Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b

[alan]

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.

I think some complex model with backflow etc cannot be ruled out. Certainly from what I have read I dont think I could make a call as to whether the pot and the appearance of individualised graves date to the same time. There is some evidence that perhaps is reasonably reliable for a settlement site or two that place beaker pot in the 2800-2700BC range but I dont think the same can be said about the burials. I dont think until the reservoir effect is looked at that we can rule out that the radiocarbon dates on human bone are coming in a century or too older than reality. I think this is of the utmost importance because the sudden move from collective to individualised burial is far stronger evidence of a male intrusion than the pottery is.

My complete guess is that there may have been a phase of contacts between the west Alpine area and Iberia via the Rhone and southern France which marked the establishment of the network but that was then followed by a migration of central European males to Iberia in later generations. The clearest evidence for that such a network existed is the early beaker phase c. 2600BC when beaker linked Iberia to southern France and into the south-west Alpine area. However, I wonder if this was just the developed stage of the network and would speculate that such a link could have existed in a less visible way since 2800-2750BC. The main evidence of this would be that the model which the beaker pot was based on looks to have come from central Europe - something that at least suggests wives could have been being traded between the two areas.

The clincher would be if it was shown that Iberian copper was penetrating into west Alpine Europe in the period 2800-2600BC before the beaker culture per se spread along the south of France and into the west Alpine area because that would be the clearest motive for establishing such a network. As for a male intrusion from central Europe into Iberia I think the key is revisiting the individualised graves and their dating checking for reservoir effects. That is far more clearcut than pots.

Pots are normally a female craft. It has also been suggested that Sion indicates that the early beaker phase also saw the introduction of fancy textiles but again that is a female craft. I would also suspect buttons and awls are female associated.

That really just leaves the archery aspect which appears in the beaker phase at Sion. However its very hard to interpret that because archery was common across Europe and from memory Alpine groups like Remedello had a lot of archery equipment - and of course the Ice Man. Even when the stelae were showing the Remedello daggers, we know from the graves of that culture that they were also big into archery. So, there is no simple way of implying origin from the elevation of bows and arrows to higher status. It is odd that they rose in status because they were the least exclusive sort of weapon and on the surface it seems they would normally have been not even involved the use of copper.


I think the best idea is to forget the pots and possibly female crafts which could have been linked to a two-way network involving mostly female movement. Look at the dating of the individualised graves again.

[alan]

One thing just struck me there. Could the rise in status of archery in the beaker phase owe something to the rise of the Palmela point which used the prestigious copper rather than the old hat flint? They probably spread from Iberia but are well known in southern France and I believe also Atlantic France and Italian Liguria and elsewhere. Perhaps the use of copper for the points on arrows and javelins could have given archery a prestige that it didnt previously have and that this prestige continued as a cultural thing even in areas where the beaker people made their arrows with flint.

[Romilius]

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.

Bow with arrows are, with spear, the weapons of horse-rider nomads of all times.

In Europe, the horse warrior pack developed towards spear as only weapon (see early Middle Age, with germanic cavalry) and, later, towards sword and shield (the so-called medieval knight).

In Asia, instead, bow and arrows still were associated with spears in the Middle Age.

[alan]

Bow with arrows are, with spear, the weapons of horse-rider nomads of all times.

In Europe, the horse warrior pack developed towards spear as only weapon (see early Middle Age, with germanic cavalry) and, later, towards sword and shield (the so-called medieval knight).

In Asia, instead, bow and arrows still were associated with spears in the Middle Age.

Problem is they are also the common weapon of Neolithic farmers and pre-beaker pre-steppe intrusion groups like Remedello. Also I am pretty sure horse archery is a much later thing and associated with a very different type of bow - think they are recurve bows but I can remember the exact term. The beaker bow probably was not of this type when you consider the pictures of them at Sion. They were probably the very long lived long bow.

[rms2]

Since this thread is about Bell Beakers, Gimbutas, and R1b, I am going to bet on Gimbutas being mostly right in her assessment of the origin of Bell Beaker, i.e., that the fully developed, kurgan Beaker package sprang from the Vučedol complex after Vučedol itself had been kurganized by Yamnaya. It is also possible Vučedol had already been kurganized before the arrival of Yamnaya via one of Gimbutas' earlier kurgan waves.

This is what I am betting is basically right. It is from Gimbutas' book, The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe. (I know Piquerobi and I have both posted this before, but it is worth repeating to show what I think is pretty much correct.)



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).

[Chad Rohlfsen]

I'm not sure that one should say that Vucedol was kurganized by Yamnaya. That makes it sound more like cultural, rather than demic diffusion. Vucedol is a hybrid culture, between Baden and Kostolac. This whole area, all the way back to the Kuban steppe, was a fairly homogenous horizon. Distinctions between these cultures in the horizon appear more rooted in the differences in the MN pops with which they mixed.

[alan]

I considered getting a copy of Gimbutas a week or two ago out of curiosity but her works are pricey. I read her stuff back in the late 80s but I really only know her from references in later books since then. I understand Mallory actually studied under her. Around the same sort of time in the late 80s I read her books The Balts and The Slavs which seemed very interesting at the time although I cannot now remember them.

[alan]

Since this thread is about Bell Beakers, Gimbutas, and R1b, I am going to bet on Gimbutas being mostly right in her assessment of the origin of Bell Beaker, i.e., that the fully developed, kurgan Beaker package sprung from the Vučedol complex after Vučedol itself had been kurganized by Yamnaya. It is also possible Vučedol had already been kurganized before the arrival of Yamnaya via one of Gimbutas' earlier kurgan waves.

This is what I am betting is basically right. It is from Gimbutas' book, The Kurgan Culture and the Indo-Europeanization of Europe. (I know Piquerobi and I have both posted this before, but it is worth repeating to show what I think is pretty much correct.)

I re-read some of the stuff about beaker in southern France with particular interest in the early phase but it still remains hard to intepret and hard to exactly understand how the beaker people and the locals interacted and just what the beaker there was all about. In some ways it has distinctive aspects in pottery, lithics etc but in other ways it blends in with the locals with almost no pure beaker sites, much of the ordinary pottery and houses being similar to the locals. Like most places its a somewhat baffling mix. Burial wise even the early beaker period of southern France has one or two classic beaker single burials but many are too jumbled up in older collective tombs they reused. What I did notice in one paper on southern France from 2012 is that they are quoting the start of the beaker there at 2500BC, not 2600BC as I had seen previously. That drags southern France in line with the sort of reliable dates from central and northern Europe. I understand too that some of the earlier dates quoted for Italy are dubious as of course are the early Csepel ones. Having re-read this to understand southern France as a geographical and chronological link between Iberia and the rest of Europe I must say I am even more confused and do not know what to make of it.

It tends to tilt me again more towards wondering if the R1b associations with beaker are something of the developed beaker period not originally linked to the very earliest phases of beaker pottery users. I think its pretty fair to expect that there has to be some sort of east to west input into Iberia before we can expect R1b to be there. I would, as per other recent posts I have made, feel it is the dating of the individual/individualised beaker burial tradition that is the key eastern derived feature in beaker. As far as I am concerned they need to separate off the dating of the use of beaker pottery from the dating of the single burial tradition and of course check for reservoir effects caused by fish in the diet. I am really beginning to wonder if beaker pottery prototypes entered Iberia several centuries before the single burial tradition but as far as I can see there is no reliable way of determining this. What is curious to me is that the geographically intermediate southern France has a pretty messed up beaker burial record but does have a couple of classic beaker burials in what is the local early beaker phase. However this is dated to c. 2500BC. I find it very hard to imagine how the individual burial tradition could have entered Iberia c. 2800-2700BC when there is no evidence of it (or beakers) in southern France until 2500BC.

What might be confusing matters could simply be that the beaker pot, even if based on a central European prototype, pre-dates the individualised burial tradition (which IMO is the key change indicative of migration - not the pot) and they are different things that only come together centuries later. I strongly suspect reservoir effect is artificially aging the beaker individualised burials with early dates in Iberia and it could transpire that we are jumping through hoops to square the circle for no reason at all. That doesnt mean the pot is older but a pot is just a pot.

[alan]

aha - found this fairly recent work on the web http://www.academia.edu/5952632/Current_researches_on_Bell_Beakers
p44 studies a group of sites in central Iberia and notes beaker and non-beaker people in the same burial sites with separate traditions - the beaker appearing from c. 2500BC or so. It also notes that the change from collective burial to individual only takes place c. 2300BC.

I will dig about to see if I can find similar studies of burial tradition chronology elsewhere in Iberia.

[parastais]

I considered getting a copy of Gimbutas a week or two ago out of curiosity but her works are pricey. I read her stuff back in the late 80s but I really only know her from references in later books since then. I understand Mallory actually studied under her. Around the same sort of time in the late 80s I read her books The Balts and The Slavs which seemed very interesting at the time although I cannot now remember them.
The Balts can be found online pdf format free of charge, I think I got them from here:
https://archive.org/details/TheBalts

Chapter 10 of Civilization of Goddess. Nice work by Gimbutas, but the site is annoying Turkish propagand and this site owner has put his "invaluable comments in blue" to text that should be safely ignored:
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/GimbutasMKurgansToEuropeEn.htm

[alan]

speed read a few beaker papers tonight but its like banging you head against a brick wall trying to understand beaker. I think this is one for ancient DNA and will drive you mad trying to work it out without ancient DNA.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

speed read a few beaker papers tonight but its like banging you head against a brick wall trying to understand beaker. I think this is one for ancient DNA and will drive you mad trying to work it out without ancient DNA.

Yes. Perhaps it really doesn't matter where something as mundane as beaker pottery itself originated, which nevertheless had various influential nodes. And the entire study of BB has been crouched under the dominant out of iberia paradigm, with controversial carbon dates.

As for aDNA, I'm curious as to what the non-Beaker regions were like . This would be equally instructive. In fact, I even once read that the BB "folk" were the marginalised of Copper age Western Europe, hence the need for extensive networking with each other . .

[rms2]

I'm not sure that one should say that Vucedol was kurganized by Yamnaya. That makes it sound more like cultural, rather than demic diffusion. Vucedol is a hybrid culture, between Baden and Kostolac. This whole area, all the way back to the Kuban steppe, was a fairly homogenous horizon. Distinctions between these cultures in the horizon appear more rooted in the differences in the MN pops with which they mixed.

I was using "kurganized" in the sense I think that Gimbutas used it, which included a substantial infusion if not total replacement of male lineages.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

I was using "kurganized" in the sense I think that Gimbutas used it, which included a substantial infusion if not total replacement of male lineages.

The concept of something being culturally "Kurganized" should be removed from nomenclature because it's a non entity. Rather, all we're seeing is the hallmarks of the secondary products Revolution, which have a broad, neolithic origin, and nothing specifically related to Yamnaya or kurgans.

People thought that Remedello was a "Kurganized" culture, but we saw how accurate that was

[Jean M]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC .

Chapter 1: Falileyev covers the linguistic issues including more evidence of Proto-Celtic contact with eastern IE, such as Indo-Iranian (Schmidt 1996). He thinks this destroys Italo-Celtic (but my solution resolves the problem). He is critical of Celtic-from-the-West, especially Cunliffe's focus on Renfrew's IE-spread-with-Neolithic nonsense, but likes the core concept that the rapid mobility within the BB phenomenon provides a plausible vector for the spread of Celtic. Thinks that the approach of Gibson and Wodtko is more promising. They envisage multiligualism within Bell Beaker, one of which languages may have been the ancestor of Celtic.

[Heber]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC .

Thinks that the approach of Gibson and Wodtko is more promising. They envisage multiligualism within Bell Beaker, one of which languages may have been the ancestor of Celtic.

Here is the Gibson and Wodtko paper.
http://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Research/CelticLanguages/GibsonWodtko.pdf

[rms2]

The concept of something being culturally "Kurganized" should be removed from nomenclature because it's a non entity. Rather, all we're seeing is the hallmarks of the secondary products Revolution, which have a broad, neolithic origin, and nothing specifically related to Yamnaya or kurgans.

People thought that Remedello was a "Kurganized" culture, but we saw how accurate that was

Well, we disagree on that. A culture that, through contact or integration with a kurgan-type people, takes on the ensemble of traits associated with steppe pastoralists, particularly when in comes to mounted pastoralism and single burial under a tumulus or kurgan, has been "kurganized", regardless of its dna profile.

[R.Rocca]

The concept of something being culturally "Kurganized" should be removed from nomenclature because it's a non entity. Rather, all we're seeing is the hallmarks of the secondary products Revolution, which have a broad, neolithic origin, and nothing specifically related to Yamnaya or kurgans.

People thought that Remedello was a "Kurganized" culture, but we saw how accurate that was

You can add the Baden Culture to that as well. Both Remedello and Baden were seen by Gimbutas as Kurgan cultures, so we need to make sure to use the designation carefully going forward. In my opinion, there are no Bell Beaker groups that we can consider to be "Kurgan", especially since many of the single grave burials did not have mounds. Also, the inclusion of wrist guards, bows, arrows, and daggers in all Bell Beaker provinces are a stark contrast to the Yamnaya/Corded Ware Kurgans with battle axes. Much is made of the typical Bell Beaker brachycephalic skull type found in the east, but those skulls do not resemble those of Yamnaya or Corded Ware either.

[Jean M]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC.

Chapter 2: Elżbieta Haduch, Bell Beakers and Corded Ware People. Anthropological point of view in the Little Poland Upland


There are very few BB skeletons in Poland.
Skull shape of male BB skeletons is distinctly different from that of preceding Corded Ware skulls and those of the later Mierzanowice Culture. The latter cluster close to CW.
Long-headed female skeletons in a BB context suggest that these were local women who married into the incoming group.

[rms2]

You can add the Baden Culture to that as well. Both Remedello and Baden were seen by Gimbutas as Kurgan cultures, so we need to make sure to use the designation carefully going forward. In my opinion, there are no Bell Beaker groups that we can consider to be "Kurgan", especially since many of the single grave burials did not have mounds. Also, the inclusion of wrist guards, bows, arrows, and daggers in all Bell Beaker provinces are a stark contrast to the Yamnaya/Corded Ware Kurgans with battle axes. Much is made of the typical Bell Beaker brachycephalic skull type found in the east, but those skulls do not resemble those of Yamnaya or Corded Ware either.

"Kurgan" is a term of convenience that includes a range of characteristics believed to have been derived from steppe pastoralists. Not all "kurgan" burials, even on the steppe itself, have mounds, so it strikes me as unreasonable for that reason to exclude Beaker from that classification, since many Beaker burials are under mounds.

Gimbutas, being human, was mistaken in some things, but she got a lot of things right well ahead of her time.

[Jean M]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC.

Chapter 3 is the usual intelligent work we get from Przemysław Makarowicz. There have not been a lot more BB discoveries in Poland since he published two papers on the topic in 2003. In this contribution he discusses the BB of the southern (upland) portion of the Oder and Vistula basins (in Silesia and Western Poland), which he sees as distinct culturally from the BB of the lowland zone of Poland.

He discusses the importance of the archery set in BB male warrior graves, but Chapter 4 really looks at this in detail.

[Jean M]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC.

Chapter 4: Jan Turek looks at wrist-guards.



His focus is strongly on Central Europe, so he makes statements like "In the symbolism of Bell Beaker burial wrist-guards played an important role as prestigious objects. The social significance of archery equipment in the funerary context replaced the preceding symbolism of Corded Ware battle-axes, maceheads and axes." This ignores the fact that Corded Ware did not precede BB in France, Iberia or the British Isles.
He makes interesting comparisons with wrist-guards in other cultures, such as Inuit, some of which had previously been make by Fokkens 2008, which concluded that the stone guards were worn on the outside of a leather wrist-guard. Turek wants to have it both ways - literally. He thinks that the outer position was for common use, and would be switched around to the inside for actually firing an arrow.
His most useful new analysis is for indications of wear. This is clear in the holes that attached the stone, but there is little evidence of marking in the surface by the bow-string. That to me suggests that Fokkens was right, but Turek does not want to go that way.
He gives a detailed typology of BB wrist-guards. He follows Sangmeister is assuming that two-holed were later than 4-holed, but his focus is on Central Europe, not Iberia or Ireland, where the two-holed are common. The argument is that the two-holed are not found with AOO beakers, which were thought to be an early type. In reality Maritime beakers are even earlier.
He also analyses the material from which the wrist-guards were made. Some were specially chosen for colour, it seems. A dark red colour was rare and only used for the most decorative engraved wrist-guards in Bohemia. One of those buried with the Amesbury Archer was dark red.


He concludes:


It is very likely that during the Bell Beaker period archery symbolism was connected to Beaker ideology that, together with a prestigious objects package and copper metallurgy, spread over most of Western and Central Europe. It is also possible that archery symbolism and solar cult were shaping the Bell Beaker cosmology.

[rms2]

Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC.

Chapter 4: Jan Turek looks at wrist-guards.


[LIST]
His focus is strongly on Central Europe, so he makes statements like "In the symbolism of Bell Beaker burial wrist-guards played an important role as prestigious objects. The social significance of archery equipment in the funerary context replaced the preceding symbolism of Corded Ware battle-axes, maceheads and axes." This ignores the fact that Corded Ware did not precede BB in France, Iberia or the British Isles . . .

But if the fully developed Beaker, the kind of Beaker that was borne by men who were predominantly R1b-L51, came from eastern or central Europe, then it was in that sense preceded by Corded Ware everywhere else it went.

[MJost]

I am confused but is this all correctly understood by me?


Continuing my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC.

Chapter 4: Jan Turek looks at wrist-guards.
I am confused but is this all correctly understood by me?


His focus is strongly on Central Europe, so he makes statements like "In the symbolism of Bell Beaker burial wrist-guards played an important role as prestigious objects. The social significance of archery equipment in the funerary context replaced the preceding symbolism of Corded Ware battle-axes, maceheads and axes." This ignores the fact that Corded Ware did not precede BB in France, Iberia or the British Isles.

He concludes:

If BB precedes Corded Ware in France, Iberia or the British Isles (i.e. BB comes before Corded Ware) then Corded Ware is preceded by BB.



But if the fully developed Beaker, the kind of Beaker that was borne by men who were predominantly R1b-L51, came from eastern or central Europe, then it was in that sense preceded by Corded Ware everywhere else it went.

If other non-BB areas precedes Corded Ware (i.e. other non-BB areas comes before Corded Ware) then Corded Ware is preceded by other non-BB areas.



MJost

[Jean M]

But if the fully developed Beaker, the kind of Beaker that was borne by men who were predominantly R1b-L51, came from eastern or central Europe, then it was in that sense preceded by Corded Ware everywhere else it went.

It is rather a misnomer to talk in terms of the "fully developed Beaker" only appearing in Central Europe. What appears in the Csepel Group in Hungary is a mixture of early/southern BB and local pottery. That mixture then travelled widely c. 2400 BC, so it is the common type in formerly CW areas in Germany, Poland etc. Archaeologists in CW regions tend to think in terms of CW followed by BB, and to be familiar with "accompanying pottery" such as polypod bowls along with BB. Another feature is the boar's tusk pendant, found in Yamnaya and then in eastern BB. So I did make a case for that as a distinguishing mark of eastern BB. Then I read Valera 2010 suggesting that the gold lunula developed in Portugal from the use of boar's tusk and similar pendants, found at Perdigões in southern Portugal. Eek! A focus on archery appears in early/southern BB, for example the bow and arrow shown on four BB stelae from Petit Chasseur, Sion, which represent the earliest phase of BB there, with a western/southern influence. These early BB stelae also include some figures wearing lunula-type necklaces. More eeek! that I did not spot this before!

In the British Isles BB seems to have arrived from multiple parts of Continental Europe, as described by Andrew Fitzpatrick in Chapter 5 of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during the 3rd millennium BC, which I have just read. The British Isles had no CW, so it is simply wrong to say that BB followed CW there. I'm happy to report that Fitzpatrick makes no bones about the fact that the earliest BB in the British Isles arrived with migrants, and he happily supports the idea that the widespread network and rapid travel of BB would create an environment for linguistic spread.

[rms2]

. . . If other non-BB areas precedes Corded Ware (i.e. other non-BB areas comes before Corded Ware) then Corded Ware is preceded by other non-BB areas.

Well, Corded Ware is a bit older than Bell Beaker but was roughly contemporaneous with it once Bell Beaker got started. If the fully developed, steppe pastoralist-looking Beaker came from eastern or central Europe and spread west from there, and if Corded Ware preceded Beaker in eastern and central Europe, then Corded Ware preceded Beaker everywhere Beaker subsequently went in the sense of having preceded it in its place of origin.

From what I have read, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, very early Beaker lacked the fully developed, kurgan-looking Beaker ensemble, and its people, especially the men, were physically different from the later Beaker People who carried the full blown Beaker package. That's why I think very early Iberian Beaker will not be R1b but will probably be I2 and G2 and maybe something else.

[rms2]

It is rather a misnomer to talk in terms of the "fully developed Beaker" only appearing in Central Europe . . .

I didn't say it only appeared there, but it seems it arose in eastern or central Europe. That's what I meant by "came from" in the part of my post you quoted.

[rms2]

. . . If the fully developed, steppe pastoralist-looking Beaker came from eastern or central Europe and spread west from there, and if Corded Ware preceded Beaker in eastern and central Europe, then Corded Ware preceded Beaker everywhere Beaker subsequently went in the sense of having preceded it in its place of origin . . .


Maybe I can explain myself better with an analogy. Corded Ware preceded Bell Beaker in Britain in the same way the Celts preceded the British colonists in North America. No, the Celts never landed in North America (Prince Madog excepted), but they certainly preceded the British colonists in their homeland and influenced them.

[Jean M]

Maybe I can explain myself better with an analogy. Corded Ware preceded Bell Beaker in Britain in the same way the Celts preceded the British colonists in North America. No, the Celts never landed in North America (Prince Madog excepted), but they certainly preceded the British colonists in their homeland and influenced them.

One idea of the origin of Bell Beaker that was popular for a long time derived it from Corded Ware (the Dutch model). Some archaeologists have been very reluctant to let go of this idea. But it does not work. Corded Ware and Bell Beaker are contemporary, and both derived from Yamnaya, which explains their similarities. As far as I can see, absolutely nothing can be shown to move direct from CW to BB. The only similarities are those derived from Yamnaya.

Some things joined BB in Hungary from Makó (the late type of Vucedol, itself derived from Yamnaya apparently). That mixed culture spread in a number of directions, only some of which were previously CW. The presumed routes into the British Isles include the Rhine corridor (though Andrew Fitzpatrick argues that there has been too much emphasis on it). But even BB travelling along the Rhine seems to have replaced CW rather than mixing with it.

[MJost]

I want to check some dates that I calculated against BB time line. I believe that that P312 came along at the close to the head waters of the Danube and had no expansion for over a hundred years or more (since it has two unordered SNPs) then R-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 arrived in a expansive number of sons. L21 had a five SNP bottleneck for about 500 years itself.
So we know how extensive ZZ11> U152 & DF27 are across central and western Europe with cores in northern Italy and southwestern Europe respectively.

The approximate dates I see that the BB's time frame fits into are around three to six SNPs below P312 time, time that may have been needed to explore these older trade routes that were already established:



R-P312-P312/S116/PF6547

5,310

= 3,360 BC


R-P312-Z1904/CTS12684/PF6548

5,212

= 3,262 BC


R-L21-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 (#1)



5,114

= 3,164 BC


R-L21-#2


5,016

= 3,066 BC


R-L21-#3


4,(918

= 2,968 BC


R-L21-#4


4,820

= 2,870 BC


R-L21-#5


4,722

= 2,772 BC


R-L21-#5


4,624

= 2,674 BC


R-DF13-DF13 (#6)


4,526

= 2,576 BC


R-DF13-CTS8221/Z2542 (#7)


4,428

= 2,478 BC



MJost

[TigerMW]

I want to check some dates that I calculated against BB time line. I believe that that P312 came along at the close to the head waters of the Danube and had no expansion for over a hundred years or more (since it has two unordered SNPs) then R-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 arrived in a expansive number of sons. L21 had a five SNP bottleneck for about 500 years itself.
So we know how extensive ZZ11> U152 & DF27 are across central and western Europe with cores in northern Italy and southwestern Europe respectively.

The approximate dates I see that the BB's time frame fits into are around three to six SNPs below P312 time, time that may have been needed to explore these older trade routes that were already established:



R-P312-P312/S116/PF6547

5,310

= 3,360 BC


R-P312-Z1904/CTS12684/PF6548

5,212

= 3,262 BC


R-L21-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 (#1)



5,114

= 3,164 BC


R-L21-#2


5,016

= 3,066 BC


R-L21-#3


4,(918

= 2,968 BC


R-L21-#4


4,820

= 2,870 BC


R-L21-#5


4,722

= 2,772 BC


R-L21-#5


4,624

= 2,674 BC


R-DF13-DF13 (#6)


4,526

= 2,576 BC


R-DF13-CTS8221/Z2542 (#7)


4,428

= 2,478 BC



MJost
Thanks, Mark. I think these are all single SNP branches (no equivalents), but how does U152, L2, DF27 and Z195 fit into this timeline. My initial reaction is that L21, DF19, DF99, L238 and ZZ37 MRCA's arose among P312+ "frontiersmen" in the western hinterlands.

[alan]

Well, Corded Ware is a bit older than Bell Beaker but was roughly contemporaneous with it once Bell Beaker got started. If the fully developed, steppe pastoralist-looking Beaker came from eastern or central Europe and spread west from there, and if Corded Ware preceded Beaker in eastern and central Europe, then Corded Ware preceded Beaker everywhere Beaker subsequently went in the sense of having preceded it in its place of origin.

From what I have read, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, very early Beaker lacked the fully developed, kurgan-looking Beaker ensemble, and its people, especially the men, were physically different from the later Beaker People who carried the full blown Beaker package. That's why I think very early Iberian Beaker will not be R1b but will probably be I2 and G2 and maybe something else.

It is so confusing that the bell beaker people were real magpies and picked up ideas, pottery traits etc from all sorts of local groups they encountered including east-central local groups, CW and others. These ideas then spread among the beakers but not all of them and in a patchy way albeit usually with some geographical logic to it. You can see from this why for a long time it was interpreted as some sort of complex system of overlapping networks because that is what it looks like and is hard to interpret in terms of human movement.

This confusion of influences from many sources is why I think its better to look at their core beliefs or social system rather than mobile artifacts. That is why I am increasingly thinking that the real key change that indicates an east to west movement is seen in the appearance of non-collective burial traditions. That has a much smoother looking east to west dating spread than any of the objects. So if we called them the individual centred burial people that would probably be a better name for the movement. That is IMO why it is so key to better consider the dating of the arrival of individual focused burial traditions in Iberia.

Did it arrive at the same time beaker pot started to be made in Iberia? I dont know and I dont think anyone does right now but I have a hunch that beaker pot emerged centuries before the individual centred burial tradition did. Certainly that was the case for the zone around Madrid in a paper i recently read- beaker may have appeared c. 2700BC there but the individual burial tradition was post-2500BC. I dont believe beaker pot is in itself can with certainly be said to be based on a central European prototype (if it was clear there wouldnt be so much debate about it) so IMO dating the change in burial tradition is far more vital. Dating that would be much more telling than any pots could ever be. Broadly speaking single burial is a steppe thing then it has a major spread in CW. The next major culture that clearly is individualistic in burial terms is beaker.

It seems that, contrary to what was once thought, that this individual focused beaker burial did include Iberia where it can be seen even when old collective megaliths were re-used. The big big question for me is at what point this started in Iberia. Iberia may be the earliest makers of beaker pot but the individual focused form of burial is new to Iberia in the beaker phase. Question is - what point in the Iberian beaker phase?

I was looking at the southern French burial evidence as an interesting go-between zone between central Europe and Iberia but again 2500BC seems to be the magic date for the start of beaker pot there. In burial terms the area is apparently a total mess because megaliths were often reused and subsequently disturbed by in the post-beaker era and by looters. However, it is interesting that in at least one case, perhaps three, even the early beaker phase of southern French beaker does include a classic beaker burial of the flexed on the side, roughly north to south axis, facing east with the head to the north or to the south if female. However although this is in the early phase of the French beaker period the latter is now placed around 2500BC or so.

We just dont know when the individualised beaker burials start in Iberia IMO until we check for reservoir effect on human bone or can test short life materials other than human bone that are 100% clearly associated with the beaker burial - not an easy feat where re-used of old megaliths was very common. AFAIK no diagnostic pan-beaker object is made out of a short life organic material that can be used for radiocarbon dating.

Also although I keep repeating this, pottery is a poor tracker of a male lineage movement when pottery was a mainly female craft. I pretty well accept beaker pot per se commenced in Iberia but the curious thing IMO is that it doesnt seem to spread outside Iberia for 250-300 years before suddenly it is pan-European c. 2500BC. Neither does any Iberian objects I can think off. So, there is no evidence that the earliest perhaps 10 generations of beaker pot users were involved in links with the rest of Europe and central Europe in particular.

Beaker just doesnt seem to travel beyond Iberia at all for up to 300 years. Then all of a sudden it is everywhere c. 2500BC. So it seems to me that beaker had a dynamic and some component after 2500BC that it didnt have in its first 300 years. Something spectacularly changed around 2500BC.

I am verging on favouring a model that early beaker was not R1b or IE and that when it first expanded from Iberia into southern France and western Alps c. 2500BC. This led to central European groups quickly embraced their exotica before cutting out the middle man and following the network back to Iberia. This may have been quite a messy gradual thing rather than an event. The dating evidence in France and Iberia for the arrival of the individualised burial tradition seem very very poor but the fact there was an early beaker pot user with a classic individual beaker burial in southern France c. 2500BC shows that it had penetrated southwards by that date at least. For Iberia I think a major revue of dates of individual burials claimed to be early needs to be done - certainly the study around Madrid makes them post-2500BC.

[alan]

I want to check some dates that I calculated against BB time line. I believe that that P312 came along at the close to the head waters of the Danube and had no expansion for over a hundred years or more (since it has two unordered SNPs) then R-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 arrived in a expansive number of sons. L21 had a five SNP bottleneck for about 500 years itself.
So we know how extensive ZZ11> U152 & DF27 are across central and western Europe with cores in northern Italy and southwestern Europe respectively.

The approximate dates I see that the BB's time frame fits into are around three to six SNPs below P312 time, time that may have been needed to explore these older trade routes that were already established:



R-P312-P312/S116/PF6547

5,310

= 3,360 BC


R-P312-Z1904/CTS12684/PF6548

5,212

= 3,262 BC


R-L21-L21 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37 (#1)



5,114

= 3,164 BC


R-L21-#2


5,016

= 3,066 BC


R-L21-#3


4,(918

= 2,968 BC


R-L21-#4


4,820

= 2,870 BC


R-L21-#5


4,722

= 2,772 BC


R-L21-#5


4,624

= 2,674 BC


R-DF13-DF13 (#6)


4,526

= 2,576 BC


R-DF13-CTS8221/Z2542 (#7)


4,428

= 2,478 BC



MJost

Those dates would make a great match for a beaker arrival of DF13 to the isles.

[MJost]

Thanks, Mark. I think these are all single SNP branches (no equivalents), but how does U152, L2, DF27 and Z195 fit into this timeline. My initial reaction is that L21, DF19, DF99, L238 and ZZ37 arose among P312+ "frontiersmen" in the western hinterlands.

Using AlexW's Tree, U152 and DF27 would be at the 2nd (#2) node down from P312 block, etc. With six SNP time fame below P312 a massive expansion of sons in most subclades happened. Only slow poke was L21, but L21' son 'Big Daddy DF13 made up for lost ground with ~23 major subclades. It would be logical to consider that the first few subclade nodes below P312 most likely maintained very close geographically before growth massive expansion occurred.



R-P312-P312/S116/PF6547


5,310

= 3,360 BC


R-P312-Z1904/CTS12684/PF6548


5,212

= 3,262 BC


R-L21-L21/M529/S145 ~ZZ11 ~DF19 ~DF99 ~L238 ~ZZ37




5,114

= 3,164 BC


R-L21-#2 ~U152 ~DF27 ~L624 ~Z29644

5,016

= 3,066 BC


R-L21-#3 ~U152>~5 peer subclades ~DF27>Z195 & ~ZZ12


4,918

= 2,968 BC


R-L21-#4 ~L2>4 peer subclades ~ZZ12>~13 peer subclades


4,820

= 2,870 BC


R-L21-#5


4,722

= 2,772 BC


R-L21-#6

4,624

= 2,674 BC


R-DF13-DF13/S521/CTS241 (~23 peer subclades)


4,526

= 2,576 BC


R-DF13-CTS8221/Z2542

4,428

= 2,478 BC




MJost

[alan]

A long bottleneck c. 3000-2500BC for L21 is very interesting. The explosion under DF13 derivates in the isles probably relates to beaker entering a place with absolutely no competition in terms of metals. presumably they by then had gained considerable abilities to sail the seas too. That of course leaves us wondering where L21 lived 3000-2500BC and in what culture. Only Ibria seems to have had pre-2500BC beaker. However it may be that L21 (or indeed any P312) was in beaker prior to 2500BC. If it wasnt then it had to be in some central European culture. Archaeology would tend to point to isles beaker people being especially linked to the Rhine.

[MJost]

Those dates would make a great match for a beaker arrival of DF13 to the isles.'

How do you see all of this play out into the Isles?

DF13's sons likely not involved in the earliest copper production in Ireland, at Ross Island in the period 2400-2200 BC bringing with them Beaker's while searching for the desired metal. This likely were not L21 due to his six SNP bottle neck situation leaving one or the other P312 son's pushed forth.

MJost

[MJost]

I just noted your post Alan as we crossed each others posting.

JimW has shown some old FGC5494 outliers are found in the central Rhine and have some other of its subclades up to the north sea France, and my FGC5494>FGC5496 becoming an Irish Sea branch with heavy Munster ties early as per PaulD. FGC5494's other subclades are tied to Wales and southern England. FGC5494 most likely started massive migration to the Isles during the beginning Iron age.

[alan]

'

How do you see all of this play out into the Isles?

DF13's sons likely not involved in the earliest copper production in Ireland, at Ross Island in the period 2400-2200 BC bringing with them Beaker's while searching for the desired metal. This likely were not L21 due to his six SNP bottle neck situation leaving one or the other P312 son's pushed forth.

MJost

Sorry - I dont understand why you say that. Your dates for DF13 are older than Ross Island (not that I have any fixed view on the yDNA of Ross island miners)

[MJost]

Sorry - I dont understand why you say that. Your dates for DF13 are older than Ross Island (not that I have any fixed view on the yDNA of Ross island miners)
I was writing about DF13's sons were most like NOT involve in BB into the Isle and that Ross island operation was associated with beaker pottery and continued until ca 1,900 BC trying to promote the other P312 subclades involved in bring BB to the isles. I was attempting to get some idea who then that would have been.

MJost

[alan]

Worth considering that L21 may have had a period in the high risk frontier zone where most of the lines may have been wiped out. Apparently L21 was the northern maritime branch of P312 and requiring many sea journey could be a huge factor. To provide some comparison, death rates for fishermen in traditional boats of a higher standard even a century a go was absolutely mind blowing. Lets put it this way, eventoday, I saw a statistic that even in very advanced trawler fishing, in Ireland the death rate for working in the sea in 40 times the norm. I have read modern stats of 75 times normal rate for the 1970s. I cant find the stats but I remember hearing 19th century stats which gave the strong impression that the death rate was many 100s of times the norm and so extraordinary that death looked kind of inevitable if you stuck with it too long. So I think we have to bear this factor in mind when looking at early L21.

[alan]

I was writing about DF13's sons were most like NOT involve in BB into the Isle and that Ross island operation was associated with beaker pottery and continued until ca 1,900 BC trying to promote the other P312 subclades involved in bring BB to the isles. I was attempting to get some idea who then that would have been.

MJost

still dont understand why you say that. If DF13 is older than 2500BC then it could have been involved in Ross Island which probably commenced around 2400BC. At least in theory. If there was any one reason why L21 hit pay dirt in the isles it is likely to be because the isles were a metals blank canvas but also rich in copper, tin and gold.

[MJost]

DF13, also, had a two SNP bottle neck, ~2,576 to 2,380 BC befor he had his massive expansion. And I don't feel he was up in the Isles or even along the north shores of Rhine or west there off, yet. He was holding up along the central Rhine and his sons expanded north and northwest with DF63 ending up on the far northwest coast.

MJost



still dont understand why you say that. If DF13 is older than 2500BC then it could have been involved in Ross Island which probably commenced around 2400BC. At least in theory. If there was any one reason why L21 hit pay dirt in the isles it is likely to be because the isles were a metals blank canvas but also rich in copper, tin and gold.

[Jean M]

From what I have read, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, very early Beaker ... people, especially the men, were physically different from the later Beaker People .....

You are absolutely right. The late BB people had the flattened occiput described for BB in Poland in chapter 2 of the new book I keep reporting on. If this was genetic or the result of swaddling in a fixed position is not clear, but either way, it seems to have been picked up in the Carpathian Basin. The early BB people are not reported to have shown this feature. Neither are Yamnaya or CW, so it certainly is not the result of inter-mixture with CW. The skull-shape difference between eastern BB and CW is remarked upon in a stream of publications. It made it easy for archaeologists to distinguish the two.

Some genetic difference between early and late BB may appear when we get aDNA from BB in Iberia. David Reich said off the cuff at his lecture early this year that the Iberian BB had different proportions of the three autosomal elements than the German BB. That could be ANE, EEF and WHG or Yamnaya, EEF and WHG. I'm not sure. But I think it quite likely that late BB could have acquired an extra dose of ANE/Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin from Mako or other Yamnaya-derived cultures.

[alan]

You are absolutely right. The late BB people had the flattened occiput described for BB in Poland in chapter 2 of the new book I keep reporting on. If this was genetic or the result of swaddling in a fixed position is not clear, but either way, it seems to have been picked up in the Carpathian Basin. The early BB people are not reported to have shown this feature. Neither are Yamnaya or CW, so it certainly is not the result of inter-mixture with CW. The skull-shape difference between eastern BB and CW is remarked upon in a stream of publications. It made it easy for archaeologists to distinguish the two.

Some genetic difference between early and late BB may appear when we get aDNA from BB in Iberia. David Reich said off the cuff at his lecture early this year that the Iberian BB had different proportions of the three autosomal elements than the German BB. That could be ANE, EEF and WHG or Yamnaya, EEF and WHG. I'm not sure. But I think it quite likely that late BB could have acquired an extra dose of ANE/Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin from Mako or other Yamnaya-derived cultures.

That could be interpreted as him saying they are different proportions but all three main components are present in Iberian beaker people sampled. That in turn would seem to mean ANE was not absent. So at the very least then part of the Iberian beaker people must have been intrusive from points east. That there was some flow into Iberia within the beaker period of course is not surprising to anyone but continuity zealots. However, it will be a lot more interesting if we knew how early in the Iberian beaker sequence ANE was known.

I suppose we will know soon enough. My hunch is that the beaker users genetics in Iberia will change a lot across the culture's period of existence. How much they will be different - whether its radical of a slow change is not clear. I think its quite possible that there will be gradual change after 2500BC because what we do know for sure is that the first 2-300 years of bell beaker use seems to be an Iberia-only phenomenon but c. 2500BC it suddenly massively expanded and so Iberia became the south-west end of a vast network spreading over much of Europe. That much seems indisputable so it does seem to me that a greater opportunity for central European flow into Iberia existed after 2500BC. Whether there was central European flow INTO Iberia before the beaker network all hinges on which expert we believe on the genesis of the beaker pot and whether the change in the burial tradition happened at the same time or is later.

[rms2]

You are absolutely right. The late BB people had the flattened occiput described for BB in Poland in chapter 2 of the new book I keep reporting on. If this was genetic or the result of swaddling in a fixed position is not clear, but either way, it seems to have been picked up in the Carpathian Basin. The early BB people are not reported to have shown this feature. Neither are Yamnaya or CW, so it certainly is not the result of inter-mixture with CW. The skull-shape difference between eastern BB and CW is remarked upon in a stream of publications. It made it easy for archaeologists to distinguish the two.

Some genetic difference between early and late BB may appear when we get aDNA from BB in Iberia. David Reich said off the cuff at his lecture early this year that the Iberian BB had different proportions of the three autosomal elements than the German BB. That could be ANE, EEF and WHG or Yamnaya, EEF and WHG. I'm not sure. But I think it quite likely that late BB could have acquired an extra dose of ANE/Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin from Mako or other Yamnaya-derived cultures.

I have read very early Iberian Beaker Folk differed from the later Beaker Folk in that the former could be characterized as Mediterranean, being of shorter stature and having gracile skeletons, so the differences were reflected not in skull shape alone. Besides, from what I have read, the Beaker Folk were not 100% brachycephalic. Most were actually mesocephalic, and some were dolichocephalic.

It's hard to piece together a really cogent Beaker timeline, but again from what I have read very early Iberian Beaker lacked the full panoply of Beaker characteristics, including single burial under a tumulus and evidence of horse riding.

[alan]

Rich - this is worth a re-read and it is interesting that he does mention Vucedol
http://www.academia.edu/11325848/The_dogma_of_the_Iberian_origin_of_the_Bell_Beaker _attempting_its_deconstruction

[rms2]

That could be interpreted as him saying they are different proportions but all three main components are present in Iberian beaker people sampled. That in turn would seem to mean ANE was not absent. So at the very least then part of the Iberian beaker people must have been intrusive from points east. That there was some flow into Iberia within the beaker period of course is not surprising to anyone but continuity zealots. However, it will be a lot more interesting if we knew how early in the Iberian beaker sequence ANE was known.

I suppose we will know soon enough. My hunch is that the beaker users genetics in Iberia will change a lot across the culture's period of existence. How much they will be different - whether its radical of a slow change is not clear. I think its quite possible that there will be gradual change after 2500BC because what we do know for sure is that the first 2-300 years of bell beaker use seems to be an Iberia-only phenomenon but c. 2500BC it suddenly massively expanded and so Iberia became the south-west end of a vast network spreading over much of Europe. That much seems indisputable so it does seem to me that a greater opportunity for central European flow into Iberia existed after 2500BC. Whether there was central European flow INTO Iberia before the beaker network all hinges on which expert we believe on the genesis of the beaker pot and whether the change in the burial tradition happened at the same time or is later.

I could be wrong, of course, but I really suspect the very earliest Beaker in Iberia will be non-R1b. I know I've said that before, but it is my guess. That Vučedol period R1b from Hungary reported in Szécsényi-Nagy's dissertation very likely belonged to the Vučedol culture. I realize 2870 BC is the early end of the radiocarbon date range for it, but at any rate it is early and likely belonged to a culture linked by Gimbutas to the evolution of Beaker in eastern or central Europe. I think that particular R1b could be a really important indicator of how and where R1b got into Beaker, especially if it turns out to be L51, L11 or perhaps even P312.

I suspect very early Iberian Beaker men will be I2, G2, maybe E1b1b, and will resemble Ötzi.

If I am wrong, okay. Time will tell.

[alan]

Just a random thought but if the hyper-mobile subset of beaker people like the Amesbury Archer was travelling around with a family (as the very fact of beaker pottery and adhering to beaker traditions seems to suggest) then one could ask what transport they used. I ask that because perhaps the baby strapped to a board thing fits best with a scenario of moving about on horses rather than wagons. Certainly living in wagons didnt give Yamnaya people flattening of the rear of the skull which seems to imply they didnt feel the need to strap babies to boards. However it does strike me as a very practical method for people to use for their infants if they were travelling around on horses.

As an aside I tend to think that while these block wheeled cattle powered wagons were excellent for moving through the relatively dry, treeless endless grassy steppes, I cant help but think their use suddenly becomes more limited as soon as you start hitting hilly, rocky, wooded or damp conditions and ploughed, fenced/ditched landscapes etc. I would tend to think that their use would have been restricted to well established tracks in the lowlands and could not have been used in anything like the way they were in the steppes and steppe-like environments. I cant help but think that a bunch of riding and pack horses would be a far more versatile way of travelling in non-steppe environments and certainly would seem sufficient to transport basic equipment and ingots of ore.

[Jean M]

It's hard to piece together a really cogent Beaker timeline, but again from what I have read very early Iberian Beaker lacked the full panoply of Beaker characteristics, including single burial under a tumulus and evidence of horse riding.

They had domesticated horses in Copper Age Iberia. That I know. It is in the forthcoming book. Bear in mind too that the Csepel BB group seems to have started with a bunch of horse-traders from the west wanting steppe horses. But Iberia was about the only place in Europe apart from the steppe where wild horses had survived, and some of their DNA ended up in the modern Lusitanian breed, so it seems that there was also some local domestication by people who had the know-how.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

rms2 and I have been discussing a possible Late Neolthic entry of R1b into Europe via PM, so I might as well give my opinion.

I believe that R-M269 entered Europe in the form of Gimbutas' Second Kurgan Wave (3400 BC to 3200 BC). Which can be found here (http://www.ufg.uni-kiel.de/dateien/dateien_studium/Archiv/201011_furholt_hinz_lesenswert/03_sitzung/gimbutas1979.pdf) on page 120, Section II.

Supposedly, this group introduced wheeled vehicles, yokes and copper-arsenic alloys to the area; as well as leaving new symbols on stelae as far West as Northern Italy and Switzerland. These symbols differ from previous Old European symbols left on statue-menhirs in France and Italy. Also, their weapons and metallurgy appear to be related to the Kura-Araxes culture (a culture some people have listed as a possible early R1b culture). I believe this Second Wave may be related to the Cernavoda and Boleraz cultures, or if those cultures are too old and represent the First Kurgan Wave described by Gimbutas, then R-M269 may be responsible for the Ezero and related cultures that appear around ~3000 BC. From their new home on the West Coast of the Black Sea, they moved West, forming cultures such as Vucedol, Baden, and other Trans-Danubian cultures that have arsenical copper and similar pottery to one another; that also includes Troy in Western Anatolia. They also merged with Bell Beaker groups moving in from the West eventually forming the Eastern Beaker group.

If you read the passage below from The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age (http://books.google.com/books?id=6ZQeAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=bell%20beaker&f=false), you will see that the R-M269(xP311) figure from Dr. Hammer's Origins of R-M269 Diversity in European (https://gap.familytreedna.com/media/docs/2013/Hammer_M269_Diversity_in_Europe.pdf), apart from matching the described territories of the early Ezero and related cultures on the West Coast of the Black Sea, also matches the territories that came to be occupied by the Eastern Beaker group very nicely (Iwno in the Baltic, Chlopice-Vesele from Little Poland, Western Slovakia and Eastern Moravia, Pitvaros/Maros in the Southeastern Carpathians, Cetina in the Adriatic Basin and the Grotta Cappucini element of the Laterza-Cellino San Marco culture in Southeastern Italy.)

http://i61.tinypic.com/2lmt20n.png

http://i62.tinypic.com/9hid86.png


I'm not sure how accurate that is. For one, wheels were already present in Cucuteni -Tripolye, and werent introduced by a "second Kurgan wave".
Secondly, the transmission of arsenic copper alloy metallurgy probably occurred directly from the caucasus to the Carpathian basin. At best, the Yamnaya pastoralists -who were neither more warriors than anyone, nor elites - were vectors of larger processes that originated outside the "Yamnaya cultural -historical community".

[miiser]

L21 had a five SNP bottleneck for about 500 years itself.

MJost,

I have in the past brought up the issue of SNP runs with regard to your SNP counting based timelines. In the past when I mentioned this topic, you said that you acknowledged that such runs occur and that you understand their implications for SNP counting. And yet, you continue to insist on interpreting SNP timing as if SNPs occur as singular periodic events at regular time intervals, like clockwork.

A block of phylogentically equivalent SNPs does NOT imply a bottleneck, but is more likely just a run of SNPs which occurred within a small number of generations. Based on SNP data alone, there is NO rational reason to assume that L21 experienced a 500 year bottleneck of reduced population expansion rate.

Using averaged SNP mutation rates over multiple branches and long time ranges is a useful technique. Interpreting single SNPs as measurement units marked out along the time axis of a single lineage is rubbish. In light of the knowledge that SNPs sometimes occur in runs, blocks of phylogentically equivalent SNPs do not generally indicate population bottlenecks.

[Heber]

Secondly, the transmission of arsenic copper alloy metallurgy probably occurred directly from the caucasus to the Carpathian basin. At best, the Yamnaya pastoralists -who were neither more warriors than anyone, nor elites - were vectors of larger processes that originated outside the "Yamnaya cultural -historical community".

It could have been the Maykop culture who were elites and have the distinctive Kemi Oba Stelae highlighted by Koch and the golden bull highlighted by Cunliffe. Ancient DNA testing in this area would help explain a lot.

www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/kemi-oba/

[MJost]

MJost,

I have in the past brought up the issue of SNP runs with regard to your SNP counting based timelines. In the past when I mentioned this topic, you said that you acknowledged that such runs occur and that you understand their implications for SNP counting. And yet, you continue to insist on interpreting SNP timing as if SNPs occur as singular periodic events at regular timing intervals.

A block of phylogentically equivalent SNPs does NOT imply a bottleneck, but is more likely just a run of SNPs which occurred within a small number of generations. Based on SNP data alone, there is NO rational reason to assume that L21 experienced a 500 year bottleneck of reduced population expansion rate.
I do think that their are 'Runs' of SNPs and can be only be seen as multiple mutations that were clustered by physical position with only 1,000 bp between positions. These are pretty rare and I would consider that these would most likely be counted as one mutation, UNLESS they branched.

L21's block of SNPs do not fit this type of mutation process. If you look at each position you will see that they are not clustered what so ever. That does bring to my mind that it should all branches should be scanned 1k blocks each to see if there are any matches be counted as one mutation. Even if this process does find clustered SNPs, it will only increase the calibrated years per SNP.


Y2598/S552
4619767


L459
5275051


R1b1a2a1a2c-L21/M529/S145
15654428


Z245/S245
22200784



Z260
24411932



Z290/S461
28632468




The Y-chromosome point mutation rate in humans
Agnar Helgason, et al
25 March 2015
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v47/n5/full/ng.3171.html#supplementary-information

MJost

[miiser]

I do think that their are 'Runs' of SNPs and can be only be seen as multiple mutations that were clustered by physical position with only 1,000 bp between positions. These are pretty rare and I would consider that these would most likely be counted as one mutation, UNLESS they branched.

L21's block of SNPs do not fit this type of mutation process. If you look at each position you will see that they are not clustered what so ever. That does bring to my mind that it should all branches should be scanned 1k blocks each to see if there are any matches be counted as one mutation.

When I speak of SNP mutation runs, I am speaking of them being clustered together in time, not necessarily clustered together spatially in their location within the chromosome. SNPs being spatially near to each other on the chromosome, having a causal relationship due to structural mechanics of the molecule, is one mechanism by which runs can occur within a short time range. But molecular structural effects comprise only a subset of such mutation runs, and there are a variety of other mechanisms by which SNP mutation runs can occur. And the evidence is strong that such mutation runs are not rare, but are fairly routine.


Even if this process does find clustered SNPs, it will only increase the calibrated years per SNP.

The problem with your method is not that runs affect the "calibrated years per SNP". I do not doubt that the average rates used are close to accurate, at least for a limited time epoch. (There is evidence that the average rate has not been constant over longer time ranges.) The problem of ignoring runs appears when you reason in the reverse direction, applying average values to single events. You are taking the average rate and assuming that it applies to every single individual SNP. This is not a valid methodology. Five SNPs may occur within 1 generation, 3 generations, or 30 generations, for example. The average mutation rate does not tell us which of these actually occurred.

Anyways, we are perhaps getting off topic from the original post, so I will not carry on in this thread. But I caution against interpreting SNP blocks as population bottlenecks. It does not follow from the data.

[Jean M]

It is so confusing that the bell beaker people were real magpies and picked up ideas, pottery traits etc from all sorts of local groups they encountered including east-central local groups, CW and others. These ideas then spread among the beakers but not all of them and in a patchy way albeit usually with some geographical logic to it.

Alan - there is no problem with arguing that BB picked up ideas from various peoples encountered and that it developed over time. All cultures do. It is absolutely normal. The problem lies in claiming that it was contact with CW specifically from which core, important traits were derived that converted BB into "the developed BB". The idea that important traits came from CW has been standard thinking for decades, and Barry Cunliffe repeated it quite recently, so you can scarcely be blamed for echoing what might seem like eternal verities. :) But thinking has been changing and it is reinforced by aDNA. The picture from archaeology is that BB and CW were distinct communities. That they both originated from the European steppe is clear from their Yamnaya influences, but by different routes and evidently from communities with a different Y-DNA haplogroup composition.

Harrison and Heyd 2007 showed that the earliest BB of Iberia and southern France was derived from Yamnaya. Their metallurgy, horses, solar worship and anthropomorphic stelae are from the steppe. Their archery and wrist-guards are specific to them and very clearly not derived from CW, which favoured the battle-axe. The use of twisted cord to make impressions on pottery is not exclusive to CW. It is a trait from Yamnaya. The shaft-hole axe is from Yamnaya and was the weapon of choice in the Carpathian Basin in the 3rd millennium. Kurgans had been standard with the Yamnaya who entered the Carpathian Basin and continued into successor cultures. (Round tumuli containing single BB burials do occur in Iberia, but dating is not easy, so I pass on that.) Eastern BB picked up "accompanying pottery" in the Carpathian Basin which spread with Eastern BB (Piguet and Besse 2009). The physical type of Eastern BB appears to start in the Carpathian Basin. In short it is the Carpathian Basin which is key to the differences between Western BB and Eastern BB.

[Romilius]

Some genetic difference between early and late BB may appear when we get aDNA from BB in Iberia. David Reich said off the cuff at his lecture early this year that the Iberian BB had different proportions of the three autosomal elements than the German BB. That could be ANE, EEF and WHG or Yamnaya, EEF and WHG. I'm not sure. But I think it quite likely that late BB could have acquired an extra dose of ANE/Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin from Mako or other Yamnaya-derived cultures.

So... Reich knows the autosomal elements of Iberian BB?

Perhaps, his team and he got also aDNA from Iberian BB sites.

[Jean M]

So... Reich knows the autosomal elements of Iberian BB?

Perhaps, his team and he got also aDNA from Iberian BB sites.

Yes they have. That is how he knows. I have no other details at all. So I don't know locations or dates or Y-DNA haplogroups (if any) or when these will be published.

[Jean M]

A key paper for the Csepel group contacts and burial types is Endrődi 2013, Funerary Rituals, Social Relations and Diffusion of Bell Beaker Csepel-Group: https://www.academia.edu/5785869/Funerary_Rituals_Social_Relations_and_Diffusion_of _Bell_Beaker_Csepel-Group


During the excavations at Szigetszentmiklós-Üdülsor Bell Beaker Csepel Group in 1988-1989 and in 2008-2009, 97 burials were also unearthed, in a cemetery covering an area of 5400 m2. Most of them were urn burials and burials with scattered ashes, a few were inhumations and symbolic graves. The uncovering of 10 graves surrounded by circular ditches was, however, a new phenomenon. Most of the burials with circular ditches around them at Szigetszentmiklós-Üdülsor were scattered ash cremations. The circular ditches sometimes surrounded more than one burial, a few cases even the “entrance”, located on the east side, could be documented. A probable symbolic grave, no. 902, that was enclosed by a double circular ditch is unique. In three cases it could also be observed, that small crushed vessels, mostly jugs, lay in the fills of the circular ditches close to their “entrances”. These may have been used for libation during the funeral ceremony. It is important that there was a difference in altitude between some of the cremation urn burials and those with circular ditches with the latter burials appearing about 20-25 cm deeper in the soil, so vertical stratigraphic data indicate chronological differences. The most important find units from the cemetery excavations from 2009 were the grave goods from scattered ash cremation burial no. 863. surrounded by circular ditches. The grave finds (the knob ornaments with concentric round channelling, which are extremely rare in the Bell Beaker Csepel group, evaluated by abstract and schematic geometric symbols symbolism of the Sun. The gold and silver paltes found in the grave must have come from a headdress worn as a diadem.) probably stress the social position of the buried person. Paralleles of the early Bell Beaker Csepel Groups finds refers to the continuation of the traditions, maybe indicates contacts with the western areas of Bell Beaker Culture.

[alan]

Eastern BB picked up "accompanying pottery" in the Carpathian Basin which spread with Eastern BB (Piguet and Besse 2009). The physical type of Eastern BB appears to start in the Carpathian Basin. In short it is the Carpathian Basin which is key to the differences between Western BB and Eastern BB.

I think that is probably right. I am less sure about the early bell beaker in Iberia and S. France being from Yamnaya. However, my doubts are not based on any pre-determined preference or buying into a model. I just think that certain things that would really convince me like the end of collective burial and the start of treating a dead body as an individual (regardless of whether in a single grave or re-using an older Neolithic collective grave) needs its dating looked at again very very carefully.

The existence of the pot and its pretty convincing early dating in Iberia is not enough to convince me of major and especially male migration, mainly because there are so many different opinions on its original template. Even a few central European women who married into high status Iberian families could have been enough to have brought it even if it does have a central European template (which although I think it may, I dont feel confident due to difference of opinion).

However, I am very open to being convinced there was a significantly pre-2500BC intrusion, even one as early as 2800-2750BC if the change in the burial form can be shown to date in that period. As far as I am concerned that change in burial form after 1000s of years of a very different tradition in Iberia is a SURE sign of significant intrusion. All I am doing is exercising caution because the dating of the burial tradition rather than the pot doesnt seem to have really been tackled as yet. So dont get me wrong, I am open to the idea that central Europeans COULD have come into Iberia by 2800-2750BC, I just want better evidence than the dating of the first beaker pot.

What I notice from random reading about Iberian early beaker pottery is that some regional studies indicate the use of the pottery without the change in burial form. I saw that in a Madrid/Messeta study and I think I have also seen this in the non-Tagus area of SW Iberia and (not sure if I recall this right) NW Iberia. So, without separation of the dating of the pot from the dating of individualised burials with the pot/of the beaker period I just am holding fire on having a solid opinion on this. As an aside I recall from a study of rare Iberian AOO/AOC beaker pottery that despite having earlier dates than anywhere else in Europe for this sort of pot, it was not associated with an individualised sort of burial types.

It does seem 100% clear that people using beaker pot existed in Iberia from 2800/2750BC but I dont feel that the other aspects of beaker culture in Iberia are dated closely enough with my primary concern being the change away from collective burial.

If they review the dates for the new beaker burial type of clearly non-local traditions and they come in in the early period when beaker was only in Iberia from c. 2800BC simultaneous with the early Iberian beaker, then I am on board for the early central European intrusion and indeed if it is as early as 2800BC then (in addition to the reasons you have outlined against a CW link near source) any model linking it to the western end of CW wouldnt really work an as CW only arrived in the western Alps around 2750BC.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Alan - there is no problem with arguing that BB picked up ideas from various peoples encountered and that it developed over time. All cultures do. It is absolutely normal. The problem lies in claiming that it was contact with CW specifically from which core, important traits were derived that converted BB into "the developed BB". The idea that important traits came from CW has been standard thinking for decades, and Barry Cunliffe repeated it quite recently, so you can scarcely be blamed for echoing what might seem like eternal verities. :) But thinking has been changing and it is reinforced by aDNA. The picture from archaeology is that BB and CW were distinct communities. That they both originated from the European steppe is clear from their Yamnaya influences, but by different routes and evidently from communities with a different Y-DNA haplogroup composition.

Harrison and Heyd 2007 showed that the earliest BB of Iberia and southern France was derived from Yamnaya. Their metallurgy, horses, solar worship and anthropomorphic stelae are from the steppe. Their archery and wrist-guards are specific to them and very clearly not derived from CW, which favoured the battle-axe. The use of twisted cord to make impressions on pottery is not exclusive to CW. It is a trait from Yamnaya. The shaft-hole axe is from Yamnaya and was the weapon of choice in the Carpathian Basin in the 3rd millennium. Kurgans had been standard with the Yamnaya who entered the Carpathian Basin and continued into successor cultures. (Round tumuli containing single BB burials do occur in Iberia, but dating is not easy, so I pass on that.) Eastern BB picked up "accompanying pottery" in the Carpathian Basin which spread with Eastern BB (Piguet and Besse 2009). The physical type of Eastern BB appears to start in the Carpathian Basin. In short it is the Carpathian Basin which is key to the differences between Western BB and Eastern BB.

Makes sense, IMO. In fact, care of Carpathian and Vuchedol, some elements were even selectively brought into and out of the west balkans and greece. Not sure of exact details

Ref:
AEGEUM 27
Saeborn Contacts in the 3rd mill BC. Joseph Maran
Plus several other papers in this volume

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Quote Originally Posted by Jean M View Post
Some genetic difference between early and late BB may appear when we get aDNA from BB in Iberia. David Reich said off the cuff at his lecture early this year that the Iberian BB had different proportions of the three autosomal elements than the German BB. That could be ANE, EEF and WHG or Yamnaya, EEF and WHG. I'm not sure. But I think it quite likely that late BB could have acquired an extra dose of ANE/Yamnaya in the Carpathian Basin from Mako or other Yamnaya-derived cultures.

Well I don't think anyone would be surprised here.
I'm vey interested to see how the consensus idea that R1b=PIE idea pans out for Southern Europe, if it pans out at all.

[alan]

Yes they have. That is how he knows. I have no other details at all. So I don't know locations or dates or Y-DNA haplogroups (if any) or when these will be published.

I certainly hope they were aware of the importance to solving the beaker-P312 link of choosing at least some of the samples from a century or so before 2500BC (and of course checking for reservoir effect if dating direct on human bone only). A P312 Iberian beaker person from well before 2500BC would clinch the model that there was an intrusion into Iberia from the east long before beaker per se was known anywhere other than Iberia - forcing us to look to an origin in a by-definition non-beaker culture in central Europe.

I suppose this is all about detail -which shows how much progress ancient DNA has made already. We all, except characters like Maju, pretty well believe there was a P312 rich central European intrusion into Iberia WITHIN the beaker period. Its just a matter of whether it happened at the very inception of beaker pottery or whether it happened 2 or 3 centuries later in a developed phase of the Iberian beaker period. I think very few wouldnt agree that P312 arrived in Iberia at some point c. 2800-2400BC. Personally I just dont think there is sufficient refinement in the chronological detail of Iberian beaker period archaeology other than the pot itself to make a call from the archaeology alone.

[alan]

Well I don't think anyone would be surprised here.
I'm vey interested to see how the consensus idea that R1b=PIE idea pans out for Southern Europe, if it pans out at all.

i think for most of south-west and extreme north-west Europe P312 is the only show in town so I dont think its even worth debating the P312-IE link anymore. We know that P312 beaker people carrying a chunk of steppe genes existed in central Europe by 2500BC and we know that neither are known before that date in farming Europe. So, it would take an irrepressible cynic not to conclude there simply has to be a link between at least post-2500BC beaker people, P312 and IE languages. There is simply no subsequent post-beaker non-P312 major input into huge areas of what was Celto-Italic Europe. So if it wasnt the P312 guys carrying steppe genes they must have been avid fans of teach yourself foreign languages without the books, CDs etc.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

i think for most of south-west and extreme north-west Europe P312 is the only show in town so I dont think its even worth debating the P312-IE link anymore. We know that P312 beaker people carrying a chunk of steppe genes existed in central Europe by 2500BC and we know that neither are known before that date in farming Europe. So, it would take an irrepressible cynic not to conclude there simply has to be a link between at least post-2500BC beaker people, P312 and IE languages. There is simply no subsequent post-beaker non-P312 major input into huge areas of what was Celto-Italic Europe. So if it wasnt the P312 guys carrying steppe genes they must have been avid fans of teach yourself foreign languages without the books, CDs etc.

Lol. Fair point. I guess Id be interested the exact timing of arrival. What I meant to say is that this could have been somewhat later than the original Kurgan hypothesis . Ie in Italy it could have been late bronze age

[ADW_1981]

Funny how, for some people once Yamnaya turned out to be R1b, suddenly that culture was no longer the/a progenitor for IE language. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, no sweeping new archaeological finds, just some YDNA evidence which some folks didn't like at all.

[alan]

Makes sense, IMO. In fact, care of Carpathian and Vuchedol, some elements were even selectively brought into and out of the west balkans and greece. Not sure of exact details

Ref:
AEGEUM 27
Saeborn Contacts in the 3rd mill BC. Joseph Maran
Plus several other papers in this volume

I agree its certainly convincing so far that beaker and CW were distinct in central Europe c. 2500BC and the ancient DNA backs this up. However, there is still clearly an element of mystery about the P312-beaker link, where and when this linkage came about...and of course the mystery of the pre-beaker cultural identity of P312, its geographical location and (probably most tricky archaeologically) how (if this is the case) a central European P312 got to Iberia as early as 2800BC when there are no putative steppe or steppe derived cultures anywhere near Iberia at that date.

[rms2]

I agree its certainly convincing so far that beaker and CW were distinct in central Europe c. 2500BC and the ancient DNA backs this up. However, there is still clearly an element of mystery about the P312-beaker link, where and when this linkage came about...and of course the mystery of the pre-beaker cultural identity of P312, its geographical location and (probably most tricky archaeologically) how (if this is the case) a central European P312 got to Iberia as early as 2800BC when there are no putative steppe or steppe derived cultures anywhere near Iberia at that date.

Okay, I know I have a penchant for repeating myself, but there are literally thousands of untested remains in kurgans on Yamnaya's route around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube into the Carpathian Basin. There are also some kurgans there from steppe incursions that predate Yamnaya. We've got a lot of R1b-L51 in the West along with Indo-European languages and a big Yamnaya arrow pointing southeast to northwest up the Danube in the Carpathian Basin.

I could be wrong, but I expect to see some ancient R1b-L51, maybe even R1b-P312, turn up along that Yamnaya route west.

[Jean M]

I think that is probably right. I am less sure about the early bell beaker in Iberia and S. France being from Yamnaya. However, my doubts are not based on any pre-determined preference or buying into a model. I just think that certain things that would really convince me like the end of collective burial and the start of treating a dead body as an individual...

It's all pretty complicated on that front. Looks like burial practices were adopted from locals, such as the use of caves, but with various twists, such as the use of anthropomorphic stelae and the small anthropomorphic engraved plaques to indicate individuals. Lillios, K. 2004 Lives of Stone, Lives of People: Re-viewing the Engraved Plaques and Late Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia. European Journal of Archaeology 7: 125–58: https://www.academia.edu/425685/Lives_of_stone_lives_of_people_re-viewing_the_engraved_plaques_of_Copper_Age_Iberia_ 2004_


Ethnographic analogy confirms the assumption that the presence of a single articulated individual in a cave is not an indication of a higher attention given to ‘the individual’. On the contrary, in many parts of the world mortuary rites are extremely lengthy for individuals of higher ranked families, involving storage, exhumation and collective reburial of disarticulated bones, whereas poorer or low status individuals are deposited quickly and in the flesh (Weiss-Krejci 2011b, 75). Collective burial of disarticulated bones is not necessarily an expression of collective identity, communalism, collectivism and solidarism as suggested by several researchers (e.g. Criado 1989, 91; Aguado 2008, 14), but covers a variety of unrelated funerary and postfunerary processes which lead to the accumulation of multiple bodies in one place.

Estella Weiss-Krejci, Shedding light on dark places. Deposition of the dead in caves and cave-like features in Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia (2012) https://www.academia.edu/1603945/2012_Shedding_light_on_dark_places._Deposition_of_ the_dead_in_caves_and_cave-like_features_in_Neolithic_and_Copper_Age_Iberia._ In_Caves_in_Context._The_Cultural_Significance_of_ Caves_and_Rockshelters_in_Europe._Knut_Andreas_Ber gsvik_and_Robin_Skeates_eds._pp._118-137._Oxbow_Oxford

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Funny how, for some people once Yamnaya turned out to be R1b, suddenly that culture was no longer the/a progenitor for IE language. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, no sweeping new archaeological finds, just some YDNA evidence which some folks didn't like at all.

My skepticism stemmed long before genetic evidence, due to my reading of the archaeological interpretations of Bronze Age specialists rather than the mass-read literature from the likes of Gimbutas, Anthony and Mallory- which appears to be the main point of references for most
:)

They might well be correct, but I'll keep an open (critical) mind for now

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Okay, I know I have a penchant for repeating myself, but there are literally thousands of untested remains in kurgans on Yamnaya's route around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube into the Carpathian Basin. There are also some kurgans there from steppe incursions that predate Yamnaya. We've got a lot of R1b-L51 in the West along with Indo-European languages and a big Yamnaya arrow pointing southeast to northwest up the Danube in the Carpathian Basin.

I could be wrong, but I expect to see some ancient R1b-L51, maybe even R1b-P312, turn up along that Yamnaya route west.

Pinhasi has samples from Austria . They'll be interesting !

[Silesian]

Well I don't think anyone would be surprised here.
I'm vey interested to see how the consensus idea that R1b=PIE idea pans out for Southern Europe, if it pans out at all.
Something to keep in mind. Scroll your mouse/pointer to Yamnaya, Ishkinovka I, I0370, 3300-2700 BC
It predates Sintashta samples by 1 thousand years more or less. It is R1b-Z2103[6100BP+/- rough estimate]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQSnowY29UU09HSmM/view
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#4/44.43/67.68

Now try and come up with a parsimonious explanation/theory how R1b-Z2103 ended up in the following groups, as well as being rumored to have been found in Afanasevo culture? Many of these are isolates.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399854/

Zoroastrians are the oldest religious community in Iran

http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-11-69.pdf
Smyrna&Phokia

http://dienekes.blogspot.ca/2014/11/paternal-lineages-and-languages-in.html
Georgia-Caucasus

Albanians.

[rms2]

My skepticism stemmed long before genetic evidence, due to my reading of the archaeological interpretations of Bronze Age specialists rather than the mass-read literature from the likes of Gimbutas, Anthony and Mallory- which appears to be the main point of references for most
:)

That sounds like a sort of Gnostic approach: you are privy to the little-known, arcane knowledge of the "Bronze Age specialists", while the rest of us, the teeming hordes of the unwashed, have been exposed only to the "mass-read" works of those who, like Gimbutas, Anthony and Mallory, must be something less than your "Bronze Age specialists".

Your reading of these specialists "long before genetic evidence" led you to believe R1b in Europe is not connected to the early Indo-Europeans?



They might well be correct, but I'll keep an open (critical) mind for now

We'll see if the ancient y-dna evidence to come produces anything that can be considered a smoking gun. Even then, however, I think there will be some who will argue against any connection between R1b and Indo-European.

[MJost]

When I speak of SNP mutation runs, I am speaking of them being clustered together in time, not necessarily clustered together spatially in their location within the chromosome. SNPs being spatially near to each other on the chromosome, having a causal relationship due to structural mechanics of the molecule, is one mechanism by which runs can occur within a short time range. But molecular structural effects comprise only a subset of such mutation runs, and there are a variety of other mechanisms by which SNP mutation runs can occur. And the evidence is strong that such mutation runs are not rare, but are fairly routine.



The problem with your method is not that runs affect the "calibrated years per SNP". I do not doubt that the average rates used are close to accurate, at least for a limited time epoch. (There is evidence that the average rate has not been constant over longer time ranges.) The problem of ignoring runs appears when you reason in the reverse direction, applying average values to single events. You are taking the average rate and assuming that it applies to every single individual SNP. This is not a valid methodology. Five SNPs may occur within 1 generation, 3 generations, or 30 generations, for example. The average mutation rate does not tell us which of these actually occurred.

Anyways, we are perhaps getting off topic from the original post, so I will not carry on in this thread. But I caution against interpreting SNP blocks as population bottlenecks. It does not follow from the data.
I believe that what you suggest is very rare and according to your previous post here:
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?4255-Genetic-Drift-Sharing-Bell-Beaker-amp-WHG&p=78305&viewfull=1#post78305

you do not rank any of the points you bring up as to importance. Your did suggest
> "think there is significant evidence that SNP mutations do, at least in some cases, occur in runs."
and
>"In addition to the large blocks of phylogenetically equivalent SNPs being indicative of mutation runs, there is also the large number of branches per node seen in some subclades".
You also stated, which in my response, that the L21 block of six SNPs were not in the same area and thus not a cluster.

>"So we can suppose that an initial random mutation could generate a run of subsequent mutations over a small number of generations until the molecule attains a more stable configuration.

If SNP mutations are solitary and independent, then we should expect to see them randomly distributed throughout the chromosomes. However, if multiple SNP mutations can occur as a run due to a physical instability, then we should expect to see some SNPs occurring adjacent to or near to each other, more so than would be expected from a random distribution. ..."

To me, we have to assume that these six L21 SNPs were normally occurring in a long line of father/son transmissions AND we could also assume that there were sons with additional branching off at each L21 block node that could have daughter'ed out or died before having sons. I can accept that multiple mutations do very rarely occur in 1000 bp cluster areas more often than multiple non-cluster mutations in one or just a few generations as in the STR side of the Y.

But lets say that there were two mutations that happened either in one or just a few generations, (actually two of the lowest size positions are outside of the CombBED regions AND appear to have closer similarity to other pieces of the Y or X, were removed from the age calculation, it would not be significant. Removing two SNPs raises my calculation to 98.5 years per SNP. Using only one of the six in the L21 block would be only 0.4 more years per SNP.

MJost

[Romilius]

Yes they have. That is how he knows. I have no other details at all. So I don't know locations or dates or Y-DNA haplogroups (if any) or when these will be published.

Thanks for reply.

[Romilius]

I certainly hope they were aware of the importance to solving the beaker-P312 link of choosing at least some of the samples from a century or so before 2500BC (and of course checking for reservoir effect if dating direct on human bone only). A P312 Iberian beaker person from well before 2500BC would clinch the model that there was an intrusion into Iberia from the east long before beaker per se was known anywhere other than Iberia - forcing us to look to an origin in a by-definition non-beaker culture in central Europe.

I suppose this is all about detail -which shows how much progress ancient DNA has made already. We all, except characters like Maju, pretty well believe there was a P312 rich central European intrusion into Iberia WITHIN the beaker period. Its just a matter of whether it happened at the very inception of beaker pottery or whether it happened 2 or 3 centuries later in a developed phase of the Iberian beaker period. I think very few wouldnt agree that P312 arrived in Iberia at some point c. 2800-2400BC. Personally I just dont think there is sufficient refinement in the chronological detail of Iberian beaker period archaeology other than the pot itself to make a call from the archaeology alone.

Perhaps, if Reich had some contradictory results, he would not give a work the title "Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe"...

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Pinhasi has samples from Austria . They'll be interesting !


Something to keep in mind. Scroll your mouse/pointer to Yamnaya, Ishkinovka I, I0370, 3300-2700 BC
It predates Sintashta samples by 1 thousand years more or less. It is R1b-Z2103[6100BP+/- rough estimate]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQSnowY29UU09HSmM/view
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#4/44.43/67.68

Now try and come up with a parsimonious explanation/theory how R1b-Z2103 ended up in the following groups, as well as being rumored to have been found in Afanasevo culture? Many of these are isolates.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399854/


http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-11-69.pdf
Smyrna&Phokia

http://dienekes.blogspot.ca/2014/11/paternal-lineages-and-languages-in.html
Georgia-Caucasus

Albanians.

Sure, Z2103 probably moved from the steppe . But it could have also moved in several directions around the ponto-caspian area- North, south, east and west. I'll await for aDNA rather than modern to form definitive conclusions.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

That sounds like a sort of Gnostic approach: you are privy to the little-known, arcane knowledge of the "Bronze Age specialists", while the rest of us, the teeming hordes of the unwashed, have been exposed only to the "mass-read" works of those who, like Gimbutas, Anthony and Mallory, must be something less than your "Bronze Age specialists".

Your reading of these specialists "long before genetic evidence" led you to believe R1b in Europe is not connected to the early Indo-Europeans?



We'll see if the ancient y-dna evidence to come produces anything that can be considered a smoking gun. Even then, however, I think there will be some who will argue against any connection between R1b and Indo-European.


Obviously, my caution with the Kurgan theory didn't relate to its links with R1b. The eastern roots of R1b are plain to all except to a handful of resistant euro centrists.

As I said, my existing wariness of the kurgan theory was from the social sciences perspective. Perhaps, I've simply " overthought " about it, and have failed to fall back to the simplest explanation is the usually the correct one. But until propper aDNA comes from regions like Central asia, near East, etc, I am in my rights to expect a more complex scenario than currently espoused. In fact, it is already clear that that is the case .

And I was not intimating that their are masses of less informed, but my point was that many seem to be unaware of the difficulties in some of the commonly perceived readings of the Kurgan evidence. Why? Simply because most people haven't read specialists works, but rather cite works by indo- europeanists who often try to pigeon-hole diverse evidence into one neat package. That's a fact, and I'm not too bothered if you find that a "patronising" statement.

[George]

Something to keep in mind. Scroll your mouse/pointer to Yamnaya, Ishkinovka I, I0370, 3300-2700 BC
It predates Sintashta samples by 1 thousand years more or less. It is R1b-Z2103[6100BP+/- rough estimate]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQSnowY29UU09HSmM/view
http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#4/44.43/67.68

Now try and come up with a parsimonious explanation/theory how R1b-Z2103 ended up in the following groups, as well as being rumored to have been found in Afanasevo culture? Many of these are isolates.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399854/


http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-11-69.pdf
Smyrna&Phokia

http://dienekes.blogspot.ca/2014/11/paternal-lineages-and-languages-in.html
Georgia-Caucasus

Albanians.

That golden horseman looks like a Scythian R1a person ;)

[alan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33963372
Did Anyone see the BBC Horizon program last night. It was about the Mesolithic Britons. It was interesting in itself but the thing that really caught my eye was a German scientist who looked at the DNA from a cave in Germany where they identified two distinct groups using the same cave for burial. The shocker was that both groups were distinct both in genetically and in terms of diet. One was hunter and the other was farmer. They didnt mix except I think in one or two instances where females with hunter ancestry married into the farmers. Not a big surprise in itself until you realise

1. The two groups were using the cave at the same time.

2. They only rarely mixed.

3. They remained genetically distinct and with clearly distinct diets.

4. This was long after the Neolithic had arrived locally.

This proved that, despite archaeological near-invisibility, it appears that the hunters long lingered nearby the farmers but shunned each other. At some point though they obviously must have melded. So, there is probably the reason why WHG rose greatly as the Neolithic progressed. These archaeologically invisible hunters remained for a long time as genetically distinct groups living on a hunting diet and did not merge genetically with the farmers for a long long time. This appears to be old news - see link below- but somehow I missed it.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1310/131011-European-hunter-gatherers-and-immigrant-farmers-lived-side-by-side

[alan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33963372
Did Anyone see the BBC Horizon program last night. It was about the Mesolithic Britons. It was interesting in itself but the thing that really caught my eye was a German scientist who looked at the DNA from a cave in Germany where they identified two distinct groups using the same cave for burial. The shocker was that both groups were distinct both in genetically and in terms of diet. One was hunter and the other was farmer. They didnt mix except I think in one or two instances where females with hunter ancestry married into the farmers. Not a big surprise in itself until you realise

1. The two groups were using the cave at the same time.

2. They only rarely mixed.

3. They remained genetically distinct and with clearly distinct diets.

4. This was long after the Neolithic had arrived locally.

This proved that, despite archaeological near-invisibility, it appears that the hunters long lingered nearby the farmers but shunned each other. At some point though they obviously must have melded. So, there is probably the reason why WHG rose greatly as the Neolithic progressed. These archaeologically invisible hunters remained for a long time as genetically distinct groups living on a hunting diet and did not merge genetically with the farmers for a long long time. This appears to be old news - see link below- but somehow I missed it.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1310/131011-European-hunter-gatherers-and-immigrant-farmers-lived-side-by-side

I must admit I have always suspected that the apparent immediate archaeological disappearance of hunter-gatherers at the moment farmers arrive must be an illusion. I can think of several reasons why the evidence of their culture surviving late cannot be found. Firstly in northern Europe anyway, and presumably elsewhere, the sea maximum marine transgression didnt happen until c. 3500BC which means that the remains of any hunters living in the coasts, estuaries, tidal parts of rivers of of the period before this before the sea level peaked would be run over by the sea, buried by marine clays of great depth etc. Another factor is that upstream river fishing often by definition takes place in the floodplains - a situation that means constant annual deposition of alluvium which can wash over remains and deeply bury them under metres of deposits.

A lot of areas seem to have been very fishing focused in the late Mesolithic, particularly Scandinavia nad also in Ireland where there was a lack of large land mammals other than wild boar. In general I think the kind of land sought by Neolithic farmers only rarely overlapped with fishing focused hunter-gatherers. Farmers avoided the floodplains and sought lighter or loamy free draining soils on sandy, gravelly or rocky soils rather than heavy wet clayish lands. So it has always struck me that farmers and fishers could easily lived next to each other for centuries without bothering each other at all.

The farmers main impact would be on disruption of forests through clearance and impact on forest animals. However in a place like Ireland forest animals seem to be of minor importance compared to fishing and I doubt moderate impact on boards would have spelled the end for hunters. Another thing that I dont think is discussed enough but could partly explain the invisibility of very late hunters in the Neolithic could be that the farmers disrupted or in some cases usurped the flint sources. That could have prompted the hunters to largely use wooden, bone or other organic tools. We know of course that other than flint scatters, Mesolithic settlements are rare and burials so rare that there are only 3 or so for the entire 4000 years of the Mesolithic in Ireland. Its just as bad in Britain. So, these people were never easy to find and if they switched to mainly organic tools, lived in coasts and floodplains etc they could remain almost impossible to find except in really exceptional circumstance. It isnt too often someone builds something that involves digging metres deep into riverside alluvium or marine clay - main reason is that piles are usually used where the ground is soft.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33963372
Did Anyone see the BBC Horizon program last night. It was about the Mesolithic Britons. It was interesting in itself but the thing that really caught my eye was a German scientist who looked at the DNA from a cave in Germany where they identified two distinct groups using the same cave for burial. The shocker was that both groups were distinct both in genetically and in terms of diet. One was hunter and the other was farmer. They didnt mix except I think in one or two instances where females with hunter ancestry married into the farmers. Not a big surprise in itself until you realise

1. The two groups were using the cave at the same time.

2. They only rarely mixed.

3. They remained genetically distinct and with clearly distinct diets.

4. This was long after the Neolithic had arrived locally.

This proved that, despite archaeological near-invisibility, it appears that the hunters long lingered nearby the farmers but shunned each other. At some point though they obviously must have melded. So, there is probably the reason why WHG rose greatly as the Neolithic progressed. These archaeologically invisible hunters remained for a long time as genetically distinct groups living on a hunting diet and did not merge genetically with the farmers for a long long time. This appears to be old news - see link below- but somehow I missed it.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/1310/131011-European-hunter-gatherers-and-immigrant-farmers-lived-side-by-side

Sounds suspiciously like a paper I read two years ago

"2000 Years of Parallel Societies in Stone Age Central Europe "

Bollongino, Burger, et al.


And yes, your conclusions resonate exactly what I think caused the "WHG resurgance".

[Jean M]

Sounds suspiciously like a paper I read two years ago

"2000 Years of Parallel Societies in Stone Age Central Europe "

Bollongino, Burger, et al.

Exactly what I thought. And I don't believe in the interpretation of the data given by the authors. There was no evidence of a local Mesolithic lifestyle. At this time we can see evidence of long-distance exchange between farmers and people outside the farming zone. That would make inter-marriage possible. Some women with Mesolithic mtDNA had married into the farmers of this community. So it seems likely that the relatives of these women turned up in the farming settlement to be cared for in age or infirmity and died not long afterwards. That would explain why people who had long lived on a fish diet were buried in the farmers' burial place. It is most unlikely that two separate and unrelated communities would simultaneously use the same burial place.

[alan]

Okay, I know I have a penchant for repeating myself, but there are literally thousands of untested remains in kurgans on Yamnaya's route around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube into the Carpathian Basin. There are also some kurgans there from steppe incursions that predate Yamnaya. We've got a lot of R1b-L51 in the West along with Indo-European languages and a big Yamnaya arrow pointing southeast to northwest up the Danube in the Carpathian Basin.

I could be wrong, but I expect to see some ancient R1b-L51, maybe even R1b-P312, turn up along that Yamnaya route west.

The problem of course isnt getting L51 as far as Hungary and surrounds. You are right there are tons of barrows and more possibilities than you could shake a stick at. The real problem is what happened west of Hungary. I certainly agree with all those who see the Danube as the overwhelmingly most likely route west for L51, at least part of L11 and P312. Any other route west would seem mighty improbable to me and I dont believe the idea of steppe pastoralists suddenly turning long distance sailors like some Noah's Ark for steppe people. So its surely got to be up the Danube and its pretty well impossible for the movement to have taken place until 3000-2900BC if its Yamnaya linked. So clearly my main issue is the lack of a trail of archaeological cultures or remains of obvious eastern European origin west of Hungary c. 3000-2800BC.

I cant rule out some sort of invisible lightning move but it seems odd if steppe people leave a nice trail up the Danube as far as Hungary then go super high speed and invisible as they motor through Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France. The other thing is there is a significant change in environment once you pass from Hungary into the Alpine and near-Alpine part of Europe. That is a big leap to make without some sort of intermediary transformatory culture such as CW provided further north. This is the big problem for me. Corded Ware is a case of a culture that probably originated on the steppe-farmer interfaces and formed a new hybrid that enabled steppe elements to spread deep across northern Europe through environments very different from the steppes. However it probably took a couple of centuries for this hybrid to brew in a core area before they were ready to spread west through both farming environments in central Europe. If we accept the evidence of R1a domination in central European CW and that CW has nothing to do with P312, that still doesnt make me stop wondering as to where the equivalent transformatory culture for P312 was - a culture that allowed people with a lifestyle based on steppe-like environments in Hungary c. 3000-2800BC to adapt to the realities of spreading west through the very different environments that appear as one passes west into Austria, south Germany, Switzerland and beyond. And most importantly, a culture that then actually tracks west filling the gap between somewhere like Hungary or the north Balkans and western Europe. I just dont see an equivalent to CW.

Anyway back to the invisible lighting speed move alternative. They would have to have bypassed the CW people in west-central Europe somehow unless they moved ahead of them before 2800BC. The Romans obviously had superior road systems, bridges, viaducts etc but nonetheless a lot of the routes would have had pre-Roman origins and based on topographical logic, locations of river crossings, mountain passes etc. So this site is a bit of fun and also gives you some indication of what routes were probably used in pre-Roman times too.

http://omnesviae.org/

[alan]

The Roman route planner is particularly useful if you believe there is no core link between beaker and CW because by coincidence the Roman empire boundaries are pretty similar to the boundaries of CW so you can look at this map and see the route options movements from eastern Europe to the west would have had if they wanted to avoid CW people

veni vidi vici

http://omnesviae.org/

[alan]

It's all pretty complicated on that front. Looks like burial practices were adopted from locals, such as the use of caves, but with various twists, such as the use of anthropomorphic stelae and the small anthropomorphic engraved plaques to indicate individuals. Lillios, K. 2004 Lives of Stone, Lives of People: Re-viewing the Engraved Plaques and Late Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia. European Journal of Archaeology 7: 125–58: https://www.academia.edu/425685/Lives_of_stone_lives_of_people_re-viewing_the_engraved_plaques_of_Copper_Age_Iberia_ 2004_



Estella Weiss-Krejci, Shedding light on dark places. Deposition of the dead in caves and cave-like features in Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia (2012) https://www.academia.edu/1603945/2012_Shedding_light_on_dark_places._Deposition_of_ the_dead_in_caves_and_cave-like_features_in_Neolithic_and_Copper_Age_Iberia._ In_Caves_in_Context._The_Cultural_Significance_of_ Caves_and_Rockshelters_in_Europe._Knut_Andreas_Ber gsvik_and_Robin_Skeates_eds._pp._118-137._Oxbow_Oxford

However I understand from some recent papers that despite the use of pre-beaker types sites, the actual individual bell beaker bodies (when not messed up by later internments or looted) are often treated as individuals and similarly to individual burials central European beaker culture. When I read about this a couple of times in recent works about Iberian beaker that pretty well convinced me that the key is how the (undisturbed) bodies were laid to rest rather than the type of monument used. Although local monuments were re-used or copied it does seem that the treatment of the body is a major break with true collective burial of the past. However, I have also read that in some areas of Iberia it looks more like the locals adopted certain aspect of beaker culture without adopting the deeper change seen in burial rite as I have just described.

They key problem seems to be that a habit of chucking out the old body when a monument was re-used may have continued into the beaker period and so as a result it is only the last internment or internments that can be seen in their original state. So it is trickier in areas where monuments that were capable of being cleared out and reused like megaliths, artificial caves and real caves are very common. I wouldnt say its a hopeless task but the number of undisturbed beaker bodies is clearly hugely reduced and there will be a tendency for the final burial or burials to be the only one that can be seen in its original undisturbed form.

Similar issues are present with Wedge Tombs which were often re-used in post-beaker times - even in the Iron Age sometimes - and have been looted a lot too because the smaller ones in particular look like tempting mysterious stone boxes (the small ones do look like above ground cists). However it was eventually realised that the earliest material and dating evidence is beaker period. The combination of later reuse, looting and many being located in areas with acidic soils or peat which destroys uncremated bone has greatly hampered knowledge of burial rites although there is enough evidence to infer only a few people were buried in them originally, inhumation and cremation were both practiced and that gravegoods included beaker pot and other beaker trinkets. Its in many ways a terrible shame though because not many countries have 550 beaker period burial monuments that can be identified as such from surface appearance alone. If they had not been subject to so much reuse, disturbance and acid soil conditions they would be an incredible resource for studying the beaker people in Ireland.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

The problem of course isnt getting L51 as far as Hungary and surrounds. You are right there are tons of barrows and more possibilities than you could shake a stick at. The real problem is what happened west of Hungary. I certainly agree with all those who see the Danube as the overwhelmingly most likely route west for L51, at least part of L11 and P312. Any other route west would seem mighty improbable to me and I dont believe the idea of steppe pastoralists suddenly turning long distance sailors like some Noah's Ark for steppe people. So its surely got to be up the Danube and its pretty well impossible for the movement to have taken place until 3000-2900BC if its Yamnaya linked. So clearly my main issue is the lack of a trail of archaeological cultures or remains of obvious eastern European origin west of Hungary c. 3000-2800BC.

I cant rule out some sort of invisible lightning move but it seems odd if steppe people leave a nice trail up the Danube as far as Hungary then go super high speed and invisible as they motor through Austria, Germany, Switzerland and France. The other thing is there is a significant change in environment once you pass from Hungary into the Alpine and near-Alpine part of Europe. That is a big leap to make without some sort of intermediary transformatory culture such as CW provided further north. This is the big problem for me. Corded Ware is a case of a culture that probably originated on the steppe-farmer interfaces and formed a new hybrid that enabled steppe elements to spread deep across northern Europe through environments very different from the steppes. However it probably took a couple of centuries for this hybrid to brew in a core area before they were ready to spread west through both farming environments in central Europe. If we accept the evidence of R1a domination in central European CW and that CW has nothing to do with P312, that still doesnt make me stop wondering as to where the equivalent transformatory culture for P312 was - a culture that allowed people with a lifestyle based on steppe-like environments in Hungary c. 3000-2800BC to adapt to the realities of spreading west through the very different environments that appear as one passes west into Austria, south Germany, Switzerland and beyond. And most importantly, a culture that then actually tracks west filling the gap between somewhere like Hungary or the north Balkans and western Europe. I just dont see an equivalent to CW.

Anyway back to the invisible lighting speed move alternative. They would have to have bypassed the CW people in west-central Europe somehow unless they moved ahead of them before 2800BC. The Romans obviously had superior road systems, bridges, viaducts etc but nonetheless a lot of the routes would have had pre-Roman origins and based on topographical logic, locations of river crossings, mountain passes etc. So this site is a bit of fun and also gives you some indication of what routes were probably used in pre-Roman times too.

http://omnesviae.org/

There is a discreet little group of kurgans in Austria .
Then Shennan documents certain changes in society - rise of warrios, individuals , Chiefs in a case study of Switzerland, albeit here there seems to have been a continuity , ? Therefore absorption or "accomodation"

[alan]

There is no perfect thread to put this comment on so I am dumping here. There is a guy Alberto who posts on Eurogenes comments who I think is a very good clear thinker with a great brain. His comments are always worth reading.

[Silesian]

That golden horseman looks like a Scythian R1a person ;)
Everyone is entitled to their opinion:beerchug: For me it's a little more personal, every Yamnaya Kurgan is like being re-united with all my long lost relatives, from 5000 years ago. I'm waiting for one of those Kurgans to pop out a R1b -9219+ positive result,also found in Ossetians.
Hopefully my R1b L51 brothers will also have their day, it's long overdue with all the insulting theories they had to endure:)
Almost forgot, did I mention another great video if you have time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QapUGZ0ObjA

[Heber]

The Roman route planner is particularly useful if you believe there is no core link between beaker and CW because by coincidence the Roman empire boundaries are pretty similar to the boundaries of CW so you can look at this map and see the route options movements from eastern Europe to the west would have had if they wanted to avoid CW people

veni vidi vici

http://omnesviae.org/


The Stanford University Geospatial Model of the Roman World (Orbis) shows
using road, river and coastal navigation 36.2 days
The Fastest journey from Odessus to Gades in July takes 36.2 days, covering 4856 kilometers

5634

and by land using road and river 137.5 days
The Fastest journey from Odessus to Gades in July takes 137.5 days, covering 4259 kilometers.
Optional analysis by foot, donkey, horse or wagon.

5635

The coastal route would not necessarily leave an archaeological trail.
The land route corresponds to the warrior stelae trail and the mid point is the Celtic Mediolanum (Middle Point) Milan.

5641
Traffic was in both directions, West to East and East to West.

Omnes Via shows a more northerly route but no details on time taken or distance traveled.

5640

Of course these Roman age maps are proxies for relief conditions which may have existed in Bronze age Europe.

https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/the-stelae-people/

https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/celtic-from-the-west/

[rms2]

. . . That's a fact, and I'm not too bothered if you find that a "patronising" statement.

I would have used the word condescending, but okay.

[Jean M]

The Roman route planner is particularly useful if you believe there is no core link between beaker and CW because by coincidence the Roman empire boundaries are pretty similar to the boundaries of CW so you can look at this map and see the route options movements from eastern Europe to the west would have had if they wanted to avoid CW people

I'm not entirely with you.


CW and BB had long gone by the time of the Roman Empire, which in fact did not cover the area once covered by CW, which mainly lay outside it. In fact CW seems to have retreated eastwards and northwards along with the eastern movement of BB out of Hungary, so the descendants of CW were almost entirely the "barbarians" outside the empire, while the Celts and Italics mainly lay within the empire at its height.
I see the core link between BB and CW as their common origin in Yamnaya.
I am not suggesting that BB people wanted to avoid CW or that CW wanted to avoid BB. We know that BB moved into regions where CW people had previously lived and even where they were still living e.g. Scandinavia and Poland. They just seem to be different communities.

[rms2]

The problem of course isnt getting L51 as far as Hungary and surrounds. You are right there are tons of barrows and more possibilities than you could shake a stick at. The real problem is what happened west of Hungary . . .

Yes, you're right, and I had thought about going back and editing my post to comment on that problem.

That is why I see the so-called Beaker Rückstrom as perhaps the answer. A non-R1b, probably non-IE early Beaker people move east out of Iberia and encounter steppe elements who are R1b, subsequently becoming what Gimbutas characterized as "vagabondic horse riders" who "carried to the west Kurgan traditions in armament, social structure, and religion."

I am open to an early arrival of steppe people in Iberia, but I wonder why early Iberian Beaker seems so un-steppe like. Perhaps the stelae are the answer, as Jean has suggested, but, honestly, from the pictures I have seen of Iberian stelae, they don't seem to resemble the steppe models very much. Then again, maybe I haven't seen all of them and there are steppe-looking stelae in Iberia that I have missed.

Then there is what I have read of the physical differences between early Iberian Beaker people and the later "vagabondic horse riders", which involve more than just skull shape. The early Beaker people, as I mentioned before, are said to have had what are called Mediterranean skeletons and are shorter in stature and less robust than the later Beaker people. If that is not true, someone please say so and provide a source or two.

[Jean M]

Then there is what I have read of the physical differences between early Iberian Beaker people and the later "vagabondic horse riders", which involve more than just skull shape. The early Beaker people, as I mentioned before, are said to have had what are called Mediterranean skeletons and are shorter in stature and less robust than the later Beaker people.

I have no idea if this is the case, but it seems quite likely, since BB in Iberia had centuries to interbreed with locals of EEF ancestry. We really need to await aDNA, and most especially Y-DNA from Iberian BB, in order to work out the genetics. Several different solutions are possible for Iberia.

That is why I keep suggesting a focus for the moment on the Yamnaya trail up the Danube, which is very plain to see. It does not involve CW. That is the point I'm making. I think you are on the right lines with Vucedol, Mako etc.

CW seems to lead to the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic language families, while BB seems to lead to the Celtic, Italic and Ligurian languages. Of course we cannot be certain about all this. But we do have some strong leads from aDNA.

[rms2]

Oh, I did not mean to suggest that Corded Ware preceded Beaker in the sense that Beaker was in some way derived from Corded Ware, only that Corded Ware preceded Beaker in time by getting an earlier start. I don't think Beaker was derived from Corded Ware, no. I look to Yamnaya's route around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube as the source for the R1b-L51 in Beaker and western Europe.

[rms2]

I know the French archaeologist and linguist Henri Hubert lived in the early decades of the 20th century and is old news, but here is a passage from his book, The History of the Celtic People (pp. 171-172), that mentions some of the physical and cultural differences between the early and later Beaker people, in this case in Britain.



. . . In the first period of the Bronze Age there arrived in the British Isles, coming from the Continent, people with very marked characteristics. The old Neolithic inhabitants (among whom I include those of all the beginning of the Bronze Age) were long-heads of Mediterranean type, who built for their dead, or, at least, for the more distinguished of them, tumuli with a funeral chamber known as the "long barrows", in which one sometimes finds those curious bell-shaped beakers adorned at regular intervals with bands of incised or stamped decoration, of a very simple and austere type. The newcomers were of quite a different type, and had other funeral practices.
They buried their dead under round tumuli, known as "round barrows", in graves in which the body was placed in a crouching position on one side and enclosed in stone flags or woodwork. Later they burned them. In their graves there were zoned beakers (Fig. 33), but of a late type in which the neck is distinguished from the belly, or vases derived from these beakers . . . The grave goods comprised buttons with a V-shaped boring, flint and copper daggers, arrow-heads, and flat perforated pieces of schist which are "bracers", or bowman's wristguards. The skeletons were of a new type: tall, with round heads of a fairly constant shape, the brow receding, the supraciliary ridge prominent, the cheek-bones highly developed, and the jaws massive and projecting so as to present a dip at the base of the nose. I have already described them as one of the types represented in Celtic burials.

[Jean M]

I don't think Beaker was derived from Corded Ware, no. I look to Yamnaya's route around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube as the source for the R1b-L51 in Beaker and western Europe.

So I thought. And I agree.

[Jean M]

I know the French archaeologist and linguist Henri Hubert lived in the early decades of the 20th century and is old news, but here is a passage from his book, The History of the Celtic People (pp. 171-172), that mentions some of the physical and cultural differences between the early and later Beaker people, in this case in Britain.

I'm not sure that Hubert is in fact saying what you think. There were some BB burials inserted into pre-existing Neolithic longbarrows in Britain and Ireland, just as in Iberia. I have not read anything to the effect that such BB skeletons (if they were not cremations) were different from those in the classic round barrows. Alan might know.

Nor am I sure that such insertions were particularly early. The earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burials in Britain are of the Boscombe Bowmen.

[rms2]

I'm not sure that Hubert is in fact saying what you think. There were some BB burials inserted into pre-existing Neolithic longbarrows in Britain and Ireland, just as in Iberia. I have not read anything to the effect that such BB skeletons (if they were not cremations) were different from those in the classic round barrows. Alan might know.

Nor am I sure that such insertions were particularly early. The earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burials in Britain are of the Boscombe Bowmen.

But if you look at the passage, he emphasizes the physical differences between the Early Bronze Age Beaker arrivals and the Neolithic "long-heads of Mediterranean type" buried in the long barrows, sometimes with "those curious bell-shaped beakers . . . of a very simple and austere type." One would think that he would have mentioned it, if in fact bodies like those of the later Beaker people were also found in the long barrows along with the Neolithic Mediterranean types.

As I recall, Coon also mentioned the "Spanish Beaker problem", i.e., that early Iberian Beaker people were physically and culturally different from the later Beaker Folk.

It doesn't seem that the newer papers address these differences much, if at all.

[Jean M]

But if you look at the passage, he emphasizes the physical differences between the early Bronze Age Beaker arrivals and the Neolithic "long-heads of Mediterranean type" buried in the long barrows

Yes exactly. The long-heads are the Neolithic people, who were buried in long barrows. The round-heads are the incoming BB people, buried in round barrows. This was noticed by antiquarians in Britain long ago, and confirmed by more recent analysis. All straightforward.

However, there is the occasional Bell Beaker found in a long-barrow e.g. http://www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/galleries/index.php?Action=4&obID=121&prevID=&oprevID=
This would appear to mark an intrusion by BB people into a Neolithic burial mound.

[rms2]

Yes exactly. The long-heads are the Neolithic people, who were buried in long barrows. The round-heads are the incoming BB people, buried in round barrows. This was noticed by antiquarians in Britain long ago, and confirmed by more recent analysis. All straightforward.

However, there is the occasional Bell Beaker found in a long-barrow e.g. http://www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/galleries/index.php?Action=4&obID=121&prevID=&oprevID=
This would appear to mark an intrusion by BB people into a Neolithic burial mound.

But was it accompanied by a skeleton that differed from the Neolithic "long-heads of Mediterranean type"? Apparently you have a pot intrusion without a classic Beaker body to accompany it into the after life.

That is what I mean about the differences between the early and later Beaker Folk which make me suspect the former will lack R1b.

[Jean M]

But was it accompanied by a skeleton that differed from the Neolithic "long-heads of Mediterranean type"?

I don't know. I don't even know if there was a skeleton with that BB pot. We are delving here into the details of a fringe feature of BB in Britain that I know next to nothing about. More interesting perhaps are the BB wedge tombs in Ireland, as a new and distinct type, which some have connected with the Atlantic route. Here is the skull from one of them: http://www.voicesfromthedawn.com/labbacallee/ Looks broad-headed to me, but I'm no expert. Unfortunately cremation was more common than inhumation in these tombs.

[rms2]

I guess time and more ancient y-dna will tell if the earliest Iberian Beaker and those connected with apparently Maritime Beakers in the Neolithic long barrows in Britain had any R1b men among them. My prediction is that they did not and will turn out to be I2, G2, and maybe something else, like E1b1b.

My guess, and of course I could be wrong, is that R1b got into Beaker in central or eastern Europe and transformed it into what most of us think of when we think of Beaker, i.e., Gimbutas' "vagabondic horse riders" who "carried to the west Kurgan traditions in armament, social structure, and religion."

[Jean M]

those connected with apparently Maritime Beakers in the Neolithic long barrows in Britain had any R1b men among them.

The Bell Beaker pot found in West Kennet Long Barrow is not a Maritime type. I have ferreted around online very quickly re West Kennett Long Barrow, and it appears that this pot was discovered in the 19th century by the chap who was keen on measuring skulls and coined the phrase "long barrow, long skull, round barrow, round skull". But he did not leave an account of his discoveries that might help us work out if the BB pot was deposited with a skeleton.

To the best of my knowledge Maritime type pots are found in the full range of burial types that BB pottery of any type is found in. Maritime is found right across the range of BB. It is the most International of the two International types. It is not exclusive to the Atlantic route, whatever Barry Cunliffe's maps might lead you to suppose. ;)

[alan]

I'm not entirely with you.


CW and BB had long gone by the time of the Roman Empire, which in fact did not cover the area once covered by CW, which mainly lay outside it. In fact CW seems to have retreated eastwards and northwards along with the eastern movement of BB out of Hungary, so the descendants of CW were almost entirely the "barbarians" outside the empire, while the Celts and Italics mainly lay within the empire at its height.
I see the core link between BB and CW as their common origin in Yamnaya.
I am not suggesting that BB people wanted to avoid CW or that CW wanted to avoid BB. We know that BB moved into regions where CW people had previously lived and even where they were still living e.g. Scandinavia and Poland. They just seem to be different communities.


hahaha - no I hadnt gone mad. Just doing weird cross period stuff - I once overlaid the Early Christian road network over a map of Bronze Age hillforts and they fitted incredibly well together - showing that the routes were really old/natural in some cases and that the Irish bronze age hillforts clustered along routes not as evenly spaced territorial centres. This of course makes sense as the Irish hillforts do not seem to have been population centres but have associations with metalworking etc. A bit of cross-era lateral thinking sometimes produces a nugget.

I was simply using the Roman network map in a similar way as a cheap and cheerful way of getting some idea of a road map of prehistoric Europe (with very heavy caveats of course) as I knew it was partly based on older prehistoric roads, natural routes etc.

My comment was simply that the Roman road network/empire largely excluded what had been the CW zone and therefore a lot of it fell into areas that had had beaker but had never been part of the CW zone. So by coincide the Roman empire and its road networks had a very good overlap with the beaker areas except those beaker areas that overlapped with CW.

The empire and its road network also of course extended beyond the beaker zone to the east. So I just wanted to have a look at how the Roman roads linked the bell beaker with no CW zone to eastern Europe in the hope that the Roman roads to a significant degree reflect prehistoric routes. Obviously its not very serous because the Romans had engineering skills which gave the extra options and other considerations.

Anyway the main Roman land routes from eastern Europe to the south-west Europe were of course the Danubian-Rhine-Rhone kind of route and that other route from the NW corner of the Adriatic along the Po valley and through passes into the France direction (I havent examined it in depth). It just got me wondering about the southern route but I havent chewed it over as yet.

[alan]

The Bell Beaker pot found in West Kennet Long Barrow is not a Maritime type. I have ferreted around online very quickly re West Kennett Long Barrow, and it appears that this pot was discovered in the 19th century by the chap who was keen on measuring skulls and coined the phrase "long barrow, long skull, round barrow, round skull". But he did not leave an account of his discoveries that might help us work out if the BB pot was deposited with a skeleton.

To the best of my knowledge Maritime type pots are found in the full range of burial types that BB pottery of any type is found in. Maritime is found right across the range of BB. It is the most International of the two International types. It is not exclusive to the Atlantic route, whatever Barry Cunliffe's maps might lead you to suppose. ;)

and Maritime pot also lasts for ages in some areas so is unless unless it has further subdividing diagnostics - the mere presence of maritime is a bit useless for chronology.

[alan]

I guess time and more ancient y-dna will tell if the earliest Iberian Beaker and those connected with apparently Maritime Beakers in the Neolithic long barrows in Britain had any R1b men among them. My prediction is that they did not and will turn out to be I2, G2, and maybe something else, like E1b1b.

My guess, and of course I could be wrong, is that R1b got into Beaker in central or eastern Europe and transformed it into what most of us think of when we think of Beaker, i.e., Gimbutas' "vagabondic horse riders" who "carried to the west Kurgan traditions in armament, social structure, and religion."

I wouldnt bet much on you being right or you being wrong. I think its open to interpretation as the enormous amount of inks spilled on the subject to this very day shows.

In defense of archaeologists, I do believe they may have been able to eventually get a far better understanding of what beaker and a better chronology of its various components was than we have now even without DNA. Reading into it makes it clear to me a great deal of work simply is yet to be done and we are nowhere near to the end game of understanding the archaeology of beaker as the impression sometimes given suggests. Even chronology seems to be only at the crudest 'oldest date with the pots' level with so much else needing further work. I get the impression that the analysis of metals has a lot of work needing done.

However, it might have been another decade or two and a great deal of research and funding to get there from purely archaeological sources. It is obviously going to be radically faster to nail this with ancient DNA and other chemical analysis of bones etc.

[alan]

I'm not sure that Hubert is in fact saying what you think. There were some BB burials inserted into pre-existing Neolithic longbarrows in Britain and Ireland, just as in Iberia. I have not read anything to the effect that such BB skeletons (if they were not cremations) were different from those in the classic round barrows. Alan might know.

Nor am I sure that such insertions were particularly early. The earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burials in Britain are of the Boscombe Bowmen.

From what i understand is there is no collection of well preserved beaker skulls in Ireland due to a wide range of factors. However, it depends how you define beaker period. By c. 2200BC when Irish bowl food vessel cists suddenly appear in large numbers, beaker pottery was still being used on settlement sites even if food vessels were the funerary ware of choice. So, the study I have seen - in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology about 30 years ago I think - mainly used Neolithic farmer and food vessel burial skulls. A multivariate graph broke them into two groups with no overlap (Early Christian fell in between). My understanding is the Neolithic skulls are typical farmers ones, the food vessel skulls are rounder headed in the main and broadly beaker-like while the Early Christian skulls look the same as British Celtic ones. The food vessel burials though date to at least 200 years after the introduction of beaker and a lot about them, their culture etc makes it look like they are the result of a cultural compromise between beaker and farmer elements (i.e. generally beaker type single or paired crouched inhumations with barbed and tanged arrows etc but with a bowl rather than a cup). This might tally with Coon's comments on these early Bronze Age skulls as having both round heads but some gracile features. He says the resembled NW German beaker skulls if I recall right. He speculates that the Irish beaker type might represent a purer western beaker but this seems to contradict his own description of the Iberian beaker burials as largely longheads. The most likely explanation in that Irish food vessel skulls are the result of their beaker ancestors having been around for 200 years and marrying local women.

[alan]

I have no idea if this is the case, but it seems quite likely, since BB in Iberia had centuries to interbreed with locals of EEF ancestry. We really need to await aDNA, and most especially Y-DNA from Iberian BB, in order to work out the genetics. Several different solutions are possible for Iberia.

That is why I keep suggesting a focus for the moment on the Yamnaya trail up the Danube, which is very plain to see. It does not involve CW. That is the point I'm making. I think you are on the right lines with Vucedol, Mako etc.

CW seems to lead to the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic language families, while BB seems to lead to the Celtic, Italic and Ligurian languages. Of course we cannot be certain about all this. But we do have some strong leads from aDNA.

Someone else posted something that there are a small no of possible Kurgans in Austria. I am not sure if that is right - it does vaguely ring a bell - maybe from Anthony.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Someone else posted something that there are a small no of possible Kurgans in Austria. I am not sure if that is right - it does vaguely ring a bell - maybe from Anthony.

The concentration of hungarian kurgans just spills over into eastern Austria (Essling region).
There is a cluster of kurgans in the Middle Elbe -Saale region, as well as southern Poland.

Everywhere else are tumuli, which Volker Heyd interprets as a selective adaptation of certain Yamnaya traits.

[rms2]

I wouldnt bet much on you being right or you being wrong. I think its open to interpretation as the enormous amount of inks spilled on the subject to this very day shows.

In defense of archaeologists, I do believe they may have been able to eventually get a far better understanding of what beaker and a better chronology of its various components was than we have now even without DNA. Reading into it makes it clear to me a great deal of work simply is yet to be done and we are nowhere near to the end game of understanding the archaeology of beaker as the impression sometimes given suggests. Even chronology seems to be only at the crudest 'oldest date with the pots' level with so much else needing further work. I get the impression that the analysis of metals has a lot of work needing done.

However, it might have been another decade or two and a great deal of research and funding to get there from purely archaeological sources. It is obviously going to be radically faster to nail this with ancient DNA and other chemical analysis of bones etc.

So, what is your guess? Will the very early Iberian Beaker, if in fact Beaker began in Iberia, be R1b, despite the physical and cultural differences between it and the later Beaker from the east?

[nuadha]

I have no idea if this is the case, but it seems quite likely, since BB in Iberia had centuries to interbreed with locals of EEF ancestry. We really need to await aDNA, and most especially Y-DNA from Iberian BB, in order to work out the genetics. Several different solutions are possible for Iberia.

That is why I keep suggesting a focus for the moment on the Yamnaya trail up the Danube, which is very plain to see. It does not involve CW. That is the point I'm making. I think you are on the right lines with Vucedol, Mako etc.

CW seems to lead to the Germanic, Slavic and Baltic language families, while BB seems to lead to the Celtic, Italic and Ligurian languages. Of course we cannot be certain about all this. But we do have some strong leads from aDNA.

I think the lack of r1b in Remedello puts a major kink in your theory of r1b crossing the northern mediterranean and supplanting the earliest maritime beakers.

[nuadha]

Someone else posted something that there are a small no of possible Kurgans in Austria. I am not sure if that is right - it does vaguely ring a bell - maybe from Anthony.

Its in harison and hyde's map of the western yamnaya. The thing I am still searching for is a solid connection between the r1b guy in the vudecol site and western yamnaya.

It is not hard to imagine since hyde's paper claims that western yamnaya settled the danube both upstream and downstream of the site in question but I would still like to see a clear cut relation rather than a more casual one.

Let me know if you got any ideas.

[Heber]

I don't know. I don't even know if there was a skeleton with that BB pot. We are delving here into the details of a fringe feature of BB in Britain that I know next to nothing about. More interesting perhaps are the BB wedge tombs in Ireland, as a new and distinct type, which some have connected with the Atlantic route. Here is the skull from one of them: http://www.voicesfromthedawn.com/labbacallee/ Looks broad-headed to me, but I'm no expert. Unfortunately cremation was more common than inhumation in these tombs.

I understand Professor Dan Bradley's TCD ancient DNA lab is up and running now and he has samples. I have no idea from which period they belong. However he will present at GGI2015 in October so I will make sure to ask. I asked Dr. Gianpiero Cavelli at the Irish DNA Atlas preliminary presentation and he replied that analysis of bog bodies (including Bronze Age) yielded no DNA due to the acidic nature of the soil. In any event I would expect the primary candidates for analysis in the Isles would be the Amebury Archer and Boscombe Bowman. I have no expectations of breakthrough anytime soon.

http://ggi2013.blogspot.nl/

[alan]

I understand Professor Dan Bradley's TCD ancient DNA lab is up and running now and he has samples. I have no idea from which period they belong. However he will present at GGI2015 in October so I will make sure to ask. I asked Dr. Gianpiero Cavelli at the Irish DNA Atlas preliminary presentation and he replied that analysis of bog bodies (including Bronze Age) yielded no DNA due to the acidic nature of the soil. In any event I would expect the primary candidates for analysis in the Isles would be the Amebury Archer and Boscombe Bowman. I have no expectations of breakthrough anytime soon.

http://ggi2013.blogspot.nl/

Ireland has less urnburned bones in most periods than most areas because there seems to have been a prevailing love of cremation from the early Mesolithic through to 0AD. Even when unburned burial practice spread the Irish usually kept cremating as well as unburned burials and usually pretty soon cremation came to dominate again. There is no period in Irish prehistory where cremation wasnt used and indeed AFAIK it is the majority preference in all periods of prehistory in Ireland.

Cremation seems to have been the only formal burial method yet uncovered for the Mesolithic although luckily a few stray unburned Mesolithic human bones have been recovered in non burial contexts. In the Neolithic both cremation and unburned remains were placed in the collective megaliths. Cremation is more common but because of the effect of acid soils, peat etc in destroying bone its not clear if this is an illusion or not. The Neolithic should not be too much of a problem either although collective tombs do need a lot more careful checking like radiocarbon dating any bone used.

The beaker period is a problem because the main obvious beaker period burial moment was the wedge tomb and these are often disturbed and their tendency to be in the west and north-west and in hilly areas means acid soil conditions also often effect them.


Most easy would be the Early Bronze Age bowl food vessel cists from c. 2200BC on. They are usually in a discrete closed context, not disturbed by later burials and the bones are clearly associated with the the pottery. Around half of the bowl food vessel burials are unburned beaker-like burials.

From the late part of the early Bronze Age c. 1800BC through most of the Iron Age before c.0AD presents an ancient DNA nightmare for ancient DNA in Ireland because burial was 99% cremation. As you noted, bog bodies are found in peat which generally is very destructive of DNA.

[alan]

Its in harison and hyde's map of the western yamnaya. The thing I am still searching for is a solid connection between the r1b guy in the vudecol site and western yamnaya.

It is not hard to imagine since hyde's paper claims that western yamnaya settled the danube both upstream and downstream of the site in question but I would still like to see a clear cut relation rather than a more casual one.

Let me know if you got any ideas.

yep its never good to have to just imagine a movement with no solid well dated evidence. However there are a number of important historically attested movements with very poor archaeological evidence that mean we would never have guessed they actually happened without a historian having noted them or at best least probably waffled on about minor hints of vague contacts with locals.

[alan]

Its in harison and hyde's map of the western yamnaya. The thing I am still searching for is a solid connection between the r1b guy in the vudecol site and western yamnaya.

It is not hard to imagine since hyde's paper claims that western yamnaya settled the danube both upstream and downstream of the site in question but I would still like to see a clear cut relation rather than a more casual one.

Let me know if you got any ideas.

One important concept is that of an intermediary phase between steppe life and pouring out over farmer Europe. Further north CW probably is such a culture where steppe or near-steppe elements adapted to a different environment and produced a hybrid way of living which allowed them to then expand widely. The German evidence so far is all R1a so far so on the face of it the CW thrust through west-central Europe is something separate.

So lets just consider that R1b needed a parallel phase where steppe people had to adapt before pressing on into alien environments. Yamnaya and indeed even the earlier steppe waves seem to have selected steppe-type environments to settle on. This meant that c. 3000-2900BC Yamnaya per se halted around Hungary. Further west posed a radically different environment. So, they needed to adapt. The most likely scenario is that any further spread west involved an adaption phase where some steppe habits stayed but a lot were dumped. This would have looked like a hybrid culture with Yamnaya traits heavily blended with local elements - especially in terms of subsistence economy.

They couldnt just roll of and pretend steppe-like environments existed west of Hungary when they faced mountains, forests, fields etc. They would have had to adapt through a transformatory phase which should look like a transformatory culture or cultures. Its clear enough that CW to the north was such a culture albeit apparently mostly and R1a thing. So, we need to consider what similar cultures further south involved the same sort of process. However, the difference is of course that there is not matching massive spread of a single culture westwards like CW to the north.

That doesnt mean there are no transformatory cultures where steppe people hybrided and adapted to the farming world. There are in fact lots of them in the Balkans and Danube sort of area. Just not widespread ones like CW. We of course now have solid evidence that Vucedol was a culture where R1b steppe derived males lived in a culture where significant adapting to non-steppe circumstances had taken place. There are many such cultures in the general zone. However, this still leaves the lack of a trail further west running parallel to but south of CW.

In terms of routes west, the Roman road map probably also gives some idea of the route options in much older times and confirms the obvious conclusion that the route west from the middle Danube or north Balkans has to either have been north of the Alps along the Danube or via the north-west corner of the Adriatic through the Po and some passes towards southern France. I cannot see any other remotely rational options and the idea of steppe guys sailing all the way round Italy to the west is just bonkers IMO.

Of the two routes west the northern one would mean being mighty close to CW from 2800BC on. The southern route would appear to run through the Remedello II culture zone where so far, despite some suggestions of hierachical culture and individual status graves, the ancient DNA so far made them look just like local farmers - as did Otzi.

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

Maybe its misleading and we just were unlucky with the Remedello samples being locals but that is how it stands at the moment.

Otherwise, looking again at the northern route, I would like to see a map of CW on the Danube. Was it just on the northern bank or both sides? Was it possible for R1b guys to squeeze past CW just north of the Alps on the south side of the Danube? Standard maps do seem to show CW stopping at the Danube in north Austria and much of southernmost Germany, There does appear to be a narrow area between the Danube and Alps in Austria and Germany - in basically northern Austria between the Danube/Bohemian Forest area and southernmost Germany just in front of the Alps but south of the Danube. Its a fairly constrained route

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

The route would be in modern terms Budapest- Bratislava -Vienna-Lintz then Pasau/Brunau/Saltzberg towards Munich- much of the latter part of which sounds weirdly like a tour of Hitler's early life.

[alan]

One important concept is that of an intermediary phase between steppe life and pouring out over farmer Europe. Further north CW probably is such a culture where steppe or near-steppe elements adapted to a different environment and produced a hybrid way of living which allowed them to then expand widely. The German evidence so far is all R1a so far so on the face of it the CW thrust through west-central Europe is something separate.

So lets just consider that R1b needed a parallel phase where steppe people had to adapt before pressing on into alien environments. Yamnaya and indeed even the earlier steppe waves seem to have selected steppe-type environments to settle on. This meant that c. 3000-2900BC Yamnaya per se halted around Hungary. Further west posed a radically different environment. So, they needed to adapt. The most likely scenario is that any further spread west involved an adaption phase where some steppe habits stayed but a lot were dumped. This would have looked like a hybrid culture with Yamnaya traits heavily blended with local elements - especially in terms of subsistence economy.

They couldnt just roll of and pretend steppe-like environments existed west of Hungary when they faced mountains, forests, fields etc. They would have had to adapt through a transformatory phase which should look like a transformatory culture or cultures. Its clear enough that CW to the north was such a culture albeit apparently mostly and R1a thing. So, we need to consider what similar cultures further south involved the same sort of process. However, the difference is of course that there is not matching massive spread of a single culture westwards like CW to the north.

That doesnt mean there are no transformatory cultures where steppe people hybrided and adapted to the farming world. There are in fact lots of them in the Balkans and Danube sort of area. Just not widespread ones like CW. We of course now have solid evidence that Vucedol was a culture where R1b steppe derived males lived in a culture where significant adapting to non-steppe circumstances had taken place. There are many such cultures in the general zone. However, this still leaves the lack of a trail further west running parallel to but south of CW.

In terms of routes west, the Roman road map probably also gives some idea of the route options in much older times and confirms the obvious conclusion that the route west from the middle Danube or north Balkans has to either have been north of the Alps along the Danube or via the north-west corner of the Adriatic through the Po and some passes towards southern France. I cannot see any other remotely rational options and the idea of steppe guys sailing all the way round Italy to the west is just bonkers IMO.

Of the two routes west the northern one would mean being mighty close to CW from 2800BC on. The southern route would appear to run through the Remedello II culture zone where so far, despite some suggestions of hierachical culture and individual status graves, the ancient DNA so far made them look just like local farmers - as did Otzi.

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

Maybe its misleading and we just were unlucky with the Remedello samples being locals but that is how it stands at the moment.

Otherwise, looking again at the northern route, I would like to see a map of CW on the Danube. Was it just on the northern bank or both sides? Was it possible for R1b guys to squeeze past CW just north of the Alps on the south side of the Danube? Standard maps do seem to show CW stopping at the Danube in north Austria and much of southernmost Germany, There does appear to be a narrow area between the Danube and Alps in Austria and Germany - in basically northern Austria between the Danube/Bohemian Forest area and southernmost Germany just in front of the Alps but south of the Danube. Its a fairly constrained route

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

The route would be in modern terms Budapest- Bratislava -Vienna-Lintz then Pasau/Brunau/Saltzberg towards Munich- much of the latter part of which sounds weirdly like a tour of Hitler's early life.

Actually there are problems with the route between the Danube and Alps once you hit Germany - the CW groups in south Bavaria and the SW Alps would have been in the way depending on timing. See map early in this paper:
http://www.academia.edu/10727963/Technical_data_and_experiments_on_corded_ware

Its of course not impossible to avoid each other depending on the exact environments i.e. farming land vs floodplain etc. However its interesting to note this.

In some ways it looks superficially easier to cross to the NW Balkans and middle Danube to SW Europe c. 2800BC through the Remedello territory in NW Italy. Whatever route was taken there is no way of avoiding either CW or RemedelloII when looked at in crude macro-scale terms c. 2800BC if you wanted to get from the middle Danube or NW Balkans to western Europe.

[alan]

As you can see from fig 1 here file:///C:/Users/Alan.NORTHARC/Downloads/3530-3291-1-PB.pdf there is no clear evidence that CW would have been blocking the area between the Danube and Alps until 2750BC. So another option for believers in R1b being linked to beaker from the inception of the pottery is that the beaker ancestors (in whatever form - its practically invisible) passed somehow from the NW Balkans/midde Danube to the west BEFORE R1a arrived on the scene and hence had no rivals.

In a situation when the ancestors of P312 beaker folk in the middle Danube/NW Balkans passed west before 2750BC then the northern route actually becomes the easier one. I say this because there was just a lot of early copper using (but culturally late Neolithic farmer) small cultures in the way. This gives a handy compact summary of the cultures hugging the north of the Alps in the centuries around 3000BC https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=J6-EHmI5AEcC&pg=PT175&lpg=PT175&dq=ice+man+remedello&source=bl&ots=1IuVdRimiL&sig=DRzLQnDUrQBt_kHcCycA3hV2FuQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBmoVChMIotqrmNu8xwIVygoaCh0qwwSg#v=on epage&q=ice%20man%20remedello&f=false

The pre-CW northern route seems to provide less formidable rivals than the southern route via the Po valley where the highly impressive Remedello cultures ruled the roost. Especially the Remedello II culture which looks like it had some scary chiefs. Mind you the Remedello I people were impressive too with their mines, metalwork influence beyond their cultural borders and the wide adoption of their dagger symbol on stelae through the Alps and were capable of firing an arrow into your back as Ice Man attests. It also appears to me that control of the far north-western end of the Po and the passes west would have meant it was especially hard to use this route without encountering them. The names Aosta and (on another road west over the border) Sion jump out off the map at you when you are looking at the NW end of this route. Obviously these are well known from the Harrison and Heyd study for their pre-beaker, early beaker and (only in the case of Sion) later beaker phases.Obviously the use of Remdello symbols can be seen in the pre-beaker phase at Sion and the Ice Man had a Remdedello I axe (albeit he was on an Alpine route a little further to the east).

Certainly anyone using these Remedello dominated routes across north Italy to link between the NW Balkans/Middle Danube would have had to deal with the Remedello I and II groups who seem to have had wide influence across the southern Alps. In terms of beaker in Po valley zone, the more recent stuff I have read does not seem to support earlier musings of beaker being especially early here and sound a lot lot more like the typical c.2500BC kind of dates for most of Europe. I think the case of beaker pot per se spreading beyond Iberia anywhere before 2500BC seems to be crumbling away in all the more recent papers I have read.

So, as far as I can see Remedello II still ruled the roost on this route through north Italy up to the appearance of beaker from c. 2500BC. So I cant see any hints of eastern hairy types on horses etc grabbing control of this area - especially if the Remedello I and II ancient DNA so far is not just some unfortunate fluke where locals have been tested. Indeed if they are representative then the southern route through north Italy for any hypothetical move of east-central Europeans into western Europe c. 2900-2600BC would also then have to have been a lightening move without stopping with safe pass being negociated with the Remdello II powerful looking groups there. As far as I can see the first indicator of another culture muscling in on this southern route are the beaker phases such as at Sion and Aosda at the westernmost approaches to the route through Italy. I have said this several times before but I think it is significant that the much earlier long lived north-west Italian copper mines seem to go out of use at a time approaching 2500BC just as the beaker culture seems to extend to the area. So, there is a much better case for the route across north Italy being usurped c. 2500BC give or take a couple of generations rather than in the period before.

That also reminds me of the fact that it is often claimed beaker style skulls and changes in burial style (which seem not a million miles away from some beaker traits) appear in Remedello II. However the ancient DNA is currently (admittedly a tiny sample) just not supporting a steppe/R1b/ANE link.

Anyway that is a pretty inconclusive consideration of the two routes from east to west around the Alps c. 3000-2500BC but a pre-2750BC route by the Danube seems the best way of dodging the powerful Remedello and CW cultures who occupied those routes in the earlier to mid 2000sBC. I suppose for those who are convinced that there is a central European inspiration for the earliest beaker then a pre-2750BC lightening move to Iberia does match the earliest dates for beaker pot on settlement sites which commence about 2800-2750BC and appear to fractionally pre-date (at worst are co-eval with) the arrival of CW in the western Alps.

I would say though having considered the geography etc that a route through north-west Italy does seem a little easier for SW Europe and Csepel to somehow link up than the northern route. Or is this just horse trading hahahahaha- I'll get my coat

[newtoboard]

I'm not entirely with you.


CW and BB had long gone by the time of the Roman Empire, which in fact did not cover the area once covered by CW, which mainly lay outside it. In fact CW seems to have retreated eastwards and northwards along with the eastern movement of BB out of Hungary, so the descendants of CW were almost entirely the "barbarians" outside the empire, while the Celts and Italics mainly lay within the empire at its height.
I see the core link between BB and CW as their common origin in Yamnaya.
I am not suggesting that BB people wanted to avoid CW or that CW wanted to avoid BB. We know that BB moved into regions where CW people had previously lived and even where they were still living e.g. Scandinavia and Poland. They just seem to be different communities.


CW does not descend from Yamnaya. The ydna evidence is quite clear on that so I am not sure why you keep repeating it.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

One important concept is that of an intermediary phase between steppe life and pouring out over farmer Europe. Further north CW probably is such a culture where steppe or near-steppe elements adapted to a different environment and produced a hybrid way of living which allowed them to then expand widely. The German evidence so far is all R1a so far so on the face of it the CW thrust through west-central Europe is something separate.

So lets just consider that R1b needed a parallel phase where steppe people had to adapt before pressing on into alien environments. Yamnaya and indeed even the earlier steppe waves seem to have selected steppe-type environments to settle on. This meant that c. 3000-2900BC Yamnaya per se halted around Hungary. Further west posed a radically different environment. So, they needed to adapt. The most likely scenario is that any further spread west involved an adaption phase where some steppe habits stayed but a lot were dumped. This would have looked like a hybrid culture with Yamnaya traits heavily blended with local elements - especially in terms of subsistence economy.

They couldnt just roll of and pretend steppe-like environments existed west of Hungary when they faced mountains, forests, fields etc. They would have had to adapt through a transformatory phase which should look like a transformatory culture or cultures. Its clear enough that CW to the north was such a culture albeit apparently mostly and R1a thing. So, we need to consider what similar cultures further south involved the same sort of process. However, the difference is of course that there is not matching massive spread of a single culture westwards like CW to the north.

That doesnt mean there are no transformatory cultures where steppe people hybrided and adapted to the farming world. There are in fact lots of them in the Balkans and Danube sort of area. Just not widespread ones like CW. We of course now have solid evidence that Vucedol was a culture where R1b steppe derived males lived in a culture where significant adapting to non-steppe circumstances had taken place. There are many such cultures in the general zone. However, this still leaves the lack of a trail further west running parallel to but south of CW.

In terms of routes west, the Roman road map probably also gives some idea of the route options in much older times and confirms the obvious conclusion that the route west from the middle Danube or north Balkans has to either have been north of the Alps along the Danube or via the north-west corner of the Adriatic through the Po and some passes towards southern France. I cannot see any other remotely rational options and the idea of steppe guys sailing all the way round Italy to the west is just bonkers IMO.

Of the two routes west the northern one would mean being mighty close to CW from 2800BC on. The southern route would appear to run through the Remedello II culture zone where so far, despite some suggestions of hierachical culture and individual status graves, the ancient DNA so far made them look just like local farmers - as did Otzi.

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

Maybe its misleading and we just were unlucky with the Remedello samples being locals but that is how it stands at the moment.

Otherwise, looking again at the northern route, I would like to see a map of CW on the Danube. Was it just on the northern bank or both sides? Was it possible for R1b guys to squeeze past CW just north of the Alps on the south side of the Danube? Standard maps do seem to show CW stopping at the Danube in north Austria and much of southernmost Germany, There does appear to be a narrow area between the Danube and Alps in Austria and Germany - in basically northern Austria between the Danube/Bohemian Forest area and southernmost Germany just in front of the Alps but south of the Danube. Its a fairly constrained route

https://tac-prepc.wikispaces.com/file/view/44444444444444444444.jpg/194589346/44444444444444444444.jpg

The route would be in modern terms Budapest- Bratislava -Vienna-Lintz then Pasau/Brunau/Saltzberg towards Munich- much of the latter part of which sounds weirdly like a tour of Hitler's early life.

How about simply up the Danube, through the "Moravian gates", to Bavaria, Swabia, then also up the Elbe and to Loire.

Even if "rival" groups were already there, conflict isn't necessarily unavoidable. Social mechanisms exist for diffusing conflict - further migration, exogamy and clan fusion, occupying different ecological niches, etc

[alan]

CW does not descend from Yamnaya. The ydna evidence is quite clear on that so I am not sure why you keep repeating it.

think it is shorthand for 'closely related to Yamnaya' which David does say CW certainly is. A lot depends on when this non-EHG non-ENF component got into the steppes. CW has it although not as much as Yamnaya. However there is a clear link so CW's ancestry had to involve this element. This element seems to have penetrated the steppe area at some point between 6000-3300BC. It didnt come from the Balkans or Carpathian zone so it had to come from/through either the Caucasus or east Caspian area. As it seems to be strongest in Yamnaya and a little weaker in CW and Kyvalysk it seems reasonable to say it got into Yamnaya in the pre-Yamnaya Repin phase c. 4000-3300BC. Repin shows contact with groups with links to Maykop further down the Don. If this mystery component only got into Repin after 4000BC (after Maykop came into existence) then it may have been absent on the steppe prior to 4000BC. Repin, other than its exotic southern links just described, seems to have a Sredny Stog base. So, as CW has the mystery component in it then it too must have got it after 4000BC i.e. after the fall of Sredny Stog other than much more limited remnants. So, following this logic, a shared Sredny Stog ancestry for CW and Yamnaya before 4000BC doesnt quite seem to cut it. It looks like the ancestors of CW shared this new southern derived new genetic input with the Repin and Kyvalnsk cultures at some point in the post-4000BC period. The evidence from ancient DNA suggests so far that this is more an autosomal and mtDNA one than a yDNA one.

So the upshot of these ramblings is that Repin and whoever the ancestors of CW were apparently shared common genetic additions from the south in the post-4000BC timeframe. That could mean a flow from a common third source or a flow from Repin or Yamnaya to whatever culture was ancestral to CW.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

think it is shorthand for 'closely related to Yamnaya' which David does say CW certainly is. A lot depends on when this non-EHG non-ENF component got into the steppes. CW has it although not as much as Yamnaya. However there is a clear link so CW's ancestry had to involve this element. This element seems to have penetrated the steppe area at some point between 6000-3300BC. It didnt come from the Balkans or Carpathian zone so it had to come from/through either the Caucasus or east Caspian area. As it seems to be strongest in Yamnaya and a little weaker in CW and Kyvalysk it seems reasonable to say it got into Yamnaya in the pre-Yamnaya Repin phase c. 4000-3300BC. Repin shows contact with groups with links to Maykop further down the Don. If this mystery component only got into Repin after 4000BC (after Maykop came into existence) then it may have been absent on the steppe prior to 4000BC. Repin, other than its exotic southern links just described, seems to have a Sredny Stog base. So, as CW has the mystery component in it then it too must have got it after 4000BC i.e. after the fall of Sredny Stog other than much more limited remnants. So, following this logic, a shared Sredny Stog ancestry for CW and Yamnaya before 4000BC doesnt quite seem to cut it. It looks like the ancestors of CW shared this new southern derived new genetic input with the Repin and Kyvalnsk cultures at some point in the post-4000BC period. The evidence from ancient DNA suggests so far that this is more an autosomal and mtDNA one than a yDNA one.

So the upshot of these ramblings is that Repin and whoever the ancestors of CW were apparently shared common genetic additions from the south in the post-4000BC timeframe. That could mean a flow from a common third source or a flow from Repin or Yamnaya to whatever culture was ancestral to CW.

Surely , one only needs to look at what was happening c. 4000 BC: the rise of metallurgical centres in the Caucasus- North (Majkop) and South (Kura-Arax). Linked to Ubaid (and even pre-Ubaid) trade and even frank colonization. However, some authors (eg Ivanova) looks to Central asian links.

Concominantly, this is when the "old Balkan" civilization collapsed. Coincidence ?

[alan]

How about simply up the Danube, through the "Moravian gates", to Bavaria, Swabia, then also up the Elbe and to Loire.

Well mainly I was looking for a route or timing that avoids CW. If R1b pre-dated CW west then there was no obsticle in its way to take any route west although the Danubian route is the most obvious. One bit of negative evidence that R1b (well basically L11 or even P312) could have beat CW and R1a to the west is simply the way R1a stops dead around the Rhine/north Switzerland and stays there c. 2750-perhaps as late as 2500BC before the beaker culture fills the space to the west. Its almost like there was an invisible barrier to them as if someone had beat them there. I see no reason why the CW culture could cut a swath through central and northern Europe through the farmers there but then find the farmers west of the Rhine as invincible and stop dead there. Unless of course the collapse of the farmers was far worse in central Europe than in the west c. 2750BC.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Alan


Unless of course the collapse of the farmers was far worse in central Europe than in the west c. 2750BC.

I thought it was regionally varied. Perhaps less drop in the Rhineland-Hesse . See Stephens shennans regional Bayesion radiocarbon summaries

[Jean M]

For those keen on the physical anthropology question, the details of height and cranial index for the Boscombe Bowmen (the earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burial in the British Isles) and the almost contemporary Amesbury Archer and his companion are in the monograph from Wessex Archaeology on same:

The height range for three of the adults was 1.74-178m (c. 5' 8 1/2" - 5' 10") with an average of 1.77m, which is higher than the average 1.68m (5' 6") recorded by Brothwell 1973 for Neolithic males in Britain, and also slightly higher than his figure of 1.74m for the Bronze Age, but within the same range.

The crania all fall within the brachycranial range.

[alan]

There was a moister phase c. 3000-2500BC which benefited eastern Europe but not the north-west, then there was the converse - a drier phase around starting 2500BC which benefited the north-west but put eastern Europe into aridity and crisis. So, there is a possible push-pull climatic driver close to the sudden expansion of the beaker network across Europe c. 2500BC. This change seems to not relate to the earliest beaker period c. 2800-2500BC in Iberia which falls into the wetter period (possibly a good thing in hot Iberia). The start of this dry period c. 2500BC instead relates to the developed beaker phase when overnight beaker spread all over Europe. Certainly east Europeans were under stress. I am not sure if SW Europe was too but its worth looking into considering it is a hot dry country. Perhaps this dry period c. 2500BC suddenly triggered movement from both the east-central area and the south-west into two overlapping counter-movements. It worth considering because it appears more and more human movement and rise and falls of cultures are triggered by the rise and falls in aridity.

[alan]

Surely , one only needs to look at what was happening c. 4000 BC: the rise of metallurgical centres in the Caucasus- North (Majkop) and South (Kura-Arax). Linked to Ubaid (and even pre-Ubaid) trade and even frank colonization. However, some authors (eg Ivanova) looks to Central asian links.

Concominantly, this is when the "old Balkan" civilization collapsed. Coincidence ?

Probably not a coincidence. A lot happened around 4000BC when a phase of aridity started - fall of old Europe, collapse of Sredny Stog, 1st steppe waves into Old Europe, sudden extension of farming into the maritime zone of northern Europe. Its all clearly linked to the sudden onset of a much dryer period - which is linked to the 5.9 kiloyear event
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.9_kiloyear_event

Similarly the 8.2 yiloyear and the period around it of great aridity probably triggered the collapse of some early farming cultures in the middle east and saw the start of the flow of farmers into Europe.

The onset of another dry phase c. 2500BC caused problems in the steppe again and interestingly is exactly the date that beaker suddenly spread all over Europe having previously been holed up in Iberia for 250-300 years. I believe the new dates for Catacomb also place it around that date.

[alan]

For those keen on the physical anthropology question, the details of height and cranial index for the Boscombe Bowmen (the earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burial in the British Isles) and the almost contemporary Amesbury Archer and his companion are in the monograph from Wessex Archaeology on same:

The height range for three of the adults was 1.74-178m (c. 5' 8 1/2" - 5' 10") with an average of 1.77m, which is higher than the average 1.68m (5' 6") recorded by Brothwell 1973 for Neolithic males in Britain, and also slightly higher than his figure of 1.74m for the Bronze Age, but within the same range.

The crania all fall within the brachycranial range.

Interesting. Whether its genetic or just some sort of effect of cradling, its does imply something about the beaker people at their developed phase.. This change seems to have occurred only c. 2500BC around the time beaker was suddenly everywhere and only in some other cultures. Do you have a date for the appearance of the skull type in Vucedol and Remedello?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Probably not a coincidence. A lot happened around 4000BC when a phase of aridity started - fall of old Europe, collapse of Sredny Stog, 1st steppe waves into Old Europe, sudden extension of farming into the maritime zone of northern Europe. Its all clearly linked to the sudden onset of a much dryer period - which is linked to the 5.9 kiloyear event
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.9_kiloyear_event

Similarly the 8.2 yiloyear and the period around it of great aridity probably triggered the collapse of some early farming cultures in the middle east and saw the start of the flow of farmers into Europe.

The onset of another dry phase c. 2500BC caused problems in the steppe again and interestingly is exactly the date that beaker suddenly spread all over Europe having previously been holed up in Iberia for 250-300 years. I believe the new dates for Catacomb also place it around that date.


Exactly ! 2500 BC marks a relative "collapse" of steppe like societies in eastern europe. The Floruit of kurgan groups in EE and SEE was brief. They appear in Hungary , Bulgaria etc 3000 BC. They disappear 2500 BC. This is when Catacomb appears -
Much more retracted compared to Yamnaya, focussed only in North pontic region around the major rivers, but many more actual settlements / dwellings have been undug from this period c,f Yamnaya (if memory serves me correct).

This might have facilitated the " Beaker reflux "

It also saw the commencement of the "real" Bronze Age. True, more enduring chiefdoms in greece and anatolia, as an extension from the near East. "International spirit", etc as Renfrew put it .

IMO , this is when PiE began to expand through europe. My lower chronology for PIE, following Garrets allowing a role for convergence and Zimmer's cautious dating for the break up of PiE exactly coincides with 2500 BC. !

[alan]

Exactly ! 2500 BC marks a relative "collapse" of steppe like societies in eastern europe. The Floruit of kurgan groups in EE and SEE was brief. They appear in Hungary , Bulgaria etc 3000 BC. They disappear 2500 BC. This is when Catacomb appears -
Much more retracted compared to Yamnaya, focussed only in North pontic region around the major rivers, but many more actual settlements / dwellings have been undug from this period c,f Yamnaya (if memory serves me correct).

This might have facilitated the " Beaker reflux "

It also saw the commencement of the "real" Bronze Age. True, more enduring chiefdoms in greece and anatolia, as an extension from the near East. "International spirit", etc as Renfrew put it .

IMO , this is when PiE began to expand through europe. My lower chronology for PIE, following Garrets allowing a role for convergence and Zimmer's cautious dating for the break up of PiE exactly coincides with 2500 BC. !

Generally in moister phases on the steppe the true forest invades part of the forest steppe, the forest steppe invades part of the true steppe and the arid true steppe retreats somewhat south and east. So sometimes paradoxically less arid conditions can drive away people adapted to treeless steppe of certainly squeeze that environment a bit. I wonder if that was a factor behind the Yamnaya expansion c. 3000BC because this was actually the start of 500 years of moister weather.

[rms2]

For those keen on the physical anthropology question, the details of height and cranial index for the Boscombe Bowmen (the earliest radiocarbon-dated BB burial in the British Isles) and the almost contemporary Amesbury Archer and his companion are in the monograph from Wessex Archaeology on same:

The height range for three of the adults was 1.74-178m (c. 5' 8 1/2" - 5' 10") with an average of 1.77m, which is higher than the average 1.68m (5' 6") recorded by Brothwell 1973 for Neolithic males in Britain, and also slightly higher than his figure of 1.74m for the Bronze Age, but within the same range.

The crania all fall within the brachycranial range.

Yes, that sounds like the classic Beaker anthropometrics, as opposed to the shorter-in-stature Neolithic people, who were of what has been called "Mediterranean" physical type, with long heads and gracile skeletons. The thing that makes me wonder is that, from what I have read, the very earliest Iberian Beaker Folk were also Mediterraneans like the Neolithic people of Britain and not at all like the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen.

If Maritime Beaker pots have been found in Neolithic long barrows (I am talking about Hubert's reference to "curious bell-shaped beakers adorned at regular intervals with bands of incised or stamped decoration, of a very simple and austere type") absent the more robust type of later Beaker skeletons, and if early Iberian Beaker Folk differed physically from the later, more robust Beaker Folk, then maybe we're talking two different kinds of Beaker Folk at least, and maybe their y-dna profiles will differ, as well.

[Jean M]

Do you have a date for the appearance of the skull type in Vucedol and Remedello?

<groan> I had a feeling that it would be a mistake to supply any information whatever on physical anthropology, which I detest. It could only lead to requests for more. </groan>

Who said anything about this skull type in Vucedol or Remedello? This discussion three years ago may or may not be useful. Richard R was certainly in possession of data. http://www.worldfamilies.net/forum/index.php?topic=11159.msg139966#msg139966

[Jean M]

If Maritime Beaker pots have been found in Neolithic long barrows (I am talking about Hubert's reference to "curious bell-shaped beakers adorned at regular intervals with bands of incised or stamped decoration, of a very simple and austere type")..

The long barrows were Neolithic. The skeletons within them were Neolithic, except that (just to confuse us), some Neolithic long barrows (and other Neolithic burial sites) were re-used by later people. So the occasional BB pot has been found in sites previously Neolithic. It is not related to the Neolithic skeletons.

I agree that Hubert's description sounds like Maritime BB, but unless you can find out which sites he is talking about, I'm at a loss. It could take me a year of research to document all locations across Europe of Maritime BB and their contexts sufficiently to guess what on earth Hubert is talking about, unless he says. Frankly I'd rather that you take a year doing it, if you are convinced that you have an exciting lead. ;) But there is no specific association of Maritime with Neolithic long barrows. It is found in all BB contexts, as I have already said.

One of the beakers in the grave of the Boscombe Bowmen was Cord-Zoned Maritime. Two of the beakers in the grave of the Amesbury Archer are Maritime-Derived, which seems a step towards local styles. Classic Maritime is quite rare in Britain. Radiocarbon modelling suggests that the early international styles of beaker were rapidly superseded in Britain by Wessex/Middle Rhine regional types, perhaps closer to 2300 BC (Fitzpatrick 2015 thinks) than the 2200 BC suggested by Needham 2005. A review of early BB burials in Wessex suggests that they were often isolated graves or in small cemeteries. (Fitzpatrick 2015 from the book I am currently reading.)

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Yes, that sounds like the classic Beaker anthropometrics, as opposed to the shorter-in-stature Neolithic people, who were of what has been called "Mediterranean" physical type, with long heads and gracile skeletons. The thing that makes me wonder is that, from what I have read, the very earliest Iberian Beaker Folk were also Mediterraneans like the Neolithic people of Britain and not at all like the Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen.

If Maritime Beaker pots have been found in Neolithic long barrows (I am talking about Hubert's reference to "curious bell-shaped beakers adorned at regular intervals with bands of incised or stamped decoration, of a very simple and austere type") absent the more robust type of later Beaker skeletons, and if early Iberian Beaker Folk differed physically from the later, more robust Beaker Folk, then maybe we're talking two different kinds of Beaker Folk at least, and maybe their y-dna profiles will differ, as well.

For Britain, we'll find that certain places , like Cliffs End, were hotspots for immigrant groups. I think this has already been suggested from isotope studies .

[Jean M]

For Britain, we'll find that certain places , like Cliffs End, were hotspots for immigrant groups. I think this has already been suggested from isotope studies .

Yes indeed. The exciting results from that site were published in a monograph in January this year: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/publications/cliffs-end-farm-isle-thanet-kent . A paper on the Bronze Age isotopes was presented at a meeting I attended in July 2010 and published in Koch and Cunliffe (eds.), Celtic from the West 2 (2013). Plus there was an article on it in British Archaeology magazine July/August 2013.

[rms2]

The long barrows were Neolithic. The skeletons within them were Neolithic, except that (just to confuse us), some Neolithic long barrows (and other Neolithic burial sites) were re-used by later people. So the occasional BB pot has been found in sites previously Neolithic. It is not related to the Neolithic skeletons.

I agree that Hubert's description sounds like Maritime BB, but unless you can find out which sites he is talking about, I'm at a loss. It could take me a year of research to document all locations across Europe of Maritime BB and their contexts sufficiently to guess what on earth Hubert is talking about, unless he says. Frankly I'd rather that you take a year doing it, if you are convinced that you have an exciting lead. ;) But there is no specific association of Maritime with Neolithic long barrows. It is found in all BB contexts, as I have already said.

One of the beakers in the grave of the Boscombe Bowmen was Cord-Zoned Maritime. Two of the beakers in the grave of the Amesbury Archer are Maritime-Derived, which seems a step towards local styles. Classic Maritime is quite rare in Britain. Radiocarbon modelling suggests that the early international styles of beaker were rapidly superseded in Britain by Wessex/Middle Rhine regional types, perhaps closer to 2300 BC (Fitzpatrick 2015 thinks) than the 2200 BC suggested by Needham 2005. A review of early BB burials in Wessex suggests that they were often isolated graves or in small cemeteries. (Fitzpatrick 2015 from the book I am currently reading.)

No, thanks! I was just trying to sort out what seems to me to be a big mystery with Beaker, i.e., little Mediterranean long heads with a bit less than the full-on "kurgan" package versus the more robust later Beaker Folk with the whole steppe-looking kit and kaboodle. How did they get to belong to an eastern y haplogroup, namely R1b?

My money is on a non-R1b very early Iberian Beaker with an R1b entry in the east, in the Carpathian Basin.

[glentane]

For Britain, we'll find that certain places , like Cliffs End, were hotspots for immigrant groups. I think this has already been suggested from isotope studies .

Not necessarily voluntary immigrants, and perhaps not in anything like significant numbers.
It's just possible that a sociological quirk of the local culture meant they (outsiders) ended up in the same place (the local tip) as a bit of an ethnic "lucky bag" and were differentially preserved, relative to the local yokels. And then happened to be unearthed due to planning requirements on building developers, which would be less likely to happen if they had been part of a scheduled monument area e.g. barrow cemetery.
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?4710-R1b-U106-in-Swedish-Battle-Axe-Culture-(a-Corded-Ware-subgroup)&p=98791&viewfull=1#post98791

[alan]

No, thanks! I was just trying to sort out what seems to me to be a big mystery with Beaker, i.e., little Mediterranean long heads with a bit less than the full-on "kurgan" package versus the more robust later Beaker Folk with the whole steppe-looking kit and kaboodle. How did they get to belong to an eastern y haplogroup, namely R1b?

My money is on a non-R1b very early Iberian Beaker with an R1b entry in the east, in the Carpathian Basin.

Well my new beaker book arrived yesterday and the physical anthropology of a Polish BB vs FB v CW sample again gave a very vivid and very distinct description of the beaker people as mainly highly distinctive with the same description you hear all over central and northern Europe for beaker people from 2500BC onwards - tall, robust, broad headed, strong brows, strong cheekbones, convex nose, flattened bit at the back skull. Its so distinctive and collectively it surely cannot all be explained by cradling practices?? It sounds genetic and the chapter concludes it is genetic.

The CW people were again found to be dolichocephalic or mesocephalic/very distinct and the paper seems to suggest the distinction between the CW and Funnel Beaker samples is a lot more subtle.

What is curious about the beaker people c. 2500BC onwards is how on earth did they retain a distinct look when spreading over so much of Europe? There is also evidence that they tended to marry out, not within a small community like CW people.

The keeping of this distinct look for centuries when scattered all over Europe is really hard to explain. Even if it was just over say 3 centuries that this distinct physical type prevailed before being absorbed, it is still a hell of a lot of generations for an apparently out-marrying culture to retain a distinct look. It is actually suggestive more of a group who may have married over a distance but those distant brides being the daughters of OTHER beaker people. Otherwise with your genes always being cut in half every generation, a distinctive look could never prevail.

As the chapter concludes, this beaker look looks clearly genetic rather than environmental - especially given that this look also applied to infants and also CW people living at the same time and place looked different. So, much as though its frowned upon and does have issues if wrongly applied, I think it is justified to look for the origins of the post-2500BC beaker people in pre-2500BC cultures with similar physical types. Especially if there is an R1b connection in ancient DNA. So Vucedol is looking interesting and maybe Gimbutas had a point. Apparently Remedello II? has similar skulls also but the two samples so far look genetically to be farmer types.

I dont know what this would mean for the earliest beaker pot users in Iberia. I just dont think the work has been to put together a detailed chronology of the various traits other than the pot itself. If work was done and it turned out that early beaker in Iberia really was just a fancy new pot (perhaps used by a local guild of copper workers) while other aspects which are intrusive like new practices with the treatment of bodies in burials turn out to be far later then I would not recommend inferring a population movement into Iberia just based on a new type of pot. The chronology of early beaker 'culture' in Iberia needs peeled back into components to date each individual aspect rather than assume that they all originate at the same time. The beaker 'package' aspects could have come about as a cumulative thing with components of the package being added one by one over many centuries. I think from what I have read that the radiocarbon work on beaker in Iberia is nowhere near that level as yet. All that I am semi-convinced about at the moment is beaker pot existed by c. 2750BC on settlement sites in Iberia. I havent a clue (and I dont think anyone does) about the timing of the addition in Iberia of the various other aspects that make up the beaker package - treatment of dead bodies (by far the most important and telling aspect IMO), wrist guards, various types of buttons, the eastern-derived tanged dagger etc although I have heard suggestions that a lot was added long after the earliest beaker pots were made - including Harrison and Heyd.

[Heber]

I am open to an early arrival of steppe people in Iberia, but I wonder why early Iberian Beaker seems so un-steppe like. Perhaps the stelae are the answer, as Jean has suggested, but, honestly, from the pictures I have seen of Iberian stelae, they don't seem to resemble the steppe models very much. Then again, maybe I haven't seen all of them and there are steppe-looking stelae in Iberia that I have missed.

.

There is remarkable similarity between the Stelae of Kemi Oba and the Ukraine and those found in Tartessos and Lisbon.

Beja and Ukraine Stelae
5657

Use of Stelae in West and East
5658

Kemi Oba Stelae
5659

Sion Stelae
5660

Proto Beaker Package from Iberia (Merges with Yamnaya)
5661

This was one of the arguments used by Koch in his paper "Indo European from the East, Celtic from the West"

https://www.academia.edu/8299894/Indo-European_from_the_east_and_Celtic_from_the_west_re conciling_models_for_languages_in_later_prehistory

IMHO, Bell Beaker expanded from Iberia (Patterson, Haak), merges with Yamnaya which was heavily influenced by Maykop and Kemi Oba and returned to Iberia according to the Reflux Model (Patterson) and probably used the Warrior Stelae route as well as the river and coastal routes. P312 probably expanded in the Atlantic zone possibly in France. However we still need ancient DNA testing in Western Europe which was absent in recent studies.

https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/the-stelae-people/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/kemi-oba/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/celtic-from-the-west/
https://www.pinterest.com/gerardcorcoran/r1b-p312/

[Jean M]

It's just possible that a sociological quirk of the local culture meant they (outsiders) ended up in the same place (the local tip) as a bit of an ethnic "lucky bag" and were differentially preserved, relative to the local yokels. And then happened to be unearthed due to planning requirements on building developers, which would be less likely to happen if they had been part of a scheduled monument area e.g. barrow cemetery.

I wouldn't put it quite that way. :biggrin1: There are a group of prominent Copper/Bronze Age barrows overlooking the bay. The later graves cluster beside them. Thanet being an island at the time, en route to the Thames estuary, it would make a convenient entrepôt. So it could have been used for generations by trading families.

[Jean M]

Well my new beaker book arrived yesterday

Thank goodness! I felt like I was talking to myself.


What is curious about the beaker people c. 2500BC onwards is how on earth did they retain a distinct look when spreading over so much of Europe? There is also evidence that they tended to marry out, not within a small community like CW people.

The keeping of this distinct look for centuries when scattered all over Europe is really hard to explain. Even if it was just over say 3 centuries that this distinct physical type prevailed before being absorbed, it is still a hell of a lot of generations for an apparently out-marrying culture to retain a distinct look. It is actually suggestive more of a group who may have married over a distance but those distant brides being the daughters of OTHER beaker people. Otherwise with your genes always being cut in half every generation, a distinctive look could never prevail.

I agree entirely. It seems a sort of family resemblance, the result of inter-marriage between the "nodes" of beaker settlement in a widespread network, at a time when comparatively small numbers of BB people were moving rapidly across a wide stretch of Europe. This inter-marriage pattern would also explain the rapid movement of pottery styles, as suggested by Marc Vander Linden, What linked the Bell Beakers in third millennium BC Europe (2007).

[rms2]

Here are some drawings of stelae from various parts of Europe from the paper, People of Stone: Stelae, Personhood, and Society in Prehistoric Europe (http://www.academia.edu/9005823/Persons_of_stone_stelae_personhood_and_society_in_ prehistoric_Europe), by John Robb.

Iberia and southern France: 5662

Ukraine: 5663

Italy and the Alps: 5664

[glentane]

Thanet being an island at the time, en route to the Thames estuary, it would make a convenient entrepôt.
If (big if) you knew where you were, and the weather was fair.
My money's still on this turning out to be a one-off, end of the road for periodic batches of hapless survivors of the horrible Goodwins, which you have to cross or evade to get into Pegwell Bay, a tempting sandy break in the ubiquitous cliffs.
The locals may not have been actual wreckers, but not disinclined to profit from the misfortune of those whom the gods have abandoned :heh:

[alan]

Here are some drawings of stelae from various parts of Europe from the paper, People of Stone: Stelae, Personhood, and Society in Prehistoric Europe (http://www.academia.edu/9005823/Persons_of_stone_stelae_personhood_and_society_in_ prehistoric_Europe), by John Robb.

Iberia and southern France: 5662

Ukraine: 5663

Italy and the Alps: 5664

Well I think one would need to be a very much glass half full incurable optimist to see a lot of similarity between them. If you make stelae with a rough human shape and stick some ornaments and objects of the time on them they will all come out looking like that. You dont have a lot of options for arm positions on a tall/flat slab. See this carved figure from Boa Island, County Fermanagh in the north of Ireland that is sometimes suggested to be Iron Age but looks very like other clearly Christian era carvings from the same part of Ireland (it is very likely actually Early Christian)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/JanusFigureBoaIsland.jpg

I think to see strong resemblance in the western and eastern stelae I would need to smoke something a bit stronger than my current e-cigarette habit.

[Jean M]

batches of hapless survivors of the horrible Goodwins, which you have to cross or evade to get into Pegwell Bay, a tempting sandy break in the ubiquitous cliffs. The locals may not have been actual wreckers, but not disinclined to profit from the misfortune of those whom the gods have abandoned

You cynic you! :) Cliff's End is certainly a strange site, hard to interpret.

[Jean M]

Here are some drawings of stelae from various parts of Europe from the paper, People of Stone: Stelae, Personhood, and Society in Prehistoric Europe[/url], by John Robb.


Well I think one would need to be a very much glass half full incurable optimist to see a lot of similarity between them.

Don't worry. Koch's team won't take my idea on board without careful analysis of this very point by a specialist in stelae. The question of similarities is an obvious one. It won't get neglected. If you want to know what I think about it, you will need to await Blood of the Celts, which won't be long.

[rms2]

When it comes to the stelae across Europe (at least the ones in the pictures I have seen), I must admit I don't see a lot of really obvious similarities, but some of them do seem to have some characteristics in common: they appear to be warriors or warrior gods, with faces, arms, weapons, and a belt. I guess a lot depends on how they were used from one place to another, as well. Were they all used just as they were used on the steppe?

[Jean M]

When it comes to the stelae across Europe (at least the ones in the pictures I have seen), I must admit I don't see a lot of really obvious similarities, but some of them do seem to have some characteristics in common: they appear to be warriors or warrior gods, with faces, arms, weapons, and a belt. I guess a lot depends on how they were used from one place to another, as well. Were they all used just as they were used on the steppe?

You have picked out some of the common themes for the male images, but there are also female versions. Usage is a complex issue, but essentially they appear to represent honoured ancestors, and are often found in funeral contexts, like the much later Hallstatt and La Tene statues.

I'm caught between a rock and a hard place on this, as I suspect that my publisher would not want me to cut-and-paste entire chapters of the forthcoming book here in advance of publication, but I fully appreciate all the helpful discussion on this and other forums, to which you have been a notable contributor, which have helped to shape my thinking towards Ancestral Journeys and Blood of the Celts. So it seems churlish to just keep saying "wait and see". On the other hand, people really need to read the whole thing to evaluate it properly.

[alan]

When it comes to the stelae across Europe (at least the ones in the pictures I have seen), I must admit I don't see a lot of really obvious similarities, but some of them do seem to have some characteristics in common: they appear to be warriors or warrior gods, with faces, arms, weapons, and a belt. I guess a lot depends on how they were used from one place to another, as well. Were they all used just as they were used on the steppe?

way I look at it if you want to represent a (probably high status) individual on a stone pillar then unless you want to depict the person as nude and without any material objects then its kind of inevitable that it will come out with crude depiction of the clothes, ornaments, tools, weapons etc of the day.

There are of course depictions on stone in the pre-beaker copper age Alps like those at Sion with Remedello/Alpine daggers and double spirals which can broadly be called Alpine/north Italian pre-beaker material culture. It looks like me to be local and Alpine. If anything, the pre-beaker stelae look to me like they owe something to the whole complex of Alpine groups interacting with Remdello and some status network relating to metals and perhaps the mines in the south-Alpine/Ligurian/NW Italian zone. We also have Remdello I artifacts with Otzi and I think someone else posted that some Alpine stelae show Remedello I not II forms although I am not sure if that is correct.

Then there is the DNA from Otzi and the Remedello samples as well as the copper age Languedo guys. They all appear to be ENF stock. I just struggle to see the pre-beaker Alpine Stelae as steppe linked. The closest I would go to a steppe link is that there would seem to be an arguement that the copper working gradually spread across the Alps and central Med. as a result of refugees from the fall of Old Europe and the Balkans metal networks but that would be a case of copper using farmers spreading copper use into the territories on previously non-copper using farmers.

[Jean M]

I just struggle to see the pre-beaker Alpine Stelae as steppe linked.

Yes I know Alan. You have been saying as much for years, and providing much valuable discussion and debate thereby. I fully appreciate the alternative interpretations of the data.

The stelae habit may have come from the steppe, and yet be more closely related initially to people of Cucuteni rather than Samara origin. On the other hand they were adopted by Yamnaya and we have stelae going in all directions from the steppe, including up the Danube, west of the Black Sea into Thrace and Greece, eastwards to the Altai, and a few into CW. Each direction seems to develop its own style as it gets further from the steppe.

In short the whole topic is highly complex. I don't imagine for one moment that anthropomorphic stelae were made exclusively by men of just one haplogroup. :)

[Jean M]

Returning to my coverage of The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe, I was particularly looking forward to chapter 12 on early gold technology. It does not disappoint. It demonstrates that Atlantic Europe is rich in gold artefacts attesting to the use of particular types of ornaments, from southern Portugal to the north of Scotland, in the Copper and early Bronze Ages.

I was pleased to see the group of a lunula and two discs, found at Cabeceiras do Basto in Portugal. The combination was thought unique until the discovery of just such an ensemble from Ireland, which had originally been discovered at Coggalbeg, Co. Roscommon in March 1949, but were unknown to scholars until they were revealed by a safe robbery in 2009. (The Irish set is one of the illustrations in Blood of the Celts.) Also shown are the ear pendants from Portugal that closely resemble the earliest gold object found in Ireland. The latter was known not to be of Irish gold, so I guessed it was imported. The recent news that it seems to be made of Cornish gold is revealed in an earlier paper in the same volume - that by Fitzpatrick. Wish I'd known before I went to press! But such is life.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Going back over the material of BB, a common opinion amongst scholars is its diversity underlying certain connecting threads- different economic bases, houses, etc; although a general shift to pastoralism is notable.

How about this mock explanation for the initial dispersal of R1b men in the BB network? Although intended comical, it might have a grain of truth :
Certain Regions were notable specialists, eg Iberia and Hungary for horses, Britain for tin, etc. Perhaps, then, one region was the preferred "stud farm" supplying husbands for the daughters of local elites. Could somewhere in the Sava-Teisza interfluvial have been the Saxe-Coburg-Gota's of the Copper age?

[Jean M]

How about this mock explanation for the initial dispersal of R1b men in the BB network? Although intended comical, it might have a grain of truth : Certain Regions were notable specialists, eg Iberia and Hungary for horses, Britain for tin, etc. Perhaps, then, one region was the preferred "stud farm" supplying husbands for the daughters of local elites. Could somewhere in the Sava-Teisza interfluvial have been the Saxe-Coburg-Gota's of the Copper age?

Have to point out that we women don't carry any Y-DNA haplogroup. :) But I do suspect that the Carpathian Basin was a key nexus of the Bell Beaker network. In my model it was both the starting point and one return point of the excursion westwards to Iberia that carried what I called the Stelae People and later the pottery influences that somewhere along the line generated the bell-shaped pottery. I think it is pretty clear that R1b-P312 moved up the Danube. That has been part of my speculative map of R1b movements for years. So much else has changed, yet that stays the same.

5677

[alan]

I want to make a few comments having read more of The Beaker Transition in Europe book I just got my hands on and am slowly reading (just not in the mood to speed through it)

1. Although it is a little inconsistent on this in places - it looks as though 2400BC is the earliest date for beaker in the isles -perhaps even fractionally younger - and the old 2500BC shouldnt be quoted. Even some of the earliest beaker people in Britain are dated more like 2350BC. So perhaps something to take into account by people comparing SNP counting for L21 subclades. You can probably say now that archaeology does not demand that DF13 is any older than 2400-2350BC from an isles point of view.

2. Another thing the book brings out is the rapid-fire switch in Britain from 'international' beaker (including burials with collective aspect) to Rhenish. There might have just been a generation between them.

3. A couple of other observations that the book raises although I was aware of most of this anyway. Ireland based on the Ross Island evidence seems at least as early as Britain, perhaps even fractionally earlier - although need to be careful with charcoal based dates. The Irish beaker has a curious apparently simultaneous mix of Atlantic and Central European kind of traits. The Atlantic relates to use of fresh built Wedge tombs megaliths (although I disagree with the book saying it is collective burial in a Neolithic sense) and early metallurgy. The central European derived parts of the Irish beaker package include the dominance of hollow based arrowheads over barbed and tanged and the the higher frequency (much higher than Britain) use of polypod pots on settlement sites. I would also add much of the beaker is more British-Rhenish looking. And yet there is no discernable two-wave aspect to Irish beaker. It appears to be the case that Atlantic and more central European derived beaker elements had already mixed together before the move to Ireland. That is not surprising if beaker didnt even start arriving in Ireland until c. 2400BC and perhaps fractionally later.

4. IF we need to look for Irish beaker as a single wave which includes both Atlantic and Central European/Rhenish aspects then it has to have originated in a time and place where they had already mixed. Although the dating so far may not quite support it, it does strike me that Britain is described in this book as having quick-fire change from international to Rhenish type phases. However at present the Irish dates would be slightly too old to come from this mix in Britain. I do wanr though that a lot of this turns on a few dates with the usual major provisos that RC dating always needs. Otherwise it think the origin of Irish beaker and its mix of Atlantic and more eastern triats would make sense if they came together in northern France before 2400BC. I am guessing between the Seine and Loire - an area where both Atlantic and Rhenish influences converge. If I had to guess further I would actually place it towards the north and eastern part of that part of France because of the lack of a significant part of the Iberian derived stuff found in NW France in Ireland - including true Maritime beakers (very rare in Ireland), palmela points (very very rare), barbed and tanged arrowheads (very outnumbered by hollow base). It sort of feels like it sits best on the interface between Brittany and the Seine sort of area but that is just a guess.

5. I note in the book that a few times a beginning date is being place for beaker in central Europe at 2550BC rather than 2500BC as was commonly being quoted in recent years. This makes more sense to me because Kromsdorf beaker centres on the former date.

6. One thing I noticed in the book is mention of beaker in east-central Europe being associated more with uplands.

7. Studies in the book seem to think the beaker people in most of Europe were typically very small groups or clans living separate from the locals, physically distinct and living in a way that meant settlements sites were ephemeral/hard to spot. The analysis of cemeteries suggested a patriarchal, out-marrying (each beaker group too small to be endogenous) clans with ranking within these small groups too.

8. I am yet to read the bits of the south-west of Europe - I skimmed the bit about France and it is interesting (although I heard this before) that it discusses the way beaker people in France appear to have avoided the stronger existing copper age groups in southern France and headed mostly for the Rhone. Their settlement preferences on naturally defended and/or enclosed sites suggest they were not entirely welcome to all.

[alan]

Going back over the material of BB, a common opinion amongst scholars is its diversity underlying certain connecting threads- different economic bases, houses, etc; although a general shift to pastoralism is notable.

How about this mock explanation for the initial dispersal of R1b men in the BB network? Although intended comical, it might have a grain of truth :
Certain Regions were notable specialists, eg Iberia and Hungary for horses, Britain for tin, etc. Perhaps, then, one region was the preferred "stud farm" supplying husbands for the daughters of local elites. Could somewhere in the Sava-Teisza interfluvial have been the Saxe-Coburg-Gota's of the Copper age?

hahahahaha- hilarious but runs against all we known about the structure of beaker groups/marriage etc. What I said recently - and I think Jean seems to agree-is that beaker people may have married widely geographically and yet still basically been marrying within beaker culture i.e. they would marry a beaker woman from 100 miles away before they would marry a local lass. If this was common practice then the centre would slowly pool mtDNA from the west and east end and then I suppose they would from there trickle to the opposite ends of the network.

I suppose certain marriages would be more important than others - such as alliances with people who controlled the metal sources themselves so perhaps we might expect the mtDNA of women close to the metal sources to be especially popular.

[Jean M]

What I said recently - and I think Jean seems to agree-is that beaker people may have married widely geographically and yet still basically been marrying within beaker culture i.e. they would marry a beaker woman from 100 miles away before they would marry a local lass.

I don't just seem to agree. I definitely do agree. ;) What BB isotope evidence we have so far from the European continent shows females tending not to be born locally, yet they are not all showing one particular region of birth.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Agreed.
I guess we need high resolution Y data also to see how the exogamy operated form the male perspective also.
I understand what you both propose - a close knit yet dispersed community. But how and why did R1b become dominant ? Perhaps BB was just the start/ introductory phase, and R1b only really became entrenched somewhat later..

[alan]

I don't just seem to agree. I definitely do agree. ;) What BB isotope evidence we have so far from the European continent shows females tending not to be born locally, yet they are not all showing one particular region of birth.

I wonder if they had bride fairs on the interfaces of territories as happened into the 20th century in some parts of Europe (actually think they still sort of do in some places). 'This is my pretty daughter - great at making beakers and clothes. Fine cook. GSOH. In return as the dowry I will give you a supply of ingots and I will use you as my middle man for all trade down your road'. That sort of thing.

[alan]

Agreed.
I guess we need high resolution Y data also to see how the exogamy operated form the male perspective also.
I understand what you both propose - a close knit yet dispersed community. But how and why did R1b become dominant ? Perhaps BB was just the start/ introductory phase, and R1b only really became entrenched somewhat later..

The same within-group but marrying miles away rather than out group to a girl 100 yards away thing went on in fishing communities into the 20th century. The east coast Scottish fishing branch of my family were like that right into the 1930s-my grandad got a hard time for marrying a landlubber from 1 mile away but marrying a fisher lass from another port 60 miles up the coast (as happened in previous generations) would be no problem at all. Basically as long as the girl was a fisherlass distance wasnt a factor (within reason of course).

[Jean M]

3. ... The Irish beaker has a curious apparently simultaneous mix of Atlantic and Central European kind of traits. ...

4. IF we need to look for Irish beaker as a single wave which includes both Atlantic and Central European/Rhenish aspects then it has to have originated in a time and place where they had already mixed. Although the dating so far may not quite support it, it does strike me that Britain is described in this book as having quick-fire change from international to Rhenish type phases. ... think the origin of Irish beaker and its mix of Atlantic and more eastern triats would make sense if they came together in northern France before 2400BC.

Fitzpatrick hints as much when mentioning (p. 48) the Cornish gold as the source for the Deehommed ornament. He is cautious. Just says that "In this context the suggestion that the non-local beakers found in Brittany might be from Portugal (Salanova 2000, Cardoso et al 2005) may be relevant."

[Jean M]

I guess we need high resolution Y data also to see how the exogamy operated form the male perspective also.
I understand what you both propose - a close knit yet dispersed community. But how and why did R1b become dominant ? Perhaps BB was just the start/ introductory phase, and R1b only really became entrenched somewhat later..

That is exactly what Alan and rms2 are proposing. My model has most R1b-P312 going up the Danube and DF27 as an early branch in Iberia. This cannot be resolved without ancient DNA. Patience is the chief requirement in this game. :)

5679

[razyn]

My model has most R1b-P312 going up the Danube and DF27 as an early branch in Iberia.

My model has DF27 doing pretty much what the rest of P312 was doing, including going up and down the Danube and several other large rivers -- not to mention the Gulf of Finland, or whatever else floats my boat. After it got to Iberia, whenever that was (we patiently await a richer aDNA atlas), it certainly had some breeding success; but not necessarily from its ur-form until the present. Some of DF27's most prolific subclades in Iberia are quite young; and some of his oldest subclades are quite eastern (and/or northern). Deducing that DF27 is an Iberian haplogroup, based on its present high percentage in the population there, is a kind of post hoc, ergo propter hoc logic applied to the peopling of Europe, with hoc being the birth (and birthplace) of Mr. DF27. Sometimes, that sort of argument can happen to be right, but the logic is nonetheless flawed. [N.B. I am not ascribing this position to Jean M, just cautioning against uncritical belief in it.]

[Jean M]

My model has DF27 doing pretty much what the rest of P312 was doing, including going up and down the Danube and several other large rivers -- not to mention the Gulf of Finland, or whatever else floats my boat.

I also have DF27 spreading out from the upper Danube into points north, as you can see on my latest map (above). Where we differ is in me thinking, in my hopelessly misguided way, that DF27 arrived in the Csepel group from Iberia. Time will tell. If I'm wrong, it will make a good excuse for a second edition. ;)

[R.Rocca]

My model has DF27 doing pretty much what the rest of P312 was doing, including going up and down the Danube and several other large rivers -- not to mention the Gulf of Finland, or whatever else floats my boat. After it got to Iberia, whenever that was (we patiently await a richer aDNA atlas), it certainly had some breeding success; but not necessarily from its ur-form until the present. Some of DF27's most prolific subclades in Iberia are quite young; and some of his oldest subclades are quite eastern (and/or northern). Deducing that DF27 is an Iberian haplogroup, based on its present high percentage in the population there, is a kind of post hoc, ergo propter hoc logic applied to the peopling of Europe, with hoc being the birth (and birthplace) of Mr. DF27. Sometimes, that sort of argument can happen to be right, but the logic is nonetheless flawed. [N.B. I am not ascribing this position to Jean M, just cautioning against uncritical belief in it.]

We can very clear theorize the branching of L51, L11 and P312 in Central Europe, with small brother clades leaving breadcrumbs while moving east to west. Do we see the same variability in DF27 branching further east?

[alan]

My model has DF27 doing pretty much what the rest of P312 was doing, including going up and down the Danube and several other large rivers -- not to mention the Gulf of Finland, or whatever else floats my boat. After it got to Iberia, whenever that was (we patiently await a richer aDNA atlas), it certainly had some breeding success; but not necessarily from its ur-form until the present. Some of DF27's most prolific subclades in Iberia are quite young; and some of his oldest subclades are quite eastern (and/or northern). Deducing that DF27 is an Iberian haplogroup, based on its present high percentage in the population there, is a kind of post hoc, ergo propter hoc logic applied to the peopling of Europe, with hoc being the birth (and birthplace) of Mr. DF27. Sometimes, that sort of argument can happen to be right, but the logic is nonetheless flawed. [N.B. I am not ascribing this position to Jean M, just cautioning against uncritical belief in it.]

One thing that is slowly emerging is that the early dates for beaker pot appear not just in Portugal but in several areas of Iberia. This reduces the geographical gap between early Iberian beaker and central Europe a bit although there is still a big gap. IF there is an early INTO Iberia move c. 2800BC from central Europe then geography would tend to suggest a route down the Rhone, along the French and east Spanish coast then getting either via the Ebro and the pass near Zaragoza or inland from near Valencia to reach the Tagus and follow it past Toledo to the Atlantic near Porto. The main Roman road to the Atlantic essentially followed this route. There are of course other routes but this one seems the most logical to me. The initial Rhone-Med-Ebro part of the route does much later seem to have later been the one followed by the Urnfields. So, my suspicion is it was also likely followed by earlier flows from central Europe. Whether the earliest beaker pot is a flow from central Europe seems to be a matter of debate but certainly few would doubt there was a flow into Iberia from central Europe at some point of points between 2800 and 2000BC.

[Jean M]

One thing that is slowly emerging is that the early dates for beaker pot appear not just in Portugal but in several areas of Iberia..

And southern France.


or inland from near Valencia to reach the Tagus and follow it past Toledo to the Atlantic near Porto.

That would seem sensible to us, because we have maps. But until prospectors knew their way around, they would have no idea that the Tagus even existed. They would be more likely to explore upriver from the coast.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

And southern France.



That would seem sensible to us, because we have maps. But until prospectors knew their way around, they would have no idea that the Tagus even existed. They would be more likely to explore upriver from the coast.

Not that I have any specific opinion on the routes issue, but I suspect- from migration theory- that they knew where they were going. Even if they were "aggressive" and not welcome interlopers, they'd first have initial contacts- trade, exogamy, scout migrations and back migrations before the main thrust occurred, after an appreciable Hiatus.

[alan]

One thing that the Bell Beaker Transformation in Europe reaffirms is the very modest size of bell beaker communities. Just extended families sometimes living in a sea of locals they stood aloof from. It would seem to me to have been incredibly easy for a selection of these little beaker clans to be wiped out with no male line survivors. It wouldnt take a huge war but just a small skirmish and then lineage death.

They would appear to have been in a vulnerable position and I imagine some of their networking may have been to mutually support each other in event of trouble because these groups were so small they could have been wiped out easily. However if they had some kind of mutual protection pact with other beaker people scattered around then the locals knew that any trouble would mean another 10 beaker archer groups would come down rapidly on horses and mow your down, burn down your village down and stamp on your corded ware pots.

That sort of system of becoming someone's client (and part of a complex network of clientship) on the understanding they will project and if necessarily avenge you with a lot of blood and guts works rather well when a groups numbers are low in comparison to the locals. As far as I can see that is just a simple version how the Normans survived their early decades in England.

After all the beaker people may also have had horses (perhaps vital in providing protection in the clientship system) and apparently almost fetishised archery. The latter far more practical than showing off with a stone axe. The CW people seem to have had a potentially fatal ideal of heroic hand to hand or single combat with stone axes - possible thinking it was brave and manly and that bows were cowardly. If the CW guys spent all you time perfecting proto-Thor heroic axe fighting and came up against groups of beaker people (even if they are far smaller than you) who rode horses and spent their spare time trying to get Robin Hood levels of archery skills then there will be a lot of dead CW guys. A tradition of wide networking/protection racket clientship system utilising horses (for quickly link disperate beaker groups) and archery could go a long way to spook the locals into leaving small beaker groups well alone. They might be able to massacre one group but a widely network clientship bound protection system will mean they will then suffer the consequences.

l .

[alan]

And southern France.



That would seem sensible to us, because we have maps. But until prospectors knew their way around, they would have no idea that the Tagus even existed. They would be more likely to explore upriver from the coast.

Oh - is there some new info on Southern France beaker dates? If its in the new beaker book I havent read the chapter yet. I had generally noticed in papers in the last few years that the French archaeologists had started to use 2500BC as the date of the beaker arrival there, as had the central Europeans.

Regarding routes, I see your point. I guess how good they were at picking out direct routes would depend on a lot of factors like whether they had local advice or cooperation etc or if the routes were already in use in the pre-beaker period. Certainly the three of four but rivers that were navigable for most of their length and flowed from the east-central Iberia to the Atlantic should have been a gift from the gods for movement west through the peninsula once discovered.

However, I must admit this doesnt always follow. Sometimes the most direct route can be avoided because some nasty tribe commanded the bottleneck mountain pass or a crucial ford.

I dont doubt that the coast was very important, especially when moving north-south along the west coast of Iberia where the rivers mostly flowed perpendicular. Also the north coast of Iberia where the rivers are short, the coast in a narrow area boxed in by the mountains to the south etc. Also because the big rivers do flow westwards that would surely have made them a pain to move east along in a boat. This was of course c. 15000 years before the sail came to Iberia so prevailing westerly winds which would have helped sailing eastwards along the large east-west rivers of Iberia wouldnt be relevant.

[Jean M]

Not that I have any specific opinion on the routes issue, but I suspect- from migration theory- that they knew where they were going. Even if they were "aggressive" and not welcome interlopers, they'd first have initial contacts- trade, exogamy, scout migrations and back migrations before the main thrust occurred, after an appreciable Hiatus.

I agree entirely about the way migration works, and indeed have said the same repeatedly. Prospectors for copper from the Yamnaya extension up the Danube could probably draw on Balkan knowledge of copper locations as far west as the Alps, Italy and Sardinia. But moving west from there would be true exploration. Very likely it was carried out by small groups initially, who brought back both trade items and knowledge. I would still doubt that such knowledge included a full map of Iberia. The copper sources first worked were in the south-west of the peninsula. Knowledge of the lower reaches of the Tagus (and its alluvial gold) was rapidly gained i.e. before BB. Anthropomorphic stelae seem to show early movement up the Tagus, whearas Late Bell Beaker does appear to go from southern France to the upper reaches of the Tagus.

[alan]

Not that I have any specific opinion on the routes issue, but I suspect- from migration theory- that they knew where they were going. Even if they were "aggressive" and not welcome interlopers, they'd first have initial contacts- trade, exogamy, scout migrations and back migrations before the main thrust occurred, after an appreciable Hiatus.

I doubt the beaker people were actively aggressive on arrival. Their numbers were small, they would easily be wiped out in their pioneer phase if they were, and they had the potential to be useful to the locals. Their interest in areas with metals and routeways may have kept them away from some of the best farmland the locals were concentrated on too.

I suspect they tried to make some friendly alliances and get agreement of locals for small settlements but remained highly wary all the same. Wary because agreements dont mean sincerity, jealousy could kick in, toes could be accidentally trampled on and, probably most importantly, I dont think any local chief or elder in the late Neolithic/copper age was in any position to absolutely guarantee safety - they simply wouldnt have had the mechanisms to do that. Justice if it happened instead of self-service revenge was likely after the fact and in fine/compensation payments like a few cows rather than crime being prevented. That would not be a great consolation for being killed and actually might have given motive to kill all if you killed one. So IMO they would have struck some deals but remained very wary, hence the trait of living in naturally defended crags or enclosed sites in the south of France. Actually come to think of it, this practice may be indicative that the the fact that unlike northern Europe, the beaker people actually had hostile groups who already had their own copper making and mining complexes.

[alan]

I agree entirely about the way migration works, and indeed have said the same repeatedly. Prospectors for copper from the Yamnaya extension up the Danube could probably draw on Balkan knowledge of copper locations as far west as the Alps, Italy and Sardinia. But moving west from there would be true exploration. Very likely it was carried out by small groups initially, who brought back both trade items and knowledge. I would still doubt that such knowledge included a full map of Iberia. The copper sources first worked were in the south-west of the peninsula. Knowledge of the lower reaches of the Tagus (and its alluvial gold) was rapidly gained i.e. before BB. Anthropomorphic stelae seem to show early movement up the Tagus, whearas Late Bell Beaker does appear to go from southern France to the upper reaches of the Tagus.

Seems logical to me although dont rule out archaeologists finding a large mysterious rolled up wafer thin sheet of beaten copper or gold and then back in lab unravelling it to reveal a beautiful incised map of Iberia or even beaker Europe :0) We can but dream..

[GoldenHind]

That is exactly what Alan and rms2 are proposing. My model has most R1b-P312 going up the Danube and DF27 as an early branch in Iberia. This cannot be resolved without ancient DNA. Patience is the chief requirement in this game. :)

5679

I would be interested to see what you propose for the three less numerous P312 subclades of L238, DF19 and DF99. None of them seem to have reached the Atlantic coast, and either they weren't included in the more western Beakers, or if they were, they apparently didn't survive. L238 is largely limited to Scandinavia. Did it get there from the Rhine, or from a more easterly route? DF19 and DF99 also appear to have a much more restricted distribution than the three more numerous subclades. I have pondered whether their path may have put them in competition with other groups which may have hindered their ability to multiply.

[Jean M]

Oh - is there some new info on Southern France beaker dates?

Sorry -I was misleading there. I was just vaguely recalling that some of the dates for that region in the paper by Muller and Van Willigen were pre-2500 BC. But perhaps these are just outliers that I should be ignoring.

[Jean M]

I would be interested to see what you propose for the three less numerous P312 subclades of L238, DF19 and DF99.

I don't think I'm proposing anything in particular for them, other than the general up-the-Danube supposition for P312. As you know, I argue that some P312 could have entered Scandinavia with Bell Beaker. That BB route appears to start from the lower Rhine. Chapter 8 in the book Alan and I are currently reading is very enthusiastic about BB in Norway. Christopher Prescott just seems to get increasingly convinced that BB in Noway has been under-sold.

[R.Rocca]

Sorry -I was misleading there. I was just vaguely recalling that some of the dates for that region in the paper by Muller and Van Willigen were pre-2500 BC. But perhaps these are just outliers that I should be ignoring.

Why would early dates in Southern France be ignored or considered outliers?

[Jean M]

Why would early dates in Southern France be ignored or considered outliers?

I'd love to know. ;) Will Alan find something fishy about them?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Oh - is there some new info on Southern France beaker dates? If its in the new beaker book I havent read the chapter yet. I had generally noticed in papers in the last few years that the French archaeologists had started to use 2500BC as the date of the beaker arrival there, as had the central Europeans.

Regarding routes, I see your point. I guess how good they were at picking out direct routes would depend on a lot of factors like whether they had local advice or cooperation etc or if the routes were already in use in the pre-beaker period. Certainly the three of four but rivers that were navigable for most of their length and flowed from the east-central Iberia to the Atlantic should have been a gift from the gods for movement west through the peninsula once discovered.

However, I must admit this doesnt always follow. Sometimes the most direct route can be avoided because some nasty tribe commanded the bottleneck mountain pass or a crucial ford.

I dont doubt that the coast was very important, especially when moving north-south along the west coast of Iberia where the rivers mostly flowed perpendicular. Also the north coast of Iberia where the rivers are short, the coast in a narrow area boxed in by the mountains to the south etc. Also because the big rivers do flow westwards that would surely have made them a pain to move east along in a boat. This was of course c. 15000 years before the sail came to Iberia so prevailing westerly winds which would have helped sailing eastwards along the large east-west rivers of Iberia wouldnt be relevant.

A very sound explanation. Looking at the map (fig 20) at "Families, Prestige Goods, Warriors & Complex Societies: Beaker Groups of the 3rd Millennium cal BC Along the Upper & Middle Danube" (V Heyd), one cannot look past the potential for conflict in central and Northern Europe between CWC and BB groups, who clearly defined their ideologies and sense of "belonging".

About the 'aggression ' and size of early groups. The same paper (fig 7) illustrates early BB cemeteries consisted of an average of 3 burials . By the late BB period, this was up to 20.

Perhaps the final break up of BB, centrifugal forces became greater. Indeed, we see a mosaic of new Bronze Age cultures in western europe.

[Jean M]

10 beaker archer groups would come down rapidly on horses and mow your down, burn down your village down and stamp on your corded ware pots. .

What! Vicious attacks on crockery! :biggrin1:

[Jean M]

"Families, Prestige Goods, Warriors & Complex Societies: Beaker Groups of the 3rd Millennium cal BC Along the Upper & Middle Danube" (V Heyd),

Available online https://www.academia.edu/1249549/_2007_V._Heyd_Families_Prestige_Goods_Warriors_and _Complex_Societies_Beaker_Groups_of_the_3rd_Millen nium_cal_BC_along_the_Upper_and_Middle_Danube._Pro ceedings_of_the_Prehistoric_Society_73_2007_p._321-370

[vettor]

where would the R1b of Barcin and Vucecol ( proto-illyrian culture ) which are being genotyped by Harvard university ATM, fit in your scenario.?

[Anglecynn]

One thing that the Bell Beaker Transformation in Europe reaffirms is the very modest size of bell beaker communities. Just extended families sometimes living in a sea of locals they stood aloof from. It would seem to me to have been incredibly easy for a selection of these little beaker clans to be wiped out with no male line survivors. It wouldnt take a huge war but just a small skirmish and then lineage death.

They would appear to have been in a vulnerable position and I imagine some of their networking may have been to mutually support each other in event of trouble because these groups were so small they could have been wiped out easily. However if they had some kind of mutual protection pact with other beaker people scattered around then the locals knew that any trouble would mean another 10 beaker archer groups would come down rapidly on horses and mow your down, burn down your village down and stamp on your corded ware pots.

That sort of system of becoming someone's client (and part of a complex network of clientship) on the understanding they will project and if necessarily avenge you with a lot of blood and guts works rather well when a groups numbers are low in comparison to the locals. As far as I can see that is just a simple version how the Normans survived their early decades in England.

After all the beaker people may also have had horses (perhaps vital in providing protection in the clientship system) and apparently almost fetishised archery. The latter far more practical than showing off with a stone axe. The CW people seem to have had a potentially fatal ideal of heroic hand to hand or single combat with stone axes - possible thinking it was brave and manly and that bows were cowardly. If the CW guys spent all you time perfecting proto-Thor heroic axe fighting and came up against groups of beaker people (even if they are far smaller than you) who rode horses and spent their spare time trying to get Robin Hood levels of archery skills then there will be a lot of dead CW guys. A tradition of wide networking/protection racket clientship system utilising horses (for quickly link disperate beaker groups) and archery could go a long way to spook the locals into leaving small beaker groups well alone. They might be able to massacre one group but a widely network clientship bound protection system will mean they will then suffer the consequences.

l .

Bell Beaker Mafia :P

[Wonder_Wall]

Ands yet despite this apparent vulnerability, the Y-DNA line provisionally associated with BB almost completely replaced the earlier G men. So they had some kind of fitness advantage that swamped the presumably more numerous earlier males.

Because I favor BB links to the East, my assumption is that between metalworking, the horse and wheel, etc. the early farmers were simply outclassed and the new guys on the block got all the girls. It would be like showing up at the prom in a Ferrari. BB had bling and better weapons. This is the male perspective and I don't mean to exclude the mtDNA story but it is more complex and more difficult to trace.

BB were (in my view) also part of a IE continuum which provided a consistent flow of new people over a wide geographic range. It must have been crazy linking Sardinia to Scotland and Denmark - but there it is. Folks got around.

Of course this is speculative to a degree and others favor Northern Africa or more autochthonous developments for BB. I don't at this point... 3000 BC was the beginning of a huge population turnover and BB are at the right place at the right time to bring IE culture, genes, and language to the areas in Western Europe where we find them today.

What we don't have is a smoking genetic gun linking (for example) Estremadura to the East. Until then we get to hypothesize....

[alan]

Why would early dates in Southern France be ignored or considered outliers?

It seems a lot of early dates in Muller and Willigen have been chucked out and basically nowhere other than Iberia is being quoted as pre-2550BC in the works of the last few years I have read for France and central Europe and even the papers about beaker in some Italian regions I have read dont claim any older. I dont know the process of chucking out early dates though - if it wasnt the material used it could be that context was unsafe or a whole pile of reasons. Certainly noone is backing Csepel as being pre that sort of date now - I think the oldest dates were from an unsafe context. The Isles date has been pushed back to 2400BC but looking at most of the dates discussed even for early British beaker, many are more like 2350BC. Its very common to see reviews moving arrival dates younger - for example the Irish Neolithic start has been moved to about 3800BC or just after - not the long quoted 4000BC. In eastern Europe -especially Ukraine and Russia - they seem to be realising that quite a lot of dates on human bone are too old due to considerable fish component in the diet in some cultures whose farming component was absent or limited.

As it stands, Iberia is out on a limb datewise, fully 250 years older (c. 2800-2750BC) when it comes to earliest beaker pot dates with France and central Europe being quoted around 2550-2500BC at the earliest.

Muller and Willigen do not seem to have fully nailed it. The only firm looking point that remains from it today is that Iberia seems very early and the north rather late. The other early hotspots like south France, Csepel etc seem to no longer be believed after reviews. From papers and books I have read from the last 3 years it seems that beaker is now being placed as appearing at the same time through France and central Europe and only Iberia remains the odd man out with much earlier dates.

I have not really thought through the implications of noone anymore arguing that anywhere is early except Iberia and (late British Isles and Scandinavia aside) most of the rest of Europe is much the same in terms of early dates. I suppose it takes away the once solid looking idea of an initial spread through south France and north Italy as an intermediate stage before central Europe. So the sudden expansion of beaker outside Iberia looks even more like a sudden event.

Am still baffled as to know what it all means though. The expansion in NW and central Europe does seem to be tied to those distinctive beaker skulls and it is from part of this group that we have the proof of the P312 connection. As to other areas I just dont have a clue. Beaker is very tough to work out. Right now I am thinking it looks like two counter streams from west and east that met and melded c. 2550BC but I just cannot say I am confident that the earliest beaker was R1b associated. I think though its fair to lack confidence because there is no ancient DNA yet from the very early beaker c. 2800-2600BC in the west.

The other big issue for Iberian beaker is that the early dates for the pot on settlement sites seems a lot clearer than the dates of the change to beaker type treatment of the body in Iberia (i.e treating the body as an individual with own grave goods even if it is inserted into an collective tomb). I dont think it is resolved as yet as to whether the beaker pot and this change in burial tradition date to the same time. I have seen regional studies from parts of Spain that indicate the beaker pot use commenced 2700BC but the change in treatment of the body in burials to a more typical beaker style is after 2500BC, perhaps significantly after. I think separation of the dating of these two things - the pot and the burial rite -could be the key to understanding beaker. As it stands I wouldnt trust dates on human bone without accompanying isotope analysis because there is are a number of strands of evidence showing copper age Iberians ate a significant amount of river and/or marine fish and shellfish (unlike British beakerfolk whose bone isotopes suggest they shunned fish). If this is true, there is every chance that the radiocarbon dates on beaker human bone in fishy areas like Iberia could be centuries older than reality.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

It seems a lot of early dates in Muller and Willigen have been chucked out and basically nowhere other than Iberia is being quoted as pre-2550BC in the works of the last few years I have read for France and central Europe and even the papers about beaker in some Italian regions I have read dont claim any older. I dont know the process of chucking out early dates though - if it wasnt the material used it could be that context was unsafe or a whole pile of reasons. Certainly noone is backing Csepel as being pre that sort of date now - I think the oldest dates were from an unsafe context. The Isles date has been pushed back to 2400BC but looking at most of the dates discussed even for early British beaker, many are more like 2350BC. Its very common to see reviews moving arrival dates younger - for example the Irish Neolithic start has been moved to about 3800BC or just after - not the long quoted 4000BC. In eastern Europe -especially Ukraine and Russia - they seem to be realising that quite a lot of dates on human bone are too old due to considerable fish component in the diet in some cultures whose farming component was absent or limited.

As it stands, Iberia is out on a limb datewise, fully 250 years older (c. 2800-2750BC) when it comes to earliest beaker pot dates with France and central Europe being quoted around 2550-2500BC at the earliest.

Muller and Willigen do not seem to have fully nailed it. The only firm looking point that remains from it today is that Iberia seems very early and the north rather late. The other early hotspots like south France, Csepel etc seem to no longer be believed after reviews. From papers and books I have read from the last 3 years it seems that beaker is now being placed as appearing at the same time through France and central Europe and only Iberia remains the odd man out with much earlier dates.

I have not really thought through the implications of noone anymore arguing that anywhere is early except Iberia and (late British Isles and Scandinavia aside) most of the rest of Europe is much the same in terms of early dates. I suppose it takes away the once solid looking idea of an initial spread through south France and north Italy as an intermediate stage before central Europe. So the sudden expansion of beaker outside Iberia looks even more like a sudden event.

Am still baffled as to know what it all means though. The expansion in NW and central Europe does seem to be tied to those distinctive beaker skulls and it is from part of this group that we have the proof of the P312 connection. As to other areas I just dont have a clue. Beaker is very tough to work out. Right now I am thinking it looks like two counter streams from west and east that met and melded c. 2550BC but I just cannot say I am confident that the earliest beaker was R1b associated. I think though its fair to lack confidence because there is no ancient DNA yet from the very early beaker c. 2800-2600BC in the west.

The other big issue for Iberian beaker is that the early dates for the pot on settlement sites seems a lot clearer than the dates of the change to beaker type treatment of the body in Iberia (i.e treating the body as an individual with own grave goods even if it is inserted into an collective tomb). I dont think it is resolved as yet as to whether the beaker pot and this change in burial tradition date to the same time. I have seen regional studies from parts of Spain that indicate the beaker pot use commenced 2700BC but the change in treatment of the body in burials to a more typical beaker style is after 2500BC, perhaps significantly after. I think separation of the dating of these two things - the pot and the burial rite -could be the key to understanding beaker. As it stands I wouldnt trust dates on human bone without accompanying isotope analysis because there is are a number of strands of evidence showing copper age Iberians ate a significant amount of river and/or marine fish and shellfish (unlike British beakerfolk whose bone isotopes suggest they shunned fish). If this is true, there is every chance that the radiocarbon dates on beaker human bone in fishy areas like Iberia could be centuries older than reality.


As I think you and perhaps couple of other people have mentioned - the BB pot might be a red herring. It needs to be analysed contextually- where was it used and how (settlements vs in burials?) if it's diffusion through europe from Iberia is associated with burial use, then its meaning might have changed (from its original 'in the house hold' use).

But the most important changes that Heyd and vander Linden point out are the social and economic transformations at the time of the BB period. Some of these might be archaeologically traceable to the east (eg solitary burials), other facets perhaps less tangibly so- but equally important.

[alan]

I suppose the counterstream theory needs fleshed out. It still looks possible to see a thrust of Iberian beaker into SE France up the Rhone and perhaps across the Po valley to the middle Danube - albeit this could only have happened very shortly before we see central European beaker groups because the dates are very similar c. 2550BC. There is a distinctively western -probably Iberian derived-aspect to south-east French beaker and perhaps north Italian although I am less clear on that. Once beaker was in central Europe it picks up a whole lot of new aspects, some of which also appear in the Rhenish and isles groups. It seems to me that the two groups mixed up greatly before they went to Ireland (which from the start seems to have a mix of western and more eastern beaker traits), this mix possibly happening in Britain or northern France.

Over the broad sweep, if there were two counterflowing populations using beaker, it seems that after an initial contact phase c. 2550BC that by say 2400BC the eastern derived aspect was increasing in cultural influence and possibly genetic too.

The big question that I think we all want to know but I think noone can answer with confidence is whether P312 was involved in the initial spread of beaker from Iberia or whether this connection took place around 2550BC or so in central Europe. The whole skulls thing also comes into play in this. The classic often noted beaker skull type belongs to the central European and also NW beaker people and it is from the central European (or Bell beaker east) unit that has the proven R1b link. So it does appear fair to conclude that this distinctive phenotypical group seen all large swathes of Europe from Poland to the isles is linked to P312. The unknowable question is whether this was exclusively so or if P312 is linked to beaker form the inception.

I am going to sit on the fence because there is crucial information missing. However, it is entirely possible while this evidence is lacking IMO to intepret early Iberian beaker pre-2550BC as some sort of non-R1b thing developed c. 2800BC by indigenous pre-beaker Iberians and evolving perhaps as an almost guild-like group of metalworkers out of the existing copper age culture that was there from 3100BC. I dont see any aspect of the early bell beaker users c. 2800-2550BC for which there is general agreement that an origin to the east of Iberia must be sought. I have a suspicion that the beaker itself is based on a central European model but there seems to be no agreement on this so its not worth going there.

What would persuade me of an intrusion into Iberia much earlier - say 2800-2750BC is if a dating review shows the change from collective jumbles of bones (and other pre-beaker forms of burial) to the beaker tradition of treating the body as an individual dates to that sort of range. It is the kind of change that would be far more persuasion of intrusion than pottery of debated origin (female craft anyway).

[R.Rocca]

The problem is that "being quoted as" can mean anything. If one is speaking of Bell Beaker in Southern France and generalizing its date, it may be that just the height of Bell Beaker is being used. So, unless there is a study somewhere that is throwing out the dates, I don't see how/why they should be ignored.

[alan]

As I think you and perhaps couple of other people have mentioned - the BB pot might be a red herring. It needs to be analysed contextually- where was it used and how (settlements vs in burials?) if it's diffusion through europe from Iberia is associated with burial use, then its meaning might have changed (from its original 'in the house hold' use).

But the most important changes that Heyd and vander Linden point out are the social and economic transformations at the time of the BB period. Some of these might be archaeologically traceable to the east (eg solitary burials), other facets perhaps less tangibly so- but equally important.

One fly in the ointment is it appears that Remedello II c. 2900-2600BC, long thought to reflect these kind of social changes, when tested for ancient DNA had the same male line and ENF autosomal DNA as the more collective early copper age Remedello I c. 3500-2900BC. So, on that, admittedly tiny, sample it does appear that social changes of the sort H and H talk about could sometimes happen in the hands of the local genetically ENF populations with no steppe input.

This is what has always troubled me about H and H. It is a fantastic piece of work on social change but social change and genetic change dont always go hand in hand. Some locals would be influenced and take up new social traits from people they were in contact with.

The Remedello people were probably in a good position to receive influence without being conquered as their territory along the Po led towards the head of the Adriatic. This may have been true in Remedello I when copper workers arrived from the collapsed old Europe of the Balkans or east Alps c. 3500BC and it may have been true when Remedello in its second phase took on some characteristics of hierarchy. The social changes at Remedello have even been described as a southern version of those going on in CW Europe by some authors.

However, the DNA says it was not invasion - despite the claim of the appearance of beaker type skulls (hmm wonder if they were dated and recorded accurately or are they actually beaker people using an old Remedello site????). Anyway sometimes it appears social change and genes dont correspond in copper age Europe so H and H's general overview of European change is best left as a study of social change.

[alan]

The problem is that "being quoted as" can mean anything. If one is speaking of Bell Beaker in Southern France and generalizing its date, it may be that just the height of Bell Beaker is being used. So, unless there is a study somewhere that is throwing out the dates, I don't see how/why they should be ignored.

What convinces me is the experts in the various countries seem to have all thrown out the old dates in recent years. Yes it would be better if they had explained the process but their reputations are on the line so I doubt they would have done that lightly. I think someone - perhaps Jean - posted some reference that explained why the early Csepel dates have been thrown out. They were in the most unsafe context imaginable with nothing to stop mixing with the pre-beaker layer and should never have been taken seriously.

The way I have always looked at is is Muller and Willigen was always a grossly unsatisfactory study that was very white coat with the absolute minimum of explanation of context. Context is everything even if, as M and W did, one distinguises between dates on short life materials and dates from charcoals etc.

If its not safely tied to the beaker with no possibility of contamination or displacement then it is worthless. M and W basically omits archaeology except in is most basic form and is an exercise in chemical analysis with little context. I have always found it utterly infuriating and simply cannot believe how many people accepted it at face value. Its basically chemistry with the thinnest veneer of archaeological consideration. I thought the paper could have been vastly better if they had just done a context explanation in detail for any very early dates claimed. There were not that many very early dates so it wouldnt have killed them to do that. Extraordinary claims need a high bar of proof.

I am now fairly convinced they were correct in identifying the very early beaker pot in Iberia (now refined in date to about 2800/2750BC) but it appears that this was essentially impossible to miss in the results. Csepel shows that there was disregard for the details of archaeological context almost as if they focused too much on the refining of the materials tested to short life ones. The way they wrote it leaves you having to accept as an act of faith that the contexts were sound or having to do a lot of digging about for excavation details (some of which may be unpublished) in other reports and papers.

[rms2]

where would the R1b of Barcin and Vucecol ( proto-illyrian culture ) which are being genotyped by Harvard university ATM, fit in your scenario.?

I don't know about them, but I think that Vučedol period R1b from Szécsényi-Nagy's dissertation is a big clue to the evolution of Beaker. I suspect it will turn out to be P312+ or at least L51+. IMHO, R1b-L51 got into Beaker via Vučedol and its spin-offs, and R1b-L51 got into Vučedol via up-the-Danube Yamnaya.

Coon and some of the other old timers referred to the classic Beaker physiognomy as "Dinaric", and the territory covered by Vučedol included the Dinaric Alps, where that physical type was supposed to have originated or at least where it was frequently found.

The reasons I suspect very early Iberian Beaker will lack R1b is because of the physical and cultural differences between it and eastern, fully developed, "kurgan" Beaker. This I think you see in this Vučedol period R1b.

[R.Rocca]

What convinces me is the experts in the various countries seem to have all thrown out the old dates in recent years. Yes it would be better if they had explained the process but their reputations are on the line so I doubt they would have done that lightly. I think someone - perhaps Jean - posted some reference that explained why the early Csepel dates have been thrown out. They were in the most unsafe context imaginable with nothing to stop mixing with the pre-beaker layer and should never have been taken seriously.

The way I have always looked at is is Muller and Willigen was always a grossly unsatisfactory study that was very white coat with the absolute minimum of explanation of context. Context is everything even if, as M and W did, one distinguises between dates on short life materials and dates from charcoals etc.

If its not safely tied to the beaker with no possibility of contamination or displacement then it is worthless. M and W basically omits archaeology except in is most basic form and is an exercise in chemical analysis with little context. I have always found it utterly infuriating and simply cannot believe how many people accepted it at face value. Its basically chemistry with the thinnest veneer of archaeological consideration. I thought the paper could have been vastly better if they had just done a context explanation in detail for any very early dates claimed. There were not that many very early dates so it wouldnt have killed them to do that. Extraordinary claims need a high bar of proof.

I am now fairly convinced they were correct in identifying the very early beaker pot in Iberia (now refined in date to about 2800/2750BC) but it appears that this was essentially impossible to miss in the results. Csepel shows that there was disregard for the details of archaeological context almost as if they focused too much on the refining of the materials tested to short life ones. The way they wrote it leaves you having to accept as an act of faith that the contexts were sound or having to do a lot of digging about for excavation details (some of which may be unpublished) in other reports and papers.

Who are the experts throwing out old dates in places like France? I posted data on the Csepel dates from the paper that published them. Nowhere did it say anything about possible mixing with pre-Beaker material.

[Christina]

So much pseudo-science, so little time...

1. Dienekes posted something a couple years back about a really cool computer *model* whereby two different tribes, one with a tiny dietary difference that allowed for 1.6 children per female (as opposed to say 1.5) would have left a *profoundly* larger number of descendants than the other tribe, even after a couple hundred years. So when people talk about "fitness" (implies genetic advantages), know it might have been as simple as a cultural one (diet).

2. There is also this: the simple mathematical concept that if a certain number of Y Chromosome lines "die out" each year (ia certain number of males have only daughters), then the newcomers to a place will always produce the false positive indicator of replacement or out-competition. But it's really self-defining. The "new" will *always* appear to be higher in numbers, since their lines have not had a chance to "die out." All this indicates then, is that *immigration happened,* more recent in time. Model it out. It may seem simple at first, but it is valid...

3. Finally we know very little as to whether these dispersions were genetic, demic, or purely cultural. Imagine all of our books burn. Or imagine that we had no records to begin with (no writing). This is what we moderns are trying to reconstruct, and it isn't easy.

An archaeologist in 6000 AD is trying to reconstruct the spread of Christianity: She finds golden chalices at churches for the Eucharist everywhere in western society, which she assumes indicate a powerful tribe of people who spread their genes far and wide -- like the models so many of you post here.

But the story of the spread of Christianity (and its attendant components, like our chalices, which survive burial well), is far more complicated. First, the only Christians were Jews, near the Holy Land. At first, the Christians were homegenous and ethnically related (genetic). Then, people converted in the Near East; many had ties to the initial proselytizers (demic). But after that, it was a purely *cultural* dispersion. Chalices in churches from Ireland to Lebanon do not indicate genetic dispersal of people, at all...

This is more complex than some of the simplistic theories appearing here.

[Romilius]

So much pseudo-science, so little time...

1. Dienekes posted something a couple years back about a really cool computer *model* whereby two different tribes, one with a tiny dietary difference that allowed for 1.6 children per female (as opposed to say 1.5) would have left a *profoundly* larger number of descendants than the other tribe, even after a couple hundred years. So when people talk about "fitness" (implies genetic advantages), know it might have been as simple as a cultural one (diet).

2. There is also this: the simple mathematical concept that if a certain number of Y Chromosome lines "die out" each year (ia certain number of males have only daughters), then the newcomers to a place will always produce the false positive indicator of replacement or out-competition. But it's really self-defining. The "new" will *always* appear to be higher in numbers, since their lines have not had a chance to "die out." All this indicates then, is that *immigration happened,* more recent in time. Model it out. It may seem simple at first, but it is valid...

3. Finally we know very little as to whether these dispersions were genetic, demic, or purely cultural. Imagine all of our books burn. Or imagine that we had no records to begin with (no writing). This is what we moderns are trying to reconstruct, and it isn't easy.

An archaeologist in 6000 AD is trying to reconstruct the spread of Christianity: She finds golden chalices at churches for the Eucharist everywhere in western society, which she assumes indicate a powerful tribe of people who spread their genes far and wide -- like the models so many of you post here.

But the story of the spread of Christianity (and its attendant components, like our chalices, which survive burial well), is far more complicated. First, the only Christians were Jews, near the Holy Land. At first, the Christians were homegenous and ethnically related (genetic). Then, people converted in the Near East; many had ties to the initial proselytizers (demic). But after that, it was a purely *cultural* dispersion. Chalices in churches from Ireland to Lebanon do not indicate genetic dispersal of people, at all...

This is more complex than some of the simplistic theories appearing here.


Interesting pars destruens... but where is the pars construens?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

So much pseudo-science, so little time...

1. Dienekes posted something a couple years back about a really cool computer *model* whereby two different tribes, one with a tiny dietary difference that allowed for 1.6 children per female (as opposed to say 1.5) would have left a *profoundly* larger number of descendants than the other tribe, even after a couple hundred years. So when people talk about "fitness" (implies genetic advantages), know it might have been as simple as a cultural one (diet).

2. There is also this: the simple mathematical concept that if a certain number of Y Chromosome lines "die out" each year (ia certain number of males have only daughters), then the newcomers to a place will always produce the false positive indicator of replacement or out-competition. But it's really self-defining. The "new" will *always* appear to be higher in numbers, since their lines have not had a chance to "die out." All this indicates then, is that *immigration happened,* more recent in time. Model it out. It may seem simple at first, but it is valid...

3. Finally we know very little as to whether these dispersions were genetic, demic, or purely cultural. Imagine all of our books burn. Or imagine that we had no records to begin with (no writing). This is what we moderns are trying to reconstruct, and it isn't easy.

An archaeologist in 6000 AD is trying to reconstruct the spread of Christianity: She finds golden chalices at churches for the Eucharist everywhere in western society, which she assumes indicate a powerful tribe of people who spread their genes far and wide -- like the models so many of you post here.

But the story of the spread of Christianity (and its attendant components, like our chalices, which survive burial well), is far more complicated. First, the only Christians were Jews, near the Holy Land. At first, the Christians were homegenous and ethnically related (genetic). Then, people converted in the Near East; many had ties to the initial proselytizers (demic). But after that, it was a purely *cultural* dispersion. Chalices in churches from Ireland to Lebanon do not indicate genetic dispersal of people, at all...

This is more complex than some of the simplistic theories appearing here.


I agree that we shouldn't go back to the "bad old days" of culture - history where everything is seen due to invasions, but we shouldn't on the other hand just dismiss migrations when there is evidence for it, either.

I also agree we need some more explicit modelling for Y chromosome replacement, like that done by Laurent Excoffier et al. There is more at play than replacement. There is something intrinsic within the Y chromosome itself which makes it more liable to sweeping replacements - both non-functionally (it's replication method, it's relatively younger age, relatively low Ne) and functionally/ biologically (reproductive success linked to Y chromosome genes, etc).

But again, we can't overlook the potential for conflict and old fashion replacement. The wrist guards and battle axes from copper age people's weren't only for posing :)

[Jean M]

I agree that we shouldn't go back to the "bad old days" of culture - history where everything is seen due to invasions, but we shouldn't on the other hand just dismiss migrations when there is evidence for it, either. ...But again, we can't overlook the potential for conflict and old fashion replacement. The wrist guards and battle axes from copper age people's weren't only for posing :)

Succinctly put. For those interested in the background:


19thC-1950s: Invasion and conquest were standard explanations for a change of culture perceived in archaeological evidence. This was a period of imperialism, so such explanations tried to make sense of the past through the prism of their present.
1960s-70s: A post-war, post-imperialist generation began to make their mark in archaeology. They were understandably anti-war and anti-imperialist. By the mid-1970s influential papers and books were attacking the whole idea of migration or war in prehistory. They correctly pointed out that alternative explanations for some data were possible. Continuity became the buzzword. It was the start of the New Archaeology.
1980s-1990s: Anti-migrationism consolidated. It became the unchallenged orthodoxy, taught in universities. It was shaped by anti-science Post-Modernism. Any conceivable (and frankly inconceivable) alternative to violence or migration was accepted, not because it better fitted the facts, but because it made a more pleasing picture of the past. The beautiful was true.
2000s-now: A paradigm change in archaeology began slowly, but was visible to the general reader by 2008 in Barry Cunliffe's Europe Between the Oceans. He recognised that anti-migrationism had fossilized into dogma. A slew of scholarly books on ancient migration came out between 2005 and 2009. Projects and conferences on migration began to pop up in academia, and even some on violence in prehistory. This shift is allied to the rise in scientific approaches (including, but not restricted to, ancient DNA.) Prof. Kristian Kristiansen has set this paradigm change in the context of periodic shifts in Western thought between Rationalism and Romanticism.

[rms2]

So much pseudo-science, so little time...

Is that a quote from How to Win Friends and Influence People (http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034)? ;)




. . .

3. Finally we know very little as to whether these dispersions were genetic, demic, or purely cultural. Imagine all of our books burn. Or imagine that we had no records to begin with (no writing). This is what we moderns are trying to reconstruct, and it isn't easy.

Well, this thread is in the R1b General subforum, so it is chiefly concerned with y haplogroup R1b. It is entitled "Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b", so it has to do with the Beaker people, Marija Gimbutas' ideas about them, and how those ancient people and Gimbutas' ideas about them relate to y haplogroup R1b.

Thus far all the y-dna obtained from ancient Beaker remains has been R1b, and a couple of those remains have been R1b-P312, one of them R1b-U152. That pretty well explains why Piquerobi chose to place this thread here when he created it.

We know that R1b-M269 is really common in Western Europe now and that Indo-European is the prevailing language family in Western Europe now, as well. That state of things came about somehow, and since the timing of the advent in Western Europe of both R1b-M269 and Indo-European languages appears to be the same, it is reasonable to connect the one to the other.

Over the years a number of reputable scholars have claimed to see a possible association between the spread of the Beaker people and the spread of the Italo-Celtic branch of Indo-European.

So, to sum up, what we are discussing here starts with the premise that both R1b-M269 and Indo-European languages were spread to Western Europe chiefly by means of a folk migration, that R1b-M269 wasn't in Western Europe until Indo-European-speaking peoples brought it there. This thread isn't really a debate over the possibility that Indo-European languages were spread to Western Europe by cultural means, minus any folk migration. Its foundation is a folk migration.



An archaeologist in 6000 AD is trying to reconstruct the spread of Christianity: She finds golden chalices at churches for the Eucharist everywhere in western society, which she assumes indicate a powerful tribe of people who spread their genes far and wide -- like the models so many of you post here.

But the story of the spread of Christianity (and its attendant components, like our chalices, which survive burial well), is far more complicated. First, the only Christians were Jews, near the Holy Land. At first, the Christians were homegenous and ethnically related (genetic). Then, people converted in the Near East; many had ties to the initial proselytizers (demic). But after that, it was a purely *cultural* dispersion. Chalices in churches from Ireland to Lebanon do not indicate genetic dispersal of people, at all...

As soon as that archaeologist employs geneticists to begin testing the remains of Christians in Western Europe, she would find out they were a diverse population but one that resembled the population of non-Christians in the regions in which they lived. Thus, as you noted, the scientists involved would discover the truth.

Thus far, ancient Beaker remains have been pretty monolithic on the y-dna side and more diverse on the mtDNA side. Will that remain the case as we go forward? Well, Alan and I (and Mike W in the past) have suggested that very early Iberian Beaker may not be R1b at all, and we have given our reasons for thinking this. And later Beaker may have absorbed some non-R1b lines as it spread west and north. Time will tell.



This is more complex than some of the simplistic theories appearing here.

I think we all acknowledge that. We are talking here about a basic outline of what happened, not attempting to assemble some sort of arcane system that accounts for every detail and possibility.

[alan]

What! Vicious attacks on crockery! :biggrin1:

You doiswespect my pot - you doiswespect my wife-you doiswespect my family, you doiswespect me. And twoo smash my pwot with my own hamma axe - that is sewious doiswespect.

[Isidro]

3. Finally we know very little as to whether these dispersions were genetic, demic, or purely cultural. Imagine all of our books burn. Or imagine that we had no records to begin with (no writing). This is what we moderns are trying to reconstruct, and it isn't easy.

.

Very true, we only have clues that have survived until today like ceramics in cultures that used beaker wares, very informing but limited, it is the package associated with them the key, most importantly metal remains.

Like you say about complexity, a careful and wide study of Eurasia and objects and metal isotopic origins with it's distribution might help with that, and can be added to the valuable information we can obtain to Gimbutas.

After all it could very well be that R1b is not asociated at all with Bell Beakers and metal workers. In that case I can see a dispersal of R1b through Central Europe towards SW Europe and joining the party with many other haplogroups, their ( R1b) proliferation coming later on.

[alan]

I certainly agree the way dates have been disposed off without a full review article, paper or chapter outlining why each dodgy date has been dumped is very unsatisfactory. Then again so was the M and W paper. However I assure people, although I cannot recall where I saw it, I saw a clear explanation for why the earliest Csepel date had been dumped and it was because there was no sterile or other buffer layer between the beaker and the late pre-beaker layer meaning the context was unsafe and also out of step with the other dates. I will try and recall or look for the reference.

I cant see any motive on the part of the various archaeologists, generally writing papers about their own country's beaker phenomenon, to downgrade the earliest dates and make their own beaker derivative of somewhere else. Certainly the date 2500 or 2550BC has been used by the top beaker archaeologists in France in papers in recent years so they must have gone through a similar process. I understand noone wants to have to just accept anything without explanation but it is unlikely that they have thrown out dates lightly.

What I will say though is we are still - what 14 years later - suffering the consequences of the very poor presentation of the contexts (I mean details not just 'human bone in burial') the various samples were from in M and W. Clearly archaeologists in the various countries have had a look at them and rejected some on the basis of contextual uncertainty but noone seems to have written rebuttal papers unless they are hidden away in non-English language journals and hard to find.

Anyway, I think the beaker dates when closely looked at are a very good demonstration of the limitations and pitfalls in RC dating and how material, context, potential distorting factors on bone and other things need to be very carefully considered. Its also generally accepted nowadays that where at all possible single RC dates should not be used to make firm deductions - even on one site.

So, short of doing a lot of digging into this which might lead nowhere I am going to accept the dates being given in the works of the last few years as although imperfect I would rather do that then rely on M and W. Anyway it doesnt change a great deal. Beaker is still much earlier in Iberia and central Europe is still broadly dated to the same period as it was before. The only changes are Csepel and southern France is now pulled in line with central Europe date-wise. I still suspect that those two places could genuinely be slightly earlier but perhaps only slightly and therefore beyond RC's ability to prove at present.

Regarding southern France, there is a fairly heavy paper in the Beaker Transformation in Europe about local pre-beaker pot and beaker pot interactions but I was half asleep when I was reading it so I need to read it properly. It looks very interesting looking though as it discusses not only beaker but Remedello Italian and CW influences in the south-east of France in the period around 2800-2400BC.

[alan]

Very true, we only have clues that have survived until today like ceramics in cultures that used beaker wares, very informing but limited, it is the package associated with them the key, most importantly metal remains.

Like you say about complexity, a careful and wide study of Eurasia and objects and metal isotopic origins with it's distribution might help with that, and can be added to the valuable information we can obtain to Gimbutas.

After all it could very well be that R1b is not asociated at all with Bell Beakers and metal workers. In that case I can see a dispersal of R1b through Central Europe towards SW Europe and joining the party with many other haplogroups, their ( R1b) proliferation coming later on.

Its clear though that the archaeological work on beaker is nowhere near being as complete as it could be - dating, origin of metals, lots of things. The more you read, the more you realise that anaysis is being done in a patchy, piecemeal way and that vastly more analysis could be done even with the remains we already have. To close the gaps and have pan-European comprehensive analysis of all aspect of beaker in all areas would probably take a decades of further work and a great deal of funding so I am 100% sure that ancient DNA is going to resolve this in a very short timescale, far shorter than comprehensive pan-European cutting edge archaeological analysis is likely to take. Nothing other than the funding and actually doing it is stopping the human migration aspect of the entire beaker complex being resolved by ancient DNA and other chemical analysis techniques right now.

We can see that R1b is associated with beaker from the inception of bell beaker in central Europe because Kromsdorf is pretty well the earliest dated beaker burial in central Europe. Then we have other better resolved R1b P312 and U152 also in the central European beaker east group. I have little doubt Kromsdorf was also P312 of some sort. With such a small sample all probably being P312 they are clearly a tight knit group in the beaker period, admitting few if any males from other lines. i think because this R1b is associated with a particular beaker phenotype that is also known in the Rhine and isles group that we can probably be pretty confident that they are also P312 people.

So by far the biggest - and probably easiest to answer- question is was R1b attached to beaker before 2550BC? There is only one place which clearly has beaker dates pre-dating this by a couple of centuries and that is Iberia. So this will be resolved as soon as they test a number of beaker burials in Iberia that belong to this early period. However, they will have to be very careful to not only RC date the bones but also check for reservoir effects. Ideally they could test beaker burials from the very earliest time - c. 2800-2750BC but I dont know for sure that they actually (when checked for reservoir effects) are as old as that. The pottery looks to be but I am not sure they have confirmed beaker burials, appropriately check for distorting factors. Hopefully they do but I just dont know. If they end up testing beaker burials younger than 2550-2500BC then the question wont be answered beyond doubt. Hopefully they test a spread of beaker men from across the whole beaker period in Iberia.

[alan]

By the way, with British beaker coming in around 2400-2350BC at the earliest, this does seem to agree with DF13 being younger that the big expansions under U152 because the beaker phase in central Europe had a 150-200 years head start on the isles beaker - probably representing some 5-10 generations depending on how you spin it.

[alan]

I must say I also wonder if our idea of the beaker way of life is correct. A hell of a lot of beaker is mixed in as a minority with local material. So how much of the lifestyle indicators on sites with beaker pot are actually representative of beaker lifeways and how much is that of locals who beaker people stopped off among? Maybe we need to focus on what the small minority of 'pure' beaker sites are showing. I still suspect we are looking at hyper mobile clans who set up rather basic settlements at nodal points or either among locals for whom they provide some benefit or as discrete specialised settlement. I am a bit suspicious of drawing conclusions on beaker lifestyle from settlements sites where a little beaker is found mixed in with loads of local pottery.

[alan]

A very recent paper on beaker and other pottery dates in part of north Italy http://www.archaeopress.com/Public/download.asp?id=%7B61B609A3-E445-4974-B377-4B49D479DD2D%7D

[George]

I must say I also wonder if our idea of the beaker way of life is correct. A hell of a lot of beaker is mixed in as a minority with local material. So how much of the lifestyle indicators on sites with beaker pot are actually representative of beaker lifeways and how much is that of locals who beaker people stopped off among? Maybe we need to focus on what the small minority of 'pure' beaker sites are showing. I still suspect we are looking at hyper mobile clans who set up rather basic settlements at nodal points or either among locals for whom they provide some benefit or as discrete specialised settlement. I am a bit suspicious of drawing conclusions on beaker lifestyle from settlements sites where a little beaker is found mixed in with loads of local pottery.

A very peripheral question. I know you primary interest lies elsewhere, but any idea here would be most welcome. I've noticed some recent internet snippets on the Globular Amphora Culture, which might hint at a similar "lifestyle" and even role (though perhaps not as crucial, but who yet knows?) to that of your Beakers. They emerge very suddenly, apparently (though even this is not yet quite certain) in the midst of the TRB culture, they live in separate small communities, some leaving cemetaries, others not (or not yet found), they expand inside other communities or next to other communities (e.g. Corded Ware, Funnel Beaker, Belarusian cultures), they have their own type of economies, mostly based on pig rearing (!!), they have inhumation burials, and their typical ware is this well known globular amphora. No Y-Dna available yet, but some preliminary analysis from a Polish site intimates that their DNA would be close to that of the Fertile Crescent of their time. And they also have some very specific physical traits... They emerge ca. 3400BCE and disappear ca. 2800BCE. I really don't know much more than what one can get from a variety of internet sites about them. Is there a "globular amphora" way of life too? It's a very dynamic epoch, full of strange changes...

[Christina]

I agree that the OP and many have stayed on topic. But my lord, how others have strayed. There is some stuff on 66-70 that is pretty out there. :\

And my post did contain my "pars construens." As it details, many outside this discipline have posted simple mathematical models whereby a mere slight caloric advantage causing one population to have 1.8 kids per woman (versus 1.7 or whatever) will result in vastly more descendants in a short time, and -- since a certain number of males have only daughters -- something that looks like complete replacement in retrospect.

The caloric advantage for Beakers has been long speculated. The science is inconclusive on the residues in the vessels. But I would not be the first to speculate that it was the ability to digest milk, or the embracing of the significant extra calories (and joy, and, ahem, breeding) generated when fruit falls and ferments (i.e., the consumption of alcohol).

BTW, In other first contact scenarios (Australia, America), one culture's knowledge of and ability to handle alcohol (versus the problems it solves in other cultures) has also been a factor in the fitness of the culture who it hits hard.

[parastais]

If this is indeed a network of small community folk living among locals and taking local wives, then there is need to believe they left any linguistic trace, that would by analogy be like varangians in Russia.

[alan]

A very peripheral question. I know you primary interest lies elsewhere, but any idea here would be most welcome. I've noticed some recent internet snippets on the Globular Amphora Culture, which might hint at a similar "lifestyle" and even role (though perhaps not as crucial, but who yet knows?) to that of your Beakers. They emerge very suddenly, apparently (though even this is not yet quite certain) in the midst of the TRB culture, they live in separate small communities, some leaving cemetaries, others not (or not yet found), they expand inside other communities or next to other communities (e.g. Corded Ware, Funnel Beaker, Belarusian cultures), they have their own type of economies, mostly based on pig rearing (!!), they have inhumation burials, and their typical ware is this well known globular amphora. No Y-Dna available yet, but some preliminary analysis from a Polish site intimates that their DNA would be close to that of the Fertile Crescent of their time. And they also have some very specific physical traits... They emerge ca. 3400BCE and disappear ca. 2800BCE. I really don't know much more than what one can get from a variety of internet sites about them. Is there a "globular amphora" way of life too? It's a very dynamic epoch, full of strange changes...

That is a very good summary of pretty well all I know about them too. The pig breeding thing was unexpected because you dont usually associated highly mobile groups with pig breeding. Pigs through can be associated with forests, particularly in the past where acorns was one of their main foods. So, complete stab in the dark - I wonder if they moved in to exploit forests. They seem to have cut a swath through an area which probably did have a lot of forests. Maybe they were a case of specialising and picked the role of pig herding in the forests - perhaps an area that was underexploited by the TRB people and steppe cultures which were cattle and to a lesser degree sheep and goat focused. If you think about it, the move towards mobile living and invasions of steppe pastoralists would have suddenly made pigs a lot less popular so perhaps the GA culture spotted this opportunity. Maybe it was forced upon them when much of the cattle pasture was stolen from them somewhere. Or perhaps they had some sort of relationship with steppe and other cattle herders and took up the role of pig herders in the woods.

All just wild guesses. I like to think of them as worshipping the great pig god and wearing necklaces of curly tails. I also have to admire any people who eat bacon (its just so damn good) every day.

[vettor]

A very recent paper on beaker and other pottery dates in part of north Italy http://www.archaeopress.com/Public/download.asp?id=%7B61B609A3-E445-4974-B377-4B49D479DD2D%7D

One needs to consider this
Although with local differences the Late Bell Beaker seems to
be widespread in Emilia, Romagna, central/northern Tuscany
and perhaps Marche. To the north of Po River the Late B.B.
development (e.g. Ponte Pier: Barfield et al. 1995) is sud
-
dendly extiguished by the rise of Polada Culture in the south
-
ern fringe of Pre-Alps. In the Po Plain the coexistence of
Polada Culture to the north and Late B.B. to the south in the
last centuries of 3th millennium BC reflects contrapposition
/ competition processes between different societies: by one
hand post B.B. societies (Polada Culture, in which elements
deriving from other B.B traditions can be recognised:

also eastern emilia is this............the map shows the region of emilia-romagna , romagna is to the west with its capital of Bologna, emilia is the east .........eastern emilia touches the mountains of North-East Tuscany ........ ................eastern emilia is not that big, so I do not know what the authors mean by this term eastern emilia....do they mean Modena?

[Trojet]

where would the R1b of Barcin and Vucecol ( proto-illyrian culture ) which are being genotyped by Harvard university ATM, fit in your scenario.?

Where did you hear this? And will they also genotype the rest of the aDNA found by Szecsenyi-Nagy 2015. It would be nice if they do so.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Where did you hear this? And will they also genotype the rest of the aDNA found by Szecsenyi-Nagy 2015. It would be nice if they do so.

I don't think Barcin was Y -typed, if at all even male.

[lgmayka]

2. There is also this: the simple mathematical concept that if a certain number of Y Chromosome lines "die out" each year (ia certain number of males have only daughters), then the newcomers to a place will always produce the false positive indicator of replacement or out-competition. But it's really self-defining. The "new" will *always* appear to be higher in numbers, since their lines have not had a chance to "die out." All this indicates then, is that *immigration happened,* more recent in time. Model it out. It may seem simple at first, but it is valid.
No, that is a misunderstanding of what we mean by Y-line "die-off."

It is true that in a demographically and geographically stable population, the diversity of Y chromosomes will diminish over time. That is, some clades will increase until they dominate, while others decrease until they are mere remnants, or even go extinct. Social factors such as war, slavery, and polygamy can accelerate this process, but it eventually happens in any case, if only due to random differences in male reproduction of males.

In an introgression scenario (one people migrating into another), this process has already occurred, and will continue to occur, in both peoples and in their combination. The introgressing men have no inherent advantage. Rather, it is the social factors--the means by which they successfully "invaded" other men's territory--that give their Y chromosomes an edge.

[Heber]

"A one-day forum entitled ‘Beaker people, Archaeogenetics, and Celtic Origins’ will be held in the Drwm, National Library of Wales, on Saturday, 31 October 2015. Including presentations by Professor Kristian Kristiansen (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and Professor Martin Richards (University of Huddersfield). Further details to follow."

[Christina]

[QUOTE=
Interestingly both Italic and Celtic speaking populations are mainly R1b carriers, with basically no R1a.[/QUOTE]

Actually this is inaccurate. There is much R1b in the Northwest of Italy. Relatively little in the South and Central portions.

Northwest Italy was the province of the Ligurians, who spoke an IE language that was neither Celtic nor Italic. Ancient writers considered them the aborigines of Italy.

The parts of Italy where R1b is much less frequent start south of Tuscany, and include Rome, and the relatively untouched, remote, relictual populations of old Samnite Country. This is the strongest bastion of Italic. Oscan used to have more speakers than Latin. The Oscan language stretched from the outskirts of Rome to southernmost Calabria, and even on Sicily with the Mamertine populations.

The parts of Italy where R1b is frequent are the places that were so Celtic they were once considered a part of Gaul.

R1b may have a Celtic correlation, but not Italic.

[Christina]

No, that is a misunderstanding of what we mean by Y-line "die-off."

It is true that in a demographically and geographically stable population, the diversity of Y chromosomes will diminish over time. That is, some clades will increase until they dominate, while others decrease until they are mere remnants, or even go extinct. Social factors such as war, slavery, and polygamy can accelerate this process, but it eventually happens in any case, if only due to random differences in male reproduction of males.

In an introgression scenario (one people migrating into another), this process has already occurred, and will continue to occur, in both peoples and in their combination. The introgressing men have no inherent advantage. Rather, it is the social factors--the means by which they successfully "invaded" other men's territory--that give their Y chromosomes an edge.

Population A starts with 100% of the Y Chromosomes in a region.

Population B enters the scene, and because the two tribes peacefully trade goods and mates, the frequency becomes 50% A, and 50% B.

Then Population C enters the scene, and because of an innovation (farming), starts breeding in the area. At first they stay separate, but in a few years, the frequency is 25% A, 25% B, and 50% C.

This is merely the older populations getting halved. Because they were more diverse to begin with, their relative numbers decrease.

[lgmayka]

Then Population C enters the scene, and because of an innovation (farming), starts breeding in the area. At first they stay separate, but in a few years, the frequency is 25% A, 25% B, and 50% C.
We can agree, then, that social factors (e.g., better technology) cause the introgressors to increase their share of Y chromosomes in the area.

[alan]

We can agree, then, that social factors (e.g., better technology) cause the introgressors to increase their share of Y chromosomes in the area.

One huge advantage bell beaker people seem to have had is that they were very wide networkers. If they settled in areas where they were relatively inturned (everyone was RELATIVELY inturned compared to beaker) then that could be an advantage that would outweigh their much smaller numbers. The networking probably had an element of classic IE nested clientship which normally involves protection as part of the deal. In the case of beaker it could have been more clientship along a linear chain of beaker groups along the trade routes rather than involving the locals.

Horses could have been a major advantage if such a clientship chain existed as it would considerably increase the maximum distance that was practical between the links in the chain. Riden horses at an extreme could probably ride 100 miles (4 or 5 times what a human is likely to be able to do) in a day but then needs serious rest- there may have been a practice of bringing unridden horses or horse stations en route for a fresher steed. Half that is probably more normal if its over several days. Over shorter distance being able to gallop at 40mph would have been an incredible advantage. I would say if you wanted power and safety that completely is at odds with your numbers then horses would give you that. The beaker numbers appear to have been so modest that they simply had to have operate some sort of system like that IMO.

Archery would in addition have given a small isolated settlement time to hold out until 'the cavalry arrived' (John Waye in a beaker outfit). None of this is provable archaeologically but it seems to stand to reason. It also kind of reminds me of the Irish Medieval practice - if you mess with me the guys whose client I am will be along within hours or a day or so with his light horsemen and burn your village down with no warning then rapidly retreat. Holding out with archers at a strongpoint until the cavalry arrive and the threat of retaliation by a posse raised from several settlements is pretty well the only system that small isolated but networking groups can use for defense. The Normans used this - obviously with a much higher technically developed system of mottes, massive horses and armour - to survive when hugely outnumbered in Britain. It is extremely effective as a tactic and also a major disincentive to the locals to attack small groups.

Besides when you see the incredible extension of the beaker network c. 2550BC, the evidence for very mobile individuals etc, it is hard not to connect this with horse riding. Riding horses outside the steppes have always been a status symbol associated with classes involved in fighting rather than something everyday farmers had. Horses actually are rarely used in Europe for herding or transhumance- herding with horses seems to be primarily done where there are vast but sparse/poor quality grasslands so the animals have to graze over enormous areas and dont make sense in a lot of Europe. Perhaps there were exceptions in the east and parts of the open arid plains of Spain strike me as areas where horse herding may have been logical.

Of course there were pre-beaker existing networking but it was relatively modest in comparison and not all the pre-beaker late Neolithic/copper age groups were involved to a major degree.

[rms2]

Actually this is inaccurate. There is much R1b in the Northwest of Italy. Relatively little in the South and Central portions.

Northwest Italy was the province of the Ligurians, who spoke an IE language that was neither Celtic nor Italic. Ancient writers considered them the aborigines of Italy.

The parts of Italy where R1b is much less frequent start south of Tuscany, and include Rome, and the relatively untouched, remote, relictual populations of old Samnite Country. This is the strongest bastion of Italic. Oscan used to have more speakers than Latin. The Oscan language stretched from the outskirts of Rome to southernmost Calabria, and even on Sicily with the Mamertine populations.

The parts of Italy where R1b is frequent are the places that were so Celtic they were once considered a part of Gaul.

R1b may have a Celtic correlation, but not Italic.

I suspect you are underselling the frequency of R1b throughout Italy.

I don't have access to my copy of Busby et al's spreadsheet right now (it's on my old computer), but I don't think its stats are far off those from this table (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) from Eupedia, which shows substantial frequencies of R1b from one end of Italy to the other.

[ADW_1981]

I suspect you are underselling the frequency of R1b throughout Italy.

I don't have access to my copy of Busby et al's spreadsheet right now (it's on my old computer), but I don't think its stats are far off those from this table (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) from Eupedia, which shows substantial frequencies of R1b from one end of Italy to the other.

He is definitely. There are more recent, and better Italy specific datasets which have some northern regions near the Alps, in particular NW Italy at 60%. There is no way that it can all be Celtic. Sicily is one of the southern regions which has been heavily tested a few times. The 30-35% R1b number is roughly the range I've seen on at least two occasions. It's possible SE Italy is a little lower than that, but I don't recall the figures, or if the sample size was substantial.

[Heber]

Beaker in 10 Sentences
Janusz Czebreszuk wrote these Beaker truths in "Similar but Different" about ten years ago.

Although new discoveries challenge yesterday's assumptions, these are probably a good stab, so I thought to include here. Everything here is Czebreszuk.


1. Bell Beaker spread over western and central Europe
(in the history of the Continent a structure of a comparable size has been only the contemporary European Union).


2. The full history of Bell Beaker covers the period of almost 1000 years
(although in individual regions their history was always shorter).


3. Bell Beaker had their internal dynamics; they emerged in southwestern Europe, spread east and survived the longest on the North European Plain and the British Isles.


4. The central element of Bell Beaker was a set of objects related to the drinking of special beverages and to war and hunting.


5. The objects were always carefully made, hence they had a significant cultural value for their users; they are most often found in graves where a single person was interred lying on his/her side in a flexed position.


6. The general typological evolution of Bell Beaker goods is similar in all regions; the phenomenon, originally quite uniform (Maritime beakers), diversified regionally with time.


7. Bell Beaker are closely related to metallurgy (chiefly of copper and gold); they developed the first stylistic of metal goods in the history of the continent, which spread across the vast expanses of prehistoric Europe and was later continued by other stylistics of the Bronze Age.


8. Bell Beaker were highly mobile culturally and easily moved from one region to another, however, they concentrated in old settlement centers whose roots usually dated back to the Early Neolithic.


9. Mixed cultural structures with groups traditionally living in individual regions developed rapidly; with the appearance of Bell Beaker in a given region, no radical break in the process of cultural transformations is observed.


10. Upon the appearance of Bell Beaker in an area, a period of civilization prosperity began, which continued, after their decline, into the Early Bronze Age.


"Similar but Different: Bell Beakers in Europe" (Czebreszuk et al, 2014 rev)

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.nl/p/1.html

[alan]

He is definitely. There are more recent, and better Italy specific datasets which have some northern regions near the Alps, in particular NW Italy at 60%. There is no way that it can all be Celtic. Sicily is one of the southern regions which has been heavily tested a few times. The 30-35% R1b number is roughly the range I've seen on at least two occasions. It's possible SE Italy is a little lower than that, but I don't recall the figures, or if the sample size was substantial.

I think she is underplaying R1b in Italy somewhat. However, if you limited the region by region counts to just P312 (in view of Celto-Italic being claimed to be linked to this lineages not Z2103) I think it is fair to say that some parts of Italy do have very low counts. However, I suspect in some areas in the south that the P312 count could have been significantly reduced by domination by a sequence of Mediterranean empires from other places low in R1b.

Besides, noone said that there are no areas where IE wasnt taken up by large non-R1 populations and there may have even been non-R1 clans integrated in long before the language reached its historic destination. There are even people on the steppe spotted in ancient DNA who could have founded IE speaking clans before dispersal into other areas.

[vettor]

I suspect you are underselling the frequency of R1b throughout Italy.

I don't have access to my copy of Busby et al's spreadsheet right now (it's on my old computer), but I don't think its stats are far off those from this table (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml) from Eupedia, which shows substantial frequencies of R1b from one end of Italy to the other.

well southern germany and northern Italy have nearly the same percentage of R1b, both had Gallic people from early iron age , the logical scenario would be R1b was more Gallic than Italic


Also, one should know that the bavarians of southern Germany only became germans after the fall of the Roman empire and also Austria formed in 998AD via bavarian people. Austrian language is a bavarian dialect

[alan]

I think its great that David has a provided a little symbol of a bearded man to warn you of a crazy western refugia comment on his Eurogenes comments page. Very thoughtful :0)

[rms2]

well southern germany and northern Italy have nearly the same percentage of R1b, both had Gallic people from early iron age , the logical scenario would be R1b was more Gallic than Italic


. . .

Well, not necessarily. R1b-P312 Italics probably just encountered bigger numbers of non-R1b people the farther south they pushed down the Italian peninsula. Unless they were willing to wipe out all the non-R1b males, and apparently they weren't, naturally when they hit more populated areas their impact was less than it was in less heavily populated places.

[ADW_1981]

I think she is underplaying R1b in Italy somewhat. However, if you limited the region by region counts to just P312 (in view of Celto-Italic being claimed to be linked to this lineages not Z2103) I think it is fair to say that some parts of Italy do have very low counts. However, I suspect in some areas in the south that the P312 count could have been significantly reduced by domination by a sequence of Mediterranean empires from other places low in R1b.

Besides, noone said that there are no areas where IE wasnt taken up by large non-R1 populations and there may have even been non-R1 clans integrated in long before the language reached its historic destination. There are even people on the steppe spotted in ancient DNA who could have founded IE speaking clans before dispersal into other areas.

Difficult to say, because the histories of the other haplogroups are likely just as complex and from varied sources. Perfect example would be G2 and various rare branches like Oetzi/Sardinian and other more common successful ones. We know even less about the history of J2 in Italy.

I looked at it once, and from the data I took from YHRD, R1b-Z2103 was about 10% of all the R1b in Italy. A lot of the rest will fall into the U152+ and DF27+ buckets. I believe the later are both substantial with later immigrants to Sardinia based on the latest papers. We could confidently say they arrived from Italy.

[Christina]

I think she is underplaying R1b in Italy somewhat. However, if you limited the region by region counts to just P312 (in view of Celto-Italic being claimed to be linked to this lineages not Z2103) I think it is fair to say that some parts of Italy do have very low counts. However, I suspect in some areas in the south that the P312 count could have been significantly reduced by domination by a sequence of Mediterranean empires from other places low in R1b.

Besides, noone said that there are no areas where IE wasnt taken up by large non-R1 populations and there may have even been non-R1 clans integrated in long before the language reached its historic destination. There are even people on the steppe spotted in ancient DNA who could have founded IE speaking clans before dispersal into other areas.

Map of R1b in Italy:

http://italydna.blogspot.com/2007/01/r1b-in-italy.html

Map of Italic languages at the dawn of history:

http://tied.verbix.com/tree/ital/ita.gif

Inverse correlation.

[Christina]

And kindly indulge me a little gentle ribbing:

The R1b in Italy is heavy in Northern Tuscany, and places inhabited by the Etruscans.

So this means that many of you:

On the Etruscan thread, argued that the NON-Indo-European Etruscans were certainly from Anatolia (J2/E/G/F?)

BUT on this thread, argue that R1b correlates with the Italo-Celtic (Indo-European) spread.

:argue: ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

[DMXX]

The R1b in Italy is heavy in Northern Tuscany, and places inhabited by the Etruscans.

So this means that many of you:

On the Etruscan thread, argued that the NON-Indo-European Etruscans were certainly from Anatolia (J2/E/G/F?)

BUT on this thread, argue that R1b correlates with the Italo-Celtic (Indo-European) spread.


I don't see a contradiction here due to the following:
- Y-DNA R1b can be considered an "Early PIE" marker in Europe given its' preeminence so far on the steppelands (Yamnaya, Samara HG)*
- Y-DNA R1b would be implicated especially in the earlier branches of IE, such as Italo-Celtic (Bell Beaker)
- Italo-Celtic could have only entered the Italian peninsula through the north (is there any reason to suspect a coastal entry?)
- There's no reason to assume complete or predominant paternal marker continuity in Etruscan areas by the time of the Italo-Celtic speakers

Since we now know R1b has a degree of antiquity in the steppes, the Bell Beakers were R1b and Italic speakers probably entered through the north, it isn't a stretch to assume a fairly significant paternal contribution by these people in archaeologically "traditionally" Etruscan areas. aDNA is of course the much needed puzzle piece set we're missing for now.

* Of course, we'll need contemporaneous aDNA from southern regions to state this point with definitiveness



:argue: ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

Nice smiley party. I'll bring a friend next time. ;)

[rms2]

Map of R1b in Italy:

http://italydna.blogspot.com/2007/01/r1b-in-italy.html

That R1b frequency map of Italy, which is from 2007, contradicts what you posted earlier, when you said there is "[r]elatively little [R1b] in the South and Central portions [of Italy]". Of course, you did use the modifier relatively. I guess one can regard 21-35% R1b as "relatively little" if the standard is the frequency of R1b in northern Italy (64-71%). For most of us, however, 21-35% or so R1b is pretty substantial.



Map of Italic languages at the dawn of history:

http://tied.verbix.com/tree/ital/ita.gif

Inverse correlation.

I wouldn't characterize that as an "inverse correlation", which of course would mean that the more Italic there is, the less R1b and vice versa. The R1b frequencies in the areas on your "Italic languages at the dawn of history" map are pretty substantial. They appear to range from something in excess of 50% in Italic's northern zone to a minimum of 21% in its southern Italian zone.

As DMXX pointed out, Italo-Celtic entered Italy from the north with an Indo-European population whose y-dna profile was largely R1b. As that R1b group pushed south through the Italian peninsula, it encountered ever greater numbers of non-R1b peoples. It was able to impose its language on the population but did not completely replace its y-dna. It certainly did put a large dent in it though, as can be seen from the map of R1b in Italy at the link you posted.

[Agamemnon]

Map of R1b in Italy:

http://italydna.blogspot.com/2007/01/r1b-in-italy.html

Map of Italic languages at the dawn of history:

http://tied.verbix.com/tree/ital/ita.gif

Inverse correlation.

[...]

The R1b in Italy is heavy in Northern Tuscany, and places inhabited by the Etruscans.

So this means that many of you:

On the Etruscan thread, argued that the NON-Indo-European Etruscans were certainly from Anatolia (J2/E/G/F?)

BUT on this thread, argue that R1b correlates with the Italo-Celtic (Indo-European) spread.

^^ IMO what you just said here is a cautionary tale as to how one should not draw conclusions relating to diachronic linguistics while going off contemporary data:

Your approach presupposes continuity from the 7th century BCE onwards while you are assuming that some sort of large-scale population replacement took place when the Etruscans arrived in what would become Etruria thereby concluding that there is an "Inverse correlation" between R1b and Italo-Celtic in the Italian peninsula. In fact this clearly isn't the case since the Etruscans likely ruled over a population which was mostly Italic (Umbrian) in origin, furthermore your approach requires us to ignore the increasing amount of empirical evidence based on archeogenetic data which clearly highlights R1b-M269's correlation with IE and R1b-P312's correlation with Italo-Celtic.

[Christina]

Well now, and I write this with admiration, but candor: we are all delving into stuff that is heavy on hypotheses and light on proof.

Remember, the most remote and unchanged regions since remote antiquity are in the south-central regions.

It's possible the almost double r1b rate in the north is also from something mundane and boring like relatively recent expansions.

[Christina]

Well, not necessarily. R1b-P312 Italics probably just encountered bigger numbers of non-R1b people the farther south they pushed down the Italian peninsula. Unless they were willing to wipe out all the non-R1b males, and apparently they weren't, naturally when they hit more populated areas their impact was less than it was in less heavily populated places.

This is the type of talk incidentally that drives my friends who are scientists crazy, and sparks the accusations you've seen on this board and elsewhere of certain folks fetishizing R1b. Your very statement presumes profound dominance. So nice of them not to wipe everyone out LOL!

The mundane and logical and unsexy, but sound scientific discussions of simple outbreeding (due to a slight propensity to have more males, or a dietary advantage allowing more children, or a cultural advantage of sedentary life versus roaming pastoralism or foraging, which also leads to more kids) are ignored. Instead you go straight to the assumption that the magical R1b people had a nuclear bomb and fighter jets going against a culture of spear throwers. Such awesome overlords this hypothetical R1b people who designed to wipe people out despite having the awesome power! Meanwhile there is not one shred of evidence to support this, not in the archaeological record, nowhere.

[Christina]

Any theory positing "a correlation with an R1b subclade and Italo-Celtic coming in through North Italy" must address the following:

1. The concept of "Italo Celtic" is not accepted among all indoeuropeanists. Like any language families too far back in time, it can be postulated but will not and cannot be proven. There are many IE language experts who postulate a link with Italic and Germanic.

2. The neat concepts outlined are over simplistic. Italy had several IE languages of scant evidence and zero agreement on classification. The best guesses is that there was Italic, Celtic, but also Illyrian, Messapic, North Picene, Venetic, and Ligurian. Most linguists agree that most of the smaller ones were IE but neither Celtic nor Italic. Yet these people inhabited the same lands with high R1b concentrations where the Italoceltic claim is made. So it doesn't all neatly fit in the Beaker Italo Celtic theory.

3. IE Tribes made forays into Italy from several directions. From the NE, NW, and yes from the sea, in the NW and particularly the east. Further complication these neat theories.

[Jean M]

IMO what you just said here is a cautionary tale as to how one should not draw conclusions relating to diachronic linguistics while going off contemporary data:

Your approach presupposes continuity from the 7th century BCE onwards.

This also ignores the influx of Greeks into Southern Italy. Their descendants may be speaking Italian today, but they were a separate language community for a long time. Greece is one of the exceptions to the general rule of a correlation today between between majority R1 males and an IE language. R1 of any type is not dominant there. So we would expect southern Italy to be lower in R1b than northern Italy, and that is exactly what we find. Sardinia is another exception, but we know that it was not IE speaking until encased in the Roman empire.

[Jean M]

This is the type of talk incidentally that drives my friends who are scientists crazy.

I'm sorry to learn that your friends are mentally disturbed. My scientist friends are totally sane, I'm happy to say, and some of them post on this forum.

[Mis]

The textbook "Die eristische Dialektik" is known.

[alan]

I don't see a contradiction here due to the following:
- Y-DNA R1b can be considered an "Early PIE" marker in Europe given its' preeminence so far on the steppelands (Yamnaya, Samara HG)*
- Y-DNA R1b would be implicated especially in the earlier branches of IE, such as Italo-Celtic (Bell Beaker)
- Italo-Celtic could have only entered the Italian peninsula through the north (is there any reason to suspect a coastal entry?)
- There's no reason to assume complete or predominant paternal marker continuity in Etruscan areas by the time of the Italo-Celtic speakers

Since we now know R1b has a degree of antiquity in the steppes, the Bell Beakers were R1b and Italic speakers probably entered through the north, it isn't a stretch to assume a fairly significant paternal contribution by these people in archaeologically "traditionally" Etruscan areas. aDNA is of course the much needed puzzle piece set we're missing for now.

* Of course, we'll need contemporaneous aDNA from southern regions to state this point with definitiveness



Nice smiley party. I'll bring a friend next time. ;)

I would say the very fact that Celtic and Italic are close branches means that it is pretty well impossible for Italic to have entered from anywhere other than central Europe - presumably from either the area north of the Alps or perhaps the NW Balkans. It wouldnt make sense to have an entry into Italy from further south.

There is no real mystery when IE speakers dont carry a lot of R1 - it just happens. Look at the Greeks for example. Most of their yDNA is not R1 but they speak a (centum) IE language. My guess is that where IEs entered much more sophisticated pre-IE societies they had to change their modus operandi somewhat.

The Greek speakers were probably a relatively late entry to Greece c. 2000BC and their society and genetics may have significantly changed in the 900 years between the Yamnaya period and entering Greece - both within the steppes and in some intermediate location en-route from the steppes to Greece. By that time the IEs may have developed somewhat from mobile people with an interest in running the metal trade etc to a people used to the farming world who had perhaps changed into a settled military elite who could have just sat there and taxed the locals and taken over the institutions rather like the Visigoths did in Spain.

[alan]

This is the type of talk incidentally that drives my friends who are scientists crazy, and sparks the accusations you've seen on this board and elsewhere of certain folks fetishizing R1b. Your very statement presumes profound dominance. So nice of them not to wipe everyone out LOL!

The mundane and logical and unsexy, but sound scientific discussions of simple outbreeding (due to a slight propensity to have more males, or a dietary advantage allowing more children, or a cultural advantage of sedentary life versus roaming pastoralism or foraging, which also leads to more kids) are ignored. Instead you go straight to the assumption that the magical R1b people had a nuclear bomb and fighter jets going against a culture of spear throwers. Such awesome overlords this hypothetical R1b people who designed to wipe people out despite having the awesome power! Meanwhile there is not one shred of evidence to support this, not in the archaeological record, nowhere.

Just want to point out that this forum is blessed by regular posting by people who are professional/qualified scientists, archaeologists, linguists, prehistorians, authors, geneticists etc as well as many really excellent modern DNA hobby experts and people with great mathematical skills. There is a high level of shared knowledge and skills on this forum built up over many years. So, the implication of what you are saying isnt going to go down too well.

[R.Rocca]

Any theory positing "a correlation with an R1b subclade and Italo-Celtic coming in through North Italy" must address the following:

1. The concept of "Italo Celtic" is not accepted among all indoeuropeanists. Like any language families too far back in time, it can be postulated but will not and cannot be proven. There are many IE language experts who postulate a link with Italic and Germanic.

2. The neat concepts outlined are over simplistic. Italy had several IE languages of scant evidence and zero agreement on classification. The best guesses is that there was Italic, Celtic, but also Illyrian, Messapic, North Picene, Venetic, and Ligurian. Most linguists agree that most of the smaller ones were IE but neither Celtic nor Italic. Yet these people inhabited the same lands with high R1b concentrations where the Italoceltic claim is made. So it doesn't all neatly fit in the Beaker Italo Celtic theory.

3. IE Tribes made forays into Italy from several directions. From the NE, NW, and yes from the sea, in the NW and particularly the east. Further complication these neat theories.

Of the languages you mentioned, Venetic is likely an Q-Italic language and Ligurian looks like a Q-IE language closely related to both Celtic and Italic. So, almost the entire Italian peninsula just prior to the Roman expansion and Greek colonization of the southern coasts was speaking either Italic, Celtic, or languages closely related to the two. And of course, R1 lineages are the most dominant haplogroup in all of Italy, including the south and Sicily. Sardinia of course held on to whatever Copper Age language I2 spoke, which was likely related to proto-Basque.

Please remember that this is an open forum where people throw out ideas, not a peer review session. With that, unless you have a lab full of ancient DNA results and a voice recorder with people speaking languages circa 2000 BC, step down from you high horse and stop the whole "these people are so full of it, I'm the only one that knows the truth" routine. It's getting kind of old.

[R.Rocca]

This is the type of talk incidentally that drives my friends who are scientists crazy, and sparks the accusations you've seen on this board and elsewhere of certain folks fetishizing R1b. Your very statement presumes profound dominance. So nice of them not to wipe everyone out LOL!

The mundane and logical and unsexy, but sound scientific discussions of simple outbreeding (due to a slight propensity to have more males, or a dietary advantage allowing more children, or a cultural advantage of sedentary life versus roaming pastoralism or foraging, which also leads to more kids) are ignored. Instead you go straight to the assumption that the magical R1b people had a nuclear bomb and fighter jets going against a culture of spear throwers. Such awesome overlords this hypothetical R1b people who designed to wipe people out despite having the awesome power! Meanwhile there is not one shred of evidence to support this, not in the archaeological record, nowhere.

And your second paragraph sums up the fantasy you've created in your mind pretty well, that of an invented adversary that must be stopped. Of the people who post frequently on this site, who has painted a picture of complete destruction of prior R1 people by way of militaristic annihilation? I want names and links. And please, stop with the hyperbole to redirect attention when you are losing an argument. That is getting old as well.

[Jean M]

So this means that many of you:

On the Etruscan thread, argued that the NON-Indo-European Etruscans were certainly from Anatolia (J2/E/G/F?)

Who exactly insisted that the Etruscans were certainly from Anatolia? Why assume that the only possible alternatives are Anatolian origin vs sprung from the soil of Italy? Modern thinking on the topic has got past the idea that that we have to choose between those views. This was repeatedly stated on the acrimonious Etruscan thread. A probable origin "somewhere in the North Aegean" does not equal "certainly from Anatolia."

[Mac von Frankfurt]

(Mod)

Let's leave politics out of this discussion. I understand the analogy, but it is inflammatory none the less.

[George]

Just want to point out that this forum is blessed by regular posting by people who are professional/qualified scientists, archaeologists, linguists, prehistorians, authors, geneticists etc as well as many really excellent modern DNA hobby experts and people with great mathematical skills. There is a high level of shared knowledge and skills on this forum built up over many years. So, the implication of what you are saying isnt going to go down too well.

Would it not be simpler to just say "we are NOT fetishizing R1b" ? ;)

[Isidro]

Response to the above post by user (Mac von Frankfurt) deleted for perpetuating the potentially inflammatory subject matter .

NO ONE IS RECEIVING AN INFRACTION OR ANYTHING OF THE SORT

This is merely a warning to both users to leave politics out of the discussion. If you wish to discuss said subject, you may opt in to the Current events section.

[Kopfjäger]

Post by Isidro deleted

You're right that we are more closely related than what's commonly thought, and that's a good thing. However, in light of overwhelming ancient/extant DNA evidence, the notion that R1b (especially L21) in the British Isles is a descendant of Iberian R1b is willful blindness.

[ADW_1981]

Post by Isidro deleted.

Unfortunately the data from France is inferior to the recent SNP data we have from Spain which seem heavily downstream of DF27 (ie: Z278, Z220). I am very interested in southern French data as this should be a P312* and DF27* hotbed based on my predictions. The asterix representing either unknown subclades or private/rare ones. No offense, but I'm skeptical any mass migration downstream of P312 came out of Spain, but that remains to be proven I suppose.

[rms2]

This is the type of talk incidentally that drives my friends who are scientists crazy, and sparks the accusations you've seen on this board and elsewhere of certain folks fetishizing R1b. Your very statement presumes profound dominance. So nice of them not to wipe everyone out LOL!

The mundane and logical and unsexy, but sound scientific discussions of simple outbreeding (due to a slight propensity to have more males, or a dietary advantage allowing more children, or a cultural advantage of sedentary life versus roaming pastoralism or foraging, which also leads to more kids) are ignored. Instead you go straight to the assumption that the magical R1b people had a nuclear bomb and fighter jets going against a culture of spear throwers. Such awesome overlords this hypothetical R1b people who designed to wipe people out despite having the awesome power! Meanwhile there is not one shred of evidence to support this, not in the archaeological record, nowhere.

I said none of things you accuse me of having said. Apparently you're reading some of your own preconceived notions into what I wrote.

I am not a scientist, but I do know a bit about science, which you constantly invoke as if it were something peculiar to your posts. Frankly, I don't see it. I see only your opinions, which are no more or less scientific than those of the rest of us who have been posting in this thread. (Well, they appear somewhat less scientific when you make erroneous statements about the frequency of R1b in Italy and its relationship to the ancient Italic-speaking regions there.)

BTW, the apparent "fetish" for R1b here might appear to be less of a fetish when one stops to realize that - hey! - this is the R1b General subforum.

[R.Rocca]

[removed comments - ModBot]

You said the claim was of dominant military elites completely wiping out the people that were there before them. So no, this does not qualify. I'll apologize when you start backing up any of your claims with, well you know, anything not pseudo scientific. Perhaps the use of, oh I don't know, ancient DNA perhaps? You know, the one that shows 100% Bell Beaker R1b+, or the one that shows 95% Yamnaya R1b+, or the one that shows a drastic autosomal DNA change shifting all European populations to the steppe. No mathematical formulas please, just ancient DNA.

[Moderator]

[MOD] Enough frivolous baiting and discussion personalizing has taken place here.

Thread temporarily closed for clean up. Infractions are to follow. Will re-open shortly.

EDIT- Thread opened now.

[vettor]

Any theory positing "a correlation with an R1b subclade and Italo-Celtic coming in through North Italy" must address the following:

1. The concept of "Italo Celtic" is not accepted among all indoeuropeanists. Like any language families too far back in time, it can be postulated but will not and cannot be proven. There are many IE language experts who postulate a link with Italic and Germanic.

2. The neat concepts outlined are over simplistic. Italy had several IE languages of scant evidence and zero agreement on classification. The best guesses is that there was Italic, Celtic, but also Illyrian, Messapic, North Picene, Venetic, and Ligurian. Most linguists agree that most of the smaller ones were IE but neither Celtic nor Italic. Yet these people inhabited the same lands with high R1b concentrations where the Italoceltic claim is made. So it doesn't all neatly fit in the Beaker Italo Celtic theory.

3. IE Tribes made forays into Italy from several directions. From the NE, NW, and yes from the sea, in the NW and particularly the east. Further complication these neat theories.

I do not known why you bring linguistic issues to this
three Iapygian ( northern Illyrian )tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Dauni and the Peucetii.
Iapygians originate from modern north croatia inland near zagreb,......they sent there northern illyrian people into meassapic ( apulia , italy ), Dauni ( foggia, Italy ) and Peuceni ( north Peucine is Marche in Italy )

The logical scenario is that the "Kings of the Adriatic sea" the Liburnians took these people into Italy
Liburnian language is Liburni and Histri belonged to Venetic language area.

Venetic and Raetic language is similar
and
the ligurian language of NW Italy is different again

so to conclude, ancient linguistic theories would not lead to any conclusion IMO

[Dubhthach]

Given the user has been banned ye won't get a response, not to be cheeky and all but was a banning really necessary? Having a difference of opinion (though expressed civilally) is surely a good thing, if we just have "group-think" we ain't gonna advance very far (put's thin-foil hat on *hides*)