Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b

[alan]

Crucial in all of this of course is that not even the older dates being suggested by Michal put L51 or even L23 anywhere near old enough to relate to the early farmers -which is ultimately the reason why none is found among the Neolithic farmers. Even more so for L11 which he dates to around 3300BC. Same with R1a - most R1a in Europe today comes of branchings that barely pre-date 3300BC which again is ultimately the reason why it will never turn up in Neolithic remains. Stray rare upstream R1a and b may have strayed west but the overwhelming majority of west European R1b is L11 derived and therefore post-Neolithic.

[alan]

A much more interesting question about R1b and Iberia was did it enter Iberia in P312 or DF27 form. Was Iberia a font for beaker P312 or just a destination for some of it - mainly DF27. That still is unanswered.

[Webb]

A much more interesting question about R1b and Iberia was did it enter Iberia in P312 or DF27 form. Was Iberia a font for beaker P312 or just a destination for some of it - mainly DF27. That still is unanswered.

I am going out on a limb, but my gut tells me that P312 came from somewhere other than Iberia. Given the trajectory of M269, moving from east to west, you have to assume that as this clade moves west it is mutating and dropping clades while on the move. Meaning that the end result is a downstream clade of P312, ie. DF27 is found in the southwest extreme of Europe, and L21 found in the northwest extreme of Europe.

[alan]

I am going out on a limb, but my gut tells me that P312 came from somewhere other than Iberia. Given the trajectory of M269, moving from east to west, you have to assume that as this clade moves west it is mutating and dropping clades while on the move. Meaning that the end result is a downstream clade of P312, ie. DF27 is found in the southwest extreme of Europe, and L21 found in the northwest extreme of Europe.

A couple of recent papers that clarified that single burials inserted into old collective tombs is an intrusive thing in Iberia that appears around the time of beakers has made me more convinced than I have been in years that beaker in Iberia does derive from an intrusion from the east followed by a local spin. This was then followed by an out of Iberia movement along the south coast of France to the western Alps and then contact with central European groups again. I tend to agree that P312 is likely at least partly an into Iberia thing. It seems unlikely to me that L11 arrived in Iberia and P312 arose from it and then expanded back east. My feeling is Iberia was largely a destination for a subgroup of DF27 given that, other than the Basques, DF27 seems utterly dominant in Iberia in terms of P312. This gives me the impression of a founder effect. It would be much more logical to place P312 origin in the zone where several of its subclades converge IMO and that points to west-central Europe.From what I recall P312, U152 and L21 tend to have continental variance peaks well to the east of Iberia. So, again it tends to support the idea that Iberia was a destination rather than an origin point for P312. However, I dont think its possible to be sure

[rms2]

LOL, ..........we have plenty of skeltral remains in BB lands, how much more do you need?

Get a map of europe, place all ancient remains found on this map and see what you have to analyse for BB..................OR are you waiting for more R1's:(

You have used that expression, "BB lands", a number of times. I don't think it really means anything. To identify a set of remains as belonging to the Bell Beaker culture, one has to look for the Bell Beaker single-grave burial package, or at least enough parts of it to make a positive identification possible. Merely finding a body in "BB lands" - what? Europe? - during the Late Neolithic does not make it Bell Beaker.

And, yeah, I am anxiously awaiting more R1's in connection with Bell Beaker. Why not? I am really looking forward to a finding of R1b-L21 in a Beaker body, if you want to know. I think that should be obvious.

[rms2]

. . . So, again it tends to support the idea that Iberia was a destination rather than an origin point for P312. However, I dont think its possible to be sure

I don't think P312 originated in Iberia, but what I do think is possible is that some P312ers went to Iberia from the steppe or some staging area west of the Steppe, if their ancestors had already been part of a wave (however small) of advance from the steppe, and introduced the intrusive, single-grave culture that evolved into Beaker.

So, we may see some kind of P312 (DF27 maybe?) in early Beaker.

Earlier in this thread Piquerobi mentioned the discovery of decorated horse phalanges recovered from Bell Beaker sites in Spain, and that such decorated horse phalanges were a cultural marker of the Botai and the Tersek to their west on the Kazakh steppe: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=59628&viewfull=1#post59628

[Webb]

I don't think P312 originated in Iberia, but what I do think is possible is that some P312ers went to Iberia from the steppe or some staging area west of the Steppe, if their ancestors had already been part of a wave (however small) of advance from the steppe, and introduced the intrusive, single-grave culture that evolved into Beaker.

So, we may see some kind of P312 (DF27 maybe?) in early Beaker.

Earlier in this thread Piquerobi mentioned the discovery of decorated horse phalanges recovered from Bell Beaker sites in Spain, and that such decorated horse phalanges were a cultural marker of the Botai and the Tersek to their west on the Kazakh steppe: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=59628&viewfull=1#post59628

That is pretty interesting. Maybe some groups of P312 did make it into Iberia early. It would be human nature to keep pushing in a general direction until you could not go any further. It also might explain L21's direction if DF27 had closed off expansion into southern France and Iberia, forcing L21 to enter Britain from a Northerly route. If this is the case, I have to assume that DF27 also entered Britain fairly early as well. However, the pattern I see with DF27 and U152 is that they are clustered in modern populations close to the mountains. DF27 is at its greatest concentration in the Pyrenees, trailing off as you move away from them, into France and into Spain. U152 is concentrated in the Alps. Again, traling off as you move away.

[rms2]

One of the Beaker females (I0112) from Quedlinburg was lactase persistent, with GA at rs4988235 (aka 13910 T), the most common European LP variant. All it takes is one A there to be LP (I have AA there myself).

A second Beaker lady from Quedlinburg (I0113) carried a red hair variant, a CT at Arg151Cys (rs1805007). The risk allele there is T.

So there you have it: One of the Beaker males tested P312+, and lactase persistence and at least one of the red hair variants were found among ancient Beaker Folk in what is now Germany.

On top of that, the ancient Beaker Folk from Haak et al seem to cluster closest to modern NW Europeans:

3994

Now all we need is some ancient dna from Irish and British Beaker Folk!

[vettor]

You have used that expression, "BB lands", a number of times. I don't think it really means anything. To identify a set of remains as belonging to the Bell Beaker culture, one has to look for the Bell Beaker single-grave burial package, or at least enough parts of it to make a positive identification possible. Merely finding a body in "BB lands" - what? Europe? - during the Late Neolithic does not make it Bell Beaker.

And, yeah, I am anxiously awaiting more R1's in connection with Bell Beaker. Why not? I am really looking forward to a finding of R1b-L21 in a Beaker body, if you want to know. I think that should be obvious.


I refer to central germany .

I am saying that you do not have to wait for a R1 to appear to confirm a BB person, there are other already ydna noted in the area with the age requirement to make these also Bell beakers.

Can you not confirm that these non-R1's are also bell beakers?

Why are you so sure you need a R1 to confirm anything??

[rms2]

I refer to central germany .

I am saying that you do not have to wait for a R1 to appear to confirm a BB person, there are other already ydna noted in the area with the age requirement to make these also Bell beakers.

Can you not confirm that these non-R1's are also bell beakers?

Why are you so sure you need a R1 to confirm anything??

I did not say a y-dna result had to be R1 to be considered Bell Beaker, but it does have to actually belong to a Bell Beaker body to be Bell Beaker. Merely finding a set of remains buried in Germany in the right time period does not make that set of remains Bell Beaker.

As far as I know, there are no Bell Beaker y-dna results thus far that are anything other than R1b.

[rms2]

Here is an interesting new paper from the Journal of Neolithic Archaeology, The Dogma of the Iberian Origin of the Bell Beaker: Attempting Its Deconstruction (http://www.jna.uni-kiel.de/index.php/jna/article/view/112/113), by Christian Jeunesse. Jeunesse makes the case that the dogma of the Iberian origin of Bell Beaker is based largely on accepted tradition that began with a false identification, is supported by some very controversial radiocarbon dates, and is not actually supported by the archaeology.

It's worth reading and considering. If Beaker actually developed from Vucedol, as Gimbutas suggested, Jeunesse's exercise in "archaeology-fiction", as he calls it, certainly makes a lot of sense and would remove a lot of the mystery from Beaker, including the need for the "reflux".

[razyn]

I had never noticed that the anthropological "reflux" theory (specifically, about Bell Beakers) was conceptually born as Rückstrom. I'd think the English speakers, at least, would have called that a "backwash." I suppose it's more dignified to say it with Latin roots.

[rms2]

I had never noticed that the anthropological "reflux" theory (specifically, about Bell Beakers) was conceptually born as Rückstrom. I'd think the English speakers, at least, would have called that a "backwash." I suppose it's more dignified to say it with Latin roots.

And, of course, reflux puts one in mind of acid indigestion, so both the latinate term and its German original carry unpleasant connotations.

I have been accused of being "anti-Iberian" in the past because I did not buy into the old R1b-in-the-FC-Ice-Age-Refuge theory, as if one should choose Ice Age refugia based on his alleged fondness for or antipathy toward a particular place or modern ethnic group. I am sure that will come up again if I have the temerity to say that I have my doubts about the Iberian origin of Beaker, but I do.

[rms2]

I guess people are just Beakered out, but I was hoping we could get some discussion going on Beaker. If it wasn't for the incredible seven-for-seven R1b Yamnaya results, that Quedlinburg Beaker R1b-P312 would have been front page news and considered earth shaking. Funny how things go.

[razyn]

I guess people are just Beakered out, but I was hoping we could get some discussion going on Beaker.

I was hoping that, too. Like, inviting this Jeunesse guy to chair one of the sessions at Beakers from the East, the future conference.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3274-People-of-the-British-Isles-Latest&p=74918&viewfull=1#post74918

[David Mc]

I agree that it's huge, rms, and it is worthy of our attention. I think it was a combination of the Yamnaya results and some serious trolling in response to those results that has kept the spotlight focused elsewhere.

[MJost]

I would be interested in getting a small sample of I0806's DNA and complete major subclade testing... Answering where he is really placed on the tree 4200 years ago.

MJost

[rms2]

I would be interested in getting a small sample of I0806's DNA and complete major subclade testing... Answering where he is really placed on the tree 4200 years ago.

MJost

Well, they already tested him for everything on ISOGG's tree as of April 2013. They just did not get any reads for L21, DF27, and U152. I guess we'll have to be happy with P312+.

[MJost]

Well, they already tested him for everything on ISOGG's tree as of April 2013. They just did not get any reads for L21, DF27, and U152. I guess we'll have to be happy with P312+.

Yes I know but they should have used a PCR method when they had read failures.

MJost

[rms2]

Yes I know but they should have used a PCR method when they had read failures.

MJost

Are you sure they didn't try that?

I'm all for another shot at it in any case.

[rms2]

I have no time to post in any great detail right now, but I am wondering about the early radiocarbon dates from the Tagus estuary in Portugal. Are those connected with maritime beaker pots alone or with at least some elements of the rest of the Beaker package, i.e., single burial on the side in a flexed position, burial with archer's gear and other weapons, etc.?

What are the earliest radiocarbon dates for actual identifiable Beaker burials in Iberia?

[R.Rocca]

I have no time to post in any great detail right now, but I am wondering about the early radiocarbon dates from the Tagus estuary in Portugal. Are those connected with maritime beaker pots alone or with at least some elements of the rest of the Beaker package, i.e., single burial on the side in a flexed position, burial with archer's gear and other weapons, etc.?

What are the earliest radiocarbon dates for actual identifiable Beaker burials in Iberia?

I think we get too caught up in "the" earliest dates and not the more important "earlier" dates in general. There is no doubt that we can connect the "earlier" date dots from Hungary > Northern Italy > Southern France > Catalonia > Tagus Estuary. Those dates all resolve to around 2,800 BC and are Copper Age. Perhaps the Z11 mutation that may (or not) join U152 and DF27 was responsible for these earlier dates, and perhaps that's why we only see Stelae along the southern Alps route. The majority of unresolved P312 may have still lurked around the Rhine and the Alps for quite some time and may have been stuck in some kind of Corded Ware influence, until it started its expansion around 2,450 BC. A lineage like L21, which unlike U152 and DF27, shares its clade with two other SNPs, subrtacting around 250 years to its age and time of expansion, which would put it well within the discussion for a 2,450 BC expansion. We can add lurker SNPs like DF19 and DF99 and whomever was L238's parent into that discussion as well. Of course, by the time the 2,450 BC expansion started, these were already Bronze Age people, unlike the Copper Age people of the earlier route.

[TigerMW]

I have no time to post in any great detail right now, but I am wondering about the early radiocarbon dates from the Tagus estuary in Portugal. Are those connected with maritime beaker pots alone or with at least some elements of the rest of the Beaker package, i.e., single burial on the side in a flexed position, burial with archer's gear and other weapons, etc.?

What are the earliest radiocarbon dates for actual identifiable Beaker burials in Iberia?

I think we get too caught up in "the" earliest dates and just "earlier" dates. There is no doubt that we can connect the "earlier" date dots from Hungary > Northern Italy > Southern France > Catalonia > Tagus Estuary. Those dates all resolve to around 2,800 BC and are Copper Age. Perhaps the Z11 mutation that may (or not) join U152 and DF27 was responsible for these earlier dates, and perhaps that's why we only see Stelae along the southern Alps route. The majority of unresolved P312 may have still lurked around the Rhine and the Alps for quite some time and may have been stuck in some kind of Corded Ware influence, until it started its expansion around 2,450 BC. A lineage like L21, which unlike U152 and DF27, shares its clade with two other SNPs, subrtacting around 250 years to its age and time of expansion, which would put it well within the discussion for a 2,450 BC expansion. We can add lurker SNPs like DF19 and DF99 and whomever was L238's parent into that discussion as well. Of course, by the time the 2,450 BC expansion started, these were already Bronze Age people, unlike the Copper Age people of the earlier route.

This may be a wild eyed idea, but I think the importance of Richard S's question is relevant to what kind of Bell Beaker folks where in the Targus Estuary. They may or may not have been R1b of any kind. They may or may not have been R1b-L11.

They may or may not have spoken IE languages. From IE language expansion standpoint, if the earlier dating is correct, then I don't see how the early Maritime (western) Bell Beakers spoke IE. The follow-on is then they probably were not fully Yamnaya-ized.

An example element in the package - the metalworking between the early Bell Beakers in Iberia and the Yamanaya was not the same. Maybe that is not important, or maybe that is a crucial clue.

(EDIT: I guess I will keep piling up caveats or old adages... Pots are not people, Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers and now R1b is not R1b is not R1b (there were different types), and metalworking is not metalworking is notmetalworking. I'm not trying to condescending but it is easy to overgeneralize.)

[rms2]

That is basically what I had in mind. Jeunesse's scenario of a Danubian origin for genuine Bell Beaker just seems to make the most sense, but the idea that Beaker was born in the Tagus estuary complicates and confuses matters. As we saw earlier in this thread (more than once), Gimbutas believed Beaker developed from Vucedol and carried on what she called a kurgan tradition, spreading on horseback from the Carpathian basin to the west.

It would seem to make sense that Yamnaya or perhaps even an earlier incursion of steppe pastoralists brought L11 or perhaps even P312 to the Carpathian basin, where Yamnaya or those earlier steppe pastoralists influenced and spun off successor IE-speaking cultures like Vucedol and, subsequently, Beaker.

I have to cut this post short, even though I have not said everything I wanted to say.

[Net Down G5L]

This may be a wild eyed idea, but I think the importance of Richard S's question is relevant to what kind of Bell Beaker folks where in the Targus Estuary. They may or may not have been R1b of any kind. They may or may not have been R1b-L11.

They may or may not have spoken IE languages. From IE language expansion standpoint, if the earlier dating is correct, then I don't see how the early Maritime (western) Bell Beakers spoke IE. The follow-on is then they probably were not fully Yamnaya-ized.

An example element in the package - the metalworking between the early Bell Beakers in Iberia and the Yamanaya was not the same. Maybe that is not important, or maybe that is a crucial clue.

I need to get into the most recent papers to check those points out. But, (superficially) based on Harrisons's 1980 book, The Beaker Folk (yes, quite dated but an interesting overview across the whole of Europe) there was indeed a huge difference between early Beaker in the Atlantic and early Central European Beaker.
A high level summary of his descriptions may be something like:
Early maritime Beaker - NO steppe burial customs - multiple (not single) burials in megalithic monuments without the Vucedol type Beaker accessories.
He suggests the Vucedol accessories were a later addition to the Beaker package.

If he is right the Amesbury Archer arrived in England from the East complete with the 'Vucedol plus' package. But early Maritime beaker to the Isles lacked much of the package and was, in its early days, related to Megalithic monuments including stone circles.

Now if it is correct that maritime Beaker was 'long headed' then one option is indeed that maritime Beaker was not R1b (P312) but possibly I2, for example (or alternatively Z2103 or 'other' R1b as a different (non P312) type of R1b?).

However, there surely must have been some connection between the Maritime and Eastern Beaker movements before they met up (somewhere like the Rhine)?

[vettor]

This may be a wild eyed idea, but I think the importance of Richard S's question is relevant to what kind of Bell Beaker folks where in the Targus Estuary. They may or may not have been R1b of any kind. They may or may not have been R1b-L11.

They may or may not have spoken IE languages. From IE language expansion standpoint, if the earlier dating is correct, then I don't see how the early Maritime (western) Bell Beakers spoke IE. The follow-on is then they probably were not fully Yamnaya-ized.

An example element in the package - the metalworking between the early Bell Beakers in Iberia and the Yamanaya was not the same. Maybe that is not important, or maybe that is a crucial clue.

(EDIT: I guess I will keep piling up caveats or old adages... Pots are not people, Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers and now R1b is not R1b is not R1b (there were different types), and metalworking is not metalworking is notmetalworking. I'm not trying to condescending but it is easy to overgeneralize.)

Potters needed to make Kilns to make pots, Kilns take a while to make..........kiln makers are not hunters and herders as pots are used for storage of farm produce. Was there farmers from Yamnya?
Archeologists find some kilns still intact, so the area of Kilns shows areas of long settlement of the populace.

[TigerMW]

Potters needed to make Kilns to make pots, Kilns take a while to make..........kiln makers are not hunters and herders as pots are used for storage of farm produce. Was there farmers from Yamnya?
Archeologists find some kilns still intact, so the area of Kilns shows areas of long settlement of the populace.

I'm still not following your logic. It appears you are saying that someone who makes pots can not hunt or herd livestock. It also appears you are assuming a group can not have livestock and farm at the same time. A division of labor would allow for scouts, warrior, grazing, farming and hunting. How can a livestock herding group hunt wild game? Simple, a little a division of labor.

Someone had to make the metal tools. That takes some setup time and specialization (division of labor.)

Of course, part of a division of labor could have been forcing the natives to farm for you. You would still need pots for food products.

It's a moot point anyway unless you are saying no one has found pottery chards at Yamnaya sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamna_culture

[rms2]

I need to get into the most recent papers to check those points out. But, (superficially) based on Harrisons's 1980 book, The Beaker Folk (yes, quite dated but an interesting overview across the whole of Europe) there was indeed a huge difference between early Beaker in the Atlantic and early Central European Beaker.
A high level summary of his descriptions may be something like:
Early maritime Beaker - NO steppe burial customs - multiple (not single) burials in megalithic monuments without the Vucedol type Beaker accessories.
He suggests the Vucedol accessories were a later addition to the Beaker package.

If he is right the Amesbury Archer arrived in England from the East complete with the 'Vucedol plus' package. But early Maritime beaker to the Isles lacked much of the package and was, in its early days, related to Megalithic monuments including stone circles.

Now if it is correct that maritime Beaker was 'long headed' then one option is indeed that maritime Beaker was not R1b (P312) but possibly I2, for example (or alternatively Z2103 or 'other' R1b as a different (non P312) type of R1b?).

However, there surely must have been some connection between the Maritime and Eastern Beaker movements before they met up (somewhere like the Rhine)?

As I understand the current state of things, those earlier maritime Beaker burials in megalithic chambers that were believed to have been multiple have actually been discovered to be single burials that merely reuse earlier burial chambers. They are now believed to have been intrusive.

But you bring up some good points that Mike W has brought up before, the most important of which is the question of to which y haplogroup the original Iberian Beaker men belonged (if they truly were the originals). In her book, Jean M brings a small band of Stelae People from the Pontic steppe to Iberia. I find that intriguing, if they were the root of the Beaker Folk, but I don't know enough about Iberian stelae to be fully convinced. The pictures of the Iberian stelae I have seen aren't enough like the steppe stelae to constitute a smoking gun, IMHO, but I can't say for sure they weren't derived from them either.

For me, it seems just a lot simpler and more convincing to think the Beaker Folk evolved from Vucedol and moved west from the Carpathian basin, but that leaves those supposedly older maritime beakers as a big question mark. But maybe, as Jeunesse suggests, the maritime beakers weren't really the oldest beakers.

[TigerMW]

I need to get into the most recent papers to check those points out. But, (superficially) based on Harrisons's 1980 book, The Beaker Folk (yes, quite dated but an interesting overview across the whole of Europe) there was indeed a huge difference between early Beaker in the Atlantic and early Central European Beaker.
A high level summary of his descriptions may be something like:
Early maritime Beaker - NO steppe burial customs - multiple (not single) burials in megalithic monuments without the Vucedol type Beaker accessories.
He suggests the Vucedol accessories were a later addition to the Beaker package.

If he is right the Amesbury Archer arrived in England from the East complete with the 'Vucedol plus' package. But early Maritime beaker to the Isles lacked much of the package and was, in its early days, related to Megalithic monuments including stone circles.

We already know that a prominent conclusion is that the Amesbury's teeth showed he probably came from Central Europe. We also know he was of the Wessex Culture (of Bell Beaker horizon) and the Wessex Culture traded with the Unetice Culture of Central Europe.


Now if it is correct that maritime Beaker was 'long headed' then one option is indeed that maritime Beaker was not R1b (P312) but possibly I2, for example (or alternatively Z2103 or 'other' R1b as a different (non P312) type of R1b?).

However, there surely must have been some connection between the Maritime and Eastern Beaker movements before they met up (somewhere like the Rhine)?
I don't know about the head characteristics or the haplogroups but we know that there was at least one violent "east meets west" collision.
"The Transformation of Europe in the Third Millennium BC: The Example of ‘Le Petit Chasseur I+III" by Harrison & Heyd.

This has been brought up before, but the Amesbury Archer had the wristguard, right? Harrison & Heyd wrote, "Interestingly (and important for understanding the role different regions play in the formation of the various Beaker ‘packages’) the wrist-guards are not found at Sion, and are not depicted on the stelae. We suspect they are a later addition to the Beaker ‘package’, originating from the Carpathian basin. They are not part of the earliest western Beaker ‘package’."

[rms2]

Here are some images of anthropomorphic stelae from John Robb's "People of Stone: Stelae, Personhood, and Society in Prehistoric Europe" in The Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory,
Vol. 16, No. 3, The Materiality of Representation (Sep., 2009), pp. 162-183.

4137 4138 4139

And here's one from the Sion Beaker site.

4140

[vettor]

I'm still not following your logic. It appears you are saying that someone who makes pots can not hunt or herd livestock. It also appears you are assuming a group can not have livestock and farm at the same time. A division of labor would allow for scouts, warrior, grazing, farming and hunting. How can a livestock herding group hunt wild game? Simple, a little a division of labor.

Someone had to make the metal tools. That takes some setup time and specialization (division of labor.)

Of course, part of a division of labor could have been forcing the natives to farm for you. You would still need pots for food products.

It's a moot point anyway unless you are saying no one has found pottery chards at Yamnaya sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamna_culture

I am saying only that potters need to be established in a place a long time because they need a kiln for their potting creations.........with no kiln you have a useless pot.
The most logical people who use and make pots are farmers as a percentage...........not hunters or herders.


You sentences have agree with me in that all areas had the 3 types and each haplogroup had each type. So yes Yamnya had farming and yes every ENF in germany created BB pots with yamnya people. So you have to agree you cannot define a haplogroup that is BB exclusive ( which some here seem to think)

In regards to your first sentence..........seek the people who went against me for the same sentence that I made

[vettor]

But you bring up some good points that Mike W has brought up before, the most important of which is the question of to which y haplogroup the original Iberian Beaker men belonged

Every haplogroup that was in the area at the time is the answer.

[rms2]

Every haplogroup that was in the area at the time is the answer.

Maybe, but we don't know that. If Beaker was merely a fashion of some kind, then you're probably right. If it was really connected to a particular people, however, then perhaps not.

[R.Rocca]

Every haplogroup that was in the area at the time is the answer.

You keep assuming that Bell Beaker people showed up and it was a big swingers party. I'm betting that Bell Beaker was a closed society for hundreds of years and didn't start to heavily fuse with other local haplogroups until the Early Bronze Age cultures that sprung up afterwards (e.g. Polada Culture).

[glentane]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UczhKhSRZnA
http://www.crumbleholme.plus.com/Beakerfolk/beakerfolkfiring.htm
When I've done it We had a really, really big open log fire handy. And had to refire the beakers to get them to oxidize a nice brick-red (from dark-brown).

[TigerMW]

... So you have to agree you cannot define a haplogroup that is BB exclusive ( which some here seem to think) ...

Vettor, I clearly do not support, and never have, that one haplogroup is exclusive too Bell Beakers or vice versa in some way for all timeframes. If you have contention on that please make your point rather than going on about issues that are really just distractions.

As an example of a distraction, this discussion on pots not being made by Yamnaya is a moot point.

.... The most logical people who use and make pots are farmers as a percentage...........not hunters or herders.
Of course, farmers had pots. Of course, livestock herders would need pots or containers of some sort to, at least if they used dairy products. It's a moot point anyway as we know the Yamnaya had pots. There are facts. Pots are found at Yamnaya sites. Some Bell Beaker groups also were both livestock herders and had pots. Maybe they forced the prior natives to make them or they stole them. That's all a distraction. They had pots.

I'm not asking you to respond further on this. I'm asking for you to stay on topic in the normal flow of a conversation. You can always start other threads on topics you want to discuss be it pots and herders or Celticism or whatever.

[TigerMW]

You keep assuming that Bell Beaker people showed up and it was a big swingers party. I'm betting that Bell Beaker was a closed society for hundreds of years and didn't start to heavily fuse with other local haplogroups until the Early Bronze Age cultures that sprung up afterwards (e.g. Polada Culture).

This could very well be, although I suspect this would not be different 17th century America. There were probably scouts, trappers, traders who went out ahead of the rest of the expansion. These people may have inter-married with the indigenous peoples. The later and larger groups of settlers brought whole familes and may have set up colonies that eventually expanded.

I also want to clarify my comments about a single haplogroup "for all timeframes". Obviously, males were born in Bell Beaker folk societies. An L11 son or maybe a P312 son was born in one of these groups. Their descendants might have stayed within the Beaker society for some time before eventually some of the descendatns were sent out as scouts, military folks or whatever, that they then may have integrated with other societies.

[vettor]

You keep assuming that Bell Beaker people showed up and it was a big swingers party. I'm betting that Bell Beaker was a closed society for hundreds of years and didn't start to heavily fuse with other local haplogroups until the Early Bronze Age cultures that sprung up afterwards (e.g. Polada Culture).

where did I say that?

It was a society that lived together for a few thousand years , made up of many different haplogroups.
Every skeltral marker that was previously found in the BB area up to the creation of BB culture is a BB "haplo marker " be it current to the time or by descent . Any marker not found in the "BB zone" cannot be included until remains are found.

[vettor]

Vettor, I clearly do not support, and never have, that one haplogroup is exclusive too Bell Beakers or vice versa in some way for all timeframes. If you have contention on that please make your point rather than going on about issues that are really just distractions.

As an example of a distraction, this discussion on pots not being made by Yamnaya is a moot point.

Of course, farmers had pots. Of course, livestock herders would need pots or containers of some sort to, at least if they used dairy products. It's a moot point anyway as we know the Yamnaya had pots. There are facts. Pots are found at Yamnaya sites. Some Bell Beaker groups also were both livestock herders and had pots. Maybe they forced the prior natives to make them or they stole them. That's all a distraction. They had pots.

I'm not asking you to respond further on this. I'm asking for you to stay on topic in the normal flow of a conversation. You can always start other threads on topics you want to discuss be it pots and herders or Celticism or whatever.

Well, I will never support your theory that one haplogroup is the BB marker. As I stated before, all known markers found in the known BB zone are involved in BB culture.
I will also never support the theory of suppose WHG or EEF etc , a theory of which a marker is classified as purely a hunter or purely a farmer makes zero logical sense.

All that needs to be done is to find out if the BB culture emerged from the area of BB ( developed over time ) or was the "culture" brought to the area by later migrational markers

Is not the topic Bell beakers?

[rms2]

It's actually "Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b", and this thread is in the "R1b General" subforum.

So, if one does not like hearing a lot about R1b, this is the wrong place for him.

[R.Rocca]

where did I say that?

It was a society that lived together for a few thousand years , made up of many different haplogroups.
Every skeltral marker that was previously found in the BB area up to the creation of BB culture is a BB "haplo marker " be it current to the time or by descent . Any marker not found in the "BB zone" cannot be included until remains are found.

There is nothing to back your claim that Bell Beaker was made up of many different halogroups. So far it's R1b=3, all other haplogroups zero. In order for R1b to gain the high frequency in Western Europe that it has today, they must have been a closed society for a very long time. And no, all haplogroups found in an area prior to Bell Beaker are not automatically Bell Beaker markers. Specific areas may have seen previous markers die out or move out due to worsening weather conditions that did not support farming..and some of those areas may favored Bell Beaker and their form of pastoralism. And yes, in some cases Bell Beaker may have forced some people out of some areas. Everyone can claim Bell Beaker descent by autosomal DNA, but the notion that all other Y haplogroups can be considered Bell Beaker does not make sense. If R1b doesn't make up 90% of all Bell Beaker skeletons, I think it will be a shock. And like we keep repeating...this is an R1b thread. If you want to have a discussion about every single other haplogroup that (only) you think may be in Bell Beaker, please start a new thread and stop hijacking this one.

[Megalophias]

In order for R1b to gain the high frequency in Western Europe that it has today, they must have been a closed society for a very long time.
Or R1b had a selective advantage....

[R.Rocca]

Or R1b had a selective advantage....

Could be, but I see it as an "and" not an "or".

[rms2]

I think Yamnaya spun off some successor cultures in the Carpathian basin. Among those was Vucedol, and, as Gimbutas said, Vucedol spun off Zok-Mako and Samogyvar-Vinkovci, and Beaker stemmed from them. P312 was the dominant y-haplogroup in Beaker, in my opinion, because it was Yamnaya that brought either L11 or P312 into the Carpathian basin to begin with. That is why the true Beaker ensemble is so eastern looking, regardless of where the first Beaker pots were made.

Time and more ancient y-dna will tell. I really think some of those Yamnaya men in the thousands of kurgans in eastern Hungary or thereabouts will yield some kind of R1b-L51 result at the very least and perhaps L11 or even P312.

4149 4150

Piquerobi and I have posted this before, but I think it is appropriate to post it again. It's from Gimbutas' book, The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe.



The Bell Beaker complex, an offshoot of the Vucedol bloc (more precisely of the Zok-Mako group in Hungary) continued Kurgan characteristics. The Bell Beaker of the second half of the 3rd millennium BC were vagabondic horse riders and archers in much the same way as their uncles and cousins, the Corded people of northern Europe and Catacomb-grave people of the North Pontic region. Their spread over central and western Europe to the British Isles and Spain as well as the Mediterranean islands terminates the period of expansion and destruction . . . (p. 104)

In western Hungary and northwestern Yugoslavia, the Vucedol complex was followed by the Samogyvar-Vinkovci complex, the predecessor of the Bell Beaker people. Furthermore, the exodus of the horse-riding Bell Beaker people in the middle of the 3rd millennium, or soon thereafter, from the territories of the Vucedol complex, may not be unconnected with the constant threat from the east. They carried to the west Kurgan traditions in armament, social structure, and religion. The fact of paramount importance of Bell Beaker mobility is the presence of the horse. Seven Bell Beaker sites at Budapest in Hungary have shown that the horse was the foremost species of the domestic fauna (pp. 258-259).

[vettor]

There is nothing to back your claim that Bell Beaker was made up of many different halogroups. So far it's R1b=3, all other haplogroups zero. In order for R1b to gain the high frequency in Western Europe that it has today, they must have been a closed society for a very long time. And no, all haplogroups found in an area prior to Bell Beaker are not automatically Bell Beaker markers. Specific areas may have seen previous markers die out or move out due to worsening weather conditions that did not support farming..and some of those areas may favored Bell Beaker and their form of pastoralism. And yes, in some cases Bell Beaker may have forced some people out of some areas. Everyone can claim Bell Beaker descent by autosomal DNA, but the notion that all other Y haplogroups can be considered Bell Beaker does not make sense. If R1b doesn't make up 90% of all Bell Beaker skeletons, I think it will be a shock. And like we keep repeating...this is an R1b thread. If you want to have a discussion about every single other haplogroup that (only) you think may be in Bell Beaker, please start a new thread and stop hijacking this one.

I have claims of ancient skelteral Ydna markers found in BB lands which are there prior or at the time of BB creation. The bones are there for all to see and test. You seem to imagine that these people buried in BB lands disappeared entirely from the area in question.............you have no proof.
As I said , the proof is in the ground of the other markers.

All markers in BB lands are BB markers , why do you exclude them, is there a system for this?

- You also have no proof that people where forced out of an area.
- Every marker found in BB lands pre or at the time of BB culture are BB people .............why are you fighting this logical possibility . How can people create a BB map and then say ...not everyone in the marked map is BB unless they are R1b
- R1b will never exceed 50% of BB , they are already outnumbered by what has already been found presently by othe rmarkers

[Net Down G5L]

That is why the true Beaker ensemble is so eastern looking, regardless of where the first Beaker pots were made.

Could you clarify what you mean by 'true Beaker' please. (i.e. Do you mean 'true Beaker' or 'later Beaker' or is your true Beaker what you regard as 'early Beaker'?


So
Are you saying that early / Maritime Beaker is not really Beaker because it does not have the 'complete later Eastern package'?
Are you saying that eastern Beaker is R1b and Indo-European therefore any early non-R1b Beaker or non-P312 Beaker is not really true Beaker?
Or do you think Maritime Beaker is mis-dated and is a later watered down version of Beaker - therefore not true Beaker?

[vettor]

It's actually "Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b", and this thread is in the "R1b General" subforum.

So, if one does not like hearing a lot about R1b, this is the wrong place for him.

I find this remark odd............why did you not put it in the R ydna thread instead of the general IF you ONLY want to talk about R1b ?

[alan]

I think Yamnaya spun off some successor cultures in the Carpathian basin. Among those was Vucedol, and, as Gimbutas said, Vucedol spun off Zok-Mako and Samogyvar-Vinkovci, and Beaker stemmed from them. P312 was the dominant y-haplogroup in Beaker, in my opinion, because it was Yamnaya that brought either L11 or P312 into the Carpathian basin to begin with. That is why the true Beaker ensemble is so eastern looking, regardless of where the first Beaker pots were made.

Time and more ancient y-dna will tell. I really think some of those Yamnaya men in the thousands of kurgans in eastern Hungary or thereabouts will yield some kind of R1b-L51 result at the very least and perhaps L11 or even P312.

4149 4150

Piquerobi and I have posted this before, but I think it is appropriate to post it again. It's from Gimbutas' book, The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe.

I think the biggest clue L51 was on the steppe, other than the presence of two parallel L23 lines in Samara, is the age of L51. By most estimates its pretty damn old although not old enough to be linked to early European farmers and of course M269 of all types is absent in pre-copper age ancient DNA. Then of course is the fact L51 spend millenia doing almost no expansion or branching which is not compatable with a strong farming economy.

So I agree the steppes. Probably the westernmost end. However, modern distribution is turning out so misleading that its even a possibility that L51 also comes from the Yamnaya homeland towards the Volga-Urals rather than the Dnieper. It could be argued that the steppe cultures near the east bank of the Dnieper adjacent to the farmers with their stronger evidence of absorbing farming techniques from their neighbours ought to have had a better demographic showing than L51. There is also evidence that at least the westernmost Steppe Sredny Stog groups very close to the Dnieper had a significant amount of males, rather than females, with farmer type crania who were almost certainly not R1b. There is a case that a very single lineage driven group with a very poor demographic tree in the period 5500 to perhaps 3500BC, which seems to be the case for L51, is more archaeologically compatible with Yamnaya itself rather than the more developed cultures with more farming traits nearer the Dniester which we see after 5000BC-4000BC. L51 moribundity until L11 probably covers the period 5500BC-3500BC. In that period it is the steppe cultures east of the Don that have extremely little agricultural development - and presumably demographic expansion.

So my tuppence worth is that SOME of the genetic dating and branching evidence could be said to best fit a location for L51 east of the Don and in the traditional Yamnaya homeland. We have samples from, I understand 3100-2900BC in Samara that are all other branches of L23 than L51 BUT there are two reasons to not suppose that L51 was absent in that Volga sort of area. Firstly I understand Yamnaya was widespread across the steppes by 3100BC and therefore some of its lines will have migrated away from the Volga region by then. Indeed some of it had even reached Altai by then. So there are both geographical and chronological reasons for thinking Samara was by 3100BC merely a subset of Yamanaya and large sections of it were already scattered from the edge of Old Europe to Altai.

It may pay to look closer at the spread of Yamnaya WITHIN the steppe c. 3300-3000BC prior to its spilling into Old Europe to understand L51 and its trajectory better.

Finally, some SNP datings place L11 around 3300BC which does place it at the right time to correlate with the Yamanya expansion within the steppes. L51 IMO looks like a moribund pre-Yamnaya agriculturally backwards lineage and L51xL11 distribution today could be meaningless if it was just a minor remnant lineage among the L11 expansion. I certainly would hesitate to read much into it because it has such a very thin and wide spread.

[alan]

Could you clarify what you mean by 'true Beaker' please. (i.e. Do you mean 'true Beaker' or 'later Beaker' or is your true Beaker what you regard as 'early Beaker'?


So
Are you saying that early / Maritime Beaker is not really Beaker because it does not have the 'complete later Eastern package'?
Are you saying that eastern Beaker is R1b and Indo-European therefore any early non-R1b Beaker or non-P312 Beaker is not really true Beaker?
Or do you think Maritime Beaker is mis-dated and is a later watered down version of Beaker - therefore not true Beaker?

There is growing evidence that there may have been an intrusive singe burial tradition that led to beaker in Iberia, perhaps c. 2700BC give or take. It seems the burial tradition is the main evidence of this and other elements of proto-beaker culture may have then been created in Iberia. So it now seems to me much more possible that P312 did intrude into Iberia and led to beaker culture being created as a local spin of central European traits. NB this is not the same as seeing Zambujal type culture c. 3100-2700BC as part of the P312 story. I dont believe those people were related to P312 or any M269 and if they had any R1b at all it would have related to small traces of basal P25 or V88 from the Cardial Neolithic.

Put it this way, for P312 to be linked to the earliest beaker in Iberia there had to be an into Iberia movement before - now I think the single grave appearance may ID this. Without an into Iberia element just before beaker it would simply be impossible for P312 to be linked with the earliest beakers and they would likely have been of Med. Portuguese Neolithic farmer lines or perhaps some sort of other non-R1b Med. lines from the central Med/southern Alps sort of direction linked to the spread of copper to Iberia c. 3100BC. I had almost given up on the possibility of the earliest beaker being P312 linked until recent work pointing out how beaker in Iberia is linked to a radical change in burial tradition to individual or individualised burial - one that has kind of been obscured by their re-use of old collective tombs.

What I would like to know -and this doesnt seem entirely clear in these new papers - is if they are saying the individual burials in Iberian beaker are there from the earliest beaker. They do appear to be saying that but I would like this to be confirmed - Jean can you comment on this. It was you who dug out one of those papers on this subject. Cheers.

[rms2]

I find this remark odd............why did you not put it in the R ydna thread instead of the general IF you ONLY want to talk about R1b ?

I did not start this thread, but it is in the R1b General subforum and has "R1b" right in its title. Besides, the only y-haplogroup so far found in Beaker, three-for-three, is R1b.

When we get some other kind of Beaker y-dna result, then we can talk about that.

[rms2]

Could you clarify what you mean by 'true Beaker' please. (i.e. Do you mean 'true Beaker' or 'later Beaker' or is your true Beaker what you regard as 'early Beaker'?


So
Are you saying that early / Maritime Beaker is not really Beaker because it does not have the 'complete later Eastern package'?
Are you saying that eastern Beaker is R1b and Indo-European therefore any early non-R1b Beaker or non-P312 Beaker is not really true Beaker?
Or do you think Maritime Beaker is mis-dated and is a later watered down version of Beaker - therefore not true Beaker?

I meant the complete Beaker package, i.e., single burial under a tumulus, with the body on its side in a flexed position, with Beaker pots, archer's equipment, weapons, etc.

I have my doubts about the identification of Maritime Beaker as the earliest Beaker, but I'm not ready to outright deny that it is. I think it possible that very early Beaker was neither IE-speaking nor R1b but became that way once it moved east and encountered the Vucedol groups or maybe Corded Ware. It's also possible some steppe people got to Iberia and began Beaker, which received reinforcements of the same kind of people once it moved east.

[Hando]

You keep assuming that Bell Beaker people showed up and it was a big swingers party. I'm betting that Bell Beaker was a closed society for hundreds of years and didn't start to heavily fuse with other local haplogroups until the Early Bronze Age cultures that sprung up afterwards (e.g. Polada Culture).

:biggrin1:

[R.Rocca]

I have claims of ancient skelteral Ydna markers found in BB lands which are there prior or at the time of BB creation. The bones are there for all to see and test. You seem to imagine that these people buried in BB lands disappeared entirely from the area in question.............you have no proof.
As I said , the proof is in the ground of the other markers.

All markers in BB lands are BB markers , why do you exclude them, is there a system for this?

- You also have no proof that people where forced out of an area.
- Every marker found in BB lands pre or at the time of BB culture are BB people .............why are you fighting this logical possibility . How can people create a BB map and then say ...not everyone in the marked map is BB unless they are R1b
- R1b will never exceed 50% of BB , they are already outnumbered by what has already been found presently by othe rmarkers

If an area has no-R1b during one period, and then those markers do not show up again when Bell Beaker culture and R1b shows up, then classifying those prior skeletons as Bell Beaker is completely wrong. I'm not saying things will be that way everywhere, but you are also following the possibility that in some places people didn't die out or were driven out. R1b makes up 100% (3 of 3) of Bell Beaker skeletons, so your less than 50% has already gotten off to a shaky start. Good luck trying to come up with a scenario where R1b wasn't almost 100% in places like Britain though, or anywhere where it currently reaches over 60-70%.

[R.Rocca]

I think we get too caught up in "the" earliest dates and not the more important "earlier" dates in general. There is no doubt that we can connect the "earlier" date dots from Hungary > Northern Italy > Southern France > Catalonia > Tagus Estuary. Those dates all resolve to around 2,800 BC and are Copper Age. Perhaps the Z11 mutation that may (or not) join U152 and DF27 was responsible for these earlier dates, and perhaps that's why we only see Stelae along the southern Alps route. The majority of unresolved P312 may have still lurked around the Rhine and the Alps for quite some time and may have been stuck in some kind of Corded Ware influence, until it started its expansion around 2,450 BC. A lineage like L21, which unlike U152 and DF27, shares its clade with two other SNPs, subrtacting around 250 years to its age and time of expansion, which would put it well within the discussion for a 2,450 BC expansion. We can add lurker SNPs like DF19 and DF99 and whomever was L238's parent into that discussion as well. Of course, by the time the 2,450 BC expansion started, these were already Bronze Age people, unlike the Copper Age people of the earlier route.

By the way, I was thinking about this last night...in modern day Bashkirs, there are high frequencies of Z2103 and U152 in some clans, some M73 and based on the latest study on Turkic people, even a DF27+ sample. I remember reading somewhere in Anthony's book about a back-migration from the Balkans into the Steppe. I wonder if the appearance of U152 and trace of DF27 in Bashkirs is a sign of that back migration and also a sign that the other L11 branches had already broken off by then or had not developed. As I mentioned before, these other branches may have expanded ~300 years after the initial Bell Beaker expansion that was still erecting stelae in Italy, France and Iberia.

[rms2]

By the way, I was thinking about this last night...in modern day Bashkirs, there are high frequencies of Z2103 and U152 in some clans, some M73 and based on the latest study on Turkic people, even a DF27+ sample. I remember reading somewhere in Anthony's book about a back-migration from the Balkans into the Steppe. I wonder if the appearance of U152 and trace of DF27 in Bashkirs is a sign of that back migration and also a sign that the other L11 branches had already broken off by then or had not developed. As I mentioned before, these other branches may have expanded ~300 years after the initial Bell Beaker expansion that was still erecting stelae in Italy, France and Iberia.

You know, I had not thought of that before, but it certainly makes sense.

I wish we could get some y-dna from those Yamnaya kurgans in eastern Hungary, and plenty of it, and maybe some from Vucedol and eastern Beaker, as well.

[vettor]

I did not start this thread, but it is in the R1b General subforum and has "R1b" right in its title. Besides, the only y-haplogroup so far found in Beaker, three-for-three, is R1b.

When we get some other kind of Beaker y-dna result, then we can talk about that.

Map this Beaker area please and we will see what was found there

[vettor]

If an area has no-R1b during one period, and then those markers do not show up again when Bell Beaker culture and R1b shows up, then classifying those prior skeletons as Bell Beaker is completely wrong. I'm not saying things will be that way everywhere, but you are also following the possibility that in some places people didn't die out or were driven out. R1b makes up 100% (3 of 3) of Bell Beaker skeletons, so your less than 50% has already gotten off to a shaky start. Good luck trying to come up with a scenario where R1b wasn't almost 100% in places like Britain though, or anywhere where it currently reaches over 60-70%.

If an area has any known markers found and R1b shows up later in the same area , as you say, bringing a BB pot culture , then those other markers are part of BB culture.

If these others are ENF and farmers need pots ( as we all know they did) , then a pot style and kilns would be already in operation, since BB is a different style, then these R1b farmers would have brought a patent for this style and used the kilns already in those lands.
without a kiln a pot is useless, .a kiln, hardens the pot, seals the pot and removes the moisture from the pot so food produce will not go rotten.
Since you now are claiming R1b where potters, then they cannot be hunters but purely farmers.

You need to realise that when R1b arrived in the BB lands, there where other people already farming in these lands. There was no void ( empty of people ) farming land in europe at the time of commencement of BB. So your logic is flawed.

[rms2]

Map this Beaker area please and we will see what was found there

That would be an error. Beaker is not an area, even though it came to be widespread throughout much of Europe. It was a culture, and it is generally identified by its burial tradition. So, not everyone who lived and died in Europe during the Beaker Period (~2900 BC-1800 BC) was a part of the Bell Beaker people. Thus one cannot simply rope off Europe and say that all the y haplogroups present there from 2900-1800 BC were Beaker y haplogroups.

[vettor]

That would be an error. Beaker is not an area, even though it came to be widespread throughout much of Europe. It was a culture, and it is generally identified by its burial tradition. So, not everyone who lived and died in Europe during the Beaker Period (~2900 BC-1800 BC) was a part of the Bell Beaker people. Thus one cannot simply rope off Europe and say that all the y haplogroups present there from 2900-1800 BC were Beaker y haplogroups.

clearly this is a cop out remark.

Beaker is a style of pot used from cremation to other uses , same as every other type of pot in ancient times , Funnel etc etc

do not bother on map, JeanM has shown one
See Patrice Brun, Les Celtes à la lumière de l’archéologie: http://www.inrap.fr/userdata/c_bloc_...ier18-brun.pdf

Nice to find/know of 20 x G2a skeletons in southern france rhone valley sites...........I wonder if they are BB people

[TigerMW]

I find this remark odd............why did you not put it in the R ydna thread instead of the general IF you ONLY want to talk about R1b ?
Vettor, this is a warning. The topic is what it is and the category is what it is. It is my opinion that you are disrupting the normal flow of conversation and going off topic onto various tangents. I'm writing this as a moderator. Please consider this a warning. You have the option to initiate another thread just as long as the thread is appropriate to the category and this forum.

[R.Rocca]

If an area has any known markers found and R1b shows up later in the same area , as you say, bringing a BB pot culture , then those other markers are part of BB culture.

If these others are ENF and farmers need pots ( as we all know they did) , then a pot style and kilns would be already in operation, since BB is a different style, then these R1b farmers would have brought a patent for this style and used the kilns already in those lands.
without a kiln a pot is useless, .a kiln, hardens the pot, seals the pot and removes the moisture from the pot so food produce will not go rotten.
Since you now are claiming R1b where potters, then they cannot be hunters but purely farmers.

Come back from fantasy land Vettor. I said no such thing, but nice try though. Even the most nomadic of people cook food and have pots, so your point is completely illogical.



You need to realise that when R1b arrived in the BB lands, there where other people already farming in these lands. There was no void ( empty of people ) farming land in europe at the time of commencement of BB. So your logic is flawed.

Sorry, but you keep repeating the same stuff over and over again. We have plenty of evidence of people pushing other people out of their lands from the last two thousand years. You thinking that people in the Late Neolithic were somehow different and were a bunch of peace loving swingers is the only thing that is flawed here.

[Megalophias]

Could be, but I see it as an "and" not an "or".

Well, there must have been some sort of rapid and successful spread of R1b-dominant people for sure to explain its star-like phyologeny. However, if R1b had a selective advantage, then we don't need any social mechanism to explain its extraordinarily high frequency. In that case, the original R1b people need not have formed any kind of closed elite. They could just have been a minority group of whatever - pastoralists, copper smelters, alcohol cultists - who intermarried with the locals.

[rms2]

. . .
Nice to find/know of 20 x G2a skeletons in southern france rhone valley sites...........I wonder if they are BB people

Those G2a from Treilles, Aveyron, France were not Beaker, and no one has claimed they were Beaker. They were members of the Treilles culture and were too early to be Beaker anyway (3000 BC).

Archaeological cultures are identified by sets of distinctive traits. An ancient body is not considered as belonging to the Beaker culture unless it can be clearly identified as exhibiting those traits, which usually involve the manner of burial and the artifacts buried with the body.

[R.Rocca]

Well, there must have been some sort of rapid and successful spread of R1b-dominant people for sure to explain its star-like phyologeny. However, if R1b had a selective advantage, then we don't need any social mechanism to explain its extraordinarily high frequency. In that case, the original R1b people need not have formed any kind of closed elite. They could just have been a minority group of whatever - pastoralists, copper smelters, alcohol cultists - who intermarried with the locals.

There is an older study that showed that R1b men are slightly likelier to father males, but I don't recall the specifics. Either way, it looks like R1b's expansion was extremely rapid, and not something that took thousands of years to become a majority from a few copper smelters or the like.

[Megalophias]

If these others are ENF and farmers need pots ( as we all know they did) , then a pot style and kilns would be already in operation, since BB is a different style, then these R1b farmers would have brought a patent for this style and used the kilns already in those lands.
without a kiln a pot is useless, .a kiln, hardens the pot, seals the pot and removes the moisture from the pot so food produce will not go rotten.
Since you now are claiming R1b where potters, then they cannot be hunters but purely farmers.

Vettor, ceramic vessels were actually invented by Paleolithic hunter-gatherers in East Asia about 15 000 years ago. They were used for thousands of years before farming even existed. In Eastern Europe hunter-gatherers had pottery before they had farming. Pastoralists also made and used pottery. Pottery is not an indicator of farmers.

You don't need a kiln either, you can make pottery on an open fire (a kiln is better though).

But how is any of this relevant? Nobody thinks that Bell Beaker people were hunter-gatherers. All of these people had crops and livestock for a long time. Possibly they relied more on pastoralism and less on field agriculture, but that is only a matter of degree.

[vettor]

But how is any of this relevant? Nobody thinks that Bell Beaker people were hunter-gatherers. All of these people had crops and livestock for a long time. Possibly they relied more on pastoralism and less on field agriculture, but that is only a matter of degree.

thats correct, try to tell them here!

I explained why a kiln is necessary in anothe rpost

[glentane]

Enough with the kilns already. As Megalophias says.
"You don't need a kiln either, you can make pottery on an open fire"
I refer back to this video and article. Beakers best made in an open fire to get the nice reddish colours.
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=75725&viewfull=1#post75725
No "Beaker kiln" has ever been found in Western Europe.
Because it simply isn't necessary. (Although they could have had them if they wanted. Closed clay ovens are known throughout, from the (local) Early Neolithic on, even as far as Orkney).

[Megalophias]

There is an older study that showed that R1b men are slightly likelier to father males, but I don't recall the specifics. Either way, it looks like R1b's expansion was extremely rapid, and not something that took thousands of years to become a majority from a few copper smelters or the like.

The expansion was rapid for sure, but how do we know how long it took to become dominant in frequency? I don't know of any Bronze Age aDNA from the core Beaker area. From Unetice we have 4 samples from 2 sites, all I2. From Urnfield we have the one R1a-Z280 sample from Halberstadt, and the 8 from Lichtenstein cave - 5 I2, 1 R1b, 2 possible R1a. (All from Jean's site.)

I am not claiming that this *did* happen, just that this is one of the ways it could have happened. There could also have been some sort of disaster that devastated the previous population, they could have gone in for major ethnic cleansing, or installed themselves as an elite minority, or some combination of any or all of the above.

[R.Rocca]

thats correct, try to tell them here!

I explained why a kiln is necessary in anothe rpost

Read the posts and stop trying to stir the pot (no pun intended)...the only hunter-gatherer being talked about here was the Samara R1b1. Pastoralism is not the same as hunter-gatherer.

[R.Rocca]

The expansion was rapid for sure, but how do we know how long it took to become dominant in frequency? I don't know of any Bronze Age aDNA from the core Beaker area. From Unetice we have 4 samples from 2 sites, all I2. From Urnfield we have the one R1a-Z280 sample from Halberstadt, and the 8 from Lichtenstein cave - 5 I2, 1 R1b, 2 possible R1a. (All from Jean's site.)

I am not claiming that this *did* happen, just that this is one of the ways it could have happened. There could also have been some sort of disaster that devastated the previous population, they could have gone in for major ethnic cleansing, or installed themselves as an elite minority, or some combination of any or all of the above.

I'm sure different areas will show elevated R1b since the Early Bronze Age (e.g. Ireland) and other areas will show changing haplogroups across time, with ebbs and flows of R1b frequency, dependant on the success of non-R1b neighbors. Unetice looks like one of those cases from those few samples. Certainly I2 survived in enough numbers to be the second most frequent SNP in many parts of Central Europe after R1a.

[newtoboard]

By the way, I was thinking about this last night...in modern day Bashkirs, there are high frequencies of Z2103 and U152 in some clans, some M73 and based on the latest study on Turkic people, even a DF27+ sample. I remember reading somewhere in Anthony's book about a back-migration from the Balkans into the Steppe. I wonder if the appearance of U152 and trace of DF27 in Bashkirs is a sign of that back migration and also a sign that the other L11 branches had already broken off by then or had not developed. As I mentioned before, these other branches may have expanded ~300 years after the initial Bell Beaker expansion that was still erecting stelae in Italy, France and Iberia.

I am pretty sure it was found out that the U152 among Bashkirs had one very recent founders. I have serious doubts on any R1 lineage among Bashkirs not having come from Central Asia or Europe west of the steppe.

[newtoboard]

You know, I had not thought of that before, but it certainly makes sense.

I wish we could get some y-dna from those Yamnaya kurgans in eastern Hungary, and plenty of it, and maybe some from Vucedol and eastern Beaker, as well.

It really doesn't make any sense. Pretty sure the paper which found U152 advocated for a founder effect as well given they pretty much share one very recent haplotype.

[R.Rocca]

I am pretty sure it was found out that the U152 among Bashkirs had one very recent founders. I have serious doubts on any R1 lineage among Bashkirs not having come from Central Asia or Europe west of the steppe.

They all had the same exact STR signature, but founders need a founder (obviously), so what I was thinking about was exactly the same thing you just proposed...a back migration from further west.

[newtoboard]

They all had the same exact STR signature, but founders need a founder (obviously), so what I was thinking about was exactly the same thing you just proposed...a back migration from further west.

But the time frame is off no? Could you clarify what time period you meant in case I am wrong about what you meant? The Bashkir R1b U152 looks a bit younger than what you proposed doesn't it? Isn't it more more likely it is a remnant of some lost Roman troops trying to fight the Parthians or such rather than a true migration in the time frame you speak off? I believe the back migration to the Balkans was something else and I don't believe it ever really reached past the Don river. This is consistent with aDNA imo (ie for the most part a complete lack of y I, R1a-Z283+ and R1b-L51+ lineages other than what can't be traced back to various European groups).

[DMXX]

If Bashkir R1b-U152 is proposed to have a link with Roman troops, we'd expect some Y-STR/SNP evidence of this (broad STR clustering / key STR mutations / specific +ve/-ve SNP mutation combos etc.). Is there anything that substantiates this idea?

[newtoboard]

If Bashkir R1b-U152 is proposed to have a link with Roman troops, we'd expect some Y-STR/SNP evidence of this (broad STR clustering / key STR mutations / specific +ve/-ve SNP mutation combos etc.). Is there anything that substantiates this idea?

It was just a theory. They could be one possible source. And Richard has said the possibility of Celts or a Silk Road migration is also likely. That makes more sense than a migration from the Balkans where we would likely see other lineages among Bashkirs that look Balkan like.

[DMXX]

It was just a theory. They could be one possible source. And Richard has said the possibility of Celts or a Silk Road migration is also likely. That makes more sense than a migration from the Balkans where we would likely see other lineages among Bashkirs that look Balkan like.

Sure. I was not asserting an expectation for hard evidence to accompany your theory (this is a discussion forum after all, not a House of Cards style presidential debate :) ). It's an idea which could well be true. The invocation of data was to help us explore this avenue through the experience and insights of our R1b-oriented members.

[rms2]

They all had the same exact STR signature, but founders need a founder (obviously), so what I was thinking about was exactly the same thing you just proposed...a back migration from further west.

And that is exactly what you said to begin with, as I recall. You mentioned what Anthony wrote about some steppe pastoralist migrants to the west returning to the steppe.

[rms2]

It was just a theory. They could be one possible source. And Richard has said the possibility of Celts or a Silk Road migration is also likely. That makes more sense than a migration from the Balkans where we would likely see other lineages among Bashkirs that look Balkan like.

If the source of that U152 among the Bashkirs was a return migrant from Yamnaya in the Balkans, then it was "Balkan like", i.e., "Balkan like" for Yamnaya 4,500 years ago or so.

[ADW_1981]

It was just a theory. They could be one possible source. And Richard has said the possibility of Celts or a Silk Road migration is also likely. That makes more sense than a migration from the Balkans where we would likely see other lineages among Bashkirs that look Balkan like.

I remember 400 years being the estimated age of the founder of the U152 in Bashkir. This is within the realm of German settlement in Russia

[rms2]

I remember 400 years being the estimated age of the founder of the U152 in Bashkir. This is within the realm of German settlement in Russia

Did any of them settle in Bashkortostan (Bashkiria), a predominantly Muslim area? It would seem odd if they did.

As I recall from back when I ran the P312 Project, we had a Kipchak U152 guy from Kazakhstan who was not a Bashkir. But it is interesting that the Bashkirs speak a Kipchak language.

[newtoboard]

If the source of that U152 among the Bashkirs was a return migrant from Yamnaya in the Balkans, then it was "Balkan like", i.e., "Balkan like" for Yamnaya 4,500 years ago or so.

Except there is no way that U152 in Bashkirostan is that old. Not even close.

[rms2]

Except there is no way that U152 in Bashkirostan is that old. Not even close.

You mean their descent from their mrca is not that old. There is a difference.

[rms2]

Did any of them settle in Bashkortostan (Bashkiria), a predominantly Muslim area? It would seem odd if they did.

As I recall from back when I ran the P312 Project, we had a Kipchak U152 guy from Kazakhstan who was not a Bashkir. But it is interesting that the Bashkirs speak a Kipchak language.

I remembered the Kipchak guy's surname was Mamedaliev, and his Ysearch ID is UE8RB. He only has 37 markers, but no close matches at that level in Ysearch. His closest match at 37 markers is 7 away and happens to be L21+ (Rotrou, Ysearch YPDNZ), not even U152. Mamedaliev, however, is U152+.

[newtoboard]

You mean their descent from their mrca is not that old. There is a difference.

Yea. I meant their most recent male founder lived about 500 years ago. Either way doesn't look too good for it to represent a Yamnaya in the Balkans migration to the Volga Urals that nobody ever heard off. I am pretty sure the migration from the Balkans to the steppe never made it past Eastern Ukraine.

[rms2]

Yea. I meant their most recent male founder lived about 500 years ago. Either way doesn't look too good for it to represent a Yamnaya in the Balkans migration to the Volga Urals that nobody ever heard off. I am pretty sure the migration from the Balkans to the steppe never made it past Eastern Ukraine.

Well, I don't have any emotion invested in it one way or the other.

Interesting about the Kipchak guy, Mamedaliev, I mentioned above. Makes me wonder.

Anyway, maybe we could get back to Beaker.

[ADW_1981]

You mean their descent from their mrca is not that old. There is a difference.

There are actually a bunch more "what ifs" if you consider a Celtic or Roman scenario. You would need to account for hypothetical scenarios where a 2000+ year old founder lineage has the diversity of only 400 years.

I don't know which set of haplotypes were used for this estimate, it may have been only the data from the north Bashkir sample set. Perhaps the Kazakhstan sample was an independent group, I don't know.

[TigerMW]

Did any of them settle in Bashkortostan (Bashkiria), a predominantly Muslim area? It would seem odd if they did.

As I recall from back when I ran the P312 Project, we had a Kipchak U152 guy from Kazakhstan who was not a Bashkir. But it is interesting that the Bashkirs speak a Kipchak language.
I haven't looked at this for a while but from what I remember, yes it is true that some of the U152 have recent TMRCA (according to STR signature) but there were some that were way off too.

At least some R1b has been there a long time. U152 is quite old, nearly as old as P312. The older, the further east the origin might be.... so "back-migrations" may not have been that far, or clearly not all the way from the Rhine anyway.

[lgmayka]

Except there is no way that U152 in Bashkirostan is that old. Not even close.
Have you found a close match elsewhere? Please remember that TMRCA of a local cluster does not by itself indicate age of presence, especially under no-growth or slow-growth conditions (which lead to a recent TMRCA). Rather, the best estimation of age of presence is the smallest TMRCA with an identifiable source population (i.e., a close match someplace else that could feasibly be the source of the migration).

Of course, when both the local cluster and the potential sources are all poorly sampled, we have to say, "We don't know." For example, someone might claim that the apparent L51xL11 in Mongolia comes from a recent Russian introgression. But Russia itself is still not well sampled, so if we don't find a close match in Russia, what can we do?

[alan]

I'm sure different areas will show elevated R1b since the Early Bronze Age (e.g. Ireland) and other areas will show changing haplogroups across time, with ebbs and flows of R1b frequency, dependant on the success of non-R1b neighbors. Unetice looks like one of those cases from those few samples. Certainly I2 survived in enough numbers to be the second most frequent SNP in many parts of Central Europe after R1a.

IE societies did vary somewhat in social structure and I wonder if we are seeing that in P312. P312, where it could get away with it, seems to have expanded in some areas without apparently allowing other lineages to join the fun. In some groups, especially the Celts, it seems lineage was everything and there seems to have been less of an ability or will to be inclusive of other lineages. I am sure that boils down to social structure and you can still clearly see how lineage basically was everything in late Celtic societies in Ireland, Scotland and Wales - its also alluded to among the Gauls-which gave them a mix of resilience and limitations on developing long term stable larger units. However, I dont think that sort of social structure was uniform among IEs. For instance the Germanics seem to have operated more in a 'warlord, follower band and gift giving' kind of way and therefore seem more inclusive. Other IEs operated a case type system of course.

One thing I think is important to note about P312's strength in western Europe is that a Celtic type mega-breeding clan system was smashed by the Romans and indeed had even internally in some advanced areas been evolving away from it towards urban living, coinage, not having kings etc in the last century of their freedom. So, IMO, outside the Celtic fringe areas, much of the growth of P312 must have happened prior to this when a more primitive lineage/clan sort of system was dominant. After these social changes and Roman conquest the native elite superbreeding must have been dampened. So, on the continent of western Europe it seems to me that the very high P312 was already long established by 100BC and is unlikely to have experienced the same sort of mega-growth after the Romans started annexing them and a very different sort of society was imposed.

[alan]

I certainly think now with L11 perhaps dating as old as 3500BC that its origin point was likely far further east than we once thought. Modern distribution is turning out to be kind of useless when you get that far back and the steppes is utterly hopeless in that regard with overwhelming discontinuity. A lot of people have long ago spotted the geographical possibility that L11 split quite far east with one group rapidly heading south of the Carpathians up the Danube and another heading north of the Carpathians up one of north-flowing river between the Vistula and Elbe. When you look at the geography of this it makes most sense if the split occurred fairly far east around the west end of Ukraine. I am not even convinced L11 all followed the same culture - the southern branch could have been Yamanaya itself but the northern branch perhaps had bled into Corded Ware and moved with it.

[rms2]

Of course, all of this will never be settled until we get sufficient ancient y-dna samples from Yamnaya's route west, especially, it seems to me, from the up-the-Danube route, including at least some from those several thousand kurgans in eastern Hungary. (Imagine the Yamnaya numbers involved if there are several thousand kurgans still identifiable and only the elite got kurgans.)

We also are going to need a really thorough survey of ancient y-dna from Beaker's entire beat before we can tell that tale.

I think the Els Trocs R1b1-M415 is a reminder of the importance of that early pre-P297 (P297-)/P297+ split. It would be nice if we had actual confirmation that he was V88+, but I think he fits that pre-P297 V88+ pattern of an early departure to the Near East, the rise of V88, and a move on to Africa and other points west.

The eastern nature of the P297+ branch and its major sub-branches, M73 and M269, is clear from the modern distribution of M73, the east-to-west phylogeography of M269 and its descendants, and the results of the Yamnaya Seven.

[R.Rocca]

It was just a theory. They could be one possible source. And Richard has said the possibility of Celts or a Silk Road migration is also likely. That makes more sense than a migration from the Balkans where we would likely see other lineages among Bashkirs that look Balkan like.

Correct, I just highlighted the Bashkir U152/DF27 as something to keep an eye on, not something set in stone. The Bashkir's successful U152's founder may be very recent, and it may be that the breakout of his specific clan was recent. Certainly we have two Bashkir U152+ in our project and the STR signatures are completely different.

[R.Rocca]

Of course, all of this will never be settled until we get sufficient ancient y-dna samples from Yamnaya's route west, especially, it seems to me, from the up-the-Danube route, including at least some from those several thousand kurgans in eastern Hungary. (Imagine the Yamnaya numbers involved if there are several thousand kurgans still identifiable and only the elite got kurgans.)

We also are going to need a really thorough survey of ancient y-dna from Beaker's entire beat before we can tell that tale.

I think the Els Trocs R1b1-M415 is a reminder of the importance of that early pre-P297 (P297-)/P297+ split. It would be nice if we had actual confirmation that he was V88+, but I think he fits that pre-P297 V88+ pattern of an early departure to the Near East, the rise of V88, and a move on to Africa and other points west.

The eastern nature of the P297+ branch and its major sub-branches, M73 and M269, is clear from the modern distribution of M73, the east-to-west phylogeography of M269 and its descendants, and the results of the Yamnaya Seven.

"The Yamnaya Seven"...coming to a theater near you ;)

[TigerMW]

I certainly think now with L11 perhaps dating as old as 3500BC that its origin point was likely far further east than we once thought. ....
When you look at the geography of this it makes most sense if the split occurred fairly far east around the west end of Ukraine. I am not even convinced L11 all followed the same culture - the southern branch could have been Yamanaya itself but the northern branch perhaps had bled into Corded Ware and moved with it.

I think that we can use the IE language tree and dating for clues here too. David Anthony felt like the PIE elements of pre-Germanic languages moved along the north side of the Carpathians. If so, U106, or parts of it anyway, could well have been there too. The tandem correlations of U106 in Germanic speakers and P312 in Italic, Celtic speakers to go with Anthony's pre-Germanic view is what has caused me to think L11 must have come about east of the Carpathians.

[rms2]

I think that we can use the IE language tree and dating for clues here too. David Anthony felt like the PIE elements of pre-Germanic languages moved along the north side of the Carpathians. If so, U106, or parts of it anyway, could well have been there too. The tandem correlations of U106 in Germanic speakers and P312 in Italic, Celtic speakers to go with Anthony's pre-Germanic view is what has caused me to think L11 must have come about east of the Carpathians.

I agree with that, which is why I kind of expect U106 to show up in Corded Ware eventually, along with R1a.

[jamesdowallen]

My recent reading has convinced me that the expansion of Bell Beaker is indeed coincident with the early expansion of the R1b-L151 haplogroup.

(1) The map at the top of Wikipedia's Bell Beaker page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture) shows migration arrows exactly compatible with the evidence that R1b-L151 started in the upper Rhine and spread to Iberia, there fanning out for R-P312. Note the expansion into Sardinia: that's where R-Z2115 is found, sibling to R-L151.

The arrows in the chart are unidirectional because they're showing Beaker propoagation, but I think many important migration routes are mostly unidirectional. Migrations from Frisia, Jutland, Norway, etc. to Britain were common, but never the reverse. Migrations from southern France to Brittany were common but not(?) the reverse. Et cetera.

(2) Despite its unusual title this book has a discussion of Bell Beaker (https://books.google.co.th/books?id=oP48AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141) which emphasizes the use of Beakers in prestige burials.

(3) The 3000 BC --> 2700 BC dates shown for the L151-P312 transition at Yfull.com agree exactly with the corresponding Bell Beaker expansion.

The glove with hand does fit! We cannot acquit!

(But even if these dates are correct, the very early dates, e.g. for BT --> ((B1 B2) (C D E F)), at YFull seem much later than dates I thought were developed and agreed to at this forum. Is there a chart showing "best date estimates" ? ;) )

[alan]

I think that we can use the IE language tree and dating for clues here too. David Anthony felt like the PIE elements of pre-Germanic languages moved along the north side of the Carpathians. If so, U106, or parts of it anyway, could well have been there too. The tandem correlations of U106 in Germanic speakers and P312 in Italic, Celtic speakers to go with Anthony's pre-Germanic view is what has caused me to think L11 must have come about east of the Carpathians.

At one stage it didnt seem plausible that L11 could have split into two widely separated groups because it was generally said that P312 and U106 were much younger and immediatley below L11. I think the SNP counting dating, if correct, has been a game changer in terms of interpretation and L11 splitting in two directions divided by the Carpathians now seems very plausible. U106 seems from SNP counting to be at least as old as Corded Ware and probably at least a bit older than it. You could say Yamnaya heading into the Danube and the ancestors of Corded Ware must have parted ways soon after 3000BC a the latest. This would clearly be compatible with the split in L11 and perhaps even with the split in P312/U106 if the older datings are correct. Corded Ware looks to be no older than 2900BC and possibly even a century younger than that. The genetic and archaeological dating now seem to fit the model of one part of L11 going down the Danube and another up the north flowing river to the north-east of the Carpathians with the geographical parting of the ways c. 3000BC and modern distribution is looking rather hopeless as a method of interpretation on the steppes.

[alan]

Michal, who tends to get dates a few centuries older than some, posted the following dates for U106.NOW I know zero about the geography of those clades - please fell free to fill me in on this - but I do notice that a lot of the SNPs seem to date to around 3000BC-2700BC which is close to the origin period of Corded Ware. The fact some are a century or two earlier than Corded Ware may reflect the fact Michal tends to get slightly earlier dates than some

U106 - 5940 ybp
Z381 - 5796 ybp
Z156 - 5628 ybp
DF98 - 4868 ybp
DF96 - 4412 ybp
L1 - 3416 ybp
L48 - 5663 ybp
L47 - 5084 ybp
Z160 - 4652 ybp
Z9 - 5134 ybp
Z30 - 5085 ybp
Z2 - 4943 ybp
Z7 - 4758 ybp
Z334 - 4814 ybp
Z326 - 3442 ybp
CTS2509 - 2887 ybp
Z5054 - 1802 ybp

Is there a nice table with dates and geography similar to the ones for P312 and R1a I have seen. I really need more clued in about the geography of U106 clades and a picture is a lot easier than 100 words

[MJost]

At one stage it didnt seem plausible that L11 could have split into two widely separated groups because it was generally said that P312 and U106 were much younger and immediatley below L11. I think the SNP counting dating, if correct, has been a game changer in terms of interpretation and L11 splitting in two directions divided by the Carpathians now seems very plausible. U106 seems from SNP counting to be at least as old as Corded Ware and probably at least a bit older than it. You could say Yamnaya heading into the Danube and the ancestors of Corded Ware must have parted ways soon after 3000BC a the latest. This would clearly be compatible with the split in L11 and perhaps even with the split in P312/U106 if the older datings are correct. Corded Ware looks to be no older than 2900BC and possibly even a century younger than that. The genetic and archaeological dating now seem to fit the model of one part of L11 going down the Danube and another up the north flowing river to the north-east of the Carpathians with the geographical parting of the ways c. 3000BC and modern distribution is looking rather hopeless as a method of interpretation on the steppes.

In your last sentence did you mean to write 'L11 going down the Danube' or did actually you meant 'up the Danube'?

MJost

[rms2]

At one stage it didnt seem plausible that L11 could have split into two widely separated groups because it was generally said that P312 and U106 were much younger and immediatley below L11. I think the SNP counting dating, if correct, has been a game changer in terms of interpretation and L11 splitting in two directions divided by the Carpathians now seems very plausible. U106 seems from SNP counting to be at least as old as Corded Ware and probably at least a bit older than it. You could say Yamnaya heading into the Danube and the ancestors of Corded Ware must have parted ways soon after 3000BC a the latest. This would clearly be compatible with the split in L11 and perhaps even with the split in P312/U106 if the older datings are correct. Corded Ware looks to be no older than 2900BC and possibly even a century younger than that. The genetic and archaeological dating now seem to fit the model of one part of L11 going down the Danube and another up the north flowing river to the north-east of the Carpathians with the geographical parting of the ways c. 3000BC and modern distribution is looking rather hopeless as a method of interpretation on the steppes.

I agree with the idea that U106 was part of that L11 route around the east and north sides of the Carpathians, which I think flowed into Globular Amphorae and Corded Ware. The south-side-around-the-Carpathians-and-up-the-Danube route was the P312 path, IMHO, that led to Vucedol/Zok-Mako, et al, and Beaker.

The P297-/P297 story, the Samara HG, and the Yamnaya Seven results convince me that L51 went west with Yamnaya and will be found (in some form) in the remains inside those western Yamnaya kurgans like the thousands of them on the Hungarian plain.

[TigerMW]

Michal, who tends to get dates a few centuries older than some, posted the following dates for U106.NOW I know zero about the geography of those clades - please fell free to fill me in on this - but I do notice that a lot of the SNPs seem to date to around 3000BC-2700BC which is close to the origin period of Corded Ware. The fact some are a century or two earlier than Corded Ware may reflect the fact Michal tends to get slightly earlier dates than some

U106 - 5940 ybp
Z381 - 5796 ybp
Z156 - 5628 ybp
DF98 - 4868 ybp
DF96 - 4412 ybp
L1 - 3416 ybp
L48 - 5663 ybp
L47 - 5084 ybp
Z160 - 4652 ybp
Z9 - 5134 ybp
Z30 - 5085 ybp
Z2 - 4943 ybp
Z7 - 4758 ybp
Z334 - 4814 ybp
Z326 - 3442 ybp
CTS2509 - 2887 ybp
Z5054 - 1802 ybp

Is there a nice table with dates and geography similar to the ones for P312 and R1a I have seen. I really need more clued in about the geography of U106 clades and a picture is a lot easier than 100 words
There is not agreement on these dates, Alan. There are people within the U106 groups who try to do this too and come up with different numbers. Please be cautious about assuming the precision of these estimates. Every statistically calculated estimate should have error ranges as part of the resulting table.

There needs to be much more public debate... I mean with true science papers. We see a new paper by Hallast that includes Jobling, King and Smith (the "CTS" guy) as authors. We have the Bustamante group (Stanford Univ) with their 2013 paper. We need more back and forth on this with peer review. We have the Yfull guys too, but I wish they would try to publish and engage in rebuttals more in some of the leading journals.
"The Y-Chromosome Tree Bursts into Leaf: 13,000 High-Confidence SNPs Covering the Majority of Known Clades" by Hallast.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327154/

Here are their TMRCAs and error ranges in kya

R-M207 19.3 7.7–64.4
R1a-M198 6.2 2.5–20.8
R1b-L278 14.3 5.7–47.7
R1b-M269 4.9 2.0–16.3

4.9 kya for M269 seems too young but notice their very wide error range. This is probably a statistically honest look.

[TigerMW]

I think that we can use the IE language tree and dating for clues here too. David Anthony felt like the PIE elements of pre-Germanic languages moved along the north side of the Carpathians. If so, U106, or parts of it anyway, could well have been there too. The tandem correlations of U106 in Germanic speakers and P312 in Italic, Celtic speakers to go with Anthony's pre-Germanic view is what has caused me to think L11 must have come about east of the Carpathians.

I agree with that, which is why I kind of expect U106 to show up in Corded Ware eventually, along with R1a.
I almost forgot the other factors that led me towards an easterly L11 and U106 to the north and east early on.
U106 is very low from Calais south, even though I1 has a nice presence in places like Bretagne. U106, who should have been seaworthy, appear to have been bottled up and away from the Atlantic until recent times, i.e. Anglo-Saxons, and later.
I always felt I was violating some political correctness thing and everyone hates STRs, but diversity for U106 is higher to the east. It's not Scandinavia and its not the Low Countries. I think to the east side of Germany and into Poland, so maybe "into" is not the right word but "out of".

[ArmandoR1b]

There is not agreement on these dates, Alan. There are people within the U106 groups who try to do this too and come up with different numbers. Please be cautious about assuming the precision of these estimates. Every statistically calculated estimate should have error ranges as part of the resulting table.

There needs to be much more public debate... I mean with true science papers. We see a new paper by Hallast that includes Jobling, King and Smith (the "CTS" guy) as authors. We have the Bustamante group (Stanford Univ) with their 2013 paper. We need more back and forth on this with peer review. We have the Yfull guys too, but I wish they would try to publish and engage in rebuttals more in some of the leading journals.
"The Y-Chromosome Tree Bursts into Leaf: 13,000 High-Confidence SNPs Covering the Majority of Known Clades" by Hallast.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327154/

Here are their TMRCAs and error ranges in kya

R-M207 19.3 7.7–64.4
R1a-M198 6.2 2.5–20.8
R1b-L278 14.3 5.7–47.7
R1b-M269 4.9 2.0–16.3

4.9 kya for M269 seems too young but notice their very wide error range. This is probably a statistically honest look.

We need a lot more ancient DNA for the lower bound dates. It's coming according to what everybody is saying.

[rms2]

We need a lot more ancient DNA for the lower bound dates. It's coming according to what everybody is saying.

Man, I hope so. I would be willing to contribute to fund y-dna testing of some of those thousands of kurgans in eastern Hungary.

[MitchellSince1893]

There is not agreement on these dates,

In case it wasn't previously mentioned Yfull dates U106 at 5000ybp with a CI of 95% of it being between 4500 and 5500 ybp.
http://www.yfull.com/tree/R-U106/

[Michał]

Michal, who tends to get dates a few centuries older than some, posted the following dates for U106.NOW I know zero about the geography of those clades - please fell free to fill me in on this - but I do notice that a lot of the SNPs seem to date to around 3000BC-2700BC which is close to the origin period of Corded Ware. The fact some are a century or two earlier than Corded Ware may reflect the fact Michal tends to get slightly earlier dates than some

U106 - 5940 ybp
Z381 - 5796 ybp
Z156 - 5628 ybp
DF98 - 4868 ybp
DF96 - 4412 ybp
L1 - 3416 ybp
L48 - 5663 ybp
L47 - 5084 ybp
Z160 - 4652 ybp
Z9 - 5134 ybp
Z30 - 5085 ybp
Z2 - 4943 ybp
Z7 - 4758 ybp
Z334 - 4814 ybp
Z326 - 3442 ybp
CTS2509 - 2887 ybp
Z5054 - 1802 ybp

This is one of my earliest attempts for U106. Since then, I have realized that the mutation rate is almost certainly a bit higher than previously assumed, so the age of R1b-U106 is probably about 5.5 (5.0-6.0) ky, as posted elsewhere:
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?828-STR-Wars-GDs-TMRCA-estimates-Variance-Mutation-Rates-amp-SNP-counting/page16&p=69786#post69786
Thus, the above numbers for major subclades under U106 should be multiplied by 0.93 to get a set of my most recent estimates.


Is there a nice table with dates and geography similar to the ones for P312 and R1a I have seen. I really need more clued in about the geography of U106 clades and a picture is a lot easier than 100 words
Please use the link shown below. This is not exactly what you are asking for, but I have found this map quite useful when trying to predict the most likely origin of particular subclades under U106. Set the "British Isles weight" to less than 20% in order to get a more balanced picture, as the map is basically showing the "center of gravity" for selected subclades.
http://www.paluszewski.dk/U106map/maps.php
(The author is Peter Paluszewski)

[Michał]

"The Y-Chromosome Tree Bursts into Leaf: 13,000 High-Confidence SNPs Covering the Majority of Known Clades" by Hallast.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327154/

Here are their TMRCAs and error ranges in kya

R-M207 19.3 7.7–64.4
R1a-M198 6.2 2.5–20.8
R1b-L278 14.3 5.7–47.7
R1b-M269 4.9 2.0–16.3

4.9 kya for M269 seems too young but notice their very wide error range. This is probably a statistically honest look.
Maybe those wide error ranges make those calculations look "honest", but, at the same time, they also make such estimates not very useful. In fact, we already know (based on the ancient DNA data) that R1b-M269 is much older than 4.9 ky (as correctly predicted by at least some "amateurs" posting their SNP-based estimates on this forum), so although your scepticism is understandable (and partially justified), I wouldn't assume that the YFull estimates are less reliable only because they publish in lower rank journals.

BTW, the most recent (corrected) YFull TMRCA estimate for R1b-M269 is 7.0 (5.9-8.2) ky, which is more or less consistent with my previously posted estimate 7.5 (7.0-8.1).

[TigerMW]

We need a lot more ancient DNA for the lower bound dates. It's coming according to what everybody is saying.
Of course, artifacts will set the lower bounds. I also think STR variance within the boundaries of the SNP defined clades can be useful. We need to apply regression analysis to the problem and take in all potential relevant data points. I'm surprised this hasn't been done except to a limited extent in some scientific studies. More data is now available. Most of us are using only a single dimension of data at a time and then manually "adjusting" for known boundaries and to integrate the puzzle pieces... which is kind of what it was like when leading citizen scientists were associating R1b-L11 with the Neolithic because they felt so strongly about the impact of early agriculture.

As far as error ranges. They are what they are. If some data is not as useful because of the errror ranges, so be it. It's better to know what you are getting than to have innaccurate portrayals of error ranges. Guessing is okay, but we should call a guesstimate a guesstimate.

We need everyone who is playing in the estimate game to publish the full data and methods. They should demonstrate how they are using accepted probability theory to calculate error ranges. Let's put in real science journals up for peer review. This is what science is about, not fudge factors or other adjustments.

...
and we need to keep in mind the TMRCA of a subclade is not the same thing as the age of a specific SNP.

[razyn]

and we need to keep in mind the TMRCA of a subclade is not the same thing as the age of a specific SNP.

It's not the same, but it's a terminus ante quem. The SNP can't be younger than a bearer of it whose descendants are testing nowadays.

[alan]

In case it wasn't previously mentioned Yfull dates U106 at 5000ybp with a CI of 95% of it being between 4500 and 5500 ybp.
http://www.yfull.com/tree/R-U106/ thats a wide range but it seems very plausible and slots it into the pre-beaker period in central European terms.

[alan]

There think we probably can, despite a lot of dispute on dates, say L11 is pre-beaker then. Certainly outside SW Europe beaker only generally commences around 2500BC. SW Europe really doesnt look a plausible origin area for L11 and if that is correct, as it surely is, then L11 is pre-beaker in date by almost any calculation.

[Michał]

As far as error ranges. They are what they are. If some data is not as useful because of the errror ranges, so be it. It's better to know what you are getting than to have innaccurate portrayals of error ranges. Guessing is okay, but we should call a guesstimate a guesstimate.
I have always provided my dates as very "rough estimates" and have never claimed using any sophisticated statistical analysis to calculate the error ranges (while explaining the reason for selecting a given mutation rate), so I will not object to calling my estimates "guesstimates" if this makes you feel better. Maybe you are right and this was indeed a "pure luck" that most of those guesstimates are apparently consistent with the recently published aDNA data.



We need everyone who is playing in the estimate game to publish the full data and methods. They should demonstrate how they are using accepted probability theory to calculate error ranges. Let's put in real science journals up for peer review. This is what science is about, not fudge factors or other adjustments.
Is there anything in the most recent YFull paper (http://rjgg.molgen.org/index.php/RJGGRE/article/view/151/175) that makes you suspect their error ranges have been wrongly calculated?



...
and we need to keep in mind the TMRCA of a subclade is not the same thing as the age of a specific SNP.
Has anyone suggested they are the same? I hope you are not claiming that it is still likely that the TMRCA for clade R1b-M269 is 4.9 ky?

[lgmayka]

I think to the east side of Germany and into Poland, so maybe "into" is not the right word but "out of".
Kit B9847 (a cousin of a cousin of mine) has ordered the Big Y. He is a very close match (distance 3 at 67 markers) to kit N59802 of Ukraine, who has already tested
U106+ Z381- Z18- L217.1- FGC396-

[ArmandoR1b]

and we need to keep in mind the TMRCA of a subclade is not the same thing as the age of a specific SNP.
At least for YFull, the TMRCA of a specific SNP is not the same as the age of the specific SNP is what I have been stating in a different thread. The formed date of a daughter clade is based off the TMRCA of the parent clade. I don't know if that is what you are referring to though.

[MJost]

I am going suggest that the two R1b Kromsdorf guys , based on their grave site calibrated ages, most likely were P312 plus or minus one SNP or so using my MA-1 to Hinxton4 SNP recalibration ages. Kromsdorf grave#5: R1b-M269+ S21/U106- & grave#8: R1b~M343+ M269? S21/U106- [2,600–2,500 cal BC (2 SD)]

See Table 3

https://www.academia.edu/1596369/Emerging_genetic_patterns_of_the_European_Neolithi c_perspectives_from_a_Late_Neolithic_Bell_Beaker_b urial_site_in_Germany

Quedlinburg, Germany had the most recent BB site grave confirmed P312+ but no terminal SNPs testing confirmed. (I0806 P312+ (2296-2206 cal BCE). Just to show the map between the two locations and walking time.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Quedlinburg,+Germany/Kromsdorf,+Germany/@51.3948176,10.6611468,9z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a5a2d4921933 69:0x4236659f8058c70!2m2!1d11.141448!2d51.7920562! 1m5!1m1!1s0x47a41ba0533457fd:0x4208ec174357940!2m2 !1d11.373611!2d50.998889!3e2


If, that is the case, then can we be pretty confident this was a P312 and its sons hotspot area?


MJost




R1b1a2a1a
L11/S127/PF6539
5892
3892 BC



YSC0000191/PF6543/S1159 (Baalberge_MN ~I0559 R* 3645-3537 cal BCE) (Yamna culture start 3600bc)

5739
3739 BC



P310/S129/PF6546
5585
3585 BC



L52/PF6541 (Yamnaya I0439 [and I0443] basal R1b1a* 3305-2925 cal BCE)
5432
3432 BC



P311/S128/PF6545 (Aegean Bronze Age begins around 3200 BCE)
5278
3278 BC



PF5856
5125
3125 BC



L151/PF6542 (Bell Beaker culture start 2900bc)
4971
2971 BC



CTS7650/PF6544/S1164
4818
2818 BC


R1b1a2a1a2

P312/S116/PF6547 (U106 Branched) (Erzgebirge, dated to 2500 BC) Kromsdorf 2 - grave#5: R1b-M269+ S21/U106- & grave#8: R1b~M343+ M269? S21/U106- [2,600–2,500 cal BC (2 SD)]
4664
2664 BC



Z1904/CTS12684/PF65
4511
2511 BC


R1b1a2a1a2c
L21/M529/S145 (Yamna culture end 2300bc) (CWC end 2350 Cal bc) (Unetice culture start 2300bc) (Quedlinburg, Ge~I0806 P312+ (2296-2206 cal BCE)
4357
2357 BC



Z290/S461
4204
2204 BC



L459 (Tin in Brittany, Devon and Cornwall, and in the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 BC)
4050
2050 BC



Y2598/S552 (Bell Beaker culture end 1800bc)
3897
1897 BC



Z260 (Unetice culture end 1600bc)
3743
1743 BC



Z245/S245
3590
1590 BC


R-DF13
DF13/S521/CTS241 (shortage of tin begins in the Med 1300bc)
3436
1436 BC



CTS8221/Z2542 (Iron production taking place in Anatolia around 1200 BC)
3283
1283 BC

[TigerMW]

Thanks, Mark.

Have we found folks that split the L21 phylogenetic equivalent block so we know the aging/descendancy goes L21>Z290>L459>Z260>Z245 ?

[TigerMW]

At least for YFull, the TMRCA of a specific SNP is not the same as the age of the specific SNP is what I have been stating in a different thread. The formed date of a daughter clade is based off the TMRCA of the parent clade. I don't know if that is what you are referring to though.
Part of the point I was trying to make was that a TMRCA is generally for a subclade, not a specific SNP. A subclade is a subclade, regardless of whether one or multiple SNPs mark that the subclade distinctly.
We can choose to label the subclade by one or more of the SNPs that mark it, but the SNPs are just branch markers.

[MJost]

Thanks, Mark.

Have we found folks that split the L21 phylogenetic equivalent block so we know the aging/descendancy goes L21>Z290>L459>Z260>Z245 ?

I haven seen anyone break this block up yet as far as I know AND I assume that this was a bottle neck or most branching sons were wiped out for what ever reason leaving one son's lineage successfully continuing. A one man linage until Big Daddy DF13 exploded after realizing many sons and many their sons were needed to expand. What could the reason be?

MJost

[MJost]

Let look at the map and look at the distance to the most northern point of the Danube river south of the two sites.

Regensburg, Germany (furthest north point on the Danbue river)
to Kromsdorf, Germany to Quedlinburg, Germany route.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Quedlinburg,+Germany/Kromsdorf,+Germany/Regensburg,+Germany/@49.8799268,9.1932942,7z/data=!4m20!4m19!1m5!1m1!1s0x47a5a2d492193369:0x423 6659f8058c70!2m2!1d11.141448!2d51.7920562!1m5!1m1! 1s0x47a41ba0533457fd:0x4208ec174357940!2m2!1d11.37 3611!2d50.998889!1m5!1m1!1s0x479fc121a4676721:0xa1 93050dd13cb73c!2m2!1d12.101631!2d49.0134074!3e2

MJost

[ArmandoR1b]

Part of the point I was trying to make was that a TMRCA is generally for a subclade, not a specific SNP. A subclade is a subclade, regardless of whether one or multiple SNPs mark that the subclade distinctly.
We can choose to label the subclade by one or more of the SNPs that mark it, but the SNPs are just branch markers.

Yes, I understand that. What my point of having more ancient DNA is that some of the phylogenetic equivalent SNPs of a subclade should show to be negative and therefore that newly defined branch will at least be as old as the ancient DNA specimen. So if an ancient DNA specimen older than 7,000 ybp is negative for the L23 and PF7558 subclades and negative for several of the SNPs phylogenetically equivalent to M269 then the TMRCA of M269 will be pushed back as well as divide the negative phylogenetically equivalent SNPs into a new subclade.

The TMRCA of M269 would also be pushed back if L23 or L478 is found in a specimen older than 7000 ybp. That would also push back the formed date of L23 or L478.

Those scenarios could also work for the older SNPs.

Once those lower bound dates are determined by ancient DNA then the authors of those papers would have to redo their calculations and the calculations would likely be more in agreement.

[TigerMW]

Yes, I understand that. What my point of having more ancient DNA is that some of the phylogenetic equivalent SNPs of a subclade should show to be negative and therefore that newly defined branch will at least be as old as the ancient DNA specimen. So if an ancient DNA specimen older than 7,000 ybp is negative for the L23 and PF7558 subclades and negative for several of the SNPs phylogenetically equivalent to M269 then the TMRCA of M269 will be pushed back as well as divide the negative phylogenetically equivalent SNPs into a new subclade.

The TMRCA of M269 would also be pushed back if L23 or L478 is found in a specimen older than 7000 ybp. That would also push back the formed date of L23 or L478.

Those scenarios could also work for the older SNPs.

Once those lower bound dates are determined by ancient DNA then the authors of those papers would have to redo their calculations and the calculations would likely be more in agreement.

Agreed, of course.

[TigerMW]

Razyn has been kind enough to post a new paper about Y DNA G1 and the spread of Iranic languages.
I moved that post over to the new papers thread. Someone might want to open a topic about it in the Y DNA G1 category as well.
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?2573-New-DNA-Papers-General-Discussion-Thread

[R.Rocca]

By the way, I was thinking about this last night...in modern day Bashkirs, there are high frequencies of Z2103 and U152 in some clans, some M73 and based on the latest study on Turkic people, even a DF27+ sample. I remember reading somewhere in Anthony's book about a back-migration from the Balkans into the Steppe. I wonder if the appearance of U152 and trace of DF27 in Bashkirs is a sign of that back migration and also a sign that the other L11 branches had already broken off by then or had not developed. As I mentioned before, these other branches may have expanded ~300 years after the initial Bell Beaker expansion that was still erecting stelae in Italy, France and Iberia.

A new study reveals something similar to the Bashkir/U152 link, but with Tatar/U106:


http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=72f5e563-6ac0-4bd2-bd37-628ba5104183&cKey=48d1c45f-9314-48fd-8e69-f897d44c40e4&mKey={CABDEDDA-497C-457E-8481-34A866AB3681}
The Eastern European influence in the population can be also seen in Tatars from Tuimasinsky district of Bashlortostan in which typical for Central Europe haplogroup R1b-M405 is the predominant line of the haplogroup R1b-M343.

Even though these are Tatars, they are from the core Bashkir region. It will be interesting to see how these two typically Western/Central European subclades became so dominant in those two sub-communities that are also heavy in R-Z2103.

[Piquerobi]

It turns out R1b has been found at Vucedol (http://ubm.opus.hbz-nrw.de/volltexte/2015/4075/pdf/doc.pdf ). On the R1b found out at Vucedol, Gimbutas got it right so much, it is kind of amazing truly.


The Bell Beaker complex, an offshoot of the Vucedol bloc (more precisely of the Zok-Mako group in Hungary) continued Kurgan charateristics. The Bell Beaker of the second half of the 3rd millenium BC were vagabondic horse riders and archers in much the same way as their uncles and cousins, the Corded people of northern Europe and Catacomb-grave people of the North Pontic region. Their spread over central and western Europe to the British Isles and Spain as well as the Mediterranean islands terminates the period of expansion and destruction


In western Hungary and nothwestern Yugoslavia, the Vucedol complex was followed by the Samogyvar-Vinkovci complex, the predecessor of the Bell Beaker people. Furthermore, the exodus of the horse-riding Bell Beaker people in the middle of the 3rd millenium, or soon thereafter, from the territories of the Vucedol complex, may not be unconnected with the constant threat from the east. They carried to the west Kurgan traditions in armament, social structure, and religion. The fact of paramount importance of Bell Beaker mobility is the presence of the horse. Seven Bell Beaker sites at Budapest in Hungary have shown that the horse was the foremost species of the domestic fauna
From her book "The Kurgan culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe"

[rms2]

Right. IMHO, Beaker, at least the fully developed Beaker we think of, did not originate in Iberia but in Eastern or Central Europe.

I was re-reading a little bit of Hubert yesterday, and he mentioned that Maritime beakers were associated with megalithic collective burials. Is that the case? If so, I suspect any remains with them (early Maritime beakers) will not be R1b at all.

That seems to be in line with what Christian Jeunesse wrote in his paper The Dogma of the Iberian Origin of Bell Beaker: Attempting its Deconstruction (http://www.academia.edu/11325848/The_dogma_of_the_Iberian_origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker _attempting_its_deconstruction).

This quote from the new paper you linked above seems to support Jeunesse:



The theory that R1b reached Central Europe (and possibly the Carpathian Basin as well) with the Bell Beaker migration, starting from southwestern Europe (Brandt et al., 2014) seems to be collapsing, as R1b (M269) has recently been found in Yamnaya (3,300-2,700 cal BC) population on the Russian steppe as well (Haak et al., 2015)

[rms2]

The younger of the two R1bs, the tested R1b-M269 one, came from the Gáta-Wieselburg culture. The paper, Anthropological sketch of the prehistoric population of the
Carpathian Basin (http://www2.sci.u-szeged.hu/ABS/Acta%20HP/44-75.pdf), by Zsuzsanna K. Zoffmann, derives that culture from Bell Beaker.




Contrary to the continuity of autochtonous populations in the southern part of the Hungarian Plain, new, alien populational
groups appeared in the central and western parts of the Carpathian Basin. The people of the so-called Bell-beaker
culture occupied a large part of Europe, while in the Carpathian Basin they lived within a limited territory for a short
time and did not mix with the local population, according to archaeology. Although there are very few evaluable
anthropological finds from the biritual cemeteries of the Bell-beakers in the Carpathian Basin, the appearance of the characteristic
planoccipital Taurid type, unknown until then from the Carpathian Basin, in the populations of some later cultures (e.g. Kisapostag and
Gáta-Wieselburg cultures) suggests a mixture with the local population against the archaeological theories. According to archaeology,
the populational groups of the Bell-beakers also took part in the formation of the Gáta-Wieselburg culture on the western fringes of the
Carpathian Basin, which is also attested to by the Penrose identities between the Gáta-Wieselburg and the Bell-beaker
series in Moravia and Germany.

[R.Rocca]

Here is a non-exhaustive list of Bell Beaker (Glockenbecher) radiocarbon dates from the Journal for Neolithic Archaeology. The "calibrate" buttons to the right show the calibrated BC dates and the "show" buttons show the details behind the sample, such as geography and source...

http://tinyurl.com/qyctnzk

A few things stand out:

1. The oldest date from Pavlov, Czech Republic is ~2000 years older than Bell Beaker's accepted start, so likely not valid. Adding to the caution, it is from a collective burial.
2. The two samples from Egersheim, Dolinenfeld are the next oldest, but are still a few hundred years older than the accepted oldest dates. Of note, they are from charcoal. Still, pretty interesting.
3. The oldest dates from bone are from Iberia. Bone is a short-lived material and therefore considered more reliable than charcoal.
4. Next, there is a mix of earlier dates that are from France, Italy, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands, all with varying levels of standard deviation.

Unfortunately, there isn't anything in radiocarbon dating that is as foolproof as ancient DNA. In my opinion, and one I've shared in the past, I think the earlier dates in Iberia will be almost entirely P312+DF27+. This breaking away of DF27 from the core area where other L11+ branches remained, followed by a small re-expansion of DF27 (via the Rhone-Rhine Group?) may be the reason why we see ancient DNA samples that are very "Iberian-like" (e.g. RISE564) and others that are very "Corded Ware-like" (e.g. RISE563), with the latter showing very high levels of Yamnaya ancestry.

[razyn]

Unfortunately, there isn't anything in radiocarbon dating that is as foolproof as ancient DNA.

I wish I could agree, but I think you are comparing their trustworthiness for the purpose of dating. (Does radiocarbon dating really have any other purpose?) And in the lexical sense (of "fool-proof"), I don't think our ancient DNA fan community as a whole has come anywhere near eliminating the possibility of fools. Either source of dating information may be interpreted differently; and that being the case, someone's interpretation has to be wrong, if not precisely foolish.

aDNA that plugs into a well sampled phylogeny is a very good yardstick for calibration of our best current guesses -- whether based on SNP-counting [with unproven assumptions about linear sequence and average rates for mutations], variance, pairwise mismatches or some other model. If (as is the case in the excellent new study from Hungary) the aDNA samples with the most precise dates got them via radiocarbon dating, the argument about reliability gets a bit circular. But it does help to refine both the maps (of locations and migrations) and the calendars, on which we may associate archaeological cultures.

[R.Rocca]

I wish I could agree, but I think you are comparing their trustworthiness for the purpose of dating. (Does radiocarbon dating really have any other purpose?) And in the lexical sense (of "fool-proof"), I don't think our ancient DNA fan community as a whole has come anywhere near eliminating the possibility of fools. Either source of dating information may be interpreted differently; and that being the case, someone's interpretation has to be wrong, if not precisely foolish.

aDNA that plugs into a well sampled phylogeny is a very good yardstick for calibration of our best current guesses -- whether based on SNP-counting [with unproven assumptions about linear sequence and average rates for mutations], variance, pairwise mismatches or some other model. If (as is the case in the excellent new study from Hungary) the aDNA samples with the most precise dates got them via radiocarbon dating, the argument about reliability gets a bit circular. But it does help to refine both the maps (of locations and migrations) and the calendars, on which we may associate archaeological cultures.

I thought based on prior posts on this thread, the context was obvious, but looking back at my post, I guess not. I meant that in regard to the spread of R1b-L51, radiocarbon dating on its own is so close that it is not going to reveal anything significant. This of course is assuming that most, if not all of Bell Beaker is R1b-L51. If not for ancient DNA, the Bell Beaker radiocarbon debate would go on for ever.

[MT1976]

Perhaps the spread of R1b and BBs are two interrelated but separated aspects. genetic and cultural. The archetypal BBs themselves could well have originated from Erebro valley, or what have you, but this doens;t mean that R1b-M269 derived groups did.

[R.Rocca]

Perhaps the spread of R1b and BBs are two interrelated but separated aspects. genetic and cultural. The archetypal BBs themselves could well have originated from Erebro valley, or what have you, but this doens;t mean that R1b-M269 derived groups did.

That has been proposed before, but the Bell Beaker dates from all over Iberia start at about the same time. When the Iberian Bell Beaker palmela points are mapped against assumed DF27, you get a pretty good fit. So, there is really no good argument that I have seen that really explains an early non-R1b Bell Beaker presence in Iberia.

[rms2]

That has been proposed before, but the Bell Beaker dates from all over Iberia start at about the same time. When the Iberian Bell Beaker palmela points are mapped against assumed DF27, you get a pretty good fit. So, there is really no good argument that I have seen that really explains an early non-R1b Bell Beaker presence in Iberia.

I don't know. It appears likely that R1b-L51 in the Carpathian Basin predates Beaker anywhere. I know I'm making the assumption that that recent Vucedol R1b is L51 derived and that even earlier Vucedol R1b remains will eventually surface, but it also is true that early Iberian Beaker is not the fully developed kurgan-looking Beaker that we are all really talking about when we speak of Beaker. From what I have read, Maritime Beaker can appear in megalithic contexts and with people who were physically different from the classic R1b Beaker Folk. So, honestly, I am thinking early Iberian Beaker was not R1b.

This is just my opinion, and I realize I could be wrong. I think R1b got into Beaker somewhere in the Danube Valley via steppe input in Vucedol and its related cultures.

[TigerMW]

I don't know. It appears likely that R1b-L51 in the Carpathian Basin predates Beaker anywhere. I know I'm making the assumption that that recent Vucedol R1b is L51 derived and that even earlier Vucedol R1b remains will eventually surface, but it also is true that early Iberian Beaker is not the fully developed kurgan-looking Beaker that we are all really talking about when we speak of Beaker. From what I have read, Maritime Beaker can appear in megalithic contexts and with people who were physically different from the classic R1b Beaker Folk. So, honestly, I am thinking early Iberian Beaker was not R1b.

This is just my opinion, and I realize I could be wrong. I think R1b got into Beaker somewhere in the Danube Valley via steppe input in Vucedol and its related cultures.
I don't know the answer on this, but this is a key point that RMS2 is making. Was the early Iberian Beaker culture a full predecessor to later and Eastern Beaker Cultures? If mid and late Bronze Age and Eastern Beaker cultures received cultural and physical features from someone else, that someone else could have been the source for a heavy R1b L51 or P311 inflow.

This goes back to my old refrain - Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers. There were regionalized groups of different eras. This was a Pan-European horizon, not a monolithic culture.

I forgot, what is the genesis and timeframe for the spread of palmela points?

[R.Rocca]

I don't know the answer on this, but this is a key point that RMS2 is making. Was the early Iberian Beaker culture a full predecessor to later and Eastern Beaker Cultures? If mid and late Bronze Age and Eastern Beaker cultures received cultural and physical features from someone else, that someone else could have been the source for a heavy R1b L51 or P311 inflow.

The differences in Iberian Bell Beaker, both physical and cultural, can be explained by the picking up of Late Neolithic customs and genes on the way west. There is a reason why Middle Neolithic Iberians lacked steppe ancestry and R1b, and modern ones have both, and there is no data point I've seen that doesn't point to that event being Iberian Bell Beaker driven. If Hungarian Bell Beakers are "roughly" as old as Iberian Bell Beaker (~2850 BC), then there is no reason to think that Iberian Bell Beakers were the predecessor of Eastern Bell Beaker.


This goes back to my old refrain - Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers are not Bell Beakers. There were regionalized groups of different eras. This was a Pan-European horizon, not a monolithic culture.

Some light reading will reveal that the Bell Beaker Culture had regional diversity. However, what has intrigued archaeologists for decades is the uniformity of most of the Bell Beaker package. If 95+% of Bell Beakers turn out to be R1b+, then from a male perspective, then perhaps "Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers". :D

[rms2]

. . . If Hungarian Bell Beakers are "roughly" as old as Iberian Bell Beaker (~2850 BC), then there is no reason to think that Iberian Bell Beakers were the predecessor of Eastern Bell Beaker . . .



That's what I think. The R1b in Beaker is eastern, regardless of the original source of the earliest Beaker pots.

[TigerMW]

... Some light reading will reveal that the Bell Beaker Culture had regional diversity. However, what has intrigued archaeologists for decades is the uniformity of most of the Bell Beaker package. If 95+% of Bell Beakers turn out to be R1b+, then from a male perspective, then perhaps "Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers". :D
Yes, it could be that the glue of consistency in this Pan-European expansion was R1b of some type. If it is accepted that Bell Beaker cultures did not start in Portugal then R1b commonality is easier to accept as well.

I'll have to go back and check Harrison and Heyd, but I am interested in a checklist of Yamnaya derived traits and how those traits line up against the different regional Bell Beaker cultures. The "95%" or some other percentage might change or might be re-prioritized by male oriented traits.

Also, please bear in mind the time/duration aspect of Beakers. Latter day Beaker cultures may have been different than early. It's not just a regional/geographic dimension to consider. The bothersome thing, or red flag for me, is that the metallurgy seems to point to pretty significant changes from early to latter Beaker cultures, even within Iberia. It could have just been the spread of a technology across an existing trade and communications network, or perhaps new people (men) brought it in.

[razyn]

That's what I think. The R1b in Beaker is eastern, regardless of the original source of the earliest Beaker pots.

Is that also regardless of whether Maritime Beaker is actually older than that along the Danube (or other more central/eastern European manifestations of the package)? It was you who introduced Jeunesse* to this discussion; and I think his critique (of the more or less ex cathedra assumption that more simply decorated pottery forms are older than complex ones) is at least worthy of consideration. If the more basal R1b clades and the earliest Beaker pots are eastern, it would spare us a lot of ingenious backwash theories about the migrations necessary to have produced the percentages of YDNA that we may currently observe, here and there.

*http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?4801-The-Dogma-of-the-Iberian-Origin-of-Bell-Beaker-Attempting-its-Deconstruction&highlight=deconstruction

[rms2]

Is that also regardless of whether Maritime Beaker is actually older than that along the Danube (or other more central/eastern European manifestations of the package)? It was you who introduced Jeunesse* to this discussion; and I think his critique (of the more or less ex cathedra assumption that more simply decorated pottery forms are older than complex ones) is at least worthy of consideration. If the more basal R1b clades and the earliest Beaker pots are eastern, it would spare us a lot of ingenious backwash theories about the migrations necessary to have produced the percentages of YDNA that we may currently observe, here and there.

*http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?4801-The-Dogma-of-the-Iberian-Origin-of-Bell-Beaker-Attempting-its-Deconstruction&highlight=deconstruction

I completely agree with you. I think Jeunesse's critique is valid and your point is the central theme of it. I think time and ancient y-dna will prove you both right.

[alan]

Here is a non-exhaustive list of Bell Beaker (Glockenbecher) radiocarbon dates from the Journal for Neolithic Archaeology. The "calibrate" buttons to the right show the calibrated BC dates and the "show" buttons show the details behind the sample, such as geography and source...

http://tinyurl.com/qyctnzk

A few things stand out:

1. The oldest date from Pavlov, Czech Republic is ~2000 years older than Bell Beaker's accepted start, so likely not valid. Adding to the caution, it is from a collective burial.
2. The two samples from Egersheim, Dolinenfeld are the next oldest, but are still a few hundred years older than the accepted oldest dates. Of note, they are from charcoal. Still, pretty interesting.
3. The oldest dates from bone are from Iberia. Bone is a short-lived material and therefore considered more reliable than charcoal.
4. Next, there is a mix of earlier dates that are from France, Italy, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands, all with varying levels of standard deviation.

Unfortunately, there isn't anything in radiocarbon dating that is as foolproof as ancient DNA. In my opinion, and one I've shared in the past, I think the earlier dates in Iberia will be almost entirely P312+DF27+. This breaking away of DF27 from the core area where other L11+ branches remained, followed by a small re-expansion of DF27 (via the Rhone-Rhine Group?) may be the reason why we see ancient DNA samples that are very "Iberian-like" (e.g. RISE564) and others that are very "Corded Ware-like" (e.g. RISE563), with the latter showing very high levels of Yamnaya ancestry.

AFAIK the earliest Csepel dates have been rejected as not safe. Obviously it would be a game changer if reliable pre-2700BC beaker dates had been found in central Europe but at present it seems archaeologists think central European beaker doesnt pre-date 2500BC although I would not Kromsdorf centres of 2550BC.

What interest me more is that a lot of the Iberian dates are from less than ideal contexts like settlement sites where residual material can make its way. That said I am fairly convinced that there are enough early Iberian beaker dates that it seems a real phenomenon.

One issue which does spring to mind for any people near a coast or river is freshwater or marine reservoir effect from fish and shellfish in the diet. I think its absolutely crucial that any unusually early date on human bone is tested for isotopes and factors which can distort age. I do seem to recall some evidence that unlike British beaker people, fish was eaten in copper age settlements in Iberia. Was there not some paper recently on an Iberian copper age settlement site that showed the people in one part of the site ate fish (think maybe the high status areas) but I cannot remember the paper and dont have the energy tonight to dig about for it.

Anyway, if anything could be responsible for a general issue with RC dates on human bone coming our older than expected it would be a fish/shelfish aspect to the diet. It can add quite a few centuries to age as I think was shown at a Polish Corded Ware site recently. So as a final check on these early dates I would like to known if isotopic checks had been made to rule out fresh or marine water effect from diet.

[vettor]

I don't know. It appears likely that R1b-L51 in the Carpathian Basin predates Beaker anywhere. I know I'm making the assumption that that recent Vucedol R1b is L51 derived and that even earlier Vucedol R1b remains will eventually surface, but it also is true that early Iberian Beaker is not the fully developed kurgan-looking Beaker that we are all really talking about when we speak of Beaker. From what I have read, Maritime Beaker can appear in megalithic contexts and with people who were physically different from the classic R1b Beaker Folk. So, honestly, I am thinking early Iberian Beaker was not R1b.

This is just my opinion, and I realize I could be wrong. I think R1b got into Beaker somewhere in the Danube Valley via steppe input in Vucedol and its related cultures.

We have to thank the old writers/historians/archaeologists from 50, 100, 150 years ago, ...................they stated Vucedol was proto-Illyrian ( even wilkes , who I forgot about ).
They relied on common sense and archeology, something modern historians fail to grasp.

These Vudedol R1-L51 "proto-illyrians", went west and south-west from origins in pannonia

These is L51 in the eastern alps and in coast adriatic areas

[R.Rocca]

AFAIK the earliest Csepel dates have been rejected as not safe. Obviously it would be a game changer if reliable pre-2700BC beaker dates had been found in central Europe but at present it seems archaeologists think central European beaker doesnt pre-date 2500BC although I would not Kromsdorf centres of 2550BC. What interest me more is that a lot of the Iberian dates are from less than ideal contexts like settlement sites where residual material can make its way. That said I am fairly convinced that there are enough early Iberian beaker dates that it seems a real phenomenon. One issue which does spring to mind for any people near a coast or river is freshwater or marine reservoir effect from fish and shellfish in the diet. I think its absolutely crucial that any unusually early date on human bone is tested for isotopes and factors which can distort age. I do seem to recall some evidence that unlike British beaker people, fish was eaten in copper age settlements in Iberia. Was there not some paper recently on an Iberian copper age settlement site that showed the people in one part of the site ate fish (think maybe the high status areas) but I cannot remember the paper and dont have the energy tonight to dig about for it. Anyway, if anything could be responsible for a general issue with RC dates on human bone coming our older than expected it would be a fish/shelfish aspect to the diet. It can add quite a few centuries to age as I think was shown at a Polish Corded Ware site recently. So as a final check on these early dates I would like to known if isotopic checks had been made to rule out fresh or marine water effect from diet.

1. Who deemed the Csepel dates as unreliable. Do you have a source?
2. There are now many early Iberian Bell Beaker dates from all corners of Iberia, so like you said, there is no denying them. However, I would think that Bell Beaker being associated with rivers all over continental Europe, we'd see the same issue everywhere.

[alan]

One example of an Iberian copper age settlement with strong evidence of fish and shellfish in the diet is the fortification of Leceia. Even copper fish hooks were found there. Now if the local beaker people partook in the fishy feasting they were different from the British beaker people where a large ancient human bone isotope study indicated they totally shunned fish and shellfish. I would like the possibility that the beaker people is Iberia had a fishy element to their diet which could make RC dates come out older than reality to be looked into so we can feel more safe about these early dates on human bone (or bones of animals that eat fish or shellfish). RC dating really is a very useful tool but there are many many pitfalls in it. Really key very old beaker dates should be subject to the full battery of checks. Once that is done we can have confidence.

[TigerMW]

....
Some light reading will reveal that the Bell Beaker Culture had regional diversity. However, what has intrigued archaeologists for decades is the uniformity of most of the Bell Beaker package. If 95+% of Bell Beakers turn out to be R1b+, then from a male perspective, then perhaps "Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers are Bell Beakers". :D

Ironically, I've just come across a book that is a compilation of other works edited by Janusz Czebreszuk. The title seems to summarize the enigmatic complexity - "Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe".:)

[alan]

1. Who deemed the Csepel dates as unreliable. Do you have a source?
2. There are now many early Iberian Bell Beaker dates from all corners of Iberia, so like you said, there is no denying them. However, I would think that Bell Beaker being associated with rivers all over continental Europe, we'd see the same issue everywhere.

Apparently not. The British beaker isotope studies showed they shunned fishy food while we know for sure in Iberia that there was a tradition of eating fish, shellfish and even making copper fish hooks in copper age Iberia. How much that relates to the pre-beaker copper age people or the beaker people (if indeed they were different elements) isnt entirely clear to me in my brief dig into this subject. However, there clearly was a fish, shellfish and a fishing tradition in Iberia and whatever distaste the Neolithic farmers had initially had for fish and shellfish, this was no longer the case in copper age Iberian settlements like Leceia. I dont have a clue if there is a systematic artificial aging of copper age dates in Iberia due to marine and riverine dietary elements but I sure would like it to be ruled out or in. I would just like to see the human bone with the biggest claims to unusually early beaker dates subject to the checks for these reservoir effects.

[alan]

Ironically, I've just come across a book that is a compilation of other works edited by Janusz Czebreszuk. The title seems to summarize the enigmatic complexity - "Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe".:)

I have that one - good read. There is a new book on beakers that was due to come out a week ago although my Amazon pre-ordered copy has not turned up yet.

[TigerMW]

I have that one - good read. There is a new book on beakers that was due to come out a week ago although my Amazon pre-ordered copy has not turned up yet.

I'm not sure if I'm doing something right or doing something wrong, but it looks like I can read "Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe", here.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qKSVAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Similar+but+different+Bell+Beakers&source=bl&ots=0eRyV7sAlX&sig=PH-Lbjdz67hxoeMPkNyEESZYrJk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBGoVChMI1uOI5-bOxgIVkC2ICh117w9l#v=onepage&q=Similar%20but%20different%20Bell%20Beakers&f=false

It is a good read so far, but I don't want to make of it... for example the thought that Bell Beaker pottery originated in west-central Iberia but was inspired by Corded Ware pottery and has influences from North Africa. That's just one thought. I don't think the author is trying to provide a conclusive all-encompassing hyphothesis.

I hope they spend more time on stuff besides just the pottery.

[alan]

Re the rejected Csepel dates I cant recall where I read it but it never gets quoted nowadays and 2500BC seems now to be the standard quoted earliest date for central European beaker. Jean probably knows the answer. If my memory serves me right it was a case that the context was not sealed and therefore not safe. I also think some of the earliest Italian dates were from unsafe contexts.

My understanding is that outside Iberia southern France has the next oldest safe RC dates but I believe that are only as old as 2600BC. The oldest safe sounding date I have heard of in central Europe is Kromsdorf 2550BC. There seems no doubt as far as I can see that Iberia has reasonably safe context/material dates that even a skeptic would say seems to indicate beaker by 2750BC albeit that some of these come from settlements rather than burials - which is always a little more worrying.

That is why, for me, the reservoir effect by diet with a fishy element is really the last big check I think needs done. When there is a complex situation where the phylogeny has yDNA moving east to west at the same time as RC dating indicates the pot (admittedly usually a female craft) moves from west to east I think it is important to rule this possible problem out.

Certainly until I see the very early dates on human bone subject to the appropriate checks to rule this out then I will retain some doubts which to be honest is only rational. Obviously I wont ever, short of a good ancient DNA trail, be happy with the lack of a clear into-Iberia trail to explain eastern DNA getting there. It is totally possible that some mobile central European element on wheels could have rolled across chasing el dorado and left no trail (Afansievo did a huge leap east after all) but it pretty uncomfortable having to just imagine it LOL

[alan]

I'm not sure if I'm doing something right or doing something wrong, but it looks like I can read "Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe", here.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qKSVAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Similar+but+different+Bell+Beakers&source=bl&ots=0eRyV7sAlX&sig=PH-Lbjdz67hxoeMPkNyEESZYrJk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBGoVChMI1uOI5-bOxgIVkC2ICh117w9l#v=onepage&q=Similar%20but%20different%20Bell%20Beakers&f=false

google books often gives a good chunk of the book to view for free although not the whole book. To be honest I often see enough to avoid buying books. I never bought the Background to Beakers book as I had seen a lot of it for free online.

[Jean M]

I'm not sure if I'm doing something right or doing something wrong, but it looks like I can read "Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe", here.
https://books.google.com/books?id=qKSVAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Similar+but+different+Bell+Beakers&source=bl&ots=0eRyV7sAlX&sig=PH-Lbjdz67hxoeMPkNyEESZYrJk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBGoVChMI1uOI5-bOxgIVkC2ICh117w9l#v=onepage&q=Similar%20but%20different%20Bell%20Beakers&f=false


In the Books folder in the Mini-Library, you will see a folder labelled Bell Beaker. In it are:


Similar but Different - Bell Beakers in Europe (2014), which is a reprint of the first edition of 2004, with short postscripts to the original chapters.
Background to Beakers (2012)
Current Researches on Bell Beakers (2013)


In the last month or two, I have been gradually making headway with uploading papers too. I was so busy last year and early this year that I could not keep the Mini-Library up to date with new material. I am now up to date with all the archaeology sections and most others. (I just need to check over Population Genetics.) So you could find material of interest in the Archaeology > Copper-Bronze Age > Bell Beaker section.

[Jean M]

Re the rejected Csepel dates I cant recall where I read it but it never gets quoted nowadays and 2500BC seems now to be the standard quoted earliest date for central European beaker. Jean probably knows the answer.

My recall is equally bad, I'm afraid. I vaguely remember looking into the Csepel dates at one point and coming up with the date you quote, but giving chapter and verse right now is beyond me. I see that I cite Enrodi and Horvath 2006 for this snippet of Blood of the Celts:


Bell Beaker also arrived at Csepel Island in the Danube around 2500 BC. Among the finds here was a gold disc embellished with concentric circles, similar to the gold discs found on western Bell Beaker sites, and interpreted as solar symbols.

They say (p. 25):


The Bell Beaker group Csepel appeared over a narrow stretch along the Danube in the middle of the 3rd millennium B. C...., simultaneously with other Central European Bell Beaker groups.

Enrodi, Recent Data on the Settlement History and Contact System of the Bell Beaker–Csepel Group (2013) p. 703 says:


The evaluation of the two extensive settlements at Albertfalva and Szigetszentmiklós, and of the recently uncovered Budakalász cemetery containing over a thousand graves will no doubt contribute to the creation of an internal chronology for the Bell Beaker–Csepel group. What can already be established from the settlement finds is that elements of the so-called Beaker package (bell beakers, footed vessels decorated with Beaker motifs, tanged daggers and wrist plates) and the type finds of the so-called accompanying ceramics (jugs with globular belly, bowls with T profiled rims, etc.) both occur on the settlements and in the cemeteries throughout the duration of the Csepel group (Early Bronze Age IIa–b).... From the very moment of its arrival, the Bell Beaker–Csepel group was influenced by the cultures living in the same region (late Makó, Somogy vár–Vinkovci and proto-Nagyrév) .... Wedged in the heartland of the proto-Nagyrév distribution, the Bell Beaker–Csepel group controlled the strategic points of the Danube and thus occupied a key position on the eastern border of the Bell Beaker culture. Owing to its developed economy ..., the Bell Beaker–Csepel group maintained its independence during Phase II of the Early Bronze Age, despite the early southward and south-eastward expansion of the proto-Nagyrév culture of the Danube region

p. 704:


It seems to me that the popular interpretation of the 1970s and 1980s, namely that the distinctive elements of the Beaker package should be interpreted in a social context ... can be rejected in the light of the strontium isotope analyses performed on samples from the Csepel group (Price et al. 1997) which support the migration theory.

[Jean M]

Finally found radiocarbon dates in the other Enrodi 2013! She says (p. 82) that those from Csepel Island itself range between 2820 and 2136 BC, while those from the northern sites (outside Csepel Island) range between 2550 and 1900 BC. For the early dates, she cites Raczky, P., Hertelendy, E., Horváth F. 1992.

Muller and Van Willigen 2001 said:


Beaker dates from Csepel are both of charcoal and of unpublished context.

[R.Rocca]

Finally found radiocarbon dates in the other Enrodi 2013! She says (p. 82) that those from Csepel Island itself range between 2820 and 2136 BC, while those from the northern sites (outside Csepel Island) range between 2550 and 1900 BC. For the early dates, she cites Raczky, P., Hertelendy, E., Horváth F. 1992.

Yes, these dates as also in the site I posted earlier: http://radon.ufg.uni-kiel.de/samples?scope%5Bsites.id%5D=2219

In reference to these dates Kalicz-Schreiber & Kalicz wrote the following...


The samples for radiocarbon investigation from the Bell Beaker-Csepel Group, with exception of two from Szigetcsep, were collected by us on the sites at Csepel-Hollandi street and Csepel-Haros and were mostly examined in Berlin, two at Groningen and one at Cambridge. We obtained the 14C dates Berlin from H. Quitta, the dates Groningen from J.N. Lanting and the Cambridge dates from S. Shennan by personal communication. These results were used in the catalogue of the Bronze Age exhibition (Raczky et alii 1992), when they were calibrated by E. Hertelendi.

[Jean M]

Yes, these dates as also in the site I posted earlier

Sorry Richard. I confess I have not been following the discussion on this thread. I just happened to notice the latest posts yesterday and responded.

Muller and Van Willigen 2001 classed the early dates from Csepel itself as problematic as based on charcoal and of uncertain context, which indeed fits the dates to which you linked, which are on charcoal. These dates are anomalous for the Csepel group. So it makes sense to be wary of dates well outside the rest, but I suspect that there are other reasons now for discarding them, such as dates on horse bone.

David Anthony 2007, p. 204 talks about the horses of the Bell Beaker settlement of Csepel-Haros, which he dates as c. 2500 BC. Then on p. 367 he generalises that sites of the Csepel group are dated c. 2800-2600 BC. So it looks like he actually had a horse bone date for Csepel-Haros, while not realising that this makes nonsense of the early dates for Csepel-Haros. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this.

[alan]

Finally found radiocarbon dates in the other Enrodi 2013! She says (p. 82) that those from Csepel Island itself range between 2820 and 2136 BC, while those from the northern sites (outside Csepel Island) range between 2550 and 1900 BC. For the early dates, she cites Raczky, P., Hertelendy, E., Horváth F. 1992.

Muller and Van Willigen 2001 said:

Charcoal of course as is well known can easily come from wood that is a century or so old and unpublished context ...well I can see why its been rejected. The other thing about charcoal - especially if it is bulk sampled - is it can include a mix of periods. It can easily perculate down layers by animal action etc. So, yep definitely would be loony to rely on those dates.

Short life material in a sealed context is obviously best although with human bone (and fish feeding animals) we have the issues with any fishy elements in the diet potentially artificially aging the dates as has been demonstrated at the Corded Ware site in Poland recently and in eastern European sites generally. Luckily due to a lack of hunter gatherer burials in many areas of Europe the chronology of the Mesolithic is not usually based on the bones of fish munching hunters so it seems safe. In the Neolithic with the cultural avoidance of fishy foods in many areas this shouldnt be a problem with farmers. However there are exceptions where fishing either remained or saw a resurgence after local adaptation. Also seems to me that a lot of the pre-Yamanaya steppe groups ate fish so need to keep a close eye on dates there as it seems the Russians have identified in recent years.

My question about Iberia and fishy diets is there seems to be clearcut evidence that they did eat fish in copper age Iberia - even a class of copper fish hook. I believe from previous reading that this included river and marine fish/shellfish. That is a potential worry in terms of RC dating on human bone if this was a widespread copper age dietary practice in Iberia. It wasnt in Britain as a big isoltope study of beaker remains showed. So, where possible an early human bone date needs backed up by a date from the same archaeological site and layer on another material. Ideally I would like to see the early dated bones checked in terms of reservoir effect from fresh water or marine dietary input. Maybe it has been done already but I tend to give up half way through papers in other languages.

Maybe you can recall something that my memory wont drag out - there was a paper I think about a copper age Iberian fortification with upper and lower areas. I recall something about one group eating fish and the other group not eating fish. Think it was fairly recently I read this but I just cannot place it or find it again online or in your library. Perhaps I saw it in Similar but Different. I must dig it our. However, if you can recall that reference I would appreciate it.

[alan]

Yes, these dates as also in the site I posted earlier: http://radon.ufg.uni-kiel.de/samples?scope%5Bsites.id%5D=2219

In reference to these dates Kalicz-Schreiber & Kalicz wrote the following...

Believe me if there were safe sounding dates for really early beaker in Hungary I would be delighted as it would go some way to square the circle of beaker and R1b. However, the early dates sound utterly unsafe and out of step with all others. So, I really believe we need to look elsewhere and forget Csepel in terms of pre-2550BC beaker. Kromsdorf at 2550BC seems to me to be as old as any safe central European beaker date I have heard of. As I mentioned too, I have read somewhere that the earliest Italian RC dates are often from imperfect contexts. There seem to be fairly early dates c. 2600BC from south-east France so I would expect neighbouring NW Italy was similar. I cant recall what exact dates they got at Aosda but it was very similar to the earlier beaker phase at Sion.Short of a low visibility gallop west and then a reflux back east in beaker form.

It sounds like a cop out but until we get pre-2550BC beaker DNA samples from the west, all we can say is archaeological evidence suggests the beaker network 2750-2550BC built a two way network through which ideas and genes could flow either way. First Iberia and SE France were linked by 2600BC, then through the Alps to central Europe 50-100 years later. How P312 and beaker first came to be joined is still frustratingly unclear although we are edging towards an answer.

[R.Rocca]

Sorry Richard. I confess I have not been following the discussion on this thread. I just happened to notice the latest posts yesterday and responded.

Muller and Van Willigen 2001 classed the early dates from Csepel itself as problematic as based on charcoal and of uncertain context, which indeed fits the dates to which you linked, which are on charcoal. These dates are anomalous for the Csepel group. So it makes sense to be wary of dates well outside the rest, but I suspect that there are other reasons now for discarding them, such as dates on horse bone.

David Anthony 2007, p. 204 talks about the horses of the Bell Beaker settlement of Csepel-Haros, which he dates as c. 2500 BC. Then on p. 367 he generalises that sites of the Csepel group are dated c. 2800-2600 BC. So it looks like he actually had a horse bone date for Csepel-Haros, while not realising that this makes nonsense of the early dates for Csepel-Haros. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this.

Muller and Van Willigen were quick to discard a lot of things, and their paper is one of the sloppiest I've ever seen. In it, they said...


However, the dates from the Netherlands and Hungary present major problems. At the moment we can only guess that the two early dates from the Netherlands are both of charcoal, which may be the reason for their high age, while the Beaker dates from Csepel are both of charcoal and of unpublished context. In this case, we have to await their publication.

They didn't have to wait long, because the very well detailed Csepel data was presented at the very "Bell Beakers Today" conference where Muller and Van Willigen presented. If you'd like I can add it to your library this weekend. As for Anthony, it seems like a pretty good question for a published author to ask (hint, hint) ;) If he only 14C tested from one Csepel horse bone, or if the bone was from the Csepel southern group, then he did well to fall back on the date range that Kalicz-Schreiber & Kalicz's wrote about.

Either way, I think this conversation highlights the very problems with 14C dating we were discussing earlier.

[alan]

Just spotted this from last year about Italian beaker - am about to read it
http://www.archaeopress.com/archaeopressshop/public/download.asp?id=%7B61B609A3-E445-4974-B377-4B49D479DD2D%7D

[alan]

I will try to find out a bit more into the dietary habits of copper age Iberia.

[Jean M]

I suspect that there are other reasons now for discarding them, such as dates on horse bone.

David Anthony 2007, p. 204 talks about the horses of the Bell Beaker settlement of Csepel-Haros, which he dates as c. 2500 BC. Then on p. 367 he generalises that sites of the Csepel group are dated c. 2800-2600 BC. So it looks like he actually had a horse bone date for Csepel-Haros, while not realising that this makes nonsense of the early dates for Csepel-Haros. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of this.

No. Must correct myself. All I'm getting so far is complaints of the lack of radiocarbon dates on horse bone at this crucial site. So I have to conclude that Anthony simply used the now common c. 2500 BC date at one point in his text, and the older dates at another point. I'm glad I'm not the only one who contradicts him/herself. ;)

[Jean M]

Maybe you can recall something that my memory wont drag out - there was a paper I think about a copper age Iberian fortification with upper and lower areas. I recall something about one group eating fish and the other group not eating fish.... However, if you can recall that reference I would appreciate it.

Not sure which you are thinking of (or perhaps a mixture of both?):


Cabezo Juré (pre Bell Beaker) c. 3100 BC. This site was colonised by a community already specialised in copper production. These incomers lived within a fortified centre, dining well and importing luxuries, while in a village outside lived the lower-status workers. The well-protected elite controlled access to horses, used probably in the transport of copper ore. Nocete, F. 2006. The first specialised copper industry in the Iberian peninsula: Cabezo Juré, Antiquity, 80 (309), 646–657.
Leceia. The fort at Leceia was built around 2900-2800 BC. Nestling just outside the fortifications were two huts with radiocarbon dates centring in the 2700s BC in which the pottery was exclusively Bell Beaker, while within the walls earlier local pottery gradually mixed with Maritime Bell Beaker material, after the new styles were introduced. The dates for the huts were on mammal bone, with one human radius, which gave a later date. (Cardoso 2014) Cardoso gives some dates on human bone for other BB sites in the vicinity, which mainly seem to run in the same range as the non-human bone.

[alan]

Re the title of the thread, it just occurred to me I have actually directly read her work for about 27 years as it was kind of eclipsed but quoted a great deal in more up to date books. I cant even remember what the cover looks like LOL. Its probably one of those books that no matter how out of date you probably should have a copy of because it was a landmark - kind of like Gordon Childe's works. With the pattern of the older generations of archaeologists being proved more right than many in the 1960s-90s by ancient DNA it might be amusing to read Childe again and see how right his ideas were. From memory he had the big picture vaguely right if not all the detail.

[Jean M]

Muller and Van Willigen were quick to discard a lot of things, and their paper is one of the sloppiest I've ever seen.

The screaming and raving about this paper seems invariably to come from those who wish it had come to different conclusions. :) It is not the easiest of papers to get a grip on. I never did fathom what their maps were intended to show. But the value of it as a collation of radiocarbon dates remains. The exclusion of dates on charcoal was perfectly reasonable. What we would like, naturally, is a collation of BB dates as they stand in 2015.

[Michał]

Finally found radiocarbon dates in the other Enrodi 2013! She says (p. 82) that those from Csepel Island itself range between 2820 and 2136 BC, while those from the northern sites (outside Csepel Island) range between 2550 and 1900 BC. For the early dates, she cites Raczky, P., Hertelendy, E., Horváth F. 1992.
It seems indeed that the only radiocarbon dates for the Csepel group that are older than 2500 BC (or in the 2820-2136 BC range, as mentioned above) are those from earliest attempts (ie. for the Csepel island itself). They were published in German by Raczky et al. (1992). All subsequent attempts have failed to produce any such early dates, and here are the remaining data mentioned by Enrodi in her 2013 paper:

Budakalász cemetery 2550-1900 BC (Czene 2011)
Albertfalva 2470-2050 BC (Patay 2009)
Szigeszentmiklós-Felso-Ürgehegyi 2500-2200 BC (Patay 2009)

It seem that people have initially interpreted these results as corresponding to different stages of the BB development in Hungary, with the earliest stage starting on the Csepel island, which was then followed by the much later expansion in other directions (mostly northward). However, this would make any significant westward expansion of BB (towards Austria and Moravia) before 2500 BC (or even before 2400 BC) very unlikely.

It seems commonly accepted now that the early BB people arrived to Hungary from the West (ie. from Austria and/or Moravia), as shown on this scheme from Enrodi (2013):
5164

or on this map by Heyd (2007):
5165

When comparing the Iberian, Dutch and Danubian models for the initial expansion of the Bell Beakers, it seems that the Danubian model makes definitely most sense, at least from the purely genetic point of view (of course when taking into account the currently available data). However, placing the BB homeland in Hungary just doesn't seem to work for many different reasons. Instead, it is the Moravian origin of this culture that seems to be the most likely scenario at the moment. This is not only because the Moravian province is by far the largest center of the Bell Beaker settlements and graves, but it also provides an ideal location for receiving intensive influences from both the North (including the very specific Moravian CWC group that shows many surprising similarities to BB ) and from the nearby Carpathian Basin (with all those Maka-Kosihy-Caka, Vucedol and Samogvar-Vinkovici elements contributing to the Begleitkeramik and to the Beaker package itself).

Of course, if all above is true, the most intriguing question is which particular group of people could have brought R1b-L51 (or more specifically R1b-P312) to Moravia about 3000-2800 BC. There are definitely too many possibilities to select just one most likely option, as one can imagine nearly every Late Neolithic culture present in this region (including MKC (<Yamna?), Vucedol, Jevisovice, CWC and GAC) to be responsible for bringing R1b-L51/P312. However, let me cite two fragments from the paper on the Bohemian and Moravian Bell Beakers (Turek, 2002):


Three late Eneolithic settlement areas were recently discovered in the vicinity of Olomouc [in Moravia]. These sites offer an exceptional settlement sequence of the Eneolithic cultures that are usually poor for the settlement evidence (Globular Amphorae, Local Moravian Corded Ware and the Bell Beaker Culture). All we can currently offer is a preliminary report on the archaeological material that is just being processed in the laboratories of the Archaeological Centre in Olomouc. The impact of this new evidence seems to be, however, of a crucial importance for the reconstruction of the late Eneolithic settlement pattern, examination of the cultural continuity and perhaps for creation of new models explaining the origin of Bell Beaker "Begleit" pottery in Moravia.


For the topic o this paper is most important the continuous cultural sequence Globular Amphorae Culture - Moravian Corded Ware - Bell Beaker Culture - Únětice Culture (Fig. 18). Over 100 features were excavated of the three Eneolithic cultures, amongst which 35 features belong to the Globular Amhora Culture (Fig. 19), 25 features and 7 graves of the Moravian Corded Ware (including some fragments of the early "A-horizon" settlement pottery that was intruded into sunken features of other periods, PEŠKA 2000, here see Fig. 19), and perhaps almost 50 features of the Bell Beaker Culture period (Fig. 18). [...] The number of features puts Olomouc-Slavonin amongst the most extensive BB settlements ever excavated in Central Europe.

If I had to suggest just one Central European Eneolithic culture as the most likely source of R1b-L51, I would probably point to the Globular Amphora Culture, but maybe this is because we have not a single aDNA sample that would allow us to verify this theory right now. ;)

[alan]

This paper discusses, among other things, copper age fishing in southern Iberia http://cuevadenerja.es/archivos/publi_158_Antibes%20(fishes%20Nerja%20Cave).pdf

I get the impression if I did about I may find a lot of evidence of a significant fish element in the copper age Iberian diet.

[alan]

At copper age Leceia
The gathering of molluscs and fish, on the neighbouringcoast, at that time more easily accessible owing to the earlierFlandrian transgression and the non-silting of the openings of thewaterways, find similar documentation in the majority of the settle-ments of the region, completing the subsistence base of these popu-lations. The presence of various copper fishhooks (lám. 3), in additionto numerous remains of ciprinids (catfish and snapper) demonstratesthe practice of coastal fishing (Antunes, Cardoso, 1995)

http://www.academia.edu/7363284/The_Chalcolithic_Fortified_Site_of_Leceia_Oeiras_P ortugal_

[R.Rocca]

The screaming and raving about this paper seems invariably to come from those who wish it had come to different conclusions. :) It is not the easiest of papers to get a grip on. I never did fathom what their maps were intended to show. But the value of it as a collation of radiocarbon dates remains. The exclusion of dates on charcoal was perfectly reasonable. What we would like, naturally, is a collation of BB dates as they stand in 2015.

I'm on record as saying that Iberian Bell Beaker seems to be oldest, however, with the M & VW paper, I've found it best to read through where they got the data from and not take their word for it as I have seen inconsistencies in their paper. So, for me, the real value of their paper is from the appendix that lists other papers.

[Jean M]

At copper age Leceia

Thanks. But as I said above, the dating of the Leceia extra-mural BB hut was primarily on cow and other non-human bone. The one human bone date was not earlier than the non-human bone. So it makes absolutely no difference whether they were gobbling fish or not.

As your source says, marine food was close at hand, so we certainly need to be wary of dates on human bone that are distinctly earlier than dates on other materials. But I don't see that pattern in Cardoso 2014, as I said above.

[alan]

This is a quote from the conclusion of a paper that identified ivory objects in copper age Iberia as Sperm Whale ivory

A study on human teeth and bones from Chalcolithic burials in the cave of Lapa da Furada (Sesimbra, Portugal) revealed a high concentration of bromine (Br) and strontium (Sr),what speaks for a diet rich in sea-food (Carvalhoet al. 2000). Cardoso (1995b) identified big globular stones with central groove from Leceia and other Chalcolithic sites in Portugal as net sinkers for fishing. We know that sea bream and gilthead formed part of the sea-food consumed in Leceia and Zambujal (Antunes and Cardoso 1995; Driesch and Boessneck 1976: 111). This confirms the exploitation of the sea shores by Chalcolithic people, although without requiring sophisticated means of fishing.

Am beginning to think that there may be something in my theory that copper age Iberian dates from human bone might be made older by marine of fresh water reservoir effect as Iberia seems to have an unusual amount of evidence for use of marine and riverine foodstuffs in the copper age - in total contract to beaker people in Britain where an isotope studied suggested no fish eating. It seems that the Med/south Atlantic tradition (which survives to this day) of mixed farming and fishing economy goes back to at least the Chalcolithic.

This pretty well confirms my suspicion that Iberian beaker dates on human bone when not backed up by dating on another short life material in a safe sealed context or subject to isotope testing to determine diet need to be looked at with some caution as this kind of diet can push back radiocarbon dates several centuries. I imagine its not an all or nothing and a lot of fish could push dates a lot back and a moderate amount of fish could push a date back moderately.

The only way to rule out this effect on the bones is to test each sample for the reservoir effect through testing isotopes for non-terrestrial diet. However, even without this, it is pretty clear that copper age coastal and riverine Iberia did have a partly marine/riverine diet.

This of course does not take away from the reliability of radiocarbon dates on other short life, contextually clearcut, sealed context materials like animal bone (assuming the animal didnt eat fish, shellfish etc) and hazelnuts. However, when you eliminate human bone as being a safe way of dating beaker in Iberia, you then are relying on stray animal bones or hazelnuts in the graves and hoping they are not residual older deposits the grave disturbed.

Settlements sites in general are harder to trust for dates than burials and especially hard if they are long lived multi-phase sites. However in Iberia the re-use of collective tombs makes associations between burials and objects less certain and if you cannot trust human bone then things get very tricky. There is of course a technique of actually directly dating pottery by extracting carbon from it. It does have issues too.

Certainly this is food for thought about the early Iberian beaker dates on human bone or bones of any animals that may have eaten riverine or marine food. There is no safe correction formula that could recalibrate dates from human bone of people who had eaten a mix of foods including both riverine and marine foods.

Here is a basic guide to Marine Reservoir Effect on radiocarbon and correcting the dates

http://www.radiocarbon.com/marine-reservoir-effect.htm

[Michał]

As for the potential contribution of the Moravian GAC group to the genesis of BB, here are two maps from Szmyt (2003) showing the presence of the GAC people in Moravia:

5166
5167

And here is a map of the Olomouc-Slavonin settlement that illustrates the suggested continuity for GAC, Moravian CWC and BB (Turek, 2002). Please note that the extend of BB fits that of GAC nearly exactly, while the CWC features seem to be found in close vicinity, which may suggest that GAC developed into BB as a consequence of a strong influence from CWC (and from MKC, as suggested by the Begleitkeramik that is shared by CWC and BB in many Moravian sites). It seems, however, that the CWC influence could have been related mostly to the ideological sphere (including the transmission of the very specific burial custom). It is important to note that the Moravian CWC group buried their dead in the N-S orientation (ie. exactly as BB but unlike most remaining CWC groupings).
5168

Also, Turek and Peska (2001) have pointed to some obvious similarities between CWC and BBC in relation to both dwellings constructions and burial customs:

It is assumed that on Corded Ware settlement sites dwellings were constructed above ground (SHENNAN, 1993), without digging below the surface strata. This is probably for symbolic reasons and thus left no archaeological evidence. Reasons for such a system of behaviour were not necessarily practical and an ideological explanation should be considered (TUREK 1995a, p. 99). As E. Neustupný (1995; 1997, p. 322) observed the form of Corded Ware settlement sites was apparently induced by a strict cultural norm which greatly differed from norms common in other Eneolithic fanning groups. Any movement in the vertical dimension was something out of the ordinary and, consequently had a strong symbolic loading in Prehistoric Central Europe. It may well be that digging below the ground, surface for profane reasons was a social taboo and it was exclusively used for the disposal of the dead.


There are certain formal differences in between the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker material culture and burial rites, however these changes occurred within the same symbolic system. It is probable that the origin of the Bell Beaker Culture in Bohemia and Moravia is as a result of internal changes within the same society. It seems that some Corded Ware cultural norms, such as strict burial customs or a taboo of digging underground for other than funerary purposes (TUREK, 1995a; NEUSTUPNY 1997; 1998) were gradually becoming less orthodox during the Bell Beaker period and subsequent Early Bronze Age.

[alan]

Freshwater reservoir effect on radiocarbon

http://www.heritagesciencejournal.com/content/1/1/24

[Jean M]

I'm on record as saying that Iberian Bell Beaker seems to be oldest, however, with the M & VW paper, I've found it best to read through where they got the data from and not take their word for it as I have seen inconsistencies in their paper. So, for me, the real value of their paper is from the appendix that lists other papers.

Certainly is best to check back to primary sources wherever possible.


I think this conversation highlights the very problems with 14C dating we were discussing earlier.

Indeed. Which is why I injected some quotations in posts above that did not directly address the radiocarbon dates, but instead looked at other kinds of evidence. The Csepel group is agreed to be intrusive in Hungary. The evidence for that is the lack of immediate cultural precursors, plus the isotope evidence that they were incomers.

After first reading Anthony 2007, I went through a phase of hoping that the Csepel group was the link from Yamnaya to BB. As Alan said above


Believe me if there were safe sounding dates for really early beaker in Hungary I would be delighted as it would go some way to square the circle of beaker and R1b.

It would be so neat and straightforward. But it didn't come as much of a surprise to find that it wasn't going to be so simple. As I keep on saying, the easy, straightforward stuff has been solved long ago. We are stuck with trickier problems.

[Jean M]

Am beginning to think that there may be something in my theory that copper age Iberian dates from human bone might be made older by marine of fresh water reservoir effect as Iberia seems to have an unusual amount of evidence for use of marine and riverine foodstuffs in the copper age

We have been over this ground before Alan. It is one thing to recognise that a reservoir effect might have produced high end dates. (No-one in their right mind could criticise that.) But it is quite another to show that the reservoir effect actually did distort the radiocarbon record in specific cases. For that you would need to go back to the original sources and find out whether dates were on human bone. Muller and Van Willigen just say bone and don't specify animal or human. The earliest date for Iberia in their list is 4290 ± 120 BP = 2917 ± 194 BC for Cova d'en Pau (northeast Spain) on charred acorn. Heaven knows how reliable that is, given the several layers of occupation/burial at that site: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Cypsela/article/viewFile/119385/236662 , not to mention the calibration curve problem.

This is why I feel safer with the dating from a secure context at Leceia, which is from animal bone.

[R.Rocca]

We have been over this ground before Alan. It is one thing to recognise that a reservoir effect might have produced high end dates. (No-one in their right mind could criticise that.) But it is quite another to show that the reservoir effect actually did distort the radiocarbon record in specific cases. For that you would need to go back to the original sources and find out whether dates were on human bone. Muller and Van Willigen just say bone and don't specify animal or human. The earliest date for Iberia in their list is 4290 ± 120 BP = 2917 ± 194 BC for Cova d'en Pau (northeast Spain) on charred acorn. Heaven knows how reliable that is, given the several layers of occupation/burial at that site: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Cypsela/article/viewFile/119385/236662 , not to mention the calibration curve problem.

This is why I feel safer with the dating from a secure context at Leceia, which is from animal bone.

...just as long as it's not from a 200 year old turtle ;)

[Jean M]

...just as long as it's not from a 200 year old turtle ;)

:biggrin1: Cows and pigs, not noted for a diet of sea-food.

[alan]

Thanks. But as I said above, the dating of the Leceia extra-mural BB hut was primarily on cow and other non-human bone. The one human bone date was not earlier than the non-human bone. So it makes absolutely no difference whether they were gobbling fish or not.

As your source says, marine food was close at hand, so we certainly need to be wary of dates on human bone that are distinctly earlier than dates on other materials. But I don't see that pattern in Cardoso 2014, as I said above.

Certainly I am not rubbishing all the early dates. Some seem reasonably sound. However when the human bone issue is combined with the common reuse of old megalithic graves and disturbance it means that burials become very problematic to find samples that are safe to date. That is a shame because I think burials are far safer than settlements for getting dating samples.

BTW one other beaker group who have been IDed as having a significant imput of freshwater fish in their diet is in Bavaria. It was mentioned in the paper about the Corded Ware freshwater reservoir effect from fish/shellfish in Poland http://www.researchgate.net/publication/268221144_Freshwater_reservoir_effect_and_the_radi ocarbon_chronology_of_the_cemetery_in_Zbie_Poland

However, in the main I think these groups with large marine/freshwater elements to their diets were not typical - there was a big isotope study of British beaker and it found fish was clearly not a significant part of the diet despite Britain having so much coast.

[alan]

:biggrin1: Cows and pigs, not noted for a diet of sea-food.

Seaweed has been traditionally used as fodder for cattle and sheep in some coastal communities. I have no idea if that would effect dates though LOL

[jdean]

However, in the main I think these groups with large marine/freshwater elements to their diets were not typical - there was a big isotope study of British beaker and it found fish was clearly not a significant part of the diet despite Britain having so much coast.

Same applies today, unless it's deep fried battered cod of course. Chippy down the road uses beef tallow, lovely : )

[alan]

We have been over this ground before Alan. It is one thing to recognise that a reservoir effect might have produced high end dates. (No-one in their right mind could criticise that.) But it is quite another to show that the reservoir effect actually did distort the radiocarbon record in specific cases. For that you would need to go back to the original sources and find out whether dates were on human bone. Muller and Van Willigen just say bone and don't specify animal or human. The earliest date for Iberia in their list is 4290 ± 120 BP = 2917 ± 194 BC for Cova d'en Pau (northeast Spain) on charred acorn. Heaven knows how reliable that is, given the several layers of occupation/burial at that site: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/Cypsela/article/viewFile/119385/236662 , not to mention the calibration curve problem.

This is why I feel safer with the dating from a secure context at Leceia, which is from animal bone.

Certainly that was my main issue with their paper. To be confident with RC dates a lot of fussiness is needed about material, context, short/long life, reservoir effects etc and the paper just doesnt give enough info to judge the dates without doing a lot of digging about - and even then the details might nor be available except in summary. I dont think loads of detail was needed for the unremarkable dates but it would have been nice to see details of the modest number of early dates as they were the ones on which the conclusion is based along the lines of the Leceia details.

[alan]

Another interesting paper on fishy goings on in copper age Iberia stated


In short, the fortified Chalcolithic settlement
of Outeiro Redondo –which dates from periods of
notable economic and social change, involving
technological development and the consolidation
of the agro-pastoral model– shows evidence of the
systematic exploitation of marine resources. Shellfish
played an important role in the diet of these
people, characteristic of a large spectrum economy
in which both fish and shellfish could have
been consumed on a daily basis. A similar situation
has been found in other sites more or less
contemporary with Outeiro Redondo, such as
Rotura (Setúbal), Ponta da Passadeira (Barreiro)
and Possanco (Grândola). Indeed, in some cases,
the consumption of shellfish was so significant
that it resulted in the formation of shell levels,
showing that these resources were fundamental
and intensely exploited –sometimes on seasonal
basis, as in Possanco– (Silva et al., 1986).

THE MARINE MALACOLOGICAL REMAINS FROM THE
CHALCOLITHIC FORTIFIED SETTLEMENT AT OUTEIRO
REDONDO (SESIMBRA): COLLECTION STRATEGIES USED BY A
SEDENTARY COMMUNITY FROM THE 3RD MILLENNIUM BC
ON THE PORTUGUESE COAST

João Luís CARDOSO* y Manuela DIAS COELHO*

[alan]

All of this reading about fishing led me to go to a chip shop and get a fish supper (take out battered fish and chips) tonight- I am too suggestible

[TigerMW]

I think I need fish and chips too but I admit I am red-meat person.

I realize we don't have conclusive answers, including the dating.

However, what is our best guess for a genesis of the Bell Beaker cultures from a standpoint of predecessor elements being present in one place. The horses didn't come from nowhere. Neither did the metallurgy nor the burial practices. Is this where we end up with Moravia? Were there any predecessors or building blocks to palmela points?

I know we are into the details of some of these things but is there a location with a more significant confluence of predecessor elements?

[Jean M]

I don't think loads of detail was needed for the unremarkable dates but it would have been nice to see details of the modest number of early dates as they were the ones on which the conclusion is based.

Like this? This is the table of radiocarbon dates from Soriano 2015 for the Verazian and Bell Beaker cultures in north-eastern Iberia:

5173

This paper was drawn to my attention by Richard R. and is in the Mini-Library. The primary purpose of the paper is to discuss the possibility of Bell Beaker warfare. Neither of us knew until we read it that this table came as a bonus. As you will see, it gives sufficient detail of the material to see whether the reservoir effect could be operating. The earliest BB date is on human bone: 2915–2639 BC. The next date is on charcoal: 2911–2491 BC.

[TigerMW]

Like this? This is the table of radiocarbon dates from Soriano 2015 for the Verazian and Bell Beaker cultures in north-eastern Iberia:

5173

This paper was drawn to my attention by Richard R. and is in the Mini-Library. The primary purpose of the paper is to discuss the possibility of Bell Beaker warfare. Neither of us knew until we read it that this table came as a bonus. As you will see, it gives sufficient detail of the material to see whether the reservoir effect could be operating. The earliest BB date is on human bone: 2915–2639 BC. The next date is on charcoal: 2911–2491 BC.
That's at a 68% confidence level, not 95%. Effectively there is a 1 in 3 chance the real date is outside of that range. That leaves us with a pretty broad range to consider yet.:(

If that location is particularly important, I don't know, but it is not deep in the central plain or western Iberia. It's in the Pyrenees.

[alan]

Like this? This is the table of radiocarbon dates from Soriano 2015 for the Verazian and Bell Beaker cultures in north-eastern Iberia:

5173

This paper was drawn to my attention by Richard R. and is in the Mini-Library. The primary purpose of the paper is to discuss the possibility of Bell Beaker warfare. Neither of us knew until we read it that this table came as a bonus. As you will see, it gives sufficient detail of the material to see whether the reservoir effect could be operating. The earliest BB date is on human bone: 2915–2639 BC. The next date is on charcoal: 2911–2491 BC.

Thanks for that link. Yeah with the doubts about human bone I would tend to go with the charcoal date centred on 2700BC which is somewhat younger and then there is the possibility of old wood effect. I think sometimes the danger of this is a little exaggerated though. I dont think people used 200 year old heartwood that often in their fires. Its a lot easier to use younger branches on large trees or smaller younger trees. I tend to think too that burning the finest large old trees in a fire would be seen as waste of an asset and needless use of energy - as it was in the early Irish laws. I would tend to think that usually/on average the old wood effect was relatively modest - a number of decades rather than centuries. If I had to bet on the real age of the on the two materials I would say a date around 2600-2700BC would be the safe range with perhaps a date within two decades of 2650 being most likely although that is guessology.

It is interesting that the human bone from the same layer date is centred significantly earlier than that- perhaps evidence of some sort of reservoir effect and its not the only time that there has been an apparent reduction in age of some decades between human bone and other materials from the same feature. So, I think there is a hint that there was reservoir effect going on in the Iberian beaker human bones albeit modest compared to the drastic effect seen in that Corded Ware site in Poland. From what I have read, copper age Iberian diet including fish/shellfish but not in a dominant way so a modest effect on dates of decades rather than a centuries seems most likely.

Basically individual RC dates are a hard tool to make conclusions on age within less than a century when all the ifs and buts are taken into account. Nevertheless even allowing for that it still appears to me that Iberia has the earliest dates.

[alan]

One tangential thing that the presence of fish, fishing etc in copper age Iberia raises is at what point did this come about and why? Certainly in parts of Europe fish seems to have been culturally rejected by early farmers. I am not sure if this was also the case in early Neolithic Iberia. If copper age fish munching was a copper age resurrection of a rejected type of food then why did this happen. Is it indirect evidence of pre-beaker early copper age maritime immigrants? Could they be the same links that brought copper working, mining etc to Iberia c. 3100BC? Certainly the nearest earlier copper using areas were close to the Med.

[alan]

That's at a 68% confidence level, not 95%. Effectively there is a 1 in 3 chance the real date is outside of that range. That leaves us with a pretty broad range to consider yet.:(

If that location is particularly important, I don't know, but it is not deep in the central plain or western Iberia. It's in the Pyrenees.

Yes it seems to be emerging that early dates in Iberia are not Portugal specific. Regarding that date, when you take into account old wood effect and issues with human bone I would still say that site could in reality be anywhere between 2600 and 2700BC in date although most probably closer to half way between IMO. I also have seen early dates in that range for AOC beaker in Iberia - a type which is more eastern distributed. I personally think the Iberian beaker phenomenon is still in some degree of flux in understanding and we dont have the full picture. I so notice that quite a lot of Iberian archaeologists feel the beaker population was a distinct and intrusive population. However, that doesnt necessarily mean that beaker culture originated somewhere else other than Iberia. It could just means that the population that formed the beaker culture in Iberia (creating an Iberian expression of some other culture in the form of beaker culture) was an intrusive group who entered just before the beaker culture was created and contributed some of the traits that went into forming the beaker culture. I still feel the most important change is not the pots (although I think they are an intrusive idea too) but the sudden and unexpected appearance of individual burials inserted into old collective tombs. It would be interesting if it was possible to establish a chronology solely based on the individual burial phenomenon rather than beaker pot. The chronologies might not be identical However, I am not clear on the chronology of the earliest dates for individual burials and of course the various issues with dating human bone will continue to make establishing such a chronology very tricky.

[Jean M]

There is a new book on beakers that was due to come out a week ago although my Amazon pre-ordered copy has not turned up yet.

I have just had a delivery date from Amazon of 18 August for The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC . http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-bell-beaker-transition-in-europe.html


Could the circulation of objects or ideas and the mobility of artisans explain the unprecedented uniformity of the material culture observed throughout the whole of Europe? The 17 papers presented here offer a range of new and different perspectives on the Beaker phenomenon across Europe. The focus is not on Bell Beaker pottery but on social groups (craft specialists, warriors, chiefs, extended or nuclear families), using technological studies and physical anthropology to understand mobility patterns during the 3rd millennium BC. Chronological evolution is used to reconstruct the rhythm of Bell Beaker diffusion and the environmental background that could explain this mobility and the socio-economic changes observed during this period of transition toward Bronze Age societies.

The chapters are mainly organised geographically, covering Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean shores and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, includes some areas that are traditionally studied and well known, such as France, the British Isles or Central Europe, but also others that have so far been considered peripheral, such as Norway, Denmark or Galicia. This journey not only offers a complex and diverse image of Bell Beaker societies but also of a supra-regional structure that articulated a new type of society on an unprecedented scale.

Table of Contents
1. Preface
Maria Pilar Prieto Martinez and Laure Salanova

2. Introduction. A Folk who will never speak: Bell Beakers and linguistics
Alexander Falileyev

3. Bell Beakers and Corded Ware People. Anthropological point of view in the Little Poland Upland
Elżbieta Haduch

4. Personal identity and social structure of Bell Beakers: the Upper Basins of the Oder and Vistula rivers
Przemysław Makarowicz

5. Bell Beaker stone wristguards as symbolic male ornament. The significance of ceremonial warfare in the 3rd millennium BC Central Europe
Jan Turek

6. The Emergence of the Bell Beaker set: migrations to Britain and Ireland
Andrew P. Fitzpatrick

7. Bell Beakers – chronology, innovation and memory: a multivariate approach
Johannes Müller, Martin Hinz and Markus Ullrich

8. The long-house as a transforming agent. Emergent complexity in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age southern Scandinavia 2300–1300 BC
Magnus Artursson

9. Expanding 3rd millennium transformations: Norway
Christopher Prescott and Håkon Glørstad

10. The Bell Beaker Complex: a vector of transformations? Stabilities and changes of the indigenous cultures in south-east France at the end of the Neolithic period
Jessie Cauliez

11. The dagger phenomenon: circulation from the Grand-Pressigny Region (France, Indre-Et-Loire) in Western Europe
Ewen Ihuel, Nicole Mallet, Jacques Pelegrin, and Christian Verjux

12. Long-distance contacts: the north-west Iberia during the 3rd millennium BC
Carlos Rodríguez-Rellán, Antonio Morgado Rodríguez, José Antonio Lozano and Francisco Rodríguez-Tovar

13. Early gold technology as an indicator of circulation processes in Atlantic Europe
Barbara Armbruster and Beatriz Comendador Rey

14. Environmental changes in north-western Iberia around the Bell Beaker period (2800–1400 cal BC)
Manuela Costa-Casais, Lourdes López-Merino, Joeri Kaal, and Antonio Martínez Cortizas

15. Evidence of agriculture and livestock. The palynological record from the Middle Ebro Valley (Iberian Peninsula) during the 3rd and 2nd millennia cal BC
Sebastián Pérez Díaz and José Antonio López Sáez

16. Bell Beaker pottery as a symbolic marker of property rights: the case of the salt production centre of Molino Sanchón II, Zamora, Spain
Elisa Guerra Doce, Francisco Javier Abarquero Moras, Germán Delibes De Castro, Ángel Luis Palomino Lázaro and Jesús Del Val Recio

17. Exploring social networks through Bell Beaker contexts in the central Valencia region from recent discoveries at La Vital (Gandía, Valencia, Spain)
Oreto García Puchol, Joan Bernabeu Aubán, Lluís Molina Balaguer,Yolanda Carrión Marco, and Guillem Pérez Jordà

18. Dynamism and complexity of the funerary models: the north-west Iberian peninsula during the 3rd–2nd millennia BC
Pablo Vázquez Liz, Laure Nonat and Maria Pilar Prieto Martínez

19. Concluding remarks
Maria Pilar Prieto Martinez and Laure Salanova

[R.Rocca]

I have just had a delivery date from Amazon of 18 August for The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC . http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-bell-beaker-transition-in-europe.html

It'll be interesting to see if Müller has collected any more data and, if so, will presented in a better manner than his prior work.

[Heber]

I have just had a delivery date from Amazon of 18 August for The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC . http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-bell-beaker-transition-in-europe.html

I saw a price of $79 on Amazon and 29 sterling ($45) on Oxbow so I ordered the latter. However Amazon are more dependable for delivery. Looking forward to clarification of the Eastern and Wesern Bell Beaker migrations and specifically The Emergence of the Bell Beaker set: migrations to Britain and Ireland
Andrew P. Fitzpatrick.

https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/

[rms2]

Should be an interesting book, but in my opinion Bell Beaker will remain a mystery until we get a real thorough-going survey of BB dna, especially y-dna. Without it, studying the Beaker people is a lot like a one-legged man competing in a butt-kicking contest.

[GoldenHind]

I have just had a delivery date from Amazon of 18 August for The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC . http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-bell-beaker-transition-in-europe.html

Chapter 4 on Beakers in the upper basins of the Oder and Vistula/(Weichsel) rivers looks particularly intriguing to me. The eastern group of Beakers doesn't seem to get much attention, at least not on this forum, where they are almost completely ignored. A line in the Wiki article on the Beakers seems to suggest that recent research has shifted the north eastern frontier of the central European Beakers to the Baltic and adjacent northern European plain. If there were Beakers in both the Oder and Vistula river basins, it seems entirely reasonable that at least some of them might have continued north to the Baltic coast. Wiki also says Beaker related material has been found a line from the Baltic Sea down to the Adriatic and the Ionian Sea. Whatever became of them?

[Jean M]

Chapter 4 on Beakers in the upper basins of the Oder and Vistula/(Weichsel) rivers looks particularly intriguing to me. The eastern group of Beakers doesn't seem to get much attention
http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/beaker-burials-from-greater-poland.html
Beaker Media Day in Northeast Poland
The Suprasl site in Northeastern Poland continues to yield artifacts and now possibly burnt human remains. So far, several fine vessels, ornaments, flints and a dagger have been found. The photos are from the media day, August 12. The Suprasl site dates from the second half of the third millennium (2500-2000). The Beakers of Poland are an interesting frontier group being, at least in the Southeast, a physically differentiated group. (Budziszewski, Haduch, Wlodarczak, 2003) Their heads have flattened occipitals, their faces are squat and their bodies are large.According to Adam Wawrusiewicz from the Museum of Podlasie in Bialystok, it would appear that the Beakers were being buried on a holy mountain and that their involvement in the Suprasl valley was a sort of access corridor to the river Ros, where important prehistoric flint mines were located.

[GoldenHind]

Thanks. I am curious about the likely genetics of these northeastern Beakers. A connection between the Beakers and R1b-P312 seems to be generally accepted. I don't think there is much R1b in Poland and the Carpathian area today. Perhaps they were later pushed to the west with the arrival of the Slavic tribes. There is one somewhat mysterious P312** individual from Poland. So what variety of R1b were these Beakers likely to have been? A combination of various P312 subclades? A subclade which remains undiscovered, or one which has gone extinct or very nearly so? Or would one or more of the three less numerous P312 subclades, which appear to have little or no presence along the Atlantic, be a good candidate?

[Generalissimo]

Thanks. I am curious about the likely genetics of these northeastern Beakers. A connection between the Beakers and R1b-P312 seems to be generally accepted. I don't think there is much R1b in Poland and the Carpathian area today. Perhaps they were later pushed to the west with the arrival of the Slavic tribes. There is one somewhat mysterious P312** individual from Poland. So what variety of R1b were these Beakers likely to have been? A combination of various P312 subclades? A subclade which remains undiscovered, or one which has gone extinct or very nearly so? Or would one or more of the three less numerous P312 subclades, which appear to have little or no presence along the Atlantic, be a good candidate?

Corded Ware (R1a) was in Poland before Bell Beakers and had a bigger impact on modern Polish genetic structure. You can see this by plotting the D-stats of German Corded Ware against those of German Bell Beakers, even though they're obviously not perfect references for Poles.

Interestingly, Basques are the only people who show relatively high affinity to Bell Beaker without showing high affinity to Corded Ware.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3twdwRYNmaCk5hXVRjcUjTYg0niw7ekbEzHWU0utNjU=w1182-h631-no

[Jean M]

...these northeastern Beakers. ... Perhaps they were later pushed to the west with the arrival of the Slavic tribes.

A lot went on in what is now Poland in between the end of Bell Beaker (c. 2000 BC) and the Slavs arriving in the early Middle Ages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland#Prehistory_and_protohistory
Given all the coming and going, I wouldn't bet on any BB descendants clinging on in the region.

[rms2]

Corded Ware (R1a) was in Poland before Bell Beakers and had a bigger impact on modern Polish genetic structure. You can see this by plotting the D-stats of German Corded Ware against those of German Bell Beakers, even though they're obviously not perfect references for Poles.

Interestingly, Basques are the only people who show relatively high affinity to Bell Beaker without showing high affinity to Corded Ware.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/3twdwRYNmaCk5hXVRjcUjTYg0niw7ekbEzHWU0utNjU=w1182-h631-no

Unless I misunderstand that chart, the Basques don't show much more affinity for Bell Beaker than they do for Corded Ware. They are a little higher than midway up the chart for Corded Ware, between 0.053 and 0.056 or thereabouts, and between 0.054 and 0.056 or thereabouts for Bell Beaker.

[Generalissimo]

Unless I misunderstand that chart, the Basques don't show much more affinity for Bell Beaker than they do for Corded Ware. They are a little higher than midway up the chart for Corded Ware, between 0.053 and 0.056 or thereabouts, and between 0.054 and 0.056 or thereabouts for Bell Beaker.

Yes, Basques show high affinity to Bell Beakers even relative to Northern Europeans, and about the same amount to Corded Ware, but this, on the other hand, is relatively much lower compared with Northern Europeans. Hence their position as outliers in the graph.

So what this suggests is that their affinity to both Bell Beakers and Corded Ware is not arrived at in the same way as for Northern Europeans. Looking at the other graphs they show lower affinities to Yamnaya but higher to Loschbour and Stuttgart, and also to Bronze Age Hungarians.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/kP1oLltAaW_kGwk1-JvX3Ex_8-rYzkP8ElGRx_YmLm4=w1182-h631-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/h0VvpFHEIXtw_7Pu5muomdvBy4cpkuVD1C8BkSDxVuI=w1182-h631-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Y9LFOHZHos-6N32gRcBYUTmKu95gqUBZ0Y2xrvgQd-g=w1182-h631-no

This could mean a lot of things, including a migration of a group with R1b from the Hungarian Plain to the Pyrenees, which then mixed with Middle Neolithic locals high in WHG and EEF to form Basques.

[alan]

I have just had a delivery date from Amazon of 18 August for The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC . http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-bell-beaker-transition-in-europe.html

Yeah my sister pre-ordered me one a coupe of months back but no sign of it.

[R.Rocca]

Corded Ware (R1a) was in Poland before Bell Beakers and had a bigger impact on modern Polish genetic structure. You can see this by plotting the D-stats of German Corded Ware against those of German Bell Beakers, even though they're obviously not perfect references for Poles.

Interestingly, Basques are the only people who show relatively high affinity to Bell Beaker without showing high affinity to Corded Ware.



That is likely because Iberia, saw very little of the "Rukstrom" wave of Bell Beaker from Central Europe. This latter Bell Beaker wave was much more Corded Ware influenced, and likely represents the more automsomally eastern looking Bell Beaker samples from the Haak and Allentoft datasets. I doubt we will find those Bell Beaker autosomal types in Iberia.

[George]

A lot went on in what is now Poland in between the end of Bell Beaker (c. 2000 BC) and the Slavs arriving in the early Middle Ages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland#Prehistory_and_protohistory
Given all the coming and going, I wouldn't bet on any BB descendants clinging on in the region.

Hope waxes eternal in some important quarters http://polishgenes.blogspot.ca/2015/08/testing-genetic-continuity-in-poland.html (:=))

[rms2]

That is likely because Iberia, saw very little of the "Rukstrom" wave of Bell Beaker from Central Europe. This latter Bell Beaker wave was much more Corded Ware influenced, and likely represents the more automsomally eastern looking Bell Beaker samples from the Haak and Allentoft datasets. I doubt we will find those Bell Beaker autosomal types in Iberia.

But as I pointed out in post #447 above, the Basques on that chart don't show much more affinity, if any, for Bell Beaker than they do for Corded Ware. Their affinity for both is about the same.

[R.Rocca]

But as I pointed out in post #447 above, the Basques on that chart don't show much more affinity, if any, for Bell Beaker than they do for Corded Ware. Their affinity for both is about the same.

The issue is that some Bell Beaker samples are very "Atlantic" and some others are very "Eastern". I'm sure if we had purely Iberian Bell Beaker samples, the Basques would group much much closer to them.

[rms2]

The issue is that some Bell Beaker samples are very "Atlantic" and some others are very "Eastern". I'm sure if we had purely Iberian Bell Beaker samples, the Basques would group much much closer to them.

I think very early Beaker remains, the ones lacking the full "kurgan-looking" package, will also lack any R1b. Just my opinion. Time will tell.

[Jean M]

Yeah my sister pre-ordered me one a coupe of months back but no sign of it.

I have it right here. Snippets:

Chapter 1:


the famous question "Pre-historical Archaeologists and Linguists - Can They Mate?" should be answered in the negative.

Chapter 2: BB in Little Poland. BB people physically different from CW people.

Chapter 3: BB Upper Vistula and Oder basins: Evidence of social stratification and gender distinctions.

Chapter 5: In Britain & Ireland earliest BB burials are in Wessex c. 2375 BC. Boscombe Bowmen and Amesbury Archer were immigrants on isotope evidence. Earliest BB burials in Scotland c. 2350 BC seem also to be immigrants. Mining at Ross Island in Ireland appears introduced direct from continent.

Chapter 6: Covers the BB in Southern Germany.

[Heber]

The issue is that some Bell Beaker samples are very "Atlantic" and some others are very "Eastern". I'm sure if we had purely Iberian Bell Beaker samples, the Basques would group much much closer to them.

If we assume that the Anatolian Neolithic expanded as follows:
Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers
this would explain the affinity with Basque.
The question is then to complete the link with Eastern Bell Beaker and Yamna
In any event there is a clear West / East Cline.
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/anatolian-neolithic/

[rms2]

If we assume that the Anatolian Neolithic expanded as follows:
Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers
this would explain the affinity with Basque.
The question is then to complete the link with Eastern Bell Beaker and Yamna
In any event there is a clear West / East Cline.
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/

But you're missing something. Look at Generalissimo's chart again. The Basques on it have as much of an affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker. Both are in about the same range (0.053-0.056).

You're making it sound as if that chart reveals some kind of special relationship between Basques and Beaker that does not exist between Basques and Corded Ware. That's not the case, at least not based on that chart.

[rms2]

The issue is that some Bell Beaker samples are very "Atlantic" and some others are very "Eastern". I'm sure if we had purely Iberian Bell Beaker samples, the Basques would group much much closer to them.

Sorry to quote you twice, Rich, but your post made me wonder.

If modern Basques have as much of an affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker, apparently indicating there's an eastern element (R1b?) in modern Basques, should we actually expect them to group closer to a group (Iberian Beaker) lacking that eastern element?

[lgmayka]

A subclade which remains undiscovered, or one which has gone extinct or very nearly so?
One thing we have definitely learned from consumer Y-DNA testing is the importance of remnants. The majority of a modern population may reflect the most recent expansion, but remnants of previous expansions survive as tiny ancient subclades or singletons. We have been seeing this for many years in the most intensively tested populations (British Isles, Ashkenazi Jews, Sardinians, etc.), but more recently, remnants have been found almost everywhere we spend the money to look.

[Heber]

But you're missing something. Look at Generalissimo's chart again. The Basques on it have as much of an affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker. Both are in about the same range (0.053-0.056).

You're making it sound as if that chart reveals some kind of special relationship between Basques and Beaker that does not exist between Basques and Corded Ware. That's not the case, at least not based on that chart.

All of Generalissimo's charts show a clear west / east cline.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770249960/
If you look at most of the countries on the Bell Beaker side they correspond to the main extent of the Bell Beaker complex 2800 - 2200 BC.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770250210/
They also correspond to maximum geographical extent of celtic linguistic evidence
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770250212/
The excellent chart on on anatolian neolitic expansion shows how this could have happened:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770249965/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/anatolian-neolithic/

[rms2]

All of Generalissimo's charts show a clear west / east cline.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770249960/
If you look at most of the countries on the Bell Beaker side they correspond to the main extent of the Bell Beaker complex 2800 - 2200 BC.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770250210/
They also correspond to maximum geographical extent of celtic linguistic evidence
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770250212/
The excellent chart on on anatolian neolitic expansion shows how this could have happened:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/32721534770249965/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/anatolian-neolithic/

You're generalizing and posting links to your own pinterest site, which asks everyone to sign up for pinterest before it allows much of a look. You haven't dealt with the fact that the Basques on that chart show as much of an affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker. That might not comport very well with Cunliffe's and Koch's emphasis on the Atlantic facade, but there it is.

[R.Rocca]

I think very early Beaker remains, the ones lacking the full "kurgan-looking" package, will also lack any R1b. Just my opinion. Time will tell.

The rise of archery equipment, the pots, the increase in height, horse riding etc. are all there in the Iberian Bell Beakers. There is no doubt in my mind that they will be as much P312+ as anywhere else on the continent, but of course of the DF27 variety.

[Heber]

You're generalizing and posting links to your own pinterest site, which asks everyone to sign up for pinterest before it allows much of a look..

I dont ask anyone to sign up to Pinterest. It is a simple process.
Bell Beaker v Corded Ware
5593
Bell Beaker Complex
5591
Celtic Language Extent
5592
Anatolian Expansion
5594

[R.Rocca]

Sorry to quote you twice, Rich, but your post made me wonder.

If modern Basques have as much of an affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker, apparently indicating there's an eastern element (R1b?) in modern Basques, should we actually expect them to group closer to a group (Iberian Beaker) lacking that eastern element?

The Bell Beaker samples we have are all from Germany. In the same way that German Bell Beakers are closer to Yamnaya+MN Germany, I would expect that if we did have Iberian Bell Beaker samples, they would best fit Yamnaya+MN Iberia. So, regardless of their Corded Ware affinities, I think Basques will plot much closer to Iberian Bell Beakers. Remember that even one of the German Bell Beaker samples plots with modern day Iberians.

[alan]

I dont ask anyone to sign up to Pinterest. It is a simple process.
Bell Beaker v Corded Ware
5593
Bell Beaker Complex
5591
Celtic Language Extent
5592
Anatolian Expansion
5594

You have completely lost me there - what is Anatolian expansion? You dont mean you believe in the Anatolian IE origin theory despite the DNA evidence for a copper age expansion from the steppe?

[Heber]

You have completely lost me there - what is Anatolian expansion? You dont mean you believe in the Anatolian IE origin theory despite the DNA evidence for a copper age expansion from the steppe?

Alan,
I totally buy into into the copper expansion from the steppes as revealed by Haak et al. However there was also a neolithic expansion and it appears to be from Anatolia.
5595
Expansion of Anatolian Neolithic Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers.
By the time it reached Iberia it was meeting up with the Western Bell Beaker. Now my question is how did Western Bell Beaker and Eastern Bell Beaker interact.

[Jean M]

Expansion of Anatolian Neolithic Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers.


As Alan keeps saying, there is no Megalith Culture per se. Lots of peoples across the world built structures out of big stones (megaliths). This habit began in the Neolithic (mainly). In the Near Eastern cradle of the Neolithic it began at the beginning of farming, not the end. It did not lead to the Bell Beaker Culture.
Western Bell Beaker sprang from Yamnaya, just as much as Eastern Bell Beaker did. They are a Copper Age people.
The BB folk surely mixed with the earlier peoples who descended from the early European farmers and so were of Near Eastern stock. That mixing started with Yamnaya and maybe earlier cultures of the steppe and would have carried on as people spread from the steppe into areas with farming cultures in place. The degree of mixing would depend partly on how well farmers had succeeded in various regions - probably better in southern Europe than Northern.

[GoldenHind]

I dont ask anyone to sign up to Pinterest. It is a simple process.
Bell Beaker v Corded Ware
5593
Bell Beaker Complex
5591
Celtic Language Extent
5592
Anatolian Expansion
5594

Your Bell Beaker map does not show the Beaker settlement in the Oder and Vistula basins discussed above, or anything near the Baltic.

[alan]

If we assume that the Anatolian Neolithic expanded as follows:
Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers
this would explain the affinity with Basque.
The question is then to complete the link with Eastern Bell Beaker and Yamna
In any event there is a clear West / East Cline.
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/bell-beaker-migrations/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/anatolian-neolithic/

You are ignoring the fact that even in Portugal and other parts of Iberia, beaker represents a radical change in burial tradition from collective to single burial. Even when inserted into old megalithic graves they are clearly individual type burials. That is a sudden total change from what went on during the prevous 2-3000 years. Several Iberian archaeologists have recently indicated they believe this new beaker tradition is a close cousin to that seen in Central Europe in Corded Ware and related cultures. It doesnt relate to copper because copper is 3-400 years older than beaker in Iberia and those pre-beaker copper people buried collectively.

We also now know L23 was a steppe lineage previously unknown in any European samples before 3300BC. Z2103 and P312/L11/L51 share an ancestor too recently to have been involved in the farmer waves and ancient DNA is very much in line with this.

The whole concept of IE or the main European R1b being spread by farmers is dead. The idea that Celtic arose in the south-west also makes no sense as Celtic and Germanic share a large amount of vocab with each other and no other branches and that this was not borrowed from one to the other but was shared by both peoples long before the proto forms of the languages arose. It seems pretty clear that the Celtic branch or its pre-proto ancestor and P312 came from the east in the copper age. It is possible that the first beaker pot was made in Iberia although IMO its clearly based on central European prototypes and techniques and has no credible local origin despite some desperate attempts to link it was the cylinder shaped cups of the pre-beaker Iberian copper age.

The simplest way to look at the sudden break in burial traditions in Iberia is to see an outside intrusion from central Europe in the 2800-2600BC period.

I wont be more specific on dates because I have massive concerns about the very small quantity of really early beaker dates in Iberia which are from ideal (sealed, non-settlement, no danger of residual bones or charcoal kicking about) contexts and materials - and I am very concerned that the significant fish element in the Iberian pre-beaker and beaker copper ages could (and probably would) lead to marine or freshwater reservoir effect which would have the effect of making some of the dates on human bone older than they really are. My hunch - I wont go into detail - is that the Iberian beakers are old but not as old as some suggest. So, I will just say that the single burial tradition looks like it came into Iberia c. 2800-2600BC from central Europe and was an intrusive group.

Without an intrusive group from central Europe then not much makes sense. One cannot explain P312 being linked to beaker or any IE link or the sudden arrival of individual burials or IMO the prototype that beaker pots were based on. What I do not believe however is that there is any link between any of the above and the pre-beaker copper age cultures of Iberia c. 3100BC-2750BC or so. None of the above elements is present. So, it seems to me that, rather like CW, groups of steppe or near-steppe derived people arrived from central Europe and created a new hybrid culture that we call the early beaker culture.

For what its worth I think the central European elements passed down the Rhone from the west Alpine area and along the south coast of France and into Iberia, with one group using the Tagus as a quick way to get to the Atlantic. I think that probably happened around 2750BC.

The pre-beaker Iberian copper age seems to me to be a non-IE, non-R1b (certainly non-Euro R1b) group who probably are the westernmost extent of the earliest spread of copper through the Med. that we see chronologically moving from the east Alps, Italy through southern France and Iberia c. 4000-3100BC and are totally unrelated. IMO the copper technology probably originated in or around the Balkans and its spread west could owe something to the collapse of Old Europe and loss of control of some of the ore sources they previously held. They were probably essentially genetically Neolithic farmers and their input would be impossible to distinguise from the existing farmers they encountered. We now have a number of ancient DNA samples from south Europe's pre-beaker copper age and non are R and when tested they do not have steppe autosomal DNA.

[Jean M]

Now my question is how did Western Bell Beaker and Eastern Bell Beaker interact.

The Bell Beaker people created a cultural and trading network across Europe. Eastern BB seems to start with a group who returned to the Carpathian Basin for steppe horses, which they probably traded westwards. This is the Csepel group. From about 2400 BC there was some sort of upheaval in the western BB, leading to the abandonment of fortified sites in Portugal. We can see where the people went, because BB people turn up then in greater numbers in the Carpathian Basin and spread out from there, and also spread up the Atlantic coast to Brittany and into the British Isles. However it looks like the largest flow into the British Isles came after tin was discovered there, and came down the Rhine.

[Heber]

Your Bell Beaker map does not show the Beaker settlement in the Oder and Vistula basins discussed above, or anything near the Baltic.

Here is the source of the map.
Figure 3: main extent of the Beaker complex c. 2800–2200 BC (Source: adapted from Brun
2006, fig. 3, and combined with Cunliffe 2010, fig. 1.9)
http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/CelticLanguages/GibsonWodtko.pdf

[alan]

Alan,
I totally buy into into the copper expansion from the steppes as revealed by Haak et al. However there was also a neolithic expansion and it appears to be from Anatolia.
5595
Expansion of Anatolian Neolithic Levant / Anatolia > Spain EN > Spain MN > Megalithic > Western Bell Beakers.
By the time it reached Iberia it was meeting up with the Western Bell Beaker. Now my question is how did Western Bell Beaker and Eastern Bell Beaker interact.

Again I dont follow you. The farmers were already in Iberia and building megaliths of some sort millenia before bell beaker was made. There is a gap of 2000 plus years between the farmers and bell beaker. There is no evidence of a follow up wave of 'megalithic people'.

Megaliths are a generic term for anything made of big stone and there is no other common thread linking all megaliths other than perhaps shared ancestral religious beliefs in collectively burying the ancestors in a prominent place that spontaniously led to large stone being used in areas where this was an option. When you look at many of the features of stone built megaliths you can find the same in earthen monuments in other areas. The only difference is the materials they used.

To give just one isles based example, court, clyde and Severn tombs have many features in common with earthen long barrows - basic shape, a wider higher entrance end with a slight curve, orientation, some internal features etc that clearly link them despite the difference in materials. Ultimately they seem to be a house of the dead based on a mental template derived from type of middle Neolithic north-central continental house shape.

I would guess that the basic idea behind the circular passage tombs is similar - a house of the dead based on another type of house shape. As for the origin of that round shape, well both Mesolithic and Neolithic people (after the rectangular house fashion died in some area) had round houses. In Ireland for example the classic rectangular Neolithic houses were only built from the start of the Neolithic for not much more than a couple of centuries years c. 3800-3500BC before they appear to have largely moved onto round huts. Anyone building a house of the dead would then have the option of the round real-world houses all around them as a mental model too. I certainly think the simplest passage tombs probably have origins as simple as the presence of real life round huts around them while the elongated type tombs would have been more of an ancestral memory thing after 3500BC.

[alan]

As Alan keeps saying, there is no Megalith Culture per se. Lots of peoples across the world built structures out of big stones (megaliths). This habit began in the Neolithic (mainly). In the Near Eastern cradle of the Neolithic it began at the beginning of farming, not the end. It did not lead to the Bell Beaker Culture.
Western Bell Beaker sprang from Yamnaya, just as much as Eastern Bell Beaker did. They are a Copper Age people.
The BB folk surely mixed with the earlier peoples who descended from the early European farmers and so were of Near Eastern stock. That mixing started with Yamnaya and maybe earlier cultures of the steppe and would have carried on as people spread from the steppe into areas with farming cultures in place. The degree of mixing would depend partly on how well farmers had succeeded in various regions - probably better in southern Europe than Northern.


Makes sense and in terms of the autosomal signal linked to R1b movements west in the copper age, it seems natural to me to expect greater dilution of the signal as we move from the eastern European source. The beaker pot itself has become has become a distraction and made people feel there is a conflict between east to west genetic movement but west to east movement of the pots.

What is probably a better way of mapping the east to west move and putting a chronology and directionality on it is if a RC map of the individual focused burial traditions was created. That would show a closer match with the genetic flow. We would see the steppe origins, then the Yamanaya intrusions into the Carpathian and Balkans area c. 3000BC, the tranformatory Corded Ware side branch c. 2900BC spreading from closer to the Carpathians and reaching Switzerland at least by 2750BC and the appearance of individual and individualised burials in Iberia around the same sort of time. I would have previously added another branch - the Remedello II burials c. 2900BC-2600BC but that doesnt look steppe derived on what data we have. Anyway a plot of the concept of individual burial across Europe would show a clear east to west cline and I think that is much more of a profound indicator of change than pottery is - a craft which could have spread in any direction with women involved in marriage networks.

[ADW_1981]

Does the information here (http://anastasia.mybb2.ru/index.php?show=54404) contradict any more recent information?

I like this statement by Harrison:

According to these scholars, when they moved north-west from their homeland in Vucedol, Serbia - approximately 4000 years ago: the proto-Dinaric Beaker folk left their women behind with the men who stayed home. They were much like the Aryans in this sense, marrying into local populations with which they traded their metal pottery, weapons and ornaments. Unlike the Aryans, they were not warlike. They came as traders not conquerors. Wherever they went, they married into the community but segregated themselves from the community at large. They represented a new physical type that was new to Northern & Central Europe.

It would explain why the admixture results of BB, over just a few centuries absorb a lot of EEF (lots of mtDNA H), probably from local women from various groups the (BB ) traders encountered.

[rms2]

I dont ask anyone to sign up to Pinterest. It is a simple process.
Bell Beaker v Corded Ware
5593
Bell Beaker Complex
5591
Celtic Language Extent
5592
Anatolian Expansion
5594

That first chart is the one that shows that both French and Spanish Basques have as much affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker. Their relationship to both is in the same range (0.053-0.056). Sorry to repeat myself, but the modern Basques on that chart aren't any closer to Beaker than they are to Corded Ware.

[rms2]

The Bell Beaker samples we have are all from Germany. In the same way that German Bell Beakers are closer to Yamnaya+MN Germany, I would expect that if we did have Iberian Bell Beaker samples, they would best fit Yamnaya+MN Iberia. So, regardless of their Corded Ware affinities, I think Basques will plot much closer to Iberian Bell Beakers. Remember that even one of the German Bell Beaker samples plots with modern day Iberians.

I think the key is not the Bell Beakers from Germany, it's the modern Basques from France and Spain. They are the ones who are as close to ancient Corded Ware as they are to ancient Bell Beaker. So, apparently the Basques have some kind of eastern component that gets them as close to the one as it does to the other. Unless ancient Iberian Bell Beakers have that eastern component, as well, won't they actually be farther from modern Basques?

[rms2]

The rise of archery equipment, the pots, the increase in height, horse riding etc. are all there in the Iberian Bell Beakers. There is no doubt in my mind that they will be as much P312+ as anywhere else on the continent, but of course of the DF27 variety.

I think the very early Bell Beakers, pre-Rückstrom, who lack the fully developed, kurgan-looking Beaker ensemble, and are physically dissimilar to eastern Beaker Folk, will not be R1b. Just my opinion.

[alan]

Does the information here (http://anastasia.mybb2.ru/index.php?show=54404) contradict any more recent information?

I like this statement by Harrison:

According to these scholars, when they moved north-west from their homeland in Vucedol, Serbia - approximately 4000 years ago: the proto-Dinaric Beaker folk left their women behind with the men who stayed home. They were much like the Aryans in this sense, marrying into local populations with which they traded their metal pottery, weapons and ornaments. Unlike the Aryans, they were not warlike. They came as traders not conquerors. Wherever they went, they married into the community but segregated themselves from the community at large. They represented a new physical type that was new to Northern & Central Europe.

It would explain why the admixture results of BB, over just a few centuries absorb a lot of EEF (lots of mtDNA H), probably from local women from various groups the (BB ) traders encountered.

Its not far from how I see it. Obviously 4000 years ago is wrong - more like a 4800 plus years ago. I wouldnt say that the beakers were not war like but I do think they spread themselves very thin indeed so werent in a position to exist without some sort of agreement with the locals. I do also agree that the beaker element may have locally remained aloof for a couple of centuries although they married local women a lot. it struck me a few years back that the choice of archery as the weapon of prestige - which seems a little unusual for a mundane weapon known since hunter-gatherer times - makes complete sense as a form of defense for small niche groups. Its a great leveler of a weapon. A dozen guys with Robin Hood levels of archery skills could stop a much bigger raiding band of lumbering oafs waving stone axes LOL.

Eventually though it seems to me that the beaker culture did meld with locals and I tend to think we see that at the end of the beaker period/start of the Early Bronze Age.

[rms2]

Does the information here (http://anastasia.mybb2.ru/index.php?show=54404) contradict any more recent information?

I like this statement by Harrison:

According to these scholars, when they moved north-west from their homeland in Vucedol, Serbia - approximately 4000 years ago: the proto-Dinaric Beaker folk left their women behind with the men who stayed home. They were much like the Aryans in this sense, marrying into local populations with which they traded their metal pottery, weapons and ornaments. Unlike the Aryans, they were not warlike. They came as traders not conquerors. Wherever they went, they married into the community but segregated themselves from the community at large. They represented a new physical type that was new to Northern & Central Europe.

It would explain why the admixture results of BB, over just a few centuries absorb a lot of EEF (lots of mtDNA H), probably from local women from various groups the (BB ) traders encountered.

Gimbutas attributed at least part of the evolution of Beaker to Vučedol, as well, and now we have a set of Vučedol remains circa 2800 BC that have tested R1b (Szécsényi-Nagy). Unfortunately, Szécsényi-Nagy did not do any NGS testing of the Vučedol genome, so we don't know to what downstream clade of R1b he belonged.

[parastais]

That first chart is the one that shows that both French and Spanish Basques have as much affinity for Corded Ware as they do for Beaker. Their relationship to both is in the same range (0.053-0.056). Sorry to repeat myself, but the modern Basques on that chart aren't any closer to Beaker than they are to Corded Ware.
You seem to look at absolute values but ignore the relative portion of data.
Which basically says - in most Euro folks CW and BB correlates nicely around the line but Basques are shifted off the line towards BB.
There must be a reason for that.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

You have completely lost me there - what is Anatolian expansion? You dont mean you believe in the Anatolian IE origin theory despite the DNA evidence for a copper age expansion from the steppe?

Slightly off topic, and not that I lean toward a neolithic hypothesis, at all; but genetics has now actually proven that there was, both, neolithic and final copper age changes. So doesn't it fall back to linguists again to battle it out ?

[rms2]

You seem to look at absolute values but ignore the relative portion of data.
Which basically says - in most Euro folks CW and BB correlates nicely around the line but Basques are shifted off the line towards BB.
There must be a reason for that.

The Basques may be closer to Bell Beaker than some populations, but they aren't any closer to Bell Beaker than they are to Corded Ware. BTW, according to that chart, the Irish, Icelanders, Swedes, and Norwegians have more affinity for Bell Beaker than the Basques do.

I'm guessing the reason for the equal affinity of the Basques for both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker is that the ancestors of modern Basques took on some eastern input, probably from the same source that gave their descendants their R1b.

[alan]

Gimbutas attributed at least part of the evolution of Beaker to Vučedol, as well, and now we have a set of Vučedol remains circa 2800 BC that have tested R1b (Szécsényi-Nagy). Unfortunately, Szécsényi-Nagy did not do any NGS testing of the Vučedol genome, so we don't know to what downstream clade of R1b he belonged.

I dont know about the Vucedol links but something akin to it must have happened unless beaker is just some sort of unusual cultural and genetic founder effect from westernmost CW that happened in just one generation and locally hybrided and we cannot find it. If we are talking about c. 2800-2600BC then we neednt worry about lack of skulls with the flat back on them as neither early beakers or CW seem to have had them. As the only now-indisputable at least partly steppe derived culture west of a line from the Baltic to the Adriatic c. 3000-2500BC I think we cannot rule out CW or some CW hybrid with other cultures in the western Alps, as an origin from beaker no matter how much an atypical offshoot of CW it would be.

It could even be that the ancestors of the beaker people originated as an offshoot of a specialist lineage that originally belonged in another culture like CW or indeed Vucedol and were by definition atypical specialists within their mother culture. The most obvious such specialism would be operating the metalwork procurement, manufacture and distribution sector which in pre-beaker times seemed to predominantly go back to ore sources in the Carpathians and perhaps Germany.

The key to what I am saying is that the ancestors of the beaker people may have been from totally atypical families of specialists within another culture. They need not have been typical of that culture at all. When some of them broke off on their own beyond the extent of the mother culture they may have brought these atypical traits with them - something that means they wont look like a typical offshoot from their mother culture. I think it might pay to look closely at the Smiths graves that exist in some eastern and central European cultures and see if their is anything in them that prefigures beaker culture.

Actually as an aside I think the fact that skull form is seem right across Europe for centuries after c. 2500BC regardless of who the beaker males were marrying and where they lived suggests to me it is not genetic in origin and is something to do with swaddling or cradling practices which in turn may relate to the practicalities of the lifestyles of the beaker elite, some of who were doing some epic travelling in their lifetimes.

I am not absolutely convinced that it was normal for the beaker people to actually get their hands dirty in terms of mining. Mining of ore existed in the whole Med. and central Europe in pre-beaker times. If an early beaker person wanted people to mine, he would find them in pre-beaker populations across the Med and central Europe. I suspect it was more of a dominance of the networks and transport that was their forte. It is even possible that they might have helped arrange for people with mining experience to move from A to B to do their work or perhaps just a few foremen types who could get the locals to do the donkey work. The real skills were prospecting, turning the ore into ingots and working the ingots into objects. Before those processes some poor fool had to do the dirty donkey work of extracting the ore from the rocks which was really non/low-skilled and involved a lot of bashing rock faces with stone hammers and crushing rocks into finer particles.

[alan]

The Basques may be closer to Bell Beaker than some populations, but they aren't any closer to Bell Beaker than they are to Corded Ware. BTW, according to that chart, the Irish, Icelanders, Swedes, and Norwegians have more affinity for Bell Beaker than the Basques do.

I'm guessing the reason for the equal affinity of the Basques for both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker is that the ancestors of modern Basques took on some eastern input, probably from the same source that gave their descendants their R1b.

That sounds like high WHG is the factor pulling them all closer. It cannot be ANE because this separates the northern Europeans from the Basques. Basques though do have a level of WHG that is rather high and in that respect puts them towards the northern group compared to other south-west European and central Med. groups who usually have far lower WHG.

[rms2]

Re Post #483 above: I think the key may be the southern, up-the-Danube route of Yamnaya and perhaps of the earlier waves of what Gimbutas called the "Kurgan" peoples. That's the route of what either already was P312 or led to it, IMHO. That's how P312 or its immediate ancestor got into the Carpathian Basin Yamnaya-spinoff cultures and subsequently into what became Beaker.

I don't think it was Corded Ware; it's too R1a heavy, unless we start finding some R1b western Corded Ware.

[parastais]

The Basques may be closer to Bell Beaker than some populations, but they aren't any closer to Bell Beaker than they are to Corded Ware. BTW, according to that chart, the Irish, Icelanders, Swedes, and Norwegians have more affinity for Bell Beaker than the Basques do.

I'm guessing the reason for the equal affinity of the Basques for both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker is that the ancestors of modern Basques took on some eastern input, probably from the same source that gave their descendants their R1b.
According to chart Lithuanians are the most BB of modern folk...
But the question is not why Basques have CW affinity at the level of BB. Question is why they have only as much. Because all other folks of Europe have more affinity to CW.

[alan]

As an aside, it seems to me that the Basques seem to be like middle Neolithic groups where the farmers had seen mass absorbtion of local hunter genes among. I would say many Europeans in areas where farming was late to come and the hunters appear to have reemerged would have had the Basque-like pattern of being Neolithic farmers with a large absorbtion of WHG. This of course has nothing to do with the steppes or R1b. It just seems to be a process that happened where enthusiastic farmers found they had arrived in a new areas in a rare phase of peak climate only to find it wasnt normally like that. I would say this Basque-like mix of farmers with lots of WHG would have been normal from Scandinavia to the northern Iberia and possibly also in other areas where Neolithic farming was marginal. To me then the Basques have genes mainly of that period albeit with a small input of the pan-European copper age ANE carrying groups. The latter would also have carried WHG and ENF but there is no way of sorting that out in terms of local and input so its best to use ANE as a tracker and to assume that whoever brought the ANE also brought some more WHG and ENF.

[rms2]

According to chart Lithuanians are the most BB of modern folk...
But the question is not why Basques have CW affinity at the level of BB. Question is why they have only as much. Because all other folks of Europe have more affinity to CW.

No. Take another look at the chart. There are quite a few European populations on it with less affinity for Corded Ware than the Basques have.

If the original point was that the Basques are somehow a lot like Bell Beaker, then they are equally as much like Corded Ware, at least according to that chart.

[parastais]

No. Take another look at the chart. There are quite a few European populations on it with less affinity for Corded Ware than the Basques have.

If the original point was that the Basques are somehow a lot like Bell Beaker, then they are equally as much like Corded Ware, at least according to that chart.
You are still looking at absolute than relative values!
All the rest are closer to CW than to BB! Except for Basques. Hope you see my point now?

[rms2]

You are still looking at absolute than relative values!
All the rest are closer to CW than to BB! Except for Basques. Hope you see my point now?

No. You are not reading the chart correctly. Anything nearer the bottom than the Basques is farther from Corded Ware. Take a look at the Greeks, Albanians, Italian_Tuscans, Bulgarians, Macedonians, etc.

You are mistaken. The point is that the Basques are as close to Corded Ware as they are to Beaker, so there is no special Basque-Beaker thing going on, not yet anyway. And there are populations that have greater affinity for Beaker than the Basques do and quite a few that have less affinity for Corded Ware than the Basques do.

[parastais]

OK, last time.
There are populations that are closer to BB than CW - none
There are populations that are as close to BB as to CW - Basques
There are populations that are closer to CW than to BB - all the rest

Nothing special?

[alan]

Re Post #483 above: I think the key may be the southern, up-the-Danube route of Yamnaya and perhaps of the earlier waves of what Gimbutas called the "Kurgan" peoples. That's the route of what either already was P312 or led to it, IMHO. That's how P312 or its immediate ancestor got into the Carpathian Basin Yamnaya-spinoff cultures and subsequently into what became Beaker.

I don't think it was Corded Ware; it's too R1a heavy, unless we start finding some R1b western Corded Ware.

I agree that ancient DNA doesnt support the CW as beaker origin concept but its not impossible in a founder effect situation. The problem is we dont have anywhere near enough CW, especially western CW to rule it out. There is of course the battle axe U106 which is essentially a CW subgroup and depending on how much special pleading is or isnt used regarding it as authentically CW it could suggest an L11 level link. There is also the unresolved central Poland CW R1b guy. I recall a Polish early CW site a few years back that was either most or entirely stuff other than any sort of R1. So CW looks like it could vary despite R1a dominance. The problem is of course there are not enough well resolved samples to rule anything out entirely. I do agree though that if P312 is found in corded ware it would be a small minority.

What I was trying to suggest is that where you have a specialist group involved in metals, they could be super-cultural because of their role involving movement, transportation etc. So they may always look atypical compared to those they live among and their numbers would be small which makes them hard to find.

Lets put it this way, some group or rather some small specialist subset, set off and made some network that linked Iberia to central Europe. This in itself is a major change because the Iberian pre-beaker copper peoples didnt seem to be linked in to that area. In order for a group with a male lineage with a late Neolithic shared steppe ancestor with Yamnaya lineage to pass into Iberia it had to either pass through or somehow bypass a lot of existing groups, most of whom already knew copper and even mined.

I think we need to think into how these extremely long distance networks could be established. IMO and why it was suddenly possible for a culture to patchily appear all over Europe, especially around 2500BC where it was suddenly everywhere. One clue to this IMO has to be the horse and the wheel as well as a social structure that allowed at least occasional mega-mobility. However, probably as important as this is that some Europeans had the knowledge and experience of mobile living with your larder on the hoof in the form of mobile pastoralism which basically put no limits on your movements other than environmental ones or someone trying to stop you. That is of course the bread and butter (or milk and butter) of the steppe groups. Such a process would be more Yamnaya-like than CW which although pastoralist is not usually thought of as mobile pastoralism.

However at the same time it is hard to imagine late Yamnaya elements c. 2800BC actually being able to reach western Europe without bumping into CW people too who settled in west central Europe including the upper Danube. So it is possible we could be talking about something usual like non-CW lineages moving through a zone CW had already just settled. That could lead to some confusing signals.

Alternatively the other option I see is to look at some groups as very motivated to use their mobility to gain control over metals. Sintashta, Afansievo may be 2 that had those motives. I would add that Yamnaya and Kargaly shows a similar link between mobility and metals. I think it is very hard not to conclude that the beaker people originated in a culture that already had knowledge of copper working and extraction. In the immediate pre-beaker era most central Europeans (largely CW folks) seem to have relied on a large source in the Carpathians who served much of central Europe. There was also likely sources in central Germany but the detail of this is unclear. We also know that the metal ores and methods of immediate pre-beaker metals in central Europe was no different from beaker.

I think that provides clues as to where the pre-beaker controllers of central European metalwork were linked to. The people who supplied the metal to the immediate pre-beaker central Europeans were getting it ultimately from the Carpathians. AFAIK CW halted at the north edge of the Balkans and gave way to groups like Cotofeni and Vucedol etc. Anyway I have a suspicion that beaker people could have some sort of origin in the pre-beaker people who moved about the Carpathians metal through the pre-beaker, largely CW world of central Europe. It kind of makes sense to seek an origin there.

One thing that struck me by chance when going through a few archaeological maps of eastern and central Europe c. 3000-2500BC is that I can think of a possible explanation for Globular Amphorae people. Despite a lack of associations with metal, their distribution is almost perfect if they were a mobile group involved in transporting metals from the Carpathians area into central and northern Europe c. 3000-2500BC. This has nothing to do with the beaker people or R1b by the way but just thought I would put it out there

[alan]

According to chart Lithuanians are the most BB of modern folk...
But the question is not why Basques have CW affinity at the level of BB. Question is why they have only as much. Because all other folks of Europe have more affinity to CW.

I think there are a lot of problems doing this exercise. I most groups are mixes of pan-European WHG, pan-European ENF and copper/bronze age ANE then by chance two groups with nothing directly to do with each other could by coincidence end up with similar WHG-ENF-ANE tallies. I think I recall someone noting that Czech or Slovaks had a similar tally to the isles but obviously there is no direct connection, just shared ingredients. I think there is some use to these exercises but they have their limitations. It seems to me that what the Basques have in common with the beakers is a significant WHG-ENF mix such as would have been normal in the middle Neolithic across Atlantic and northern European fringe. I think its very hard to look at beaker samples and deduce all the details of origins and connections because we know the beaker network spread far and wide and they married outwards, not in-group/mega-locally like the CW seem to have. The beaker people seem to have been very exclusive in the male lines but they seem to have married out - probably because as small groups linked to metal trade they had to constantly build alliances rather than marry their 2nd cousins from three huts along.

[alan]

Re Post #483 above: I think the key may be the southern, up-the-Danube route of Yamnaya and perhaps of the earlier waves of what Gimbutas called the "Kurgan" peoples. That's the route of what either already was P312 or led to it, IMHO. That's how P312 or its immediate ancestor got into the Carpathian Basin Yamnaya-spinoff cultures and subsequently into what became Beaker.

I don't think it was Corded Ware; it's too R1a heavy, unless we start finding some R1b western Corded Ware.

The only way they could have avoided having to pass through a huge stretch of CW territory as they headed into the upper part of the Danube would have been if the beaker ancestral group preceded CW west. The CW arrival in the west Alps seems to have been 2750BC according to dendro-dates so I would guess they would have had to stay one step ahead of that wave to avoid them. I suppose the one or two early dates for beaker in Iberia that seem to be credible and avoid the potential issue of reservoir effect date to c. 2800-2750BC which could just about allow time being a step or two ahead of the CW groups heading west.

However they must have been a far smaller movement bordering on invisible to have managed that. If such a pre-CW group existed then their period somewhere on the path between the Danube and arrival in Iberia would have had to have fallen in the period between Yamnaya arriving in Hungary c. 3000/2900BC and the earliest beaker dates in Iberia c. 2800-2750BC. That is a fairly narrow window to search in but a huge geographical area.

This is of course all predicated on the original earliest beaker period people actually being an eastern intrusion. I still think a lot of the dating needs to be refined in beaker Iberia. Its one thing to get a credible early date c. 2800-2750BC that shows a settlement where beaker pot was the main ware but its another to say that the much more crucial and striking change to individual forms of burial (where inserted into old collective tombs or not) also dates 2800-2750BC. The latter is far more important and indicative of intrusion than beaker pottery IMO. The problem in dating the change in burial form is that these will tend to be mainly dated by human bone and I have raised the specter of reservoir effect as a result of the well attested liking for fish in copper age Iberia.

Until this is looked carefully into for every one of these burials for which an early date c. 2800-2600BC is claimed I would certainly keep open the possibility that the appearance of individual graves in Iberia might not be early as is being suggested for beaker in Iberia. It not impossible that the two phenomena are not exactly concurrent. One possible model is that central Europeans made some contacts and alliances with Iberia - a sort of contact phase - where wives were traded and the concept of the beaker pot made its way to Iberia with the central European woman. At some future date central European men may have followed the network back to source and perhaps that is marked by the individual grave tradition arriving. The latter at the moment cannot be dated in a reliable way IMO until the issue of reservoir effect from fish in the diet on human bone dates is considered through examination of the bones for which the earliest c. 2800-2600BC dates come from. Its hard to date a grave - especially one inserted into an old megalith as was common in Iberia - without using the human bone. You would need something else organic that simply has to be contemporary with the skeleton and not accidentally encorporated in the grave. Its very tricky in a zone where old collective graves are reused to do that. So, the best thing I think is to test the bones for the reservoir effect.

[Generalissimo]

I recall a Polish early CW site a few years back that was either most or entirely stuff other than any sort of R1. So CW looks like it could vary despite R1a dominance.

That study was useless, as far as aDNA was concerned anyway. And it only had two samples.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440313000459

[parastais]

I think there are a lot of problems doing this exercise. I most groups are mixes of pan-European WHG, pan-European ENF and copper/bronze age ANE then by chance two groups with nothing directly to do with each other could by coincidence end up with similar WHG-ENF-ANE tallies. I think I recall someone noting that Czech or Slovaks had a similar tally to the isles but obviously there is no direct connection, just shared ingredients. I think there is some use to these exercises but they have their limitations. It seems to me that what the Basques have in common with the beakers is a significant WHG-ENF mix such as would have been normal in the middle Neolithic across Atlantic and northern European fringe. I think its very hard to look at beaker samples and deduce all the details of origins and connections because we know the beaker network spread far and wide and they married outwards, not in-group/mega-locally like the CW seem to have. The beaker people seem to have been very exclusive in the male lines but they seem to have married out - probably because as small groups linked to metal trade they had to constantly build alliances rather than marry their 2nd cousins from three huts along.
I dont think similar ANE/WHG/ENF would mandate same result in those tests. For example Latvians/Lithuanians are basically same folk ANE/WHG/ENF wise, but our Southern bros show quite a Basque like shift towards BB / Hungary BA samples; when we are just CW guys.
I wonder if new data from NE Poland about BB there has something to do with it.

[rms2]

OK, last time.
There are populations that are closer to BB than CW - none
There are populations that are as close to BB as to CW - Basques
There are populations that are closer to CW than to BB - all the rest

Nothing special?

I see what you are saying, but you are mistaken. The CW side of the graph is compacted more than the Bell Beaker side, but the Italian_Tuscan population is as close to BB as to CW and the others in the lower left are only slightly closer to CW than to BB; the Albanians appear just about as close to CW as to BB. A number of the other populations near the center of the graph don't show much more affinity for one than the other, as well.

It really is incorrect to say there is anything special about the modern Basque relationship to Bell Beaker when the Basques are as close to Corded Ware as they are to Beaker. Other populations on the graph who are as close or closer to Beaker than the Basques have even more affinity for Corded Ware, but that says more about their Corded Ware input than it does about any special Basque-Beaker relationship.

[rms2]

I think there are a lot of problems doing this exercise. I most groups are mixes of pan-European WHG, pan-European ENF and copper/bronze age ANE then by chance two groups with nothing directly to do with each other could by coincidence end up with similar WHG-ENF-ANE tallies. I think I recall someone noting that Czech or Slovaks had a similar tally to the isles but obviously there is no direct connection, just shared ingredients. I think there is some use to these exercises but they have their limitations. It seems to me that what the Basques have in common with the beakers is a significant WHG-ENF mix such as would have been normal in the middle Neolithic across Atlantic and northern European fringe. I think its very hard to look at beaker samples and deduce all the details of origins and connections because we know the beaker network spread far and wide and they married outwards, not in-group/mega-locally like the CW seem to have. The beaker people seem to have been very exclusive in the male lines but they seem to have married out - probably because as small groups linked to metal trade they had to constantly build alliances rather than marry their 2nd cousins from three huts along.

I mentioned this before, but an example of what you are saying is the Orcadian and Ukrainian proportions of Lazaridis' three ancestral European populations. They are very close to one another. I recall this because my own ANE/EEF/WHG proportions were very close to both those of the Orcadians and the Ukrainians.

[rms2]

. . .

This is of course all predicated on the original earliest beaker period people actually being an eastern intrusion. I still think a lot of the dating needs to be refined in beaker Iberia . . .

I only have scattered details that I have pulled from here and there, some of them admittedly from older sources, but my impression is that very early Iberian Beaker is not the fully developed, kurgan-type ensemble that most of us think of when we think of Beaker. It lacks the full burial package, including the tumulus and all of the grave goods, the Beaker pots are in a simple style without the eastern types, and the skeletons are physically different, more gracile and Mediterranean. These are the chief reasons for the idea of the Rückstrom to explain the changes Beaker underwent in Iberia.

So, my feeling is that early Beaker was not the full on kurgan model and lacked R1b. Its main contribution was a basic pottery style that was embellished and supplemented in the Carpathian Basin, where Yamnaya spin-off subcultures mixed with it and contributed its R1b and distinctive kurgan cultural traits, including horseback riding, which proved essential to its ultimate east-to-west mobility. I think a sign of this is that Vučedol R1b (c. 2800 BC) from Szécsényi-Nagy's recent dissertation.

I could be wrong, of course, but it will be interesting to see some very early Iberian Bell Beaker y-dna.

[alan]

I dont think similar ANE/WHG/ENF would mandate same result in those tests. For example Latvians/Lithuanians are basically same folk ANE/WHG/ENF wise, but our Southern bros show quite a Basque like shift towards BB / Hungary BA samples; when we are just CW guys.
I wonder if new data from NE Poland about BB there has something to do with it.

Well we have two L23 derived R1b guys now in CW or its derivatives in Poland and Sweden. So, the R1b element is something shared between CW, beaker and basques.

What do we have in terms of male lineages in CW in Poland so far - one R1a guy, R1b guy, one G guy and one guy who could be J. I or E but isnt R.

In Swedish battle axe its one R1a and R1b each.

In Germany I believe all 4 CW in recent tests are R1a and then there are the 3, probably a family, guys who were R1a in Eulau. So that is 7 out of 7 R1a's in CW Germany.

That is a tiny sample but its hints that different branches of Corded Ware carried different mixes of male lineages. Its also varied enough to suggest that this small sample may not have uncovered the full degree of yDNA variation in CW. I dont think we can have any confidence that we understand CW y lineages until the sample is tripled or quadrupled - especially when its such a vast area.