for this so perhaps in CW culture metal was a highly restricted knowledge carefully controlled to prevent loss of dominance of the Carpathian source. The Iberians could provide the metal and the knowledge for far west CW people to circumvent that dominance.

Why didnt CW people look to say southern France? Well I have read a paper that says the pre-beaker people of the south of France seemed to see metal as a thing to set them apart rather than trade. Why not north Italy? Well it appears that the old NW Italian mines were coming to an end at this time and flooding etc. So it could have been that Iberia was there best bet. However, to reiterate, I dont think these early contacts c. 2750BC an on for a century or two have anything to do with R1b.

To story board this a bit, I think possibly the furthest west CW people invited (non-P312) Iberian knowledge and this was small scale for a century or two until c. 2550BC when the Iberians made a big short lived thrust into southern France and central Europe. I suspect the P312 guys who were the traditional suppliers of copper through the CW zone may have not taken this too well and they may have had a long drawn out mix of conflict and treaty and cultural contact until the P312 guys (beakerised by then) took over all the routes, including eventually the ones the Iberian beaker users had controlled before their ill fated expansion attempts into central Europe. The archaeological expression of this is the change from SW beakers to central European at Sion but this may have been played out all over central Europe.

If that is correct then who were P312 guys who saw the Iberians come in to compete with their niche, interacted with them, stole some of the Iberian's clothes then usurped the usurpers. I suspect it was whoever performed the function of moving copper through the CW world before the Iberian beaker people came. They need not themselves have been CW people but could have been specialist horsemen who used their skills to move the ores from the Carpathians through the huge CW world. Its rational to assume they lived not to far from the Carpathians or along the Danube on the route west where much of CW world was. It would seem to me that its more than likely that they were horse riders (as the later P312 beaker people were). On balance I think P312 was associated with horse riders of steppe origins who lived at the end of the Danube near the Carpathians or just west c. 2800BC and served a specialist function for the CW people much as the fully developed beaker people c. 2500BC-2200BC seem to have done later. My suspicion is they are one and the same people (or specialist clans) and the only difference was they were influenced after coming into contact with rival metal specialists coming in from the south-west of Europe c. 2550BC or so which made them adopt some traits from them.

Anyway if this theory is correct then the earliest Iberian beakers (and surely too the earliest French and north Italian offshoots of them) will not be R1b. You will only see P312 in beakers after 2550BC and the speed at which the speed of the transformation will vary across Europe. In Iberia the first 300-600 years of beaker using may be non-P312 related. In France perhaps the first century or two will be non-P312. In landlocked central Europe I suspect there was as little as a generation or two of non-P312 beaker users although there may be exceptions. In late settled parts of beaker Europe like the isles and N Europe the transformation from non-P312 to P312 beaker lines may have been advanced before these areas were settled and so all beaker might have been P312. In Iberia and Italy I believe P312 only arrived late in the beaker period and even in the early post-beaker period. Time will tell.

[alan]

Oh and another thing - If we want to find pre-beaker P312 I would suggest looking at specialist graves linked to metalworking or horse riding c. 2800-2550BC on the Danube west of the Carpathians. I dont believe P312 was a late thrust out of the steppes. I think they were gone from the steppes by 2800BC if not 3000BC and dwelt on the Danube west of the Carpathians
,.

[Jean M]

Note too that there are now very early dates from beaker in the eastern part of Iberia too so there is not a need to see a leap all the way to the west of Iberia and the main unexplained element of any form of input into Iberia to central Europe is the lack of evidence in France. France has always been the problem in that most of it lacks either early beaker 2750-2550BC or CW despite it siting on its doorstep since 2750BC.

Most of it, yes, but there are some dates in southern France comparable with those of Portuguese Estremadura, if I recall rightly. I'm pretty sure that Rich R. actually posted a fairly new one somewhere on this forum, but I don't seem to have made a note of it.

[Added] Got it. I was wrong. The paper to which Rich drew our attention was Soriano 2015: Open Warfare or the Odd Skirmish? Bell Beaker Violence in the North-Eastern Iberian Peninsula, which has an early date for Cova de Can Sadurní, in de Begues (Barcelona).

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Although I dont see much to persuade me that the earliest bell beaker culture in Iberia has much if anything in the way of steppe characteristics or even central European ones, there is the issue of the pots themselves. Noone has ever truly nailed the origin of the pots to everyone's satisfaction. However, it is very interesting that the 1st beaker pots in Iberia appear to be dated almost exactly the same date as the 1st Corded Ware on to reach the Rhine c. 2750BC. It does seem to me unlikely to be coincidence and it seems likely that one derives from the other or they both derive from a common source.

Personally I feel some contacts were established between CW and Iberia c. 2750BC and the beaker pot is part of that. However the two societies remained very different and my suspicion is alliance and trade with a small amount of high status women (who usually were the potters) moving in each direction. The evidence is very scant but I suspect the early AOC beakers with their non-Atlantic distribution in Iberia may be a faint echo of women coming from the CW world into Iberia. Who knows the axes may have some link too. The shape of beakers is another thing whose origins have been debated forever and they could also derive from similar contact.

Note too that there are now very early dates from beaker in the eastern part of Iberia too so there is not a need to see a leap all the way to the west of Iberia and the main unexplained element of any form of input into Iberia to central Europe is the lack of evidence in France. France has always been the problem in that most of it lacks either early beaker 2750-2550BC or CW despite it siting on its doorstep since 2750BC.

Anyway my take on it is there were contacts c. 2750BC or so between newly arrived western CW at the Rhine and early Beaker Iberia (by some route or other) but this was largely an exchange of wives with pottery being the main thing influenced and little else. I dont see this as connected with R1b or male lineages from central Europe but a little autosomal central European/steppe DNA would have trickled in through those kind of marriages. The main reason I believe this is that pottery ideas seemed to be moving but little else changed. Iberia still looked like an Atlantic Neolithic (albeit copper using) society until late in the beaker period so I dont think movements of the sort that deeply changed society reached Iberia until the end of the beaker period.

As for why copper age peoples in Iberia and the western edge of CW might be marrying off their daughters to each other c. 2750BC, I can only think of metal as the reason. The curious thing about CW metalwork is it seemed extremely reliant on Carpathian sources. Now, if you were living on the Rhine at the very end of the chain that passed the copper through the CW world you may have been at something of a disadvantage. You may have thought about looking for alternative sources. The odd thing is that there is no evidence of CW people using the Alps etc for this so perhaps in CW culture metal was a highly restricted knowledge carefully controlled to prevent loss of dominance of the Carpathian source. The Iberians could provide the metal and the knowledge for far west CW people to circumvent that dominance.

Why didnt CW people look to say southern France? Well I have read a paper that says the pre-beaker people of the south of France seemed to see metal as a thing to set them apart rather than trade. Why not north Italy? Well it appears that the old NW Italian mines were coming to an end at this time and flooding etc. So it could have been that Iberia was there best bet. However, to reiterate, I dont think these early contacts c. 2750BC an on for a century or two have anything to do with R1b.

To story board this a bit, I think possibly the furthest west CW people invited (non-P312) Iberian knowledge and this was small scale for a century or two until c. 2550BC when the Iberians made a big short lived thrust into southern France and central Europe. I suspect the P312 guys who were the traditional suppliers of copper through the CW zone may have not taken this too well and they may have had a long drawn out mix of conflict and treaty and cultural contact until the P312 guys (beakerised by then) took over all the routes, including eventually the ones the Iberian beaker users had controlled before their ill fated expansion attempts into central Europe. The archaeological expression of this is the change from SW beakers to central European at Sion but this may have been played out all over central Europe.

If that is correct then who were P312 guys who saw the Iberians come in to compete with their niche, interacted with them, stole some of the Iberian's clothes then usurped the usurpers. I suspect it was whoever performed the function of moving copper through the CW world before the Iberian beaker people came. They need not themselves have been CW people but could have been specialist horsemen who used their skills to move the ores from the Carpathians through the huge CW world. Its rational to assume they lived not to far from the Carpathians or along the Danube on the route west where much of CW world was. It would seem to me that its more than likely that they were horse riders (as the later P312 beaker people were). On balance I think P312 was associated with horse riders of steppe origins who lived at the end of the Danube near the Carpathians or just west c. 2800BC and served a specialist function for the CW people much as the fully developed beaker people c. 2500BC-2200BC seem to have done later. My suspicion is they are one and the same people (or specialist clans) and the only difference was they were influenced after coming into contact with rival metal specialists coming in from the south-west of Europe c. 2550BC or so which made them adopt some traits from them.

Anyway if this theory is correct then the earliest Iberian beakers (and surely too the earliest French and north Italian offshoots of them) will not be R1b. You will only see P312 in beakers after 2550BC and the speed at which the speed of the transformation will vary across Europe. In Iberia the first 300-600 years of beaker using may be non-P312 related. In France perhaps the first century or two will be non-P312. In landlocked central Europe I suspect there was as little as a generation or two of non-P312 beaker users although there may be exceptions. In late settled parts of beaker Europe like the isles and N Europe the transformation from non-P312 to P312 beaker lines may have been advanced before these areas were settled and so all beaker might have been P312. In Iberia and Italy I believe P312 only arrived late in the beaker period and even in the early post-beaker period. Time will tell.

I agree, and it's reassuring that some people are able to understand :)
In fact it seems the position that the early iberian cultures with only Beaker pottery isn't even "BB" will be born out by aDNA and more cautiously dated materials.

An early, low level exchange and exogamy can explain the appearance of U5a in Meseta (although U5a was also in Mesolithic Iberia).
Also, an early sporadic and gentle exchange followed by a later demic movement could roughly parallel was was seen in the lower Danube ~ 1000 years earlier

The early arrival of BB in east Iberia you are suggesting refers to this article "A funerary perspective on Bell Beaker period in the Western Mediterranean. Reading the social context of individual burials
at La Vital (Gandía, Valencia)"



" Concluding, the most evident difference between
pre-Bell Beaker and Bell Beaker grave goods comes
from: a) The generalization of the military panoply,
with copper daggers, axes, and arrowheads (palme-
la). If we generalize on the basis of the data from
La Vital where only the female burial lacked wea-
pons, we may suggest a relationship between mili-
tary panoply and an emphasis on the role that male
individuals played in the society (Salanova 2005;
Lemercier 2011); b) An increase in the volume of
exotic items, including those made of ivory, and c)
The inclusion of ceramic vessels as special grave
goods. The first Bell Beakers, including those of
La Vital, are mainly related with funerary contexts"

It all dates to c24-2100 BC; thus notably later than the "real" Proto- BB people of Danube central Europe

[Isidro]

Well, the bulk of the later posters (not unanimously) praise intelligence) is sporadic CW and Iberian Beakers of the Calcholithic 3,300 BC onwards, so I don't see invasions, migrations, or massive wife exchanges to make a mark in Iberia.Founder effects with other haplogroups besides DF27 existing today tell similar story as the regions of l21 and U152. If we must tie up Yamnaya with P312 in Iberia I am beginning to think that it could be to the classic 800BC at the earliest migration of Celts as something tangible.As far as misnaming Bell Beakers, let's not forget that beakers date back at least to the Neolithic, Bell is is by definition the shape of the vessel, over time words change and adapt to other meanings as we are seeing now. There is no simple way to see this but P312 might be an Iron Age on Iberia and posterior to the Iron Age to some of the existing population there as is the Bronze Age, note I didn't say autochtonous, that could be another chapter.

[rms2]

Although I dont see much to persuade me that the earliest bell beaker culture in Iberia has much if anything in the way of steppe characteristics or even central European ones, there is the issue of the pots themselves. Noone has ever truly nailed the origin of the pots to everyone's satisfaction. However, it is very interesting that the 1st beaker pots in Iberia appear to be dated almost exactly the same date as the 1st Corded Ware on to reach the Rhine c. 2750BC. It does seem to me unlikely to be coincidence and it seems likely that one derives from the other or they both derive from a common source.

Personally I feel some contacts were established between CW and Iberia c. 2750BC and the beaker pot is part of that. However the two societies remained very different and my suspicion is alliance and trade with a small amount of high status women (who usually were the potters) moving in each direction. The evidence is very scant but I suspect the early AOC beakers with their non-Atlantic distribution in Iberia may be a faint echo of women coming from the CW world into Iberia. Who knows the axes may have some link too. The shape of beakers is another thing whose origins have been debated forever and they could also derive from similar contact.

Note too that there are now very early dates from beaker in the eastern part of Iberia too so there is not a need to see a leap all the way to the west of Iberia and the main unexplained element of any form of input into Iberia to central Europe is the lack of evidence in France. France has always been the problem in that most of it lacks either early beaker 2750-2550BC or CW despite it siting on its doorstep since 2750BC.

Anyway my take on it is there were contacts c. 2750BC or so between newly arrived western CW at the Rhine and early Beaker Iberia (by some route or other) but this was largely an exchange of wives with pottery being the main thing influenced and little else. I dont see this as connected with R1b or male lineages from central Europe but a little autosomal central European/steppe DNA would have trickled in through those kind of marriages. The main reason I believe this is that pottery ideas seemed to be moving but little else changed. Iberia still looked like an Atlantic Neolithic (albeit copper using) society until late in the beaker period so I dont think movements of the sort that deeply changed society reached Iberia until the end of the beaker period.

As for why copper age peoples in Iberia and the western edge of CW might be marrying off their daughters to each other c. 2750BC, I can only think of metal as the reason. The curious thing about CW metalwork is it seemed extremely reliant on Carpathian sources. Now, if you were living on the Rhine at the very end of the chain that passed the copper through the CW world you may have been at something of a disadvantage. You may have thought about looking for alternative sources. The odd thing is that there is no evidence of CW people using the Alps etc for this so perhaps in CW culture metal was a highly restricted knowledge carefully controlled to prevent loss of dominance of the Carpathian source. The Iberians could provide the metal and the knowledge for far west CW people to circumvent that dominance.

Why didnt CW people look to say southern France? Well I have read a paper that says the pre-beaker people of the south of France seemed to see metal as a thing to set them apart rather than trade. Why not north Italy? Well it appears that the old NW Italian mines were coming to an end at this time and flooding etc. So it could have been that Iberia was there best bet. However, to reiterate, I dont think these early contacts c. 2750BC an on for a century or two have anything to do with R1b.

To story board this a bit, I think possibly the furthest west CW people invited (non-P312) Iberian knowledge and this was small scale for a century or two until c. 2550BC when the Iberians made a big short lived thrust into southern France and central Europe. I suspect the P312 guys who were the traditional suppliers of copper through the CW zone may have not taken this too well and they may have had a long drawn out mix of conflict and treaty and cultural contact until the P312 guys (beakerised by then) took over all the routes, including eventually the ones the Iberian beaker users had controlled before their ill fated expansion attempts into central Europe. The archaeological expression of this is the change from SW beakers to central European at Sion but this may have been played out all over central Europe.

If that is correct then who were P312 guys who saw the Iberians come in to compete with their niche, interacted with them, stole some of the Iberian's clothes then usurped the usurpers. I suspect it was whoever performed the function of moving copper through the CW world before the Iberian beaker people came. They need not themselves have been CW people but could have been specialist horsemen who used their skills to move the ores from the Carpathians through the huge CW world. Its rational to assume they lived not to far from the Carpathians or along the Danube on the route west where much of CW world was. It would seem to me that its more than likely that they were horse riders (as the later P312 beaker people were). On balance I think P312 was associated with horse riders of steppe origins who lived at the end of the Danube near the Carpathians or just west c. 2800BC and served a specialist function for the CW people much as the fully developed beaker people c. 2500BC-2200BC seem to have done later. My suspicion is they are one and the same people (or specialist clans) and the only difference was they were influenced after coming into contact with rival metal specialists coming in from the south-west of Europe c. 2550BC or so which made them adopt some traits from them.

Anyway if this theory is correct then the earliest Iberian beakers (and surely too the earliest French and north Italian offshoots of them) will not be R1b. You will only see P312 in beakers after 2550BC and the speed at which the speed of the transformation will vary across Europe. In Iberia the first 300-600 years of beaker using may be non-P312 related. In France perhaps the first century or two will be non-P312. In landlocked central Europe I suspect there was as little as a generation or two of non-P312 beaker users although there may be exceptions. In late settled parts of beaker Europe like the isles and N Europe the transformation from non-P312 to P312 beaker lines may have been advanced before these areas were settled and so all beaker might have been P312. In Iberia and Italy I believe P312 only arrived late in the beaker period and even in the early post-beaker period. Time will tell.

Alan,

I tried to pm you, but your box is full. I get the impression that maybe you did not look back quite far enough in this thread; otherwise you would have seen that non-R1b (one I and two I2a2as) was recently found in a very early Iberian Bell Beaker context (2916-2714 BC) in the megalithic tomb at El Soltillo in Spain.

Take a look at this post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=218589&viewfull=1#post218589).

If you already saw it, never mind.

[alan]

Alan,

I tried to pm you, but your box is full. I get the impression that maybe you did not look back quite far enough in this thread; otherwise you would have seen that non-R1b (one I and two I2a2as) was recently found in a very early Iberian Bell Beaker context (2916-2714 BC) in the megalithic tomb at El Soltillo in Spain.

Take a look at this post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=218589&viewfull=1#post218589).

If you already saw it, never mind.

Thanks Rich. I briefly saw it on Eurogenes but it was being questioned in terms if it was really a beaker person or not despite the beaker sherds. I have not looked much into the detail though.

I have just emptied my inbox

[alan]

As I've stated previously, it is hard to call these skeletons found in collective megalithic tombs Bell Beaker "People", since items could have been placed there after the fact.

the contents of megalithic tombs are simply tricky to interpret due to re-use, disturbance and even clearance of older burials by new. However there are some cases when its clear beakers can be linked to bodies in megalithic tombs. Often t is just the later or even final burial that remains intact. What I think is not clear in the literature (probably because of the messy nature of the contents of collective megalithic tombs) is whether the earliest beaker people had a different rite than pre-beaker people. I have seen it suggested that even in megalithic tombs a burial can be 'individualised' - given individual treatment despite being inserted into an older collective tomb. Problem with the evidence is that survival favours the later burial within a given tomb. This is why I have said for a while that while beaker use can be demonstrated in Iberia from perhaps 2750BC from settlement sites, its ver very hard to get your hands on a reasonably undisturbed very early beaker period burial where the beaker pot can clearly be shown to be linked to a specific body. Its not that I am saying they didnt exist, its just that its not easy to do that in megalithic tombs due to their very nature. A good parallel is Wedge Tombs in Ireland. It took generations of study before they worked out the earliest material was consistantly beaker era. Why? Simply because above-surface stone 'boxes' remain a magnet for re-used for later burial, animal disturbance and plundering by treasure hunters and most of them are terrible badly disturbed inside. I once helped dig an fairly intact one but it was only intact because it was buried under a depth of peat bog and had never been re-used after a phase of use prob c. 2200-2100BC when beakers and food vessels were inserted.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

the contents of megalithic tombs are simply tricky to interpret due to re-use, disturbance and even clearance of older burials by new. However there are some cases when its clear beakers can be linked to bodies in megalithic tombs. Often t is just the later or even final burial that remains intact. What I think is not clear in the literature (probably because of the messy nature of the contents of collective megalithic tombs) is whether the earliest beaker people had a different rite than pre-beaker people. I have seen it suggested that even in megalithic tombs a burial can be 'individualised' - given individual treatment despite being inserted into an older collective tomb. Problem with the evidence is that survival favours the later burial within a given tomb. This is why I have said for a while that while beaker use can be demonstrated in Iberia from perhaps 2750BC from settlement sites, its ver very hard to get your hands on a reasonably undisturbed very early beaker period burial where the beaker pot can clearly be shown to be linked to a specific body. Its not that I am saying they didnt exist, its just that its not easy to do that in megalithic tombs due to their very nature. A good parallel is Wedge Tombs in Ireland. It took generations of study before they worked out the earliest material was consistantly beaker era. Why? Simply because above-surface stone 'boxes' remain a magnet for re-used for later burial, animal disturbance and plundering by treasure hunters and most of them are terrible badly disturbed inside. I once helped dig an fairly intact one but it was only intact because it was buried under a depth of peat bog and had never been re-used after a phase of use prob c. 2200-2100BC when beakers and food vessels were inserted.

As far as Iberia goes, I think Megalithic / collective burials had ceased long before the BB Era - the Megalithic traditions had broke down by c. 3000 BC, especially in the north- many were simply abandoned and became delapidated, others actively blocked off (in the south (Andalusi) and parts of Portugal, they continued for longer, or at least other types of more elaborate funeral features like tholoi can be seen).
Now, the new form of burials now consist of simple pit inhumation within settlements; and most of the interred were males, many showing signs of violent death (close combat). So the post-Megalithic , pre-beaker period (3000 - 2500 BC) represents a sort of chaotic, dark age.
Then we get the Bell Beaker burials, with the re-used of old Megaliths, with contextually confirmed Beaker accompaniments.

Summary:
End of Megalithic Era c. 3000 BC
? A pre-BB, Copper Period 'Dark Age' ; 3000 - 2500 BC
Bell Beaker period: 2500 - 2100 BC

Ref: The archaeological & palynological record of the northern Plateau of Spain during the second half od the 3rd Millenium BC. Lopez-Saez et al.

[alan]

As far as Iberia goes, I think Megalithic / collective burials had ceased long before the BB Era - the Megalithic traditions had broke down by c. 3000 BC, especially in the north- many were simply abandoned and became delapidated, others actively blocked off (in the south (Andalusi) and parts of Portugal, they continued for longer, or at least other types of more elaborate funeral features like tholoi can be seen).
Now, the new form of burials now consist of simple pit inhumation within settlements; and most of the interred were males, many showing signs of violent death (close combat). So the post-Megalithic , pre-beaker period (3000 - 2500 BC) represents a sort of chaotic, dark age.
Then we get the Bell Beaker burials, with the re-used of old Megaliths, with contextually confirmed Beaker accompaniments.

Summary:
End of Megalithic Era c. 3000 BC
? A pre-BB, Copper Period 'Dark Age' ; 3000 - 2500 BC
Bell Beaker period: 2500 - 2100 BC

Ref: The archaeological & palynological record of the northern Plateau of Spain during the second half od the 3rd Millenium BC. Lopez-Saez et al.

Interesting. That is not dissimilar to Ireland where megalithic tomb building ceases c. 3000BC, 5-600 years before beakers arrived. Wedge tombs - a type of beaker period megalithic tomb (albeit not really collective tombs) were a reintroduction after an absence of megalithic tombs for 5-600 years. They dont have convincing parallels anywhere and so I suspect they are stone versions of a tradition that was not done in stone in other areas (i.e. a skeuomorph). There are aspects of some of the famous early beaker burial rites (Amesbury, Boscome) in southern England that are similar to Wedge tombs - i.e. 2 or 3 or so often closely related people in one tomb (but not Neolithic style collective burial) and wooden chambers that could be reopened to insert a few more people. I see that as very similar tradition to wedge tombs. Burials are still discrete individuals were personal gravegoods but it seems a nuclear family or some others would use the same grave for a while. Its very different from full on Neolithic collective burial but its not identical to one person-one cist tradition either. I dont find that surprising though when you consider the beaker men were probably a tiny minority wherever they went and ultimately mixed to come up with unique compromise traditions.

[alan]

As far as Iberia goes, I think Megalithic / collective burials had ceased long before the BB Era - the Megalithic traditions had broke down by c. 3000 BC, especially in the north- many were simply abandoned and became delapidated, others actively blocked off (in the south (Andalusi) and parts of Portugal, they continued for longer, or at least other types of more elaborate funeral features like tholoi can be seen).
Now, the new form of burials now consist of simple pit inhumation within settlements; and most of the interred were males, many showing signs of violent death (close combat). So the post-Megalithic , pre-beaker period (3000 - 2500 BC) represents a sort of chaotic, dark age.
Then we get the Bell Beaker burials, with the re-used of old Megaliths, with contextually confirmed Beaker accompaniments.

Summary:
End of Megalithic Era c. 3000 BC
? A pre-BB, Copper Period 'Dark Age' ; 3000 - 2500 BC
Bell Beaker period: 2500 - 2100 BC

Ref: The archaeological & palynological record of the northern Plateau of Spain during the second half od the 3rd Millenium BC. Lopez-Saez et al.

There is a climate angle to this too. In the pre-beaker copper age 3000-2750 BC and the early beaker period in Iberia c. 2750-2500BC Europe was wetter and that was probably a good thing in dry areas of Iberia but bad for northern Europe. Around 2500BC it is argued there was a sudden onset of a very much less rainy period which may have been bad news in dry parts of Iberia but was excellent news in northern Europe. It may not be a coincidence that the sudden expansion of beaker pot into areas outside Iberia c. 2500BC or just before coincided with the sudden onset of a dry period. I imagine this might have brought about crisis in drier areas.

[alan]

As far as Iberia goes, I think Megalithic / collective burials had ceased long before the BB Era - the Megalithic traditions had broke down by c. 3000 BC, especially in the north- many were simply abandoned and became delapidated, others actively blocked off (in the south (Andalusi) and parts of Portugal, they continued for longer, or at least other types of more elaborate funeral features like tholoi can be seen).
Now, the new form of burials now consist of simple pit inhumation within settlements; and most of the interred were males, many showing signs of violent death (close combat). So the post-Megalithic , pre-beaker period (3000 - 2500 BC) represents a sort of chaotic, dark age.
Then we get the Bell Beaker burials, with the re-used of old Megaliths, with contextually confirmed Beaker accompaniments.

Summary:
End of Megalithic Era c. 3000 BC
? A pre-BB, Copper Period 'Dark Age' ; 3000 - 2500 BC
Bell Beaker period: 2500 - 2100 BC

Ref: The archaeological & palynological record of the northern Plateau of Spain during the second half od the 3rd Millenium BC. Lopez-Saez et al.

I have often tried to find out what the oldest radiocarbon date for a body indisputably linked to bell beaker is. Like I said its not easy in a messed up megalithic chamber to prove that. However, I do know there are some examples that are clearcut. But what is the earliest proven date where a body and beaker are linked in Iberia? I just dont know. This is important IMO because while pottery styles are a fairly superficial and generally female-driven thing, change in grave rite is something more profound. I personally suspect the spread of beaker and the spread of a distinctive individualised burial rite are two different things and they may not date the same. I accept beaker pot is present in Iberian settlements from 2750BC or so. However, I am not at all clear if beaker indisputably linked to a specific body in a burial has ever been demonstrated to be that early.

[rms2]

. . .

Summary:
End of Megalithic Era c. 3000 BC
? A pre-BB, Copper Period 'Dark Age' ; 3000 - 2500 BC
Bell Beaker period: 2500 - 2100 BC

. . .

If that is right, then there really is no reason to believe Bell Beaker originated in Iberia. There are Bell Beaker burials older than that in eastern and central Europe.

[alan]

So is this mythical Bell beaker paper going to arrive before we are all archaeology?

[alan]

I can see unintentional crossed wires in this thread because different people are using beaker to mean different things - some the pot, some the developed classic beaker culture of single burials etc. I actually agree that there is an important distinction between the appearance of the pottery/its spread and the appearance of classic beaker full package and/or individual burial rites as outlined in H and H. They may even be two separate things entirely. I suspect that c. 2700BC or just before the beaker pot was confined to Iberia and single burial was confided to lands east of the Rhine (almost entirely) and the two did not on a meaningful scale overlap geographically for some centuries. Clearly one phase was beaker pot spreading out of Iberia a little before 2500BC. As for the evidence for the opposite flow of central European ideas into Iberia in the beaker period that is clearly a subject of disagrement. I think it could have had several phases - the pot shape reaching Iberia c. 2750BC or so, the corded oramentation (different distributioin in Iberia) maybe in the following century and individual burial also reaching at some point. The timing of the latter seems especially badly defined. This is a big shame because while pottery changes may indicate the movement of women through marrying beyond the confines of their birth territories, the change in burial to individual or individualised seems far more likely to be the signal of central Europeans entering Iberia.

What I have read is confusing and apparently contradictory. I have read papers suggesting that individual burial only arrived well into the beaker period, first into eastern Iberia. However I have also read that even in megalithic tombs, clearcut well preserved beaker burials look individual in rite. Problem is I have not heard much about the radiocarbon dating of these clearcut beaker burials that are in megaliths but clearly with a rite that featured individualised treatment of the body. I have said this before - there is an awful lot still to be answered in terms of Iberian beaker people. There seem to be big piece of the jigsaw still unresolved - the earliest dating of the individualised beaker burials being one of them.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I have often tried to find out what the oldest radiocarbon date for a body indisputably linked to bell beaker is. Like I said its not easy in a messed up megalithic chamber to prove that. However, I do know there are some examples that are clearcut. But what is the earliest proven date where a body and beaker are linked in Iberia? I just dont know. This is important IMO because while pottery styles are a fairly superficial and generally female-driven thing, change in grave rite is something more profound. I personally suspect the spread of beaker and the spread of a distinctive individualised burial rite are two different things and they may not date the same. I accept beaker pot is present in Iberian settlements from 2750BC or so. However, I am not at all clear if beaker indisputably linked to a specific body in a burial has ever been demonstrated to be that early.

Maybe follow the daggers ?
The new metal techniques which spread from 3000 BC could not be easily copied. In fact working with arsenic was potentially deadly

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I can see unintentional crossed wires in this thread because different people are using beaker to mean different things - some the pot, some the developed classic beaker culture of single burials etc. I actually agree that there is an important distinction between the appearance of the pottery/its spread and the appearance of classic beaker full package and/or individual burial rites as outlined in H and H. They may even be two separate things entirely. I suspect that c. 2700BC or just before the beaker pot was confined to Iberia and single burial was confided to lands east of the Rhine (almost entirely) and the two did not on a meaningful scale overlap geographically for some centuries. Clearly one phase was beaker pot spreading out of Iberia a little before 2500BC. As for the evidence for the opposite flow of central European ideas into Iberia in the beaker period that is clearly a subject of disagrement. I think it could have had several phases - the pot shape reaching Iberia c. 2750BC or so, the corded oramentation (different distributioin in Iberia) maybe in the following century and individual burial also reaching at some point. The timing of the latter seems especially badly defined. This is a big shame because while pottery changes may indicate the movement of women through marrying beyond the confines of their birth territories, the change in burial to individual or individualised seems far more likely to be the signal of central Europeans entering Iberia.

What I have read is confusing and apparently contradictory. I have read papers suggesting that individual burial only arrived well into the beaker period, first into eastern Iberia. However I have also read that even in megalithic tombs, clearcut well preserved beaker burials look individual in rite. Problem is I have not heard much about the radiocarbon dating of these clearcut beaker burials that are in megaliths but clearly with a rite that featured individualised treatment of the body. I have said this before - there is an awful lot still to be answered in terms of Iberian beaker people. There seem to be big piece of the jigsaw still unresolved - the earliest dating of the individualised beaker burials being one of them.

In the paper linked post #3603 it contains radiocarbon dates. Along with other papers, it is becoming sugestive that individual burials with BB set within or near Megalithic dolmens are later intrusions, often several hundred years later.
So there is a link, but one of discontinuity. I suspect this habit had confused earlier scholars.
So maybe with the new aDNA will come a careful and intentional redefinition of what BB actually is, and where it first appears.?

[sktibo]

Hey folks,
I hope it's okay if I post some basic / beginner questions here. I'm very new to this Bell Beaker game. After a bit of reading, something that seems to repeatedly arise is the consistency of skull shape (brachycephalic) in Bell Beaker remains, which I find to be incredibly interesting.

I just read from here: http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.ca/2016/05/the-beaker-people-project-mp-pearson-et.html (Is this a reliable source of information?)
"
Head shape:

Significant craniometric differences were observed between those individuals of the Early Neolithic and this Beaker period population. Mostly expected.

And this:

"Certain individual skulls exhibited occipital flattening, a cranial modification probably caused by infants lying flat on their backs or being secured to a cradle-board.""

So my first question is, if this consistency in skull shape is (partially?) due to occipital flattening, do you think it was intentional? If so are there any speculations on why these people would have practiced this?

If this is too off topic for this post, I won't be offended at it's deletion. If it's OK, thank you for any insights or information on this.

[Jean M]

I just read from here: http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.ca/2016/05/the-beaker-people-project-mp-pearson-et.html (Is this a reliable source of information?)

Welcome to the discussion! Bell Beaker Blogger throws up his own ideas from time to time, which can be way out of the mainstream, but in this case he is simply reporting on the publication on The Beaker People Project by archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson.


So my first question is, if this consistency in skull shape is (partially?) due to occipital flattening, do you think it was intentional? If so are there any speculations on why these people would have practiced this?

I doubt whether there was any intention to flatten the back of the skull. That is just a by-product of cradle-boarding, done to quieten the child or make it more portable.

[sktibo]

Thank you Jean! So is there something to this skull shape of the bell beaker people? I never know with physical anthropology if it's legitimate or just crazy. I will admit it is fascinating, however.

[Jean M]

Thank you Jean! So is there something to this skull shape of the bell beaker people? I never know with physical anthropology if it's legitimate or just crazy.

In the days before geneticists had sequenced the human genome (quite recently!) and could extract something approximating to a complete genome from ancient human remains (even more recently!), physical anthropology plus archaeology was all people had to go on in assessing which ancient people were related to which other people, ancient or modern. An enormous literature was generated, with endless debate over the matter. This has now been rendered obsolete by ancient DNA. At least in terms of working out who is related to whom.

I was wary of physical anthropology and used it very sparingly in the first edition of Ancestral Journeys (2013). It was a relief to replace most of these few references with aDNA results for the second edition (2015). A reference to the Bell Beaker skull shape is still there, awaiting replacement. Here's what I say:


The dictum that pots are not people remains valid. Ironically its lessons have yet to be fully learned. Pottery has been used to date archaeological sequences since Flinders Petrie established the method in the late 19th century. So useful did pottery become to archaeologists that entire cultures were named for a pottery style, such as Bell Beaker or Corded Ware. Pottery can then loom disproportionately large in thinking about that society. Fashions in pottery may change while more important features of a culture, such as its economic basis, remain constant, or vice-versa. By creating the label Bell Beaker, archaeologists constructed a pot-is-person mind-set. This was understandable, since it was observed long ago that Bell Beaker pottery arrived in central and northern Europe with people who looked distinctly different from the previous inhabitants.* Migration in that case is a reasonable hypothesis (though one that needs to be tested with DNA.) Yet that does not make their tableware more crucial than their technology.

* Menk 1979; Cox and Mays 2000, 281-83; Nicolis 2001, 2, 403.

[rms2]

Okay, here it is St. Patrick's Day already and still no big Bell Beaker bonanza.

What gives? :(

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Okay, here it is St. Patrick's Day already and still no big Bell Beaker bonanza.

What gives? :(

Additional sampling, final touches , etc

[rms2]

As I recall, someone said there will be 200 samples in the big BB paper, including some from the British Isles and Ireland. I hope one of those is from the Amesbury Archer.

[alan]

In the paper linked post #3603 it contains radiocarbon dates. Along with other papers, it is becoming sugestive that individual burials with BB set within or near Megalithic dolmens are later intrusions, often several hundred years later.
So there is a link, but one of discontinuity. I suspect this habit had confused earlier scholars.
So maybe with the new aDNA will come a careful and intentional redefinition of what BB actually is, and where it first appears.?
The key imo is forget dating pottery and focus on dating individual burials or individualised buriais which reuse megalithic tombs. I suspect beaker pottery developed about 2750bc in Iberia due to marrying females from central Europe but the male intrusion which brought major change, individual burials and P312 arrived in Iberia many centuries later.

[alan]

The key imo is forget dating pottery and focus on dating individual burials or individualised buriais which reuse megalithic tombs. I suspect beaker pottery developed about 2750bc in Iberia due to marrying females from central Europe but the male intrusion which brought major change, individual burials and P312 arrived in Iberia many centuries later.

Probably the term Bealer people should be dropped and 'single grave culture {beaker using branch)' used instead

[Heber]

I was hoping that the BB and IDA papers would be published by St Patrick's day.
Obviously not. I contacted someone in the know and they are expecting to receive (delayed) first results in two months with publication after that. It is a bit like watching grass grow. Happy St Patrick's day everyone.

[rms2]

I was hoping that the BB and IDA papers would be published by St Patrick's day.
Obviously not. I contacted someone in the know and they are expecting to receive (delayed) first results in two months with publication after that. It is a bit like watching grass grow. Happy St Patrick's day everyone.

Two months from now? Or is that word from a couple of months ago? I seem to recall first hearing about this thing back before Christmas.

What is the "IDA" paper?

[Heber]

Two months from now? Or is that word from a couple of months ago? I seem to recall first hearing about this thing back before Christmas.

What is the "IDA" paper?

Two months from now.
IDA is the Irish DNA Atlas.

[rms2]

Two months from now . . .

Oh, groan!

May?

Might as well forget about it. If it ever appears, it appears.

[Kale]

Don't worry it will be here soon™!

[rms2]

Don't worry it will be here soon™!

Lol. :help:

[castle3]

I think there might be some trepidation concerning being the first of hopefully many to publish aDNA results over the next few months, lest later evidence undermines their theories. If so, then I wish they'd all simply initially post their results in this way:

Body A found in Perthshire is approx. 2,000 years old & is haplogoup R1b and subgroup ...whatever.

They could then add their own back story of where they believe these people hailed from before arriving in Perthshire at a later date. It'll never happen though!

[MitchellSince1893]

A two month delay would put them out of synch with the upcoming issue of Antiquity Journal...unless they remove the Bell Beaker article from that issue.

[rozenfeld]

I think that this may be relevant to the thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_QRg6NNxHI

A Journey through Scotland's Past: The Age of Bronze

Published on Mar 16, 2017

Maya Hoole, Data Infomation Officer, Heritage Directorate, an expert in the archaeology of Bronze Age Scotland, presents Scotland’s Age of Bronze.

This lecture takes an in depth look at a Bronze Age burial from Caithness revealing details about the life of the individual who was buried here over 4000 years ago.

This is the second in a series of talks we're holding in 2017 to mark the year of History, Heritage and Archaeology. Next up, on 23rd February, we'll be looking at Scotland's Age of Invasion. Find out more at http://ow.ly/cRVu309YmXc

Canmore: https://canmore.org.uk

Archaeology InSites: https://canmore.org.uk/insites

The Achavanich Beaker Burial project: https://achavanichbeakerburial.wordpress.com/...

The Achavanich Beaker Burial project Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/achavanichbeakerburial/...

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: http://www.socantscot.org/research-project/the-achavanich-beaker-burial-project/...

[Jean M]

A two month delay would put them out of synch with the upcoming issue of Antiquity Journal...unless they remove the Bell Beaker article from that issue.

Heyd's article in Antiquity was meant to be the archaeological response to the aDNA results already published. There should not be any reason to delay it. I hope. :)

[Generalissimo]

My source said two months from the beginning of this month for the BB paper.

But things may have changed since.

[ffoucart]

My source said two months from the beginning of this month for the BB paper.

But things may have changed since.

So probably in may or june.

Please God, it will be worth the wait.

[Mis]

Only the year?

[rms2]

So probably in may or june.

Please God, it will be worth the wait.

Let's hope it's worth the wait. I for one am already really tired of waiting.

[Camulogène Rix]

Let's hope it's worth the wait. I for one am already really tired of waiting.
From immemorial time men question themselves about their origins. I am not sure this study will bring us the final answer, but at least it is a milestone.

[DillonResearcher]

Could someone bring me up to speed please regarding what this paper will (or is hoped to) contain? I think it is the same one that I've heard mentioned since I got into DNA but I don't actually really know what it's meant to contain!

[jdean]

Could someone bring me up to speed please regarding what this paper will (or is hoped to) contain? I think it is the same one that I've heard mentioned since I got into DNA but I don't actually really know what it's meant to contain!

The Bell Beaker culture is considered by many here (myself included) to be the major vector for the spread of the Indo European language family in Western Europe. It's hoped this paper will help confirm this and they will for the most part have a large Yamna autosomal element plus R1b Y-DNA haplotypes.

[rms2]

The Bell Beaker culture is considered by many here (myself included) to be the major vector for the spread of the Indo European language family in Western Europe. It's hoped this paper will help confirm this and they will for the most part have a large Yamna autosomal element plus R1b Y-DNA haplotypes.

Right, and it is supposed to include dna test results from 200 or more ancient skeletons from all over Europe, including the British Isles and Ireland. I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that the Amesbury Archer will be among them, but I sure hope he is.

[rms2]

From immemorial time men question themselves about their origins. I am not sure this study will bring us the final answer, but at least it is a milestone.

Right now waiting for it is more of a millstone . . . a big, heavy millstone. ;)

[castle3]

Right, and it is supposed to include dna test results from 200 or more ancient skeletons from all over Europe, including the British Isles and Ireland. I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that the Amesbury Archer will be among them, but I sure hope he is.

I just hope there are some British & Irish results soon as I don't think I could bear any more delays!

[Jean M]

I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that the Amesbury Archer will be among them...

You got the idea from me. I talked to a chap in Wessex Archaeology. The Amesbury Archer was one of the skeletons from which samples were taken for DNA analysis. I cannot guarantee that satisfactory DNA was obtained from him, or that it will be published in the forthcoming paper, but the odds look good.

[DillonResearcher]

Do we know how extensively the DNA will be Y-SNP tested, i.e. what sort of subclades might we see, subclades of L2?

[rms2]

Do we know how extensively the DNA will be Y-SNP tested, i.e. what sort of subclades might we see, subclades of L2?

I think they are going for as much of the genome as they can get, but sometimes ancient dna is not as cooperative as we would like.

[DillonResearcher]

Okay, thanks. That sounds promising, BY3506 would be rather nice but I think that might be wandering into the realm of fantasy!

[rms2]

YFull estimates BY3506's tmrca to be around 500 BC (2500 ybp), so we're not likely to see it turn up in Bell Beaker.

[jdean]

I think they are going for as much of the genome as they can get, but sometimes ancient dna is not as cooperative as we would like.

I'm found of likening it to Swiss cheese : )

[GoldenHind]

I'm found of likening it to Swiss cheese : )

Let's hope in this case it's more Gruyere rather than Emmenthaler.

[rms2]

Marija Gimbutas' Summary of the Indo-Europeanization of Europe

From The Civilization of the Goddess, page 401.



East-central Europe in the period of 4500-2500 B.C. was in a constant state of transformation, due to repeated Kurgan incursions from the Volga and North Pontic steppe zone.

There were several major stages of changing ethnic configurations.

1. Around 4300 B.C., horse-riding pastoralists from south Russia (Wave No. 1) created the first shock wave and population shifts in the Danube basin. The flowering of Old Europe was truncated and the hybridization of two very different culture systems began. Most affected were the Black Sea littoral (Varna), Karanovo-Gumelnita, Vinca, Lengyel, and LBK cultures. The Cucuteni culture survived. In the west, signs of Kurgan elements (single burials under round mounds) appeared in England and in eastern Ireland before 3500 B.C.

2. In the second half of the 4th millennium B.C., from the North Pontic-North Caucasus region, strong influences increased the transformation of central Europe. The conversion of what was still Old European into an Indo-European social structure and ideology was remarkably successful. Central Europe was now ruled from hill forts and by daggers made of hard metal (copper-arsenic alloy). The transition from a matricentric and matrilineal to a patrilineal and patriarchal system was in process.

3. The massive Kurgan Wave No. 3, from the lower Volga region after 3000 B.C., into east-central Europe, caused new ethnic shifts. The Indo-Europeanized populations of central Europe migrated northeast to East Baltic and central Russia, northwest to southern Scandinavia, and south to Greece (Corded Pottery and Vucedol extensions).

4. The warlike and horse-riding Bell Beaker people of the middle and second half of the 3rd millennium B.C., who diffused over western Europe, are likely to have originated from an amalgam of remnants of Vucedol people with the Yamna colonists (after Wave No. 3) in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Their parent culture is called Vinkovci-Samogyvar. This was the largest and last outmigration from east-central Europe into western Europe, up to the west Mediterranean and the British Isles, before the onset of a more stable period, and the formations of the Bronze Age cultural units.

By the third quarter of the 3rd millennium B.C., almost all parts of Old Europe were transformed economically and socially. Pastoralism and seminomadism increased and tillage decreased. Old European patterns of habitation vanished except for territories and islands which were never completely Indo-Europeanized. The Indo-European religion became official, but the Old European Goddess religion was carried on to the present day through fragments of Old European culture.

The functions and images of Old European and Indo-European deities, beliefs in an afterlife, and the entirely different sets of symbols prove the existence of two contrasting religions and mythologies. Their collision in Europe resulted in the hybridization of two symbolic structures in which the Indo-European prevailed while the Old European survived as an undercurrent. Without this insight into different symbolic structures, the ideologies of European peoples and the genesis and meaning of their symbols, beliefs, and myths cannot be comprehended.

The clash between these two ideologies and social and economic structures led to the drastic transformation of Old Europe. These changes were expressed as the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal order, from a learned theacracy to a militant patriarchy, from a sexually balanced society to a male dominated hierarchy, and from a chthonic goddess religion to the Indo-European sky-oriented pantheon of gods.

[R.Rocca]

Check out this post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9903-Parallel-ancient-genomic-transects-reveal-complex-population-history-of-early-Europea&p=218527&viewfull=1#post218527) based on the new paper, Parallel ancient genomic transects reveal complex population history of early European farmers (http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/03/06/114488).

In that post, jeanL points out that three very early Iberian Bell Beaker skeletons were recovered from a collective megalithic tomb at El Soltillo in Spain. All three belonged to y haplogroup I: one simply I and the other two to I2a2a.

This is something Alan, Mike W, and I have guessed at before and have mentioned a number of times in this thread, i.e., that the very earliest Iberian Bell Beaker people were probably not R1b and would not have much if any steppe autosomal dna.

I'm going to quote myself from a fairly recent post (http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?9698-from-western-Yamna-to-Europe-a-I2a2-R1b-M269-joined-venture&p=215055&viewfull=1#post215055) on this subject:

As you know, the three Remedello Culture samples from northern Italy all belonged to haplogroup I2a1a1, lack steppe ancestry and cluster with other EEFs. What is interesting is that sample RISE486 was radiocarbon dated to 2134-1773 BC, which is well into the Bell Beaker period for that cemetery. Perhaps this is a further indication that Eastern Bell Beaker where the ones heavily associated with EHG and R1b, while Iberia and Italy continued to belong to Copper Age haplogroup I2. Allentoft (2015) had the following to say about the three Remedello Culture samples:

"...we find that the Copper Age Remedello culture in Italy does not have the ‘Caucasian’ genetic component and is still clustering genetically with Neolithic farmers. Hence this region was either unaffected by the Yamnaya expansion or the Remedello pre-dates such an expansion into southern Europe."

[rms2]

Remedello is strange, or at least those results were strange. It appears to be a kurganized culture, so one would expect some steppe dna in it, especially by that relatively late date. Maybe further Remedello results will tell a different story.

Were those Remedello skeletons buried with weapons, etc.?

[R.Rocca]

Remedello is strange, or at least those results were strange. It appears to be a kurganized culture, so one would expect some steppe dna in it, especially by that relatively late date. Maybe further Remedello results will tell a different story.

Were those Remedello skeletons buried with weapons, etc.?

With ancient DNA, it looks like we will be able to discern between "kurganized" (Remedello, Baden) and "kurgan" cultures (Yamnaya, Corded Ware, Eastern Bell Beaker). The Remedello Culture did not build kurgans, but the one I pointed our in my post (tomb 78) was a single grave, flexed burial with a copper axe. You can see the late Remedello Culture sample here:

http://www.r1b.org/imgs/Remedello_T78.jpg

[rms2]

I think it likely the kurganized cultures may yet reveal the presence of a few actual Kurgans among the kurganized people. Gimbutas mentions that in The Civilization of the Goddess, for example, when she talks about the predominance of the Mediterranean physical type in Baden remains but with steppe types among them in places like Budakalasz (p. 375), and she says the following (on page 376):



The Baden complex represents the process of amalgamation of two culture systems with contrasting economies, ideologies, racial types, and modes of living.

[rozenfeld]

Do I understand correctly that the paper will not be out until summer?

[rms2]

Do I understand correctly that the paper will not be out until summer?

In May apparently, so still spring (hopefully).

[Heber]

WHAT ARE LARGE-SCALE ARCHAEOMETRIC PROGRAMMES FOR? BELL BEAKER POTTERY AND SOCIETIES FROM THE THIRD MILLENNIUM BC IN WESTERN EUROPE*

L. SALANOVA†
CNRS, Maison de l’archéologie et de l’ethnologie, 21 allée de l’Université, Nanterre cedex 92023, France
M. P. PRIETO-MARTÍNEZ
Departamento de Historia I, Facultade de Xeografía e Historia, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Praza da Universidade, n° 1 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
X. CLOP-GARCÍA
ARCHAEOM, Departament de Prehistòria, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B, Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
F. CONVERTINI
Inrap/Lampea, Université d’Aix-Marseille, 561 rue Etienne Lenoir, Montpellier 34000, France O. LANTES-SUÁREZ
Unidade de Arqueometría, RIAIDT, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Praza do Obradoiro, s/n 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
and A. MARTÍNEZ-CORTIZAS
Departamento de Edafología y Química Agrícola, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Facultade de Bioloxía—Rúa Lope Gómez de Marzoa, s/n, Campus sur 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Variability in clay processing recipes for pottery is still at a descriptive stage as far as prehis- toric contexts are concerned. This paper intends to go beyond our traditional limits, based on the best-documented case for prehistory, the Bell Beaker style, which spread throughout the whole of Europe during the third millennium BC. The thousands of archaeometric analyses that have been carried out on the main concentrations from France, Spain and Portugal are taken into account in order to reconstruct the circulation mechanisms of the pottery and the social organization of the communities who used it.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37774113/pottery_circulation_mechanism.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=A KIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1490610268&Signature=X0xq1rBZqCHtKmFAC5t1%2Byl%2F5%2F0%3D&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3DWHAT_ARE_LA RGE-SCALE_ARCHAEOMETRIC_PROGR.pdf

[Gravetto-Danubian]

In May apparently, so still spring (hopefully).

Analysis is complete, and it might be being submitted this week
Not sure if it'll go to bioarxive first, if so, it might be sooner than later

[razyn]

The thousands of archaeometric analyses that have been carried out on the main concentrations from France, Spain and Portugal are taken into account in order to reconstruct the circulation mechanisms of the pottery and the social organization of the communities who used it.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37774113/pottery_circulation_mechanism.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=A KIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1490610268&Signature=X0xq1rBZqCHtKmFAC5t1%2Byl%2F5%2F0%3D&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3DWHAT_ARE_LA RGE-SCALE_ARCHAEOMETRIC_PROGR.pdf

I wondered why just France, Spain and Portugal, since the authors acknowledge that it spread "throughout the whole of Europe." But this link has expired, less than 2 1/2 hours after you posted it. Is a more permanent sort of link to a .pdf possible?

[Jean M]

But this link has expired, less than 2 1/2 hours after you posted it. Is a more permanent sort of link to a .pdf possible?

https://www.academia.edu/12673518/WHAT_ARE_LARGE-SCALE_ARCHAEOMETRIC_PROGRAMMES_FOR_BELL_BEAKER_POT TERY_AND_SOCIETIES_FROM_THE_THIRD_MILLENNIUM_BC_IN _WESTERN_EUROPE

This is a paper from 2015. The pdf just gives the abstract.

[Isidro]

There is some info here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=QQBDCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=What+are+large-scale+Archaeometric+programmes+for?+Bell+beaker+po ttery+and+societies+from+the+third+millennium+BC+i n+Western+Europe&source=bl&ots=SegB3kYt4B&sig=V-M5i_bDy1_aGNadsGup10nSJxQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwie85bV4fbSAhVn5YMKHU7VAeYQ6AEIQDAH#v=on epage&q=What%20are%20large-scale%20Archaeometric%20programmes%20for%3F%20Bell %20beaker%20pottery%20and%20societies%20from%20the %20third%20millennium%20BC%20in%20Western%20Europe&f=false

[rms2]

Analysis is complete, and it might be being submitted this week
Not sure if it'll go to bioarxive first, if so, it might be sooner than later

Wow! That's pretty exciting. I'm sure they'll release it while I'm at work for maximum inconvenience.

[Heber]

Cardial and Bell Beaker remains found in Morocco.
Publié Le 26/03/2017 à 12h00

"DNA was sampled and skeletal samples were sent to Stanford University in the United States and to the University of Stockholm in Sweden, "he says. "We are waiting for the results of the DNA analyzes to know the genetic connections of these Moroccan populations with the European populations," concludes the professor."

Nomad #17 - Grotte d’Ifri n’ Amr O'moussa, bijou archéologique marocain

...Suite : https://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/52221/nomad-17-grotte-d-ifri-o-moussa-bijou.html

"Le Maroc est le seul pays de la rive sud de la méditerranée à avoir des traces de civilisation campaniforme (culture préhistorique), qui est due à la proximité géographique avec l’Europe (surtout l’Espagne et le Portugal). Le campaniforme est une civilisation dont «les vannes céramiques ont la forme de cloche inversée – terme en anglais, Bell-Beaker», informe Youssef Bokbot.
Deux grandes cultures et civilisations ont été découvertes lors des fouilles : la campaniforme et le cardial. «Cela veut dire que deux grands clans se sont succédés dans la grotte», explique le professeur. Les périodes de leur existence sont le néolithique - de 5400 à 3000 ans avant Jésus Christ – représentées par du mobilier tel que : haches polies en pierre et meules de broyages entre autres. Ces derniers font partie des découvertes majeures de la grotte. Une autre période a été mise en lumière dans le lieu : le chalcolithique – entre 3000 et 1800 ans avant J-C. D’autres objets rares ont été dénichés comme la pointe de Palmella, une aiguille à chas et beaucoup de pionçons et plumes.....

"Morocco is the only country on the southern shore of the Mediterranean to have traces of prehistoric civilization, due to geographical proximity to Europe (especially Spain and Portugal). A civilization whose "ceramic valves have the form of a reversed bell - term in English, Bell-Beaker," informs Youssef Bokbot.
Two great cultures and civilizations were discovered during the excavations: the campaniforme and the cardial. "This means that two large clans have succeeded each other in the cave," explains the professor. The periods of their existence are the Neolithic - from 5400 to 3000 years BC - represented by furniture such as: polished stone axes and grinding wheels among others. The latter are among the major discoveries of the cave. Another period was brought to light in the place: the chalcolithic - between 3000 and 1800 years before D-C. Other rare items have been found such as Palmella's tip, a needle and many pionons and feathers .....

On a échantillonné l’ADN et envoyé des échantillons de squelette à l’université Stanford aux États-Unis et à l’université de Stockholm en Suède», confie-t-il. «On attends les résultats des analyses ADN pour connaître les connexions génétiques de ces populations marocaines avec les populations européennes», nous livre le professeur en guise de conclusion."


...Suite : https://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/52221/nomad-17-grotte-d-ifri-o-moussa-bijou.html

[Romilius]

Cardial and Bell Beaker remains found in Morocco.
Publié Le 26/03/2017 à 12h00

"DNA was sampled and skeletal samples were sent to Stanford University in the United States and to the University of Stockholm in Sweden, "he says. "We are waiting for the results of the DNA analyzes to know the genetic connections of these Moroccan populations with the European populations," concludes the professor."

Nomad #17 - Grotte d’Ifri n’ Amr O'moussa, bijou archéologique marocain

...Suite : https://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/52221/nomad-17-grotte-d-ifri-o-moussa-bijou.html

"Le Maroc est le seul pays de la rive sud de la méditerranée à avoir des traces de civilisation campaniforme (culture préhistorique), qui est due à la proximité géographique avec l’Europe (surtout l’Espagne et le Portugal). Le campaniforme est une civilisation dont «les vannes céramiques ont la forme de cloche inversée – terme en anglais, Bell-Beaker», informe Youssef Bokbot.
Deux grandes cultures et civilisations ont été découvertes lors des fouilles : la campaniforme et le cardial. «Cela veut dire que deux grands clans se sont succédés dans la grotte», explique le professeur. Les périodes de leur existence sont le néolithique - de 5400 à 3000 ans avant Jésus Christ – représentées par du mobilier tel que : haches polies en pierre et meules de broyages entre autres. Ces derniers font partie des découvertes majeures de la grotte. Une autre période a été mise en lumière dans le lieu : le chalcolithique – entre 3000 et 1800 ans avant J-C. D’autres objets rares ont été dénichés comme la pointe de Palmella, une aiguille à chas et beaucoup de pionçons et plumes.....

"Morocco is the only country on the southern shore of the Mediterranean to have traces of prehistoric civilization, due to geographical proximity to Europe (especially Spain and Portugal). A civilization whose "ceramic valves have the form of a reversed bell - term in English, Bell-Beaker," informs Youssef Bokbot.
Two great cultures and civilizations were discovered during the excavations: the campaniforme and the cardial. "This means that two large clans have succeeded each other in the cave," explains the professor. The periods of their existence are the Neolithic - from 5400 to 3000 years BC - represented by furniture such as: polished stone axes and grinding wheels among others. The latter are among the major discoveries of the cave. Another period was brought to light in the place: the chalcolithic - between 3000 and 1800 years before D-C. Other rare items have been found such as Palmella's tip, a needle and many pionons and feathers .....

On a échantillonné l’ADN et envoyé des échantillons de squelette à l’université Stanford aux États-Unis et à l’université de Stockholm en Suède», confie-t-il. «On attends les résultats des analyses ADN pour connaître les connexions génétiques de ces populations marocaines avec les populations européennes», nous livre le professeur en guise de conclusion."


...Suite : https://www.yabiladi.com/articles/details/52221/nomad-17-grotte-d-ifri-o-moussa-bijou.html

I don't understand... will these results be present in the big Bell Beaker paper by Reich?

[Heber]

I don't understand... will these results be present in the big Bell Beaker paper by Reich?

"The two teams, one from Harvard and the other from Copenhagen, have agreed to amalgamate their results into one huge paper, which will give the results of over 200 samples. It is due to be published in a couple of months."(2/12/2016)

The Reich paper uses the Harvard and Copenhagen labs.
These samples were sent to Stanford and Stockholm.
I checked the Antiquity site for the March Issue #356 and the much anticipated Heyd (Archealogy) article.
No sign of it yet and a few days left in March.
http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/

[Jean M]

I checked the Antiquity site for the March Issue #356 and the much anticipated Heyd (Archealogy) article.
No sign of it yet and a few days left in March.

In fact it will be the April issue. Antiquity changed in 2015 from four issues a year to six. With four, there used to be a March issue. Now it is April. I suspect that was the source of the confusion. Issue #356 will be April 2017. https://antiquity.ac.uk/archive

[Net Down G5L]

In fact it will be the April issue. Antiquity changed in 2015 from four issues a year to six. With four, there used to be a March issue. Now it is April. I suspect that was the source of the confusion. Issue #356 will be April 2017. https://antiquity.ac.uk/archive

Yes, I have been checking daily for it. I believe the Feb issue was released online on 20th Jan which is why I was expecting the April issue to be online by now....but no such luck. Will just have to be patient........and unfortunately we are all having to get used to that.

[DillonResearcher]

Having had a look at the Antiquity website the April issue was released on 20th April last year and so we might have almost another month to go.

[MitchellSince1893]

Based on the various days of the month when it is posted online, I get the impression it appears whenever the webmaster gets around to it.

I bet their website traffic has jumped significantly over the last month as many of us are clicking on their link multiple times per day.

[Dewsloth]

In fact it will be the April issue. Antiquity changed in 2015 from four issues a year to six. With four, there used to be a March issue. Now it is April. I suspect that was the source of the confusion. Issue #356 will be April 2017. https://antiquity.ac.uk/archive

They tweeted this 9 days ago...

https://twitter.com/AntiquityJ/status/843786700660776960

[Il Papà]

I feel like Antiquity is waiting for the "bell beaker" paper to come out before releasing their April edition.

[Romilius]

"The two teams, one from Harvard and the other from Copenhagen, have agreed to amalgamate their results into one huge paper, which will give the results of over 200 samples. It is due to be published in a couple of months."(2/12/2016)

The Reich paper uses the Harvard and Copenhagen labs.
These samples were sent to Stanford and Stockholm.
I checked the Antiquity site for the March Issue #356 and the much anticipated Heyd (Archealogy) article.
No sign of it yet and a few days left in March.
http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/

Thanks... I didn't understand that because in the Moroccan article, the journalist states that results will be in the next Bell Beaker paper... I read "next" as the big Reich paper, because is the only paper in program I know about.

[Romilius]

I feel like Antiquity is waiting for the "bell beaker" paper to come out before releasing their April edition.

I think also Martians and Venusians are waiting for the bell beaker paper... Surely a great step towards Beaker understanding.

[GoldenHind]

In fact it will be the April issue. Antiquity changed in 2015 from four issues a year to six. With four, there used to be a March issue. Now it is April. I suspect that was the source of the confusion. Issue #356 will be April 2017. https://antiquity.ac.uk/archive

While I hope the article will be informative, it is really the raw data results which many of us are waiting for. I rather doubt this will be included in the magazine article. Does anyone know if it will be made available, and if so, when, where and how?

[Jean M]

While I hope the article will be informative, it is really the raw data results which many of us are waiting for. I rather doubt this will be included in the magazine article. Does anyone know if it will be made available, and if so, when, where and how?

Raw data? The Antiquity journal article by archaeologist Volker Heyd on Bell Beaker will be about archaeology. It may refer to the already published papers giving Bell Beaker results, since it was commissioned as an archaeological response to them. But it is not a genetics paper. The whole idea was to have leading archaeologists who are specialists in Bell Beaker and Corded Ware respond to the genetic discoveries published in 2015 showing the steppe flow into BB and CW.

[DillonResearcher]

Ah, okay! Which paper is it that we are waiting on for the new Bell Beaker data then?

[rms2]

Ah, okay! Which paper is it that we are waiting on for the new Bell Beaker data then?

The ancient DNA paper by Reich and the gang.

It's supposed to feature the results from 200+ ancient samples from all over Europe, including some from Britain and Ireland, even the famous Amesbury Archer.

[MitchellSince1893]

They tweeted this 9 days ago...

https://twitter.com/AntiquityJ/status/843786700660776960

April issue of Antiquity Journal will be online on 4 April

Tweet today
the new issue is due to go live on 4th April, with print copies in the post soon after. Not long to wait!

[Dewsloth]

Ah, okay! Which paper is it that we are waiting on for the new Bell Beaker data then?

The Godot paper ;)

[MitchellSince1893]

April issue of Antiquity Journal will be online on 4 April

Tweet today

Oh Boy! Just a few more hours to go.

EDIT: At 1:24 GMT (2:24am London Time): I guess it wasn't Greenwich Mean Time...still sitting on the February issue on the site

TICK TOCK

EDIT: At 5:54am London Time, Still showing Feb issue. Going to bed. Hopefully it will be there when I get up in the morning.

[MitchellSince1893]

Oh Boy! Just a few more hours to go.

EDIT: At 1:24 GMT (2:24am London Time): I guess it wasn't Greenwich Mean Time...still sitting on the February issue on the site

TICK TOCK

EDIT: At 5:54am London Time, Still showing Feb issue. Going to bed. Hopefully it will be there when I get up in the morning.
April issue is up http://antiquity.ac.uk/

[angscoire]

April issue is up http://antiquity.ac.uk/

The Kristiansen Corded Ware paper is accessible , the Heyd Beaker paper is not .

[MitchellSince1893]

The Kristiansen Corded Ware paper is accessible , the Heyd Beaker paper is not .

Those that can access it are discussing it here http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?10196-Kossina-s-smile-Bell-Beaker-state-of-the-Art-Heyd-2017

[Jean M]

I know all the excitement today is provided by Volker Heyd, but I don't think I've mentioned a paper from last year: Corina Liesau, Elisa Guerra, Germán Delibes, Concepción Blasco and Patricia Ríos, Copper weapons, gold and ivory: long-distance exchanges and emulation among the Atlantic Beaker groups, Musaica Archaeologica 1 (2016), pp. 11-20.

Extract:


The occurrence of a pair of gold basket-shaped ornaments from Tablada de Rudrón, in Burgos is rather exceptional in Iberia (Fig. 3). At the non-megalithic burial mound of El Virgazal, which was used by a Beaker group during the second half of the 3rd millennium BC and re-used several centuries later, in the Middle Bronze Age, these gold ornaments – which were initially interpreted as finger bands– were found among the Beaker materials (Campillo 2004). An ongoing research project conducted by one of us (Prof Germán Delibes de Castro) is re-examining this site, and the isotopic and DNA analyses of the human remains are still in progress. While we cannot be sure at the moment of the provenance of the Beaker individuals, it seems clear that those gold ornaments are similar to finds from England, thus reflecting the nature of the Bell Beaker networks along the Atlantic façade (Fitzpatrick et al 2016)..... It is interesting to note that Beaker pottery, corresponding to both the Maritime and Ciempozuelos styles, has recently been found at one of the copper mines in Sierra del Aramo, Asturias (Blas Cortina et al. 2013). This mining area has been suggested as a possible provenance for the copper dagger and knives deposited in the Amesbury Archer´s grave (Needham 2013a). Is it a coincidence that both the Amesbury Archer himself and his Companion were buried with a pair of gold basket ornaments each? (Needham 2013b).

14923

Fig. 3. Gold basket-shaped ornaments from the non-megalithic
burial mound of El Virgazal, Tablada de Rudrón (Burgos).

[Dewsloth]

I know all the excitement today is provided by Volker Heyd, but I don't think I've mentioned a paper from last year: Corina Liesau, Elisa Guerra, Germán Delibes, Concepción Blasco and Patricia Ríos, Copper weapons, gold and ivory: long-distance exchanges and emulation among the Atlantic Beaker groups, Musaica Archaeologica 1 (2016), pp. 11-20.

Extract:



14923

Fig. 3. Gold basket-shaped ornaments from the non-megalithic
burial mound of El Virgazal, Tablada de Rudrón (Burgos).

So many significant ancient burials in or near Burgos!

[DillonResearcher]

At the risk of sounding impatient... do we have any indication on when the paper with the new Bell Beaker samples will be released?

[Heber]

I know all the excitement today is provided by Volker Heyd, but I don't think I've mentioned a paper from last year: Corina Liesau, Elisa Guerra, Germán Delibes, Concepción Blasco and Patricia Ríos, Copper weapons, gold and ivory: long-distance exchanges and emulation among the Atlantic Beaker groups, Musaica Archaeologica 1 (2016), pp. 11-20.

Extract:



14923

Fig. 3. Gold basket-shaped ornaments from the non-megalithic
burial mound of El Virgazal, Tablada de Rudrón (Burgos).

Both papers are on Academia.com.

Bell Beaker connections along the Atlantic façade: the gold ornaments from Tablada del Rudrón, Burgos, Spain

https://www.academia.edu/24957270/Bell_Beaker_connections_along_the_Atlantic_facade_ the_gold_ornaments_from_Tablada_del_Rudr%C3%B3n_Bu rgos_Spain

Prestige indicators and Bell Beaker ware at Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla, Spain)

https://www.academia.edu/30225095/Prestige_indicators_and_Bell_Beaker_ware_at_Valenc ina_de_la_Concepci%C3%B3n_Sevilla_Spain_

[Romilius]

I remember that someone talked about two important discoveries in Bell Beaker: one in Spain (and I imagine it is Valencina de la Concepción) and the other in France, Alsace... what about the latter?

[angscoire]

Dillon Researcher - Out next month apparently ... until it gets postponed again .

[DillonResearcher]

Dillon Researcher - Out next month apparently ... until it gets postponed again .

Great, thanks. I just hope that it is worth all the wait and hype!

[Jean M]

I remember that someone talked about two important discoveries in Bell Beaker: one in Spain (and I imagine it is Valencina de la Concepción) and the other in France, Alsace... what about the latter?

That was me, referring to Volker Heyd's lecture. Yes the first site was Valencina de la Concepción. The latter was a BB site. I had my doubts about the dating put on it. Heyd too may have decided that it was not solid. Or he may have deferred dealing with it to some other publication, for some other reason.

[Romilius]

That was me, referring to Volker Heyd's lecture. Yes the first site was Valencina de la Concepción. The latter was a BB site. I had my doubts about the dating put on it. Heyd too may have decided that it was not solid. Or he may have deferred dealing with it to some other publication, for some other reason.

Thanks for answering.

Then, the only thing that remains is waiting for big Bell Beaker paper.

[R.Rocca]

That was me, referring to Volker Heyd's lecture. Yes the first site was Valencina de la Concepción. The latter was a BB site. I had my doubts about the dating put on it. Heyd too may have decided that it was not solid. Or he may have deferred dealing with it to some other publication, for some other reason.

If you have time and you attended his prior presentation, it would be great if you could ask... Please? :pray:

[Jean M]

If you have time and you attended his prior presentation, it would be great if you could ask... Please? :pray:

Let's wait and see if it turns up in the big BB genetics paper.

[TigerMW]

Both papers are on Academia.com.

Bell Beaker connections along the Atlantic façade: the gold ornaments from Tablada del Rudrón, Burgos, Spain

https://www.academia.edu/24957270/Bell_Beaker_connections_along_the_Atlantic_facade_ the_gold_ornaments_from_Tablada_del_Rudr%C3%B3n_Bu rgos_Spain

Prestige indicators and Bell Beaker ware at Valencina de la Concepción (Sevilla, Spain)

https://www.academia.edu/30225095/Prestige_indicators_and_Bell_Beaker_ware_at_Valenc ina_de_la_Concepci%C3%B3n_Sevilla_Spain_

Let's assume assume that Gimbutas is correct and the Bell Beakers are an amalgamation of Yamnaya and Vucedol.


Do you think there is a tie-in with the Gimbutas Bell Beaker origin hypothesis? Don't we see a lot of I2 in area of Croatia, old Vucedol territory?


But these El Sotillo remains lacked any steppe autosomal dna. As I recall, one of the Vucedol period skeletons from Hungary was also I2. The other was R1b-M343.

My suspicion is that very early Iberian Bell Beaker people, with the little, short, gracile, long-headed skeletons that look like those of Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers that were buried in collective Neolithic tombs like El Sotillo, were not R1b and not of steppe origin.

I was not trying to propose that the early Iberian Bell Beaker folks were of some R1b-P311 type. I was investigating the possibility that I2a2a in the old Vucedol dominated elements of the emerging Bell Beakers might have been among the first to migrate via the Mediterranean to Iberia.

The merging of the Yamnaya and Vucedol to create the Bell Beakers, if that is what happened, probably didn't occur overnight. Different sub-groups of the emerging Bell Beakers might have had different mixes of Y haplogroups. Look at the Germanic expanisions. I1, R1b-U106 and R1a1 do not have a constant ratio (mix) across the Germanic territories.

Another question about the formation of the Beakers is what parts of the package are from Vucedol? Do we see those parts to same degree and mix in each of the Beaker regional groups? My guess is no but what did Vucedol bring to the table. This should go in the Bell Beaker Gimbutas thread.

How did the Bell Beakers become great sailors? Did this come because the Yamnaya that passed by the Usatovo along the lower Danube in Romania for a different reason than David Anthony. Was it because they actually went by water avoiding land constrained Usatovo chieftains altogether? Or was it they learned how to handle the sea from the Vucedol along the Adriatic?

If the seafaring comes from the Vucedol and the merger of Beakers and Vucedol was not a complete overnight integration, why we would not expect some lineages of the Vucedol to appear in emerging Bell Beakers to the west?

Are the types of I2 found in the early Iberian Bell Beakers of the same Chalcolithic Age branches as I2 in Croatia. The Slavic migration into these areas complicate the investigation.

[TigerMW]

Let's assume assume that Gimbutas is correct and the Bell Beakers are an amalgamation of Yamnaya and Vucedol....
Please correct this or elaborate. I think the case may be more that the Vucedol were IE and so the Vucedol were the amalgamation of Yamnaya and Baden. Then Beakers are an outgrowth from the Vucedol. ???

If so, reorient my questions to what did Baden bring the to the table in the formation of the Vucedol?

[lgmayka]

Are the types of I2 found in the early Iberian Bell Beakers of the same Chalcolithic Age branches as I2 in Croatia. The Slavic migration into these areas complicate the investigation.
The vast majority of I2 in Croatia today is I-CTS10228 (https://yfull.com/tree/I-CTS10228/), the classic I2a-Dinaric, whose TMRCA is only 2200 years. Its only known siblings (https://yfull.com/tree/I-CTS4002/), the Polish I-CTS4002* and the Germanic I-FGC20479, diverged from I-CTS10228 and each other roughly 5300 years ago. We simply don't know where pre-CTS10228 went or lived during the intervening 3100 years.:confused:

[rms2]

Let's assume assume that Gimbutas is correct and the Bell Beakers are an amalgamation of Yamnaya and Vucedol.


I was not trying to propose that the early Iberian Bell Beaker folks were of some R1b-P311 type.

I did not think you were. You mentioned I2, after all, not R1b-P311. I understood that you were saying or implying that perhaps those I2a2a guys came from y-dna lines that originated in Vucedol.

I just think it more likely that they were native, Neolithicized westerners, and that very early Iberian BB, called that because of its pottery, was something different from what BB would become.



I was investigating the possibility that I2a2a in the old Vucedol dominated elements of the emerging Bell Beakers might have been among the first to migrate via the Mediterranean to Iberia.

I got that. It was pretty clear. See my response above.



The merging of the Yamnaya and Vucedol to create the Bell Beakers, if that is what happened, probably didn't occur overnight. Different sub-groups of the emerging Bell Beakers might have had different mixes of Y haplogroups. Look at the Germanic expanisions. I1, R1b-U106 and R1a1 do not have a constant ratio (mix) across the Germanic territories.

According to Gimbutas, Vucedol had already been kurganized by the earlier kurgan waves by the time Yamnaya arrived in the Carpathian Basin. I could be wrong, but I don't think they were burying their dead in collective megalithic tombs like the El Sotillo people.

We'll have to wait for some good genomic results from Vucedol and from Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin to see what was going on, but I don't think the El Sotillo early BB people, if that's what they were, had anything to do with Vucedol. I think they were natives.

Just as Kristiansen speculates that CW acquired its pottery-making from CW men marrying Neolithic farmer women, I suspect that some other steppe men acquired their pottery-making by marrying Neolithic BB women. Unfortunately, the culture took its name from the pottery and was thought to have originated where the pottery apparently did, in Iberia.



Another question about the formation of the Beakers is what parts of the package are from Vucedol? Do we see those parts to same degree and mix in each of the Beaker regional groups? My guess is no but what did Vucedol bring to the table. This should go in the Bell Beaker Gimbutas thread.

Vucedol produced copper weapons: tanged and riveted daggers, and shaft hole axes. They buried their people in a variety of ways: cremation, urn graves, inhumation in pits (yama) under round earthen barrows, in stone cists, and in oven-shaped tombs (Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, p. 376). According to Gimbutas, Vucedol itself, before it combined with Yamnaya, was already a combination of earlier kurgan waves and Baden people.

It is pretty plain that Vucedol pottery influenced its spin-off cultures and Bell Beaker. And it looks like Vucedol was influenced by Mikhailovka.

15138 15139



How did the Bell Beakers become great sailors? Did this come because the Yamnaya that passed by the Usatovo along the lower Danube in Romania for a different reason than David Anthony. Was it because they actually went by water avoiding land constrained Usatovo chieftains altogether? Or was it they learned how to handle the sea from the Vucedol along the Adriatic?

If the seafaring comes from the Vucedol and the merger of Beakers and Vucedol was not a complete overnight integration, why we would not expect some lineages of the Vucedol to appear in emerging Bell Beakers to the west?

Are the types of I2 found in the early Iberian Bell Beakers of the same Chalcolithic Age branches as I2 in Croatia. The Slavic migration into these areas complicate the investigation.

Were BB people great sailors? What is the evidence for that? I am not doubting it, but is the evidence simply the far flung places where they wound up, or do we have some BB boats?

I doubt that the I2 in El Sotillo is the same as the I2 in Croatia, but I could be wrong. Gimbutas never said anything about Vucedol burying its dead in megalithic tombs like the one at El Sotillo.

[R.Rocca]

The vast majority of I2 in Croatia today is I-CTS10228 (https://yfull.com/tree/I-CTS10228/), the classic I2a-Dinaric, whose TMRCA is only 2200 years. Its only known siblings (https://yfull.com/tree/I-CTS4002/), the Polish I-CTS4002* and the Germanic I-FGC20479, diverged from I-CTS10228 and each other roughly 5300 years ago. We simply don't know where pre-CTS10228 went or lived during the intervening 3100 years.:confused:

There is the case of the I2a2a-M223 Vucedol period sample from Lánycsók, Csata-alja, Hungary dated to 2860-2620 BC. This has the same 14C date as the R1b-M343 sample from the same site. See Szécsényi-Nagy's 2015 Thesis for reference.

[rms2]

Please correct this or elaborate. I think the case may be more that the Vucedol were IE and so the Vucedol were the amalgamation of Yamnaya and Baden. Then Beakers are an outgrowth from the Vucedol. ???

If so, reorient my questions to what did Baden bring the to the table in the formation of the Vucedol?

I answered that pretty much in my prior post, but here it is as a stand alone answer.

According to Gimbutas, Vucedol itself was the product of earlier, pre-Yamnaya kurgan waves and Baden people. Subsequently, Yamnaya arrived in the Carpathian Basin and mixed with Vucedol, producing Samogyvar or Somogyvar, which was Bell Beaker's immediate predecessor. So Vucedol was already partially kurganized when Yamnaya arrived and was probably already speaking IE, which no doubt greatly facilitated the amalgamation of Vucedol and Yamnaya.

15140

15153

[R.Rocca]

I answered that pretty much in my prior post, but here it is as a stand alone answer.

According to Gimbutas, Vucedol itself was the product of earlier, pre-Yamnaya kurgan waves and Baden people. Subsequently, Yamnaya arrived in the Carpathian Basin and mixed with Vucedol, producing Samogyvar or Somogyvar, which was Bell Beaker's immediate predecessor. So Vucedol was already partially kurganized when Yamnaya arrived and was probably already speaking IE, which no doubt greatly facilitated the amalgamation of Vucedol and Yamnaya.

15140

Without Copper Age samples from east of Hungary and West of the Ukraine, it is impossible at the moment to determine if the Pre-Yamnaya Kurgan wave(s) were anything more than a cultural phenomenon. Certainly Baden and its predecessor Protoboleraz retained their non-R1b paternal lineages from 3900-2850 BC. From the Lipson paper, it seems like Baden may have shifted more towards WHG than EHG, although it is difficult to validate without the raw data.

[rms2]

Without Copper Age samples from east of Hungary and West of the Ukraine, it is impossible at the moment to determine if the Pre-Yamnaya Kurgan wave(s) were anything more than a cultural phenomenon. Certainly Baden and its predecessor Protoboleraz retained their non-R1b paternal lineages from 3900-2850 BC. From the Lipson paper, it seems like Baden may have shifted more towards WHG than EHG, although it is difficult to validate without the raw data.

I think you would have to look at Vucedol rather than Baden itself to see the Kurgan impact, since Vucedol is supposed to have been the product of early wave Kurgans + Baden.

I think it apparent those earlier waves involved actual Kurgan people and not just culture. Some of the kurgans in eastern Hungary date from the early Kurgan waves, like this one:

15141

[TigerMW]

...
Were BB people great sailors? What is the evidence for that? I am not doubting it, but is the evidence simply the far flung places where they wound up, or do we have some BB boats?
I don't think there is any doubt that some Bell Beaker groups were excellent seafarers.

I'm trying to find the quote. I thought it was Mallory, but an IE author concluded the Beakers were good seafarers as evidenced by the migration from Sardinia to Sicily crossing about 200 miles of open water. We also have the Beakers in Morocco, right?

The quote I'm searching for is related to the rough waters in the Atlantic and implying that Beaker folks could obviously navigate without sight of land.

At some point R1b-P311 people became good seafarers. Did they pick this up in contact with the early Maritime Beaker folks or could this have been back in the Adriatic?

Does I2 helps us understand this? It looks like the branching of I2 during the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic was sparse so the origin of I2 in Sardinia and Portugual Bell Beaker may be hard to associate with the Balkans. It's just line of investigation. If somehow, I2 in early Bell Beaker could be linked back to an expansion from the northern Balkan Peninsula that would be heplful.

[R.Rocca]

I think you would have to look at Vucedol rather than Baden itself to see the Kurgan impact, since Vucedol is supposed to have been the product of early wave Kurgans + Baden.

I think it apparent those earlier waves involved actual Kurgan people and not just culture. Some of the kurgans in eastern Hungary date from the early Kurgan waves, like this one:

15141

That skeleton from Eastern Hungary was from 4400-4200 BC. Eastern Hungary unified with Western Hungary and a lot of other areas with the formation of Protoboleraz/Baden. The Protoboleraz/Baden samples from Lipson 2017 were from both Western and Eastern Hungary, with no R1b showing up. If they happen to also lack EHG, then the probability of a Pre-Yamnaya wave involving actual people in Hungary is greatly reduced IMO. That is not to say that Pre-Yamnaya waves didn't have a larger genetic impact on areas like Romania.

[vettor]

Please correct this or elaborate. I think the case may be more that the Vucedol were IE and so the Vucedol were the amalgamation of Yamnaya and Baden. Then Beakers are an outgrowth from the Vucedol. ???

If so, reorient my questions to what did Baden bring the to the table in the formation of the Vucedol?

In the past ( and I think still the same today ), Vucedol was associated with Proto-Illyrian as noted by scholars..............IMO, Illyrian is a geographical term for many different peoples/tribes living initially from eastern austria , Pannonia ( Hungary ), slovenia, croatia, Dalmatia, Istria and bosnia ..............the term is similar to Iberian, British, scandinavian and Italian ( pre 1860 )
According to Bogdan Brukner, proto-Illyrians descended from this wave of Indo-European settlers.[3]

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&pg=PA289&lpg=PA289&dq=vucedol+culture+illyrian&source=bl&ots=wWsZ33956F&sig=MdRHcIX3xq6ES-mW-lSFWeS2vJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6z93vtJrTAhWGX5QKHdmSA9kQ6AEIJDAC#v=on epage&q=vucedol%20culture%20illyrian&f=false


http://www.aviculture-europe.nl/nummers/14E06A06.pdf

[rms2]

That skeleton from Eastern Hungary was from 4400-4200 BC. Eastern Hungary unified with Western Hungary and a lot of other areas with the formation of Protoboleraz/Baden. The Protoboleraz/Baden samples from Lipson 2017 were from both Western and Eastern Hungary, with no R1b showing up. If they happen to also lack EHG, then the probability of a Pre-Yamnaya wave involving actual people in Hungary is greatly reduced IMO. That is not to say that Pre-Yamnaya waves didn't have a larger genetic impact on areas like Romania.

The skeleton I posted about was from a steppe-style kurgan.

[rms2]

I don't think there is any doubt that some Bell Beaker groups were excellent seafarers . . .

That's nice, but is there any actual evidence of that?

[miiser]

That's nice, but is there any actual evidence of that?

The obvious evidence is that many of their settlements are in port cities. There's no particular reason for a group of people to settle in a port unless they're making use of the port as a port.

[rms2]

The obvious evidence is that many of their settlements are in port cities. There's no particular reason for a group of people to settle in a port unless they're making use of the port as a port.

In what "port cities" have Bell Beaker "settlements" been found?

[miiser]

In what "port cities" have Bell Beaker "settlements" been found?

Hahaha, seriously? Pretty much all of them...

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534764998415/

[rms2]

Hahaha, seriously? Pretty much all of them...

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534764998415/

You pretty much did not answer but referred me to vague maps on the ever exciting Pinterest. Really, specifically what "port cities" were Bell Beaker "settlements" found in?

Honestly, I suspect you don't know what you are talking about.

[rms2]

I have heard a few people say that Bell Beaker people were great sailors, and maybe they were, but I wonder how we know they were great sailors. Have we found Bell Beaker ships?

I know we have evidence that they rode horses and bred them. But what is the evidence of their naval prowess?

[TigerMW]

Honestly, I have heard a few people say that Bell Beaker people were great sailors, and maybe they were, but I wonder how we know they were great sailors. Have we found Bell Beaker ships?

I know we have evidence that they rode horses and bred them. But what is the evidence of their naval prowess?

I don't think we have any eyewitnesses of a Beaker fellow riding a horse or a Beaker fellow buried astride a horse but some day maybe we'll get there.

We have to look circumstantial evidence. Does the wearing of the horses' teeth suggest a bit? Since early seafaring boats/ships were likely to be made of wood and left to rot on the shores when expired it will be hard to find these ships. Barring finding Atlantis we won't find Beaker colonies on the ocean floors.

As I mentioned before there is great circumstantial evidence in that we find Beaker colonies on islands like Sardinia and Sicily and all the way around the Atlantic fringe "ports" so to speak. I don't think they swam so there are few other alternatives.

Here are the quotes I was looking for so I guess I'll cite expert testimony as well geographic circumstantial evidence.


Contacts by sea have been repeatedly mentioned as the method through which the communication between northern Iberia and Brittany would have been made.These have been frequently defined as the result of of direct contact between Finisterres, avoiding the dangerous coast of the Bay of Biscay. Nevertheless, this option would have required deep-sea navigation, without visual contact of the coast, for more than 48 hours. This kind of navigation would have required considerable development in boat construction techniques and a wide knowledge of navigation, meteorology and astronomy.
"The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC" by Martinez & Salanova, 2015.


We will return to the physical evidence for this in a later chapter, but the possibility of a migration to Ireland is certainly no less plausible than the one that required a 325-km journey from Sardinia to bring the Beaker phenomenon to Sicily.
"The Origins of the Irish", by J.P. Mallory, 2013

Where did the Beakers get their seafaring abilities? I don't think it was Yamnaya pastoralists. The only way I could see that is if there were special sects of the Yamnaya along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

[rms2]

We don't have living eyewitnesses of BB people riding horses, but we have plenty of horse bones connected with BB settlements and burials, and we have osteological evidence of horseback riding in the case of I0805/QLB26, a BB man from Quedlinburg, Germany, who was also R1b-PF6430 (M269 level). So, we have no need of living eyewitnesses when it comes to BB equestrian skills, but we sure could use them in the case of their sailing skills, because it doesn't seem we have much else in the way of actual evidence of that. We figure they could use boats because of where they wound up.

Maybe the BB people were great sailors, but I wonder if they went much beyond coasting. I can't see anywhere they went that would require much more than that. I have not coasted from from Galicia to Brittany, but is the coast of the Bay of Biscay so unmanageable that one absolutely must strike out directly across the ocean to make that voyage?

Didn't people regularly use the Garonne-to-Loire route to travel from Iberia to Brittany?

In July of 2015, I rode the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. It was neat, but if you strike out from Holyhead and head west, on a clear day you see Ireland pretty soon. I suspect that even in a little coracle if the weather isn't too bad it wouldn't be that difficult a trip. Now if they hauled horses across (and surely they must have) that would take some skill.

But let's just agree, absent any real physical evidence, that the Bell Beaker people were great sailors.

I don't think that explains the differences between very early Iberian Bell Beaker people in collective Neolithic tombs and later, kurgan-type Bell Beaker people.

[rms2]

I guess Corded Ware guys were great sailors, too, at least based on where they wound up.

Hard not to at least look like some kind of sailor, if one belongs to a culture on a continent that is mostly a peninsula. (Please don't bring up landlocked European cultures now. I don't care that much.)

15157

[alan]

Much of the sea routes bell beaker travelled along were well worn long before the beaker period. Beaker people just had to mix with coastal Neolithic farmers anywhere in Europe to acquire that. The beaker people did not in any way do any feats of maritime travel that had not already been done by Neolithic and early copper age people's long before them. It's absurd to think the steppe part of beaker ancestry brought the open sea maritime travel skills to the beaker culture.

[David Mc]

My family spread from the British Isles to Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. One could infer from this that we are great aviators and seafarers... but one could also infer (in this case rightly) that we paid others to take us where we wanted to go. In the same way, as per Alan's comment above, it seems more than plausible that the Beaker people could have availed themselves of maritime networks already in place. I'm not saying they couldn't have had skilled sailors and shipwrights in their midst, just that there are other possible scenarios.

[razyn]

Some of this forum talk of seafaring (or river-faring, on some rivers and their estuaries wide enough to require pretty much the same skill sets -- both on the water and in the boatbuilding area) started about 5-6 years ago. I was among those discussing it, on other forums at the time. Didier Vernade was another. We were interested in Bronze Age boat finds associated e.g. with early tin mining. We wondered if the riverine settlement patterns we saw in early returns of Z196+ testing (before DF27 was identified by Rocca et al) might have anything to do with that.

Rathlin Island L21+ guys with relatively recent steppe ancestry (discovered more recently) did not ride their Cossack horses to get there. There were not any bridges across the Volga, Dnieper, Vistula, Danube, Rhine, etc. People trading in amber roughly 5,000 years ago most likely didn't get from the Mediterranean to the Baltic on foot; but river routes that long require boats on which one can eat, cook, and sleep. And so on. The evidence is fairly slim; in most climates wood doesn't last too long, whereas stone, metal and pottery does. So when we speak of "archaeological cultures" we can get hung up on things like their arrow points, axe heads, and beer beakers. But there are some remains of Bronze Age wooden boats of respectable dimensions. Somebody started making them, and the Beaker folk seem about as good candidates as any.

[rms2]

I guess the problem for me is that when I hear "great sailors", I think of long voyages across the open sea and not the much more modest feats of coasting and of navigating inland waterways and dragging or carrying boats across land at portage points, not that those things don't require some skill.

I get the impression that most of BB's spread occurred on horseback and in wagons.

[TigerMW]

I guess the problem for me is that when I hear "great sailors", I think of long voyages across the open sea and not the much more modest feats of coasting and of navigating inland waterways and dragging or carrying boats across land at portage points, not that those things don't require some skill.

I get the impression that most of BB's spread occurred on horseback and in wagons.
Everything is relative to its time. Babe Ruth was the greatest player of all time in his time. Probably, now there are a few rookies who have been on steroids who can outhit him.

If you don't like the terms "great sailors" let's just call them "excellent seafarers" or maybe just "good seafarers". I'm not going argue against J.P. Mallory without good reason, "migration to Ireland is certainly no less plausible than the one that required a 325-km journey from Sardinia to bring the Beaker phenomenon to Sicily." It's not a trip I would attempt on a twenty foot wooden boat and no Coast Guard to bale me out.

In any case, they were very good at leveraging the skills to expand their network, be they mundane otherwise. It's not the knowledge that counts. Its what you do with it.

To me it is not hard to recognize that understanding the sun and the stars for navigation is important when out on the open plains where distinctive landmarks are not as common as in mountainous regions. We know the Beakers were highly mobile and used scouts. They must have recorded directions some how so that is another aspect that could apply to the waterways as well.

They needed to learn how to build a good boat. They could build wagons. They had bronze so they had some carpentry and metal working skills. Still, they needed knowlege of boating.


It's absurd to think the steppe part of beaker ancestry brought the open sea maritime travel skills to the beaker culture.
Alan, I never said the steppe herders brought seafaring skills with them from the steppes. I deduct that they acquired them somewhere a long the line.

Yes, they may have not gotten the skills until Portugal but if the learned along the Adriatic or some place else that evidence point could be helpful in understanding what happened and how I2 is mixed into this, and possibly another language, like Euskara. Perhaps that element of the Beaker amalgamation didn't have the steppe autosomal DNA but were eventually swamped across most of Europe.

[rms2]

Why would one need to sail from Sardinia to reach Sicily when the Strait of Messina is only a couple of miles across? There are BB sites in mainland southern Italy.

[TigerMW]

Why would one need to sail from Sardinia to reach Sicily when the Strait of Messina is only a couple of miles across? There are BB sites in mainland southern Italy.

Not many in the south, but your argument is with J.P. Mallory, not me.

I believe his logic is that the Bell Beaker artifacts on Sicily are of the same type as on Sardinia but Sardinia was slightly earlier. Apparently he thinks the Beaker artifacts on the Italian Peninsula were different or mainly to the north.

Why the resistance that the "Maritime" Bell Beakers were, well, "maritime"?

These guys exploited the seaways, no doubt about it. Whether they had R1b-P311 in them and whether they just begged, borrowed or stole seafaring technologies from others are open questions.

[rms2]

Not many in the south, but your argument is with J.P. Mallory, not me.

I believe his logic is that the Bell Beaker artifacts on Sicily are of the same type as on Sardinia but Sardinia was slightly earlier. Apparently he thinks the Beaker artifacts on the Italian Peninsula were different or mainly to the north.

Why the resistance that the "Maritime" Bell Beakers were, well, "maritime"?

These guys exploited the seaways, no doubt about it. Whether they had R1b-P311 in them and whether they just begged, borrowed or stole seafaring technologies from others are open questions.

No resistance. Like I said, "great sailors" means something different to me than coasting, making short crossings, and navigating inland waterways.

This discussion started with the mention of the megalithic tomb at El Sotillo, its early date, its BB pottery, its y-dna I and I2a2a, and its lack of steppe autosomal dna. I think that points to the likelihood that the very earliest Iberian BB was non-R1b and non-steppic, which would also explain why the earliest Iberian BB skeletons are so different from kurgan BB skeletons and why their burial rites were so obviously different. I don't think it means those y haplogroup I guys at El Sotillo or their recent ancestors came in by boat from the Balkans.

[Joe B]

Is there any reason to think that some steppe peoples did not have seafaring skills or were familiar with them? After all, most of the rivers in the steppe drain to major inland seas. Certainly the people that live near the Aral, Caspian or Black seas were familiar with seafaring skills. There's evidence of reed boat rock carvings at Gobustan Azerbaijan.

[Romilius]

Analysis is complete, and it might be being submitted this week
Not sure if it'll go to bioarxive first, if so, it might be sooner than later

Perhaps the results have already been submitted?

[TigerMW]

.... I don't think it means those y haplogroup I guys at El Sotillo or their recent ancestors came in by boat from the Balkans.
This is an area of investigation. Do we think I2 guys in early Bell Beaker sites were long-time natives of Iberia? Would they have come from the Mediterranean? We don't think they developed copper working out independently in Iberia, do we?

By the way, the Bay of Biscay is a bad place.
http://www.marineinsight.com/life-at-sea/why-the-bay-of-biscay-is-dangerous-for-ships/

[R.Rocca]

This is an area of investigation. Do we think I2 guys in early Bell Beaker sites were long-time natives of Iberia? Would they have come from the Mediterranean? We don't think they developed copper working out independently in Iberia, do we?

By the way, the Bay of Biscay is a bad place.
http://www.marineinsight.com/life-at-sea/why-the-bay-of-biscay-is-dangerous-for-ships/

I think it depends on what flavor of I2 and what is meant by "long time natives". For example, I2a1b1 was already in Spain during the Early Neolithic, but the Copper Age samples from Spain are primarily of the I2a2 flavor. If I recall correctly, Spain fell in line with other areas and increased in WHG ancestry before Bell Beaker, so I don't think they would have come from the Mediterranean where EEF ancestry was more the norm.

[TigerMW]

I think it depends on what flavor of I2 and what is meant by "long time natives". For example, I2a1b1 was already in Spain during the Early Neolithic, but the Copper Age samples from Spain are primarily of the I2a2 flavor. If I recall correctly, Spain fell in line with other areas and increased in WHG ancestry before Bell Beaker, so I don't think they would have come from the Mediterranean where EEF ancestry was more the norm.

I meant the I2a2 type associated with the Copper Age is Spain. Did they immigrate into Iberia before the Chalcolithic? If they did, then they aren't much of a marker for any Bell Beaker movement from points east. They were prior or indigenous at the time of the early Bell Beakers and can't tell us much about where the earliest Iberian Bell Beaker folks were from, if not indigenous.

[TigerMW]

Here is another perspective to look at this. First, I start with the inclination that we should not assume Bell Beakers in the west came came about all in one wave and of one direction.

This is a chart from Pigot, I think. Is it correct?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Beaker_culture_diffusion.svg

Pigot shows the Maritime Beakers in only two major locations, the Amorican Peninsula and the Tagus Estuary.

Do we know what the other Beaker areas in Iberia are? or I mean what are they derived from? Pigot calls them "Reflux & Other". It seems like every map I look at of Beakers by region with dates has different aging and direction implications.

How much of the latter phase Beaker findings in the west are really related to the fusion/fission or so called "reflux"?

Are the 1st half 3rd millenium Beakers on the Atlantic a red herring for R1b-P311 and P311 is a 2nd half phenomenon, a consequence of the fusion/fission. It certainly appears British Beakers come from the fusion/fission.

[alan]

The earliest maritime bell Beaker group were the people with maritime beakers but i personally don't see them as of steppe origins especially on the male side. Where they lived there was a clearly maritime skilled pre-beaker copper age. So the earliest beaker using groups in Iberia did not need to bring seafaring skills to the table as they were already there. Three L11 derived groups in Europe simply must have acquired maritime skills -DF27, L21 and U106. However all three appear to have become a big deal in areas where already impressive (for the era) maritime travel and trading networke were in place before bell beakers arrived. L21 is especially clearcut as pretty impressive sea skills are clear in the movement of people, objects, trade and monument ideas etc across the 1500 years of the ises Neolithic and was arguably especially intense in the last 500 years before beaker appeared. Beaker spread through the isles just after the impressive pan isles diffusion of grooved ware, henges, stone and timber circles etc

[rms2]

I think it depends on what flavor of I2 and what is meant by "long time natives". For example, I2a1b1 was already in Spain during the Early Neolithic, but the Copper Age samples from Spain are primarily of the I2a2 flavor. If I recall correctly, Spain fell in line with other areas and increased in WHG ancestry before Bell Beaker, so I don't think they would have come from the Mediterranean where EEF ancestry was more the norm.

I think they were long-time natives relative to the R1b-L51, kurgan-type Bell Beaker guys who buried their important dead in single graves under round barrows, with weapons, etc. That explains the differences noted by a number of scholars between the earliest Iberian BB and the later, kurgan-type BB, physically and in terms of burial rites.

[TigerMW]

The earliest maritime bell Beaker group were the people with maritime beakers but i personally don't see them as of steppe origins especially on the male side. Where they lived there was a clearly maritime skilled pre-beaker copper age. So the earliest beaker using groups in Iberia did not need to bring seafaring skills to the table as they were already there.
I guess you are saying they developed in situ, then. Where did they get their copper working skills from?


Three L11 derived groups in Europe simply must have acquired maritime skills -DF27, L21 and U106. However all three appear to have become a big deal in areas where already impressive (for the era) maritime travel and trading networke were in place before bell beakers arrived. L21 is especially clearcut as pretty impressive sea skills are clear in the movement of people, objects, trade and monument ideas etc across the 1500 years of the ises Neolithic and was arguably especially intense in the last 500 years before beaker appeared. Beaker spread through the isles just after the impressive pan isles diffusion of grooved ware, henges, stone and timber circles etc
So you are saying that DF27, L21 and U106 each acquired maritime skills independently when they hit coasts?
What about U152?

I think you are saying seafaring ways were present before the Bronze Age. Do you think that included long distances like the Galicia to Amorica to Ireland?

I just haven't read that much about the Middle Neolithic as having a big trade network or anything.

[rms2]

This is an area of investigation. Do we think I2 guys in early Bell Beaker sites were long-time natives of Iberia? Would they have come from the Mediterranean? We don't think they developed copper working out independently in Iberia, do we?

I have been trying for a long time to understand how Iberia could be said to be the place where BB began, when so much about early Iberian BB is so un-BB-like, except for the pots. It has Maritime BB pottery but short, little, long-headed people with gracile skeletons who were buried in collective Neolithic tombs without weapons, etc., just like the Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers they otherwise appear to be. Now we have dna from three of them, and they belong to y haplogroup I (one I and two I2a2a) and are lacking in steppe autosomal dna.

As you know, what most of us think of when we think of Bell Beaker people are tall, robust people with round heads, steppe autosomal dna, and y-haplogroup R1b, who buried their important dead in single graves in pits under round barrows with weapons, horse bones, etc. Those kind of BB people look like they came from the steppe, just as Gimbutas said, on page 390 of her book, The Civilization of the Goddess:



The Bell Beaker culture of western Europe which diffused between 2500 and 2100 B.C. between central Europe, the British Isles, and the Iberian Peninsula, could not have arisen in a vacuum. The mobile horse-riding and warrior people who buried their dead in Yamna type kurgans certainly could not have developed out of any west European culture. We must ask what sort of ecology and ideology created these people, and where are the roots of the specific Bell Beaker equipment and their burial rites. In my view, the Bell Beaker cultural elements derive from Vucedol and Kurgan (Late Yamna) traditions.


Jean M gets around this dilemma (how an obvious steppe culture like BB can be said to have emerged from Iberia) by bringing BB or its immediate copper-working predecessors directly to Iberia from the steppe, and she uses the stelae to trace their path. She may be right, but I think you still have the problem of the physical differences and the differences in burial rites to contend with.

I suspect that maybe early Iberian BB people were a separate and different people from the Kurgan BB people who were using bell-shaped pots with cord impressions on them a couple centuries later and in places like eastern and central Europe, the British Isles, and Ireland.

Copper working got to Iberia from SE Europe where it probably originated, but I am not sure it got there directly, without any intermediate progress between point A and point B.

What interests me, as I said above, is how and why early Iberian BB was so different from what I am calling Kurgan BB.



By the way, the Bay of Biscay is a bad place.
http://www.marineinsight.com/life-at-sea/why-the-bay-of-biscay-is-dangerous-for-ships/

I gather from that article that it is pretty rough in the winter time, but I don't think ancient peoples traveled much in winter, especially by sea. The terms "wintering" and "over-wintering" came from the practice of holing up someplace until the weather improved sufficiently in the spring to resume traveling.

Besides, I understand that the Garonne-to-Loire river route was the favored way to go from Iberia to Armorica.

But it doesn't matter. Let's just stipulate that the BB people were great sailors of their time.

[alan]

I guess you are saying they developed in situ, then. Where did they get their copper working skills from?


So you are saying that DF27, L21 and U106 each acquired maritime skills independently when they hit coasts?
What about U152?

I think you are saying seafaring ways were present before the Bronze Age. Do you think that included long distances like the Galicia to Amorica to Ireland?

I just haven't read that much about the Middle Neolithic as having a big trade network or anything.
2 Pre-beaker Martine networks worth noting:

the early copper age pre-beaker figure if Iberia which as far as i can see had a lot of trade links with Africa

The pan isles neolithic networks 4000-2500bc (contact with the continent existed but was v minor). Basically a hell of a lot was shared isles wide (but often not with the continent)throughout the neolithic right up to the immediate pre beaker 500 years- super passage tombs, grooved ware, henges, circles, cremation pit burial etc. The fact that let centres in Ireland, Wessex, Wales and Orkney and throughout the isles all shared these innovations clearly show a constant maritime network especially up the west. Contacts beyond the isles with the continent a a few high status objects the more debatable and vaguer.

I suppose i am saying that the beaker people on arriving at coastal areas found mature networks and maritime skills already in place in the isles and Iberia. So personally i doubt that maritime skills were what the beaker people originally offered.

As to whether the earliest beaker users in Iberia were a new people or just new pot type used by older copper age peoples there i just dont know. It's definitely possible. Whoever they were the distribution of maritime pot indicates a maritime network covering the west Med, Atlantic Iberia, north Africa and into southern and Atlantic France. That looks like an extension to the French south and west coasts of the pre-beaker Iberian network.

[alan]

I have been trying for a long time to understand how Iberia could be said to be the place where BB began, when so much about early Iberian BB is so un-BB-like, except for the pots. It has Maritime BB pottery but short, little, long-headed people with gracile skeletons who were buried in collective Neolithic tombs without weapons, etc., just like the Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers they otherwise appear to be. Now we have dna from three of them, and they belong to y haplogroup I (one I and two I2a2a) and are lacking in steppe autosomal dna.

As you know, what most of us think of when we think of Bell Beaker people are tall, robust people with round heads, steppe autosomal dna, and y-haplogroup R1b, who buried their important dead in single graves in pits under round barrows with weapons, horse bones, etc. Those kind of BB people look like they came from the steppe, just as Gimbutas said, on page 390 of her book, The Civilization of the Goddess:



Jean M gets around this dilemma (how an obvious steppe culture like BB can be said to have emerged from Iberia) by bringing BB or its immediate copper-working predecessors directly to Iberia from the steppe, and she uses the stelae to trace their path. She may be right, but I think you still have the problem of the physical differences and the differences in burial rites to contend with.

I suspect that maybe early Iberian BB people were a separate and different people from the Kurgan BB people who were using bell-shaped pots with cord impressions on them a couple centuries later and in places like eastern and central Europe, the British Isles, and Ireland.

Copper working got to Iberia from SE Europe where it probably originated, but I am not sure it got there directly, without any intermediate progress from point A to point B.

What interests me, as I said above, is how and why early Iberian BB was so different from what I am calling Kurgan BB.



I gather from that article that it is pretty rough in the winter time, but I don't think ancient peoples traveled much in winter, especially by sea. The terms "wintering" and "over-wintering" came from the practice of holing up someplace until the weather improved sufficiently in the spring to resume traveling.

Besides, I understand that the Garonne-to-Loire river route was the favored way to go from Iberia to Armorica.

But it doesn't matter. Let's just stipulate that the BB people were great sailors of their time.

True that Biscay was avoided and even the Roman lighthouse at A Coruna in Galicia is designed for traffic from NW France bypassing Biscay.

[TigerMW]

I have been trying for a long time to understand how Iberia could be said to be the place where BB began, when so much about early Iberian BB is so un-BB-like, except for the pots. It has Maritime BB pottery but short, little, long-headed people with gracile skeletons who were buried in collective Neolithic tombs without weapons, etc., just like the Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers they otherwise appear to be. Now we have dna from three of them, and they belong to y haplogroup I (one I and two I2a2a) and are lacking in steppe autosomal dna..
Did we figure out that early Iberian BB did not have horse riding? Don't they have more in common with the Bell Beaker package than just the pottery?

I don't know but they do seem to be a different group. I've been saying that the fusion/fission may have just amounted to the creation of a new Yamnaya-ized Bell Beakers. I guess that is not much different than calling them Kurgan Bell Beakers. That seems like that would have happened in central Europe though, rather than Croatia/Vucedol, which would not be part of the fusion/fission.


As you know, what most of us think of when we think of Bell Beaker people are tall, robust people with round heads, steppe autosomal dna, y-haplogroup R1b, who buried their important dead in single graves in pits under round barrows with weapons, horse bones, etc. Those kind of BB people look like they came from the steppe, just as Gimbutas said, on page 390 of her book, The Civilization of the Goddess:

Jean M gets around this dilemma (the obvious differences between early Iberian BB and classic Kurgan Bell Beaker) by bringing BB or its immediate copper-working predecessors directly to Iberia from the steppe, and she uses the stelae to trace their path. She may be right, but I think you still have the problem of the physical differences and the differences in burial rites to contend with.


I suspect that maybe early BB people were a separate and different people from the Kurgan BB people who were using bell-shaped pots with cord impressions on them a couple centuries later and in places like eastern and central Europe, the British Isles, and Ireland..
I tend to agree but I don't have a side by side checklist of early Iberian versus central or Kurgan Bell Beaker artifacts.


Copper working got to Iberia from SE Europe where it probably originated, but I am not sure it got there directly, without any intermediate progress from point A to point B.
I like the alignment of the Circumpontic Metallurgy Province with the Yamnaya expansions west and the early western Bell Beakers with the Carpatho-Balkan Metallurgy Province. That's what I read into Amazallag even if he may have been off on what was happening in the Near East.

That point A (Balkans) to point B (Iberia) is where I wonder about the maritime stuff.

[alan]

I guess you are saying they developed in situ, then. Where did they get their copper working skills from?


So you are saying that DF27, L21 and U106 each acquired maritime skills independently when they hit coasts?
What about U152?

I think you are saying seafaring ways were present before the Bronze Age. Do you think that included long distances like the Galicia to Amorica to Ireland?

I just haven't read that much about the Middle Neolithic as having a big trade network or anything.

I generally think trade networks a to b, b to c, c to d, relay style with no huge a to d journeys. Sewn plank boats appear to be immediately post beaker so all they would have had were skin or log boats which were rowed - sails likely didn't read the Atlantic till 1000bc.

[TigerMW]

Okay, so back to the ugly question.

How do the Basques end up with a lot of R1b-P312 types, some I2 and very little or no steppes autosomal DNA?

I would think there were would had to have been some long multi-generational period of time where P312 types had some kind of hedgemony, didn't bring many wives with from the east, but slowly knocked off segregrated I2 guys taking their wives. This would have had to been over many generations to dilute the steppes autosomal DNA until it was completely knocked out.

That's all I can think of other than to go way back towards the Caucasus with P311 proliferating both in Yamnaya and non-Yamnaya. That seems a little hard to think of much P311 back there. What else? I guess P311 could have been non-Yamnaya but picked up the Yamnaya express along the lower Danube, stealing their ways and their wives in many cases but keeping their own wives for one tribe. That doesn't seem to work unless we think the wives directed the Kurgan ideas.

What else? Something happened.

[rms2]

Did we figure out that early Iberian BB did not have horse riding? Don't they have more in common with the Bell Beaker package than just the pottery? . . .

If the very earliest Iberian BB people practiced horseback riding, or horse domestication at least, I certainly have not heard of it, and I think we would have. We have to be careful, of course, not to conflate the very early Iberian BB with later Iberian BB, which had the Kurgan BB traits.

I think there may have been some arrowheads in very early Iberian BB burials in collective Neolithic tombs, but otherwise I don't think they have much in common with the later, Kurgan BB burials.

I'm using the term "Kurgan" simply for convenience sake to differentiate between the steppe type of BB and the very early Iberian, Neolithic farmer-looking BB.

[sweuro]

Okay, so back to the ugly question.

How do the Basques end up with a lot of R1b-P312 types, some I2 and very little or no steppes autosomal DNA?

I would think there were would had to have been some long multi-generational period of time where P312 types had some kind of hedgemony, didn't bring many wives with from the east, but slowly knocked off a segregrated I2 guys taking their wives. This would have had to been over many generations to dilute the steppes autosomal DNA until it is completely knocked out.

That's all I can think of other than to go way back towards the Caucasus with P311 proliferating both in Yamnaya and non-Yamnaya. That seems a little hard to think of much P311 back there. What else? I guess P311 could have been non-Yamnaya but picked up the Yamnaya express along the lower Danube, stealing their ways and their wives in many cases but keeping their own wives in some cases.

What else? Something happened.
It's actually not true that basque have "little or not steppe". They have about 30%.

[alan]

If the very earliest Iberian BB people practiced horse back riding, or horse domestication at least, I certainly have not heard of it, and I think we would have. We have to be careful, of course, not to conflate the very early Iberian BB with later Iberian BB, which had the Kurgan BB traits.

I think there may have some arrowheads in very early Iberian BB burials in collective Neolithic tombs, but otherwise I don't think they have much in common with the later, Kurgan BB burials.

I'm using the term "Kurgan" simply for convenience sake to differentiate between the steppe type of BB and the very early Iberian, Neolithic farmer-looking BB.

Harrison and Heyd kind of make the distinction between a basic proto beaker passage in Iberia and the full developed package created in central Europe a few centuries later. I think they do a table and illustrations showing the distinction. I think they are 2 different peoples who happen to share the same pottery (a female craft)

[alan]

If the very earliest Iberian BB people practiced horse back riding, or horse domestication at least, I certainly have not heard of it, and I think we would have. We have to be careful, of course, not to conflate the very early Iberian BB with later Iberian BB, which had the Kurgan BB traits.

I think there may have some arrowheads in very early Iberian BB burials in collective Neolithic tombs, but otherwise I don't think they have much in common with the later, Kurgan BB burials.

I'm using the term "Kurgan" simply for convenience sake to differentiate between the steppe type of BB and the very early Iberian, Neolithic farmer-looking BB.

Harrison and Heyd kind of make the distinction between a basic proto beaker passage in Iberia and the full developed package created in central Europe a few centuries later. I think they do a table and illustrations showing the distinction. I think they are 2 different peoples who happen to share the same pottery (a female craft)

[rms2]

Okay, so back to the ugly question.

How do the Basques end up with a lot of R1b-P312 types, some I2 and very little or no steppes autosomal DNA?

The Basques do have steppe autosomal dna, more than many other southern Europeans but less than northern Europeans.



I would think there were would had to have been some long multi-generational period of time where P312 types had some kind of hedgemony, didn't bring many wives with from the east, but slowly knocked off a segregrated I2 guys taking their wives. This would have had to been over many generations to dilute the steppes autosomal DNA completely out.

That's all I can think of other than to go way back towards the Caucasus with P311 proliferating both in Yamnaya and non-Yamnaya. That seems a little hard to think of much P311 back there. What else?

I have read (wish I could remember the source) that the Basques had a matrilocal marriage custom, i.e., the groom went to live with the bride's family. That is tailor made for the acquisition of outsider y-dna while simultaneously preserving the bride's language and customs.

Some scholars think there is a connection between Euskara and Paleo-Sardinian (Nuragic). I-M26 reaches its world maximum in Sardinia (~40%). Curiously, it also occurs among the Basques at about 8% or 9%. I think it is a vestige of what was once the default Basque y haplogroup. The switch to a prevalence of R1b-P312 has come throughout the millennia via admixture with neighbors and subsequent drift.

[TigerMW]

It's actually not true that basque have "little or not steppe". They have about 30%. I stand corrected then and this really is not difficult issue. It is just a matter of different language transmission.

[razyn]

Sewn plank boats appear to be immediately post beaker so all they would have had were skin or log boats which were rowed - sails likely didn't read the Atlantic till 1000bc.
Although the Egyptians had sails on sewn plank boats at least 1500 years earlier (see especially the recent researches of Pierre Tallet, available on Academia.edu); and your position about Maritime Beaker is that that archaeological culture came up from the Mediterranean. Something about Phoenicians, and the Tagus. To me, it looks like somebody can't count. I'm not pointing a finger at Alan, per se; it just seems that the left hand knoweth (or careth) not what the right hand doth, in this corner of academe.

If these alleged late neolithic maritime networks existed, the civilized people at one end of the Mediterranean probably had a good idea what their counterparts at the other end were sailing, or paddling. The Phoenicians, in particular, knew that the Egyptians had built large transport vessels out of Lebanese cedar. Some of those vessels (sailboats shaped on the lower Nile) were reassembled on the upper arms of the Red Sea, to support the copper industry in Sinai -- while the Great Pyramid of Giza was under construction. Neither sewn plank boats nor sails are anachronistic for the Atlantic Bronze Age. They may be somewhat out of their usual environment. Or they may not be.

[rms2]

Over on the Irish DNA Atlas thread in the Celtic subforum, Heber mentioned some interesting news from the recent WDYTYA thingy in Birmingham, England.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=225462&viewfull=1#post225462



I attended an excellent DNA lecture by Professor Dan Bradley today at WDYTYA BIrmingham.

One of wil team Rui Martiniano will publish a paper on ancient DNA from Iberia.

I understand the Bronze Age samples are similar to the Irish Bronze Age samples (CHG) and R1b and the Neolithic Age Samples similar to Irish Neolithic Age samples (G or I). The paper is in the final stages of publication.


He used the Celtic from the West map from John Koch to illustrate the Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages.


What is particularly interesting is the apparent finding that the Neolithic Iberian skeletons are similar to the Irish Neolithic skeletons (like the Ballynahatty woman, I guess) and are not R1b.

Heber repeats that report in a subsequent post in the same thread:



. . . This was supported by the recent work of Rui on Iberian ancient DNA samples which turns our to be R1b in the Bronze (Copper??) and I (G??) in the Neolithic Age stretching from Iberia to Ireland. The Admixture analysis also supports this view. So we appear to have continuity in the the Bronze Age Atlantic Zone following some replacement in the Neolithic . . .


http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=226214&viewfull=1#post226214

So, one more paper to be waiting on, with some tantalizing hints as to its contents.

[ADW_1981]

Over on the Irish DNA Atlas thread in the Celtic subforum, Heber mentioned some interesting news from the recent WDYTYA thingy in Birmingham, England.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=225462&viewfull=1#post225462



What is particularly interesting is the apparent finding that the Neolithic Iberian skeletons are similar to the Irish Neolithic skeletons (like the Ballynahatty woman, I guess) and are not R1b.

Heber repeats that report in a subsequent post in the same thread:



http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=226214&viewfull=1#post226214

So, one more paper to be waiting on, with some tantalizing hints as to its contents.

Are there actual Y haplogroups reported here from new samples, or is he going on speculation? I see a bunch of links but can't make any headway of any of them.

[R.Rocca]

Over on the Irish DNA Atlas thread in the Celtic subforum, Heber mentioned some interesting news from the recent WDYTYA thingy in Birmingham, England.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=225462&viewfull=1#post225462

What is particularly interesting is the apparent finding that the Neolithic Iberian skeletons are similar to the Irish Neolithic skeletons (like the Ballynahatty woman, I guess) and are not R1b.

Heber repeats that report in a subsequent post in the same thread:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5079-Irish-DNA-Atlas-Preliminary-Results&p=226214&viewfull=1#post226214

So, one more paper to be waiting on, with some tantalizing hints as to its contents.

Also of the utmost importance is this additional comment Heber posted:


This material in new. The samples appear to be from Portugal, Tagus.

My suspicion is that the radiocarbon dating of the skeletons from the Tagus Estuary will be later for skeletons that are R1b+, thus finally getting us some clarity on the genetic sequence of collective tombs.

[rms2]

Are there actual Y haplogroups reported here from new samples, or is he going on speculation? I see a bunch of links but can't make any headway of any of them.

You'd have to ask Heber, but I got the impression he was talking about new findings that will appear in the Iberian paper from Rui Martiniano.

I think Carles Lalueza-Fox is involved in this new Iberian aDNA paper, as well.

Lalueza-Fox Interview La Vanguardia (http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20170222/42212094430/todos-los-europeos-de-hace-8000-anos-tenian-ojos-azules.html)

[rms2]

Those would have to be newly tested ancient samples, wouldn't they, if they are coming from the Tagus Valley? I don't think we have anything from that region thus far.

[jeanL]

The Basques do have steppe autosomal dna, more than many other southern Europeans but less than northern Europeans.

Basques do not have more Steppe Autosomal DNA than other Southern Europeans with the only exception being Sardinians, this is an issue that has been discussed over and over here. This is evident in any PCA Map that features Basques and other Southern Europeans alongside Yamnaya. Look at PC2 and notice that Basque second to Sardinians are the modern day Europeans farther away from the Steppe.

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https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FOhPQouhbcU/WJ7uL0sSjKI/AAAAAAAAFSU/Wjsiy8EFvFwm9_xqe603sVyj5e5yCl-IACLcB/s1218/ATP9.png

Also the statement that Basques have 30% Steppe Autosomal component is also false.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gzxMCTBTJo0NZ5jsTXnM2N6mkbBUUTXHLRgOw2CqQb4/edit#gid=515556785

Spanish Basques 23.3% Steppe_EBA the lowest in all of Iberia.
French Basques 26.9% Steppe_EBA

[rms2]

. . .

Spanish Basques 23.3% Steppe_EBA the lowest in all of Iberia.
French Basques 26.9% Steppe_EBA

The important takeaway from that is that Basques do not have zero steppe autosomal dna, not even close.

Of course, what modern Basques are, one way or the other, isn't going to matter all that much if Heber is right in what to expect from that new paper on ancient Iberian dna from Martiniano.

BTW, when I said that Basques have more steppe autosomal dna than many other southern Europeans, what I had in mind was ANE and the table below from Lazaridis et al.

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