Bell Beakers, Gimbutas and R1b

[TigerMW]

Frankly very few archaeologists understand enough about linguistics to be capable of adding usefully to the existing debate re the PIE homeland. And vice versa - few linguists are sufficiently versed in the achaeology to be able to judge the evidence for migration, especially given that archaeologists themselves have been muddying the waters on same for decades. This is a pretty muddy pool for anybody to wade in. But people just can't seem to resist the siren song. ;)
I am surprised since archaeologists should have general scientific principles in their way of thinking, but I have to agree with you Jean that they don't necessarily track with linguistic data.

I supposed it is more general that a scientist may struggle outside their specialty. Koch may be a linguist and Cunliffe may be an archaeologist but I don't see how they can conclude Celtic "from" the west. I see maybe Celtic "in" the west. I don't see how they account for PIE origin, the Yamnaya and the early contact of Celtic, Italic and Germanic. The synergy of the archaeologist and linguist/historian didn't seem to happen.

[Jean M]

Koch may be a linguist and Cunliffe may be an archaeologist but ... synergy of the two didn't seem to happen.

They were brought together by an enthusiasm in each case for a pet theory which was not widely accepted by their own peers. That is the core problem, I think. Neither Sir Barry's enthusiasm for the possibilities of long-lasting contacts along the Atlantic facade nor Prof. Koch's enthusiastic interpretation of the whole corpus of inscriptions in the Hispanic SW script as 100% Celtic have won more than the most tepid support from other archaeologists or linguists respectively. So this was far from being a marriage of orthodoxies from each discipline, though both men have deservedly high reputations for the rest of their bodies of work.

They came into the project from strongly differing perspectives. As an archaeologist, Cunliffe leant heavily towards the PIE homeland theory of a fellow archaeologist, which made sense to him (and many other archaeologists) as they assumed that the Neolithic population explosion meant that no later migration would have much impact. Koch would know exactly why Renfrew's theory had zero chance of being accepted by linguists. In order to make the partnership work, the project officially took a neutral position on the PIE homeland. The result was that too much time within the project was wasted on a re-run of the PIE homeland debate. Though perhaps I just have a jaundiced view on that.

The project I feel was useful in generating debate and a very useful series of conference papers.

[Heber]

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FROM THE TÜBINGEN COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH CENTER RESOURCE CULTURES HAVE DISCOVERED AN EARTHWORK ENCLOSURE IN SOUTHERN SPAIN DATING FROM THE BELL BEAKER PERIOD OF 2,600 TO 2,200 BCE.

"The nearby settlement of Valencina was supported by farming and stockraising on the fertile coastal plain. It is Spain’s largest known Copper Age settlement – of over 400 hectares. Grave goods found at the site show that the people of Valencina traded with Copper Age cultures far away: items include exotic luxury wares such as elephant tusks from Africa and the Middle East, and amber beads from northern Europe."

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/first-bell-beaker-earthwork-enclosure.html

It is interesting that other Bell Beaker sites in Iberia such as Perdigoes also indicated trade with Africa and the Middle East.

[TigerMW]

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FROM THE TÜBINGEN COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH CENTER RESOURCE CULTURES HAVE DISCOVERED AN EARTHWORK ENCLOSURE IN SOUTHERN SPAIN DATING FROM THE BELL BEAKER PERIOD OF 2,600 TO 2,200 BCE.

"The nearby settlement of Valencina was supported by farming and stockraising on the fertile coastal plain. It is Spain’s largest known Copper Age settlement – of over 400 hectares. Grave goods found at the site show that the people of Valencina traded with Copper Age cultures far away: items include exotic luxury wares such as elephant tusks from Africa and the Middle East, and amber beads from northern Europe."

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/first-bell-beaker-earthwork-enclosure.html

It is interesting that other Bell Beaker sites in Iberia such as Perdigoes also indicated trade with Africa and the Middle East.

I noticed the article calls this site in Andulusia of the Copper Age, and does not call it Bronze Age. Is this just an oversight in terminology? Is the metallurgy more of the CBMP (Balkans) type versus CMP (Circumpontic). It appears this dig is dated before the fission/reflux events in Central Europe involving Beakers, Corded Ware and Proto-Unetice.

[corner]

"What could be the oldest Bronze Age “Beaker” pottery ever found in Britain has been unearthed in an Argyll glen (Nick Drainey writes).

Three pots and a food vessel — believed to be about 4,500 years old — were unearthed at a quarry near the Kilmartin Museum in Kilmartin Glen."

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pottery-found-in-argyll-glen-after-4-500-years-rq392lq8s

[Jean M]

I noticed the article calls this site in Andulusia of the Copper Age, and does not call it Bronze Age. Is this just an oversight in terminology? Is the metallurgy more of the CBMP (Balkans) type versus CMP (Circumpontic). It appears this dig is dated before the fission/reflux events in Central Europe involving Beakers, Corded Ware and Proto-Unetice.

No, it is not an oversight. The Bronze Age arrived late in Iberia. Bronze-working did not begin there until 1750-1500 BC. It started in the North-West, not the south. I cover this in Blood of the Celts, p. 52. So Iberia had a long Copper Age, unlike Britain and Ireland which went from Copper Age with Bell Beaker arrivals c. 2400 to Bronze Age c. 2200 BC, as tin was discovered in Cornwall and perhaps in Ireland. That gave Britain and Ireland a head start in bronze-making in western Europe. The idea did not spread from Continental Europe to the British Isles.

[Heber]

I noticed the article calls this site in Andulusia of the Copper Age, and does not call it Bronze Age. Is this just an oversight in terminology? Is the metallurgy more of the CBMP (Balkans) type versus CMP (Circumpontic). It appears this dig is dated before the fission/reflux events in Central Europe involving Beakers, Corded Ware and Proto-Unetice.

Larry Walkers excellent timelines for M269, P312 and L21 put the formation of these SNPs into context.

M269
10883

P312
10884

L21
10885

10886

We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.

[Jean M]

We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.

British archaeologists have traditionally dispensed with a Copper Age, as it was so short in Britain. Same goes for Scandinavia etc. So in their traditional reckoning Britain moves straight from Neolithic to Bronze Age c. 2400 BC with the arrival of Bell Beaker, as shown on those charts.

There has been some debate over this in recent years and arguments put forward for introducing Copper Age as a period.

[Romilius]

Larry Walkers excellent timelines for M269, P312 and L21 put the formation of these SNPs into context.

M269
10883

P312
10884

L21
10885

10886

We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.

Why? It seems that it won't change anything.

[razyn]

Larry Walkers excellent timelines for M269, P312 and L21 put the formation of these SNPs into context.

10886

We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.

Does that map, added in an edit, have any actual relationship to Larry Walker's timelines? It looks more like something Cunliffe might have suggested, under the spell of Koch and Oppenheimer about nine years ago.

[Jean M]

Does that map, added in an edit, have any actual relationship to Larry Walker's timelines? It looks more like something Cunliffe might have suggested, under the spell of Koch and Oppenheimer about nine years ago.

The labels on it are in French, so I wouldn't think so.

[razyn]

The labels on it are in French, so I wouldn't think so.

I really only looked at the arrows. And kind of slapped my forehead. Wherever it originated, I don't believe it illustrates the three Walker tables that are above it in the same post.

Also, I don't think the pottery made in 2900 BC in Portugal, if that date is even close to right, necessarily has a family tree demonstrably leading to the Bell Beaker (grave-goods "culture") associated earthworks in Spain about 500 years later. A lot of other evidence suggests that those earthworks, burial customs, metallurgy etc. are coming in (several centuries later than 2900) from far to the east. At least present Austria, and probably farther east than that.

Also, I don't think Mike W. is correct in equating Stuart Needham's term "fission" (in a 2005 paper, presumably revised in 2014 for its current incarnation) with the rather speculative "reflux" theory, popular especially with those who associate certain archaeological artifacts of the early 3rd millennium BC with the currently abundant (in and near Iberia) YDNA haplogroup DF27. Needham speaks of a fusion event involving aspects of Corded Ware and of Bell Beaker, happening somewhere in the vicinity of the lower Rhine, and fissioning over to the Isles. That's just from the abstract; the paper is behind a paywall and I don't have time this evening (or really the inclination) to search for it in other resources. Anyway, if that fission event is taking L21 north (and some DF27 along with it), it's not a phylogenetic reflux. It's the original flux, of those particular guys.

The other possibility is of course that I'm wrong. But I look at DF27 data far too often, and that's what I see.

Where is rms2 when he's needed?

[Jean M]

I really only looked at the arrows. And kind of slapped my forehead. Wherever it originated, I don't believe it illustrates the three Walker tables that are above it in the same post.

Located it. The map is from Olivier Lemercier, Le Campaniforme et l’Europe à la fin du Néolithique (2006). It is in the Vault > International Area > French.

[Jean M]

Also, I don't think the pottery made in 2900 BC in Portugal, if that date is even close to right, necessarily has a family tree demonstrably leading to the Bell Beaker (grave-goods "culture") associated earthworks in Spain about 500 years later. A lot of other evidence suggests that those earthworks, burial customs, metallurgy etc. are coming in (several centuries later than 2900) from far to the east.

Razyn - This is a bundle that does not fit together. Metallurgy arrived in Iberia c. 3100 BC i.e., before the earliest Bell Beaker pottery. You are right that it came from the east. It could only come from somewhere that had already developed metallurgy, since the said copper-workers brought an already developed technology. Iberia was rich in a copper-arsenic ore, exactly what was preferred by those working in the Yamnaya tradition.

The Bell Beaker pottery appears in the pre-existing, fortified settlements of the copper-workers, such as Zambujal. The earthwork enclosure uncovered at Perdigões in Portugal actually pre-dates Bell Beaker, but went on to have a BB phase. The ring-works recently discovered in Spain are of later date. They both start and finish in the Bell Beaker period.

[Dewsloth]

Larry Walkers excellent timelines for M269, P312 and L21 put the formation of these SNPs into context.

P312
10884


We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.


I don't know about Bell Beaker, but looking at the P312 chart makes me realize I understand less about DF88 than I thought I did.
Is there a site that explains so that a simpleton (me) can understand what that's showing with regard to P312 and its progeny?

[razyn]

The ring-works recently discovered in Spain are of later date. They both start and finish in the Bell Beaker period.

Right; and those are the ones various people are having the AHA moment about. IMO they might well contain some DF27, or other interesting new (to the locale) haplogroups of the M269 persuasion; but if so, that won't be proving what these folks think.

[Jean M]

Right; and those are the ones various people are having the AHA moment about. IMO they might well contain some DF27, or other interesting new (to the locale) haplogroups of the M269 persuasion; but if so, that won't be proving what these folks think.

As I understand the press release, they have found no human remains in this ring-work, so I doubt if we will get any Y-DNA haplogroup from it.

[R.Rocca]

Larry Walkers excellent timelines for M269, P312 and L21 put the formation of these SNPs into context.

We may have to rethink the expansion of Bell Beaker.

With all due respect, but aside from looking pretty, what exactly is "excellent" about these? YFull's current tree has the U152's formation date and TMRCA as 2,500 BC, but in the images you attached it's appearing as 3,400 BC.

[David Mc]

As I understand the press release, they have found no human remains in this ring-work, so I doubt if we will get any Y-DNA haplogroup from it.

That's absolutely right. There are no remains and the site itself seems to have been a short-lived one, perhaps suggesting a fairly mobile population.

[Jean M]

That's absolutely right. There are no remains and the site itself seems to have been a short-lived one, perhaps suggesting a fairly mobile population.

It wasn't a settlement. The archaeologists are suggesting a religious use. They tend to do that when they don't know what an enclosure was for. Myself I'd guess at a market and/or festival site.

[Isidro]

It wasn't a settlement. The archaeologists are suggesting a religious use. They tend to do that when they don't know what an enclosure was for. Myself I'd guess at a market and/or festival site.

It does seem like your take on everything Iberian is really far off reality. I am not sure how to calibrate your comments and the purpose behind them, but I don't really care what kind of followers you accomplish with it to get. I just have to say and reiterate that your comments about bronze age in Iberia is a late comer in the European landscape and a late comer to lets's say Ireland tin industry is irrisory.
I don't even know how to do a follow up on your comments, so I will leave at you understanding of Iberian pre-history as totally deficient.

[Jean M]

I will leave at you understanding of Iberian pre-history as totally deficient. .

Not very helpful Isidro. How about enlightening my ignorance, rather than just denouncing it? I was following Pare, C. F. E. 2000. Bronze and the Bronze Age, in Metals Make the World Go Round: The Supply and Circulation of Metals in Bronze Age Europe. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of Birmingham in June 1997, C. F. E. Pare (ed.), 1-32. Oxford: Oxbow Books. That and other sources date bronze in Britain at 2200-2100 BC.

Having now had a look at Lull, V., Micó, R., Rihuete, C. & Risch, R. (2013), "Bronze Age Iberia", In H. Fokkens & A. Harding (eds), The European Bronze Age. OUP, Oxford, 594-616, I can see that El Argar brought bronze-making to SE Iberia. [Edit] The first objects made of tin bronze began to appear in this culture c. 1800-1700 cal BC. https://www.academia.edu/5331557/Bronze_Age_Iberia

That is a little ahead of the site in northern Portugal at Fraga dos Corvos, with bronze axes around 1750-1500 BC.

[Chad Rohlfsen]

I think 2100BCE is a little in Britain. A bronze dagger that was already of the British type dates to 2200BCE, with Racton man.

[Isidro]

Not very helpful Isidro. How about enlightening my ignorance, rather than just denouncing it? I was following Pare, C. F. E. 2000. Bronze and the Bronze Age, in Metals Make the World Go Round: The Supply and Circulation of Metals in Bronze Age Europe. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of Birmingham in June 1997, C. F. E. Pare (ed.), 1-32. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

I was also led astray (I now realise) by the first bronze in Portugal, which I thought the first bronze in Iberia.

Having now had a look at Lull, V., Micó, R., Rihuete, C. & Risch, R. (2013), "Bronze Age Iberia", In H. Fokkens & A. Harding (eds), The European Bronze Age. OUP, Oxford, 594-616, I can see where I went wrong. El Argar brought bronze-making to SE Iberia c 2200 BC, which is actually a century ahead of Britain's 2100 BC. This would appear to be a fairly new dating.

This is what I like about you, you are always open to new data.
I have to say, even without El Argar's complexity that goes beyond Bronze mastering as we dig deep into their society, it would make sense that a group, or groups of copper workers would come up with a bronze formula, arsenic is a fluke of sorts and tin is mastery of sorts. Also the Aegean 3000 Bc Bronze is a lot closer to the Iberian shores than making an European continental "tour de force"... it's all a learning curve at the end. ;)

[Jean M]

This is what I like about you, you are always open to new data.

Actually I misread the Lull et al 2013 in my haste and had to edit my post. The first objects made of tin bronze began to appear in the El Argar culture c. 1800-1700 cal BC. That is a little ahead of the site in northern Portugal at Fraga dos Corvos, with bronze axes around 1750-1500 BC, which I thought was the earliest. The date of 2200 BC is just for the start of El Argar, not the bronze. So Britain remains ahead, as outlined in Pare 2000.

I must say I was surprised by your outburst, as I attended a conference last year in which a specialist in bronze repeated the Pare 2000 outline and I actually had an exchange about this and was assured that the Pare 2000 conclusions were still holding up. But one useful thing to come out of this flurry is the realisation that El Argar was a bit ahead of Fraga dos Corvos.

[rms2]

. . .

Where is rms2 when he's needed?

I've been in St. Lucia the past week and just got home. :)

[David Mc]

It does seem like your take on everything Iberian is really far off reality... I am not sure how to calibrate your comments and the purpose behind them, but I don't really care what kind of followers you accomplish with it to get. I just have to say and reiterate that your comments about bronze age in Iberia is a late comer in the European landscape and a late comer to lets's say Ireland tin industry is irrisory.
I don't even know how to do a follow up on your comments, so I will leave at you understanding of Iberian pre-history as totally deficient.

I know Jean doesn't need defenders. She's more capable than most of us at bringing out the heavy artillery. But your accusation above isn't just a matter of a personal affront; we're dealing with evidence here, and that deserves more than an ad hominem. Jean has made a statement that appears historically accurate and archaeologically verifiable. If she's off the wall here I am sure she (and we all) would like to see the data.

[Jean M]

Jean has made a statement that appears historically accurate and archaeologically verifiable. If she's off the wall here I am sure she (and we all) would like to see the data.

I appreciate the support David, but I think we are all straightened out now. Iberia is well known to be rich in metals, so it may well come as a surprise that Britain ran ahead with tin-bronze. Here is what I said in Blood of the Celts:


From around 2200 BC Bell Beaker interest in Britain intensified as Cornwall was discovered to be a prime source for tin, the rare and precious component of true bronze. It has recently been realized that Ireland too had tin in the Mourne Mountains.1 These resources gave the British Isles a head start in western Europe in making bronze.2

Tin was also available in western Iberia and the Erzgebirge Mountains in central Europe. The abundant tin and copper of Tartessos (p. 43) might lead you to expect the earliest Iberian bronze in southwestern Spain. Instead it appears in the northwest of the peninsula, which was linked into a trade network that included the British Isles. At one site the whole process of metal-working is laid bare. High in the mountains of the District of Bragança in Portugal, the detritus of bronze-working has been found on the hilltop of Fraga dos Corvos. Here a small rural community tended their flocks, hunted deer, and made their own pottery and bronze axes around 1750-1500 BC. The pottery includes Epi-Bell-Beaker, a final, crude representative of the type.3 So in Iberia too we see Bell Beaker at the beginning of bronze-making. This interesting site has inspired a novel titled The First Alchemist.4


Warner, Moles and Chapman 2010.
Pare 2000.
Senna-Martínez 2011.
Sofia Martinez, O Primeiro Alquimista: A Idade do Bronze em Portugal (2012).


So you can see that I do need to make a correction, should I get the chance to do so. This comes in a section on Bell Beaker, and El Argar had rather slipped my mind. :embarrassed:

[mouse]

It does seem like your take on everything Iberian is really far off reality. I am not sure how to calibrate your comments and the purpose behind them, but I don't really care what kind of followers you accomplish with it to get. I just have to say and reiterate that your comments about bronze age in Iberia is a late comer in the European landscape and a late comer to lets's say Ireland tin industry is irrisory.
I don't even know how to do a follow up on your comments, so I will leave at you understanding of Iberian pre-history as totally deficient.

The earliest Copper tools from Ireland were found in East Anglia and the Irish were the first people in the Isles to make bronze tools.

[Dubhthach]

If I remember my secondary school geography and history, Ireland didn't have any tin deposits or mining, all tin used for creating bronze was imported from Cornwall.

[Jean M]

If I remember my secondary school geography and history, Ireland didn't have any tin deposits or mining, all tin used for creating bronze was imported from Cornwall.

That's what people thought until tin was discovered in the Mourne Mountains. See Richard Warner, Norman Moles and Rob Chapman, Evidence for Early Bronze Age tin and gold extraction in the Mourne Mountains, County Down, Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, 10, pp. 29-36, a copy of which is in the Vault.


Abstract: We summarise the evidence for believing that the Mourne Mountains of Co. Down were an important source of gold and tin during the Early Bronze Age. We suggest that these metals might have been extracted from buried eluviallalluvial deposits and we present evidence for what might be the remains of prehistoric stream-works.

Of course in itself that does not mean that it was used in the Bronze Age. Working out which tin source was used can be done by isotope ratios. See M. Haustein, C. Gillis and E. Pernicka, Tin isotopy—a new method for solving old questions, Archaeometry 52, 5 (2010) 816–832. Abstract:


Tin was a vital commodity in times past. In central Europe, the earliest finds of tin-bronze date to about 2200 BC, while in Greece they are c. 400–500 years earlier. While there is evidence for prehistoric copper mining—for example, in the Alps or mainland Greece, among other places—the provenance of the contemporary tin is still an unsolved problem. This work deals with a new approach for tracing the ancient tin via tin isotope signatures. The tin isotope ratios of 50 tin ores from the Erzgebirge region (D) and 30 tin ores from Cornwall ... were measured by MC–ICP–MS. Most ore deposits were found to be quite homogeneous regarding their tin isotope composition, but significant differences were observed between several deposits. This fact may be used to distinguish different tin deposits and thus form the basis for the investigation of the provenance of ancient tin that has been sought for more than a century. Furthermore, the tin-isotope ratio of the ‘Himmelsscheibe von Nebra’ [Sky disc of Nebra] will be presented: the value fits well with the bulk of investigated tin ores from Cornwall.

[TigerMW]

No, it is not an oversight. The Bronze Age arrived late in Iberia. Bronze-working did not begin there until 1750-1500 BC. It started in the North-West, not the south. I cover this in Blood of the Celts, p. 52. So Iberia had a long Copper Age, unlike Britain and Ireland which went from Copper Age with Bell Beaker arrivals c. 2400 to Bronze Age c. 2200 BC, as tin was discovered in Cornwall and perhaps in Ireland. That gave Britain and Ireland a head start in bronze-making in western Europe. The idea did not spread from Continental Europe to the British Isles.
Are you saying the use of tin to create bronze came from the Isles? I'm not sure how this fits in with the earlier Greek use of tin if I understand what you are saying.

I suppose this comes down to which vintage of Beaker folks had what elements and qualities of the package.

Needham's 2014 archaeological study, "Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission", concluded,

"The pottery we collectively call Beakers is united by the thread of a potting and style tradition, wrapped up in that tradition are also expressions concerning what such a pot is for and who it may represent. Both style and those embedded meanings mutate through the long currency of British Beakers. Indeed, the newly emerging chronology for Beaker grave groups suggests that there was one critical point of rapid mutation in both pot form and associated artefacts. This phase is referred to as a fission horizon, c. 2250-2150 cal BC, and it underlines the difficulties that past schemes of steady evolution have run into. In reviewing the continental background for Beaker-carrying cultures, a corridor of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion is perceived along the southern flanks of the Channel. This created a modified spectrum of Beaker culture which stands at the head of the insular phenomenon. The long ensuing currency of Beaker pottery and Beaker graves in Britain does not hold up as a unified, steadily evolving entity. Instead, three phases of meaning can be suggested: 1) Beaker as circumscribed, exclusive culture; 2) Beaker as instituted culture; 3) Beaker as past reference. The fission horizon initiates phase 2.

I read the paper and I concluded the fission and fusion were the same general concept as Desideri's and others' "reflux". I'll reread it. Let me know if I misunderstand this.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276371931_Transforming_Beaker_Culture_in_North-West_Europe_Processes_of_Fusion_and_Fission

[Jean M]

Are you saying the use of tin to create bronze came from the Isles?

No. The use of tin to create bronze began in the Near East. Here's a map from Nils-Axel Mörner and Bob G. Lind, Long-Distance Travel and Trading in the Bronze Age: The East Mediterranean-Scandinavia Case (2015).

10922
The Bronze Age began at around 3000-3300 BC in area A (the East Mediterranean), at around 2100 BC in area B (Great Britain) and at around 1750 BC in area C (Scandinavia).

[Jean M]

I'm not sure how this fits in with the earlier Greek use of tin if I understand what you are saying.

The Greeks had no tin sources, so their tin was imported, which is enough of a clue that they did not invent the technique. The first tin-bronze anywhere in what is now Greece was brought by Trojans to Kastri on Syros.

People used to think that the tin for Near Eastern bronze had come from afar - Central Asia, Afghanistan or Europe. But now tin mines have been found in Anatolia. It makes a lot more sense to suppose that local sources fed the development of the new alloy.

An interesting point is that the source of tin was located at Hisarcık, in the foothills of the Mount Erciyes volcano, close to the town of Kultepe, anciently known as Kanesh. This town was home to a colony of Assyrian traders, who provide our earliest record of Hittite names. Later the Hittites took over Kanesh. So the first Indo-European speakers to manufacture or trade in bronze seem to be those of the Anatolian branch.

See Yener, New tin mines and production sites near Kultepe in Turkey: a third-millennium BC highland production model, Antiquity, 89, 345 (2015): 596–612: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9756304&fileId=S0003598X15000307 , available in full from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283911384_New_tin_mines_and_production_sites_near_ Kultepe_in_Turkey_a_third-millennium_BC_highland_production_model

[TigerMW]

... That gave Britain and Ireland a head start in bronze-making in western Europe. The idea did not spread from Continental Europe to the British Isles.
This is the quote I don't understand. Are you only saying bronze-making started in the Isles prior to the Iberian Peninsula?
I had assumed that bronze-making or at least bronze tools were in place along the Rhine prior to the Isles. Is that correct?

[Jean M]

This is the quote I don't understand. Are you only saying bronze-making started in the Isles prior to the Iberian Peninsula?
I had assumed that bronze-making or at least bronze tools were in place along the Rhine prior to the Isles. Is that correct?

Here is the map from Pare 2000:

10924

On this map bronze seems to pop up in Britain ahead of central Europe and indeed anywhere else in Europe! Now we can already see from the discussion above that some modification of the map is needed for Iberia. We have bronze in El Argar a bit earlier than northern Iberia. Whether any revision is needed for the Rhine area I don't know. Here's what he says:


According to both Liversage and Spindler, it is clear that for the triangle reaching from central Germany in the north, to southern Germany and south-west Slovakia in the south, the transition phase to a full bronze-using metallurgy happened around Br A2a, some time between the 20th and 18th centuries BC.

Paper available here: https://www.academia.edu/2120396/Bronze_and_the_Bronze_Age

[Added] Pare's definition of Bronze Age is "the span of time in which bronze was the predominant material in metallurgical production. 'Predominant' could, for example, be defined as >75% of metal artefacts, and 'bronze' could be defined as any intentional copper alloy with >4% Sn."

[TigerMW]

Here is the map from Pare 2000:

10924

On this map bronze seems to pop up in Britain ahead of central Europe and indeed anywhere else in Europe! Now we can already see from the discussion above that some modification of the map is needed for Iberia. We have bronze in El Argar a bit earlier than northern Iberia. Whether any revision is needed for the Rhine area I don't know. Here's what he says:



Paper available here: https://www.academia.edu/2120396/Bronze_and_the_Bronze_Age

[Added] Pare's definition of Bronze Age is "the span of time in which bronze was the predominant material in metallurgical production. 'Predominant' could, for example, be defined as >75% of metal artefacts, and 'bronze' could be defined as any intentional copper alloy with >4% Sn."

Pare's depiction is for full tin-based bronze work. That appears to be the distinction I didn't understand. No one thinks the first bronze work, using other mixtures such as arsenic, originated in the Isles, do they?


According to both Liversage and Spindler, it is clear that for the triangle reaching from central Germany in the north, to southern Germany and south-west Slovakia in the south, the transition phase to a full bronze-using metallurgy happened around Br A2a, some time between the 20th and 18th centuries BC.

Would this be related to the Wessex and Unetice trade contacts?

Wikipedia:
Today, the Únětice culture is considered to be part of a wider pan-European cultural phenomenon, arising gradually between the second half of the third and at the beginning of second millennium.[38][39] The role of the Únětice Culture in the formation of Bronze Age Europe cannot be overrated. The rise and the existence of this original, expansive and dynamic populations mark one of the most interesting moments in European prehistory. The influence of this culture covered much larger areas mainly due to intensive exchange.[40] Únětice pottery and bronzes are thus found in Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Italy as well as the Balkans.

Can it be shot down or upheld that Wessex and Unetice were sister cultures? and/or perhaps the first male Wessex colonizers were Unetice folks?

I don't think Pare is saying that it had to be a native of Britain that invented full tin-bronze working. We've had folks on the Iranian Plateau a millenia earlier mixing arsenic and other things with copper to make weaker forms of bronze. The inventive blacksmith working the tin may have come from a long line of experimenters.

[Jean M]

Pare's depiction is for full tin-based bronze work. That appears to be the distinction I didn't understand. No one thinks the first bronze work, using other mixtures such as arsenic, originated in the Isles, do they?

The copper-arsenic alloy is not true bronze. It is arsenical copper. Some authors call it a type of bronze, but I think that just confuses matters. In hardness it is a fair bronze substitute, but it fits into the Copper Age. Copper+tin = bronze; copper+tin+arsenic = arsenical bronze; copper+tin+lead = lead bronze.

The copper-arsenic alloy certainly did not originate in the British Isles. Neither did true bronze. From the Caucasus, metal-working with a copper-arsenic alloy entered the steppe. It moved with Yamnaya. We can see the line of descent into Bell Beaker. At least I can. :) In around 2400 BC BB metal scouts headed to Ross Island, where there was a copper source naturally high in arsenic. They brought with them knowledge of metal-working. For a couple of centuries the copper-arsenic alloy was what BB metallurgists produced in the British Isles.

Then came the discovery of Cornish tin. Wooosh! That's the sound of the news running around the Bell Beaker network and more BB people turning up in Britain. Presumably some of them already knew how to mix copper and tin, and that it gave more consistent results than copper-arsenic alloys. Copper-tin alloys (bronze) appear first in Afghanistan (where there is a tin sources.) They arrived in the Near East c. 3000 BC. The route of transmission of the knowledge of true bronze from there to BB probably included the Danube. According to Pare:


there are a few .. more or less reliable finds of tin bronze from the Vucedol and Baden culturea ... A marked increase in the use of this alloy, however, is first evident around the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC, at the start of the Romanian and Bulgarian Middle Bronze Age, and the Cetina culture in the western Balkans.

[TigerMW]

Pare's depiction is for full tin-based bronze work. That appears to be the distinction I didn't understand. No one thinks the first bronze work, using other mixtures such as arsenic, originated in the Isles, do they?



Would this be related to the Wessex and Unetice trade contacts?

Wikipedia:

Can it be shot down or upheld that Wessex and Unetice were sister cultures? and/or perhaps the first male Wessex colonizers were Unetice folks?

I don't think Pare is saying that it had to be a native of Britain that invented full tin-bronze working. We've had folks on the Iranian Plateau a millenia earlier mixing arsenic and other things with copper to make weaker forms of bronze. The inventive blacksmith working the tin may have come from a long line of experimenters.

Thank you Jean. I quote your book and Anthony's from time to time on some of the Newbie type forums. May I quote you on this?

[Jean M]

Can it be shot down or upheld that Wessex and Unetice were sister cultures? and/or perhaps the first male Wessex colonizers were Unetice folks?

By Wessex colonisers, I assume that you mean the Wessex strand of the Bell Beaker culture? That is Bell Beaker. It is not Únětice. Not only does it start earlier than Únětice, but the whole cultural package is Bell Beaker.

[Jean M]

Thank you Jean. I quote your book and Anthony's from time to time on some of the Newbie type forums. May I quote you on this?

Quote me on what Mike? You seem to be quoting yourself there. :)

[Jean M]

I don't think Pare is saying that it had to be a native of Britain that invented full tin-bronze working. .

He certainly isn't. You can read his whole paper on Academia.edu or here in the Vault.

[TigerMW]

By Wessex colonisers, I assume that you mean the Wessex strand of the Bell Beaker culture? That is Bell Beaker. It is not Únětice. Not only does it start earlier than Únětice, but the whole cultural package is Bell Beaker.
Understood, but I caution that we should not think of the Beaker cultures as continuous phases of growth. Per Needham and many others, there were regional Beaker groups and significant differences over a long period of time that Beaker folks over ran much of Europe. Okay, I haven't said it for a while - Beakers are not Beakers are not Beakers. Of course pots aren't people too.

I think we should take a page from David Anthony. If the Yamnaya are an horizon, certainly the Beakers are. Just like there was no singular Celtic nation, there was no singular Beaker culture, at least after its early onset.

[R.Rocca]

Understood, but I caution that we should not think of the Beaker cultures as continuous phases of growth. Per Needham and many others, there were regional Beaker groups and significant differences over a long period of time that Beaker folks over ran much of Europe. Okay, I haven't said it for a while - Beakers are not Beakers are not Beakers. Of course pots aren't people too.

I think we should take a page from David Anthony. If the Yamnaya are an horizon, certainly the Beakers are. Just like there was no singular Celtic nation, there was no singular Beaker culture, at least after its early onset.

And yet, 100% of Bell Beaker men tested thus far are R1b+ and 95% of Yamnaya as well. So, when talking about Bell Beaker and the spread of L23, I don't think there is any denying that Beaker "are" Beakers "are" Beakers and that pots do parallel men at least. Sure, once the very late Bell Beaker started to mix in with the locals, we will see a mix here and there. I expect Britain and Ireland to be 100% P312+ if not L21+. As far as Unetice, they are 100% haplogroup I thus far, so again, the material culture is pointing to exactly "pots being people".

[TigerMW]

And yet, 100% of Bell Beaker men tested thus far are R1b+ and 95% of Yamnaya as well. So, when talking about Bell Beaker and the spread of L23, I don't think there is any denying that Beaker "are" Beakers "are" Beakers and that pots do parallel men at least. Sure, once the very late Bell Beaker started to mix in with the locals, we will see a mix here and there. I expect Britain and Ireland to be 100% P312+ if not L21+.


As far as Unetice, they are 100% haplogroup I thus far,
I didn't know that. That's important. I assume they were I2? If they were I1 that would be important too and may influence our thinking on U106.


...so again, the material culture is pointing to exactly "pots being people".

Have we got early western Beaker Y DNA yet from Portugal or from SW France on down? If that comes in as heavy L23 I will agree at that level. Still, I don't think I would use the word "exactly."

I'm getting to a little more specifics below L23, probably because my interest in Britain. I think we have to evaluate U152, DF27 and L21 (and others) as potentially majorities of different groups. Britain probably has both DF27 and L21 from early times. Is one the Western Beaker and the other Rhenish? In this sense, I'm still focused on different Beaker cultures.

I don't know the answer to the early, western Beakers but there are many who still think it was a continuation of the late Neolithic along the Atlantic. Is a clear break now seen from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic?

[Jean M]

I don't know the answer to the early, western Beakers but there are many who still think it was a continuation of the late Neolithic along the Atlantic. Is a clear break now seen from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic?

The people who see a continuation of Late Neolithic to Bell Beaker along the Atlantic are either confusing Late Neolithic with Chalcolithic, possibly by using the northern periodisation system which ignores Chalcolithic and goes straight from Late Neolithic to Bronze Age, or are anti-migrationists.

The important thing is whether actual metallurgy is present (not just metal items that could be acquired by trade). Actual metallurgy arrived in Iberia with copper workers c. 3100 BC. So by any sane system that means that those sites with evidence of copper mining and/or working are Chalcolithic. That does not mean that the whole of Iberia instantly became Chalcolithic the minute copper was mined at a single site. (This is where things can get confusing.) Here is a map of some early copper-mining and working sites:

10926

[Jean M]

.. we should not think of the Beaker cultures as continuous phases of growth. Per Needham and many others, there were regional Beaker groups and significant differences over a long period of time that Beaker folks over ran much of Europe.

Bear in mind that Stuart Needham and many others in recent decades were writing within the anti-migrationist framework. That produced an emphasis on regional differences in BB and heavy stress on the pots-are-not-people meme. In fact the whole concept of "Beaker folks" became a thing of the past. The idea of Bell Beaker folk "overrunning" anywhere became taboo.

I have no idea how all the BB specialists in archaeology are reacting to the spate of ancient DNA papers which have proved the anti-migrationists spectacularly wrong. So far we only have a paper from Marc Vander Linden. In the meantime, I will attempt to decode Stuart Needham, Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71, 2005, pp. 171-217.

He follows Humphrey Case's idea of "a corridor of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion ... along the southern flanks of the Channel." This concept was appealing to those British authors who were aghast at the early BB dates in Iberia and the subsequent loss of the "Dutch model" of BB development, which had previously been popular. The imagined fusion corridor enabled them to hang on to a large part of the Dutch model, which had posited that Bell Beaker sprang out of a particular branch of Corded Ware.

If we ignore this element in Needham's paper, it is useful in perceiving a difference between the earliest BB in the British Isles and that which started to appear c. 2250-2150 BC. His map shows one route from Iberia along the coast, while another is ingeniously posited along the Rhone to the Rhine, where he imagines Corded Ware having its effect. He does not realise that Eastern Bell Beaker had absorbed elements not from CW, but from cultures in the Carpathian Basin. The Csepel group is ignored altogether.

From what we know so far, is it likely that P312 spread largely via Corded Ware? Or is it likely that it spread largely up the Danube?

[razyn]

I've been attempting to reconstruct why this discussion has been off-putting, for me. It didn't start here on Anthrogenica; it was on one of the Yahoo groups that Mike W moderates [R1b-YDNA at Yahoogroups dot com], and on a rather good thread "The origin and expansion of R1b," to which he adds, periodically. But Mike didn't add the very recent story about the Spanish Bell Beaker ring walls; a guy named Nigel did, the morning of Aug. 10th. It was this story: http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/08/first-bell-beaker-earthwork-enclosure-found-in-spain/112393?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HeritageDaily+%28Heritage+Dai ly+-+Archaeology+%26+Heritage+News%29
That text does refer to bones that were found, although later it specifically states that there were "no human remains" so they were the bones of other animals.

Anyway, within four hours of Nigel's post to the Yahoo group, Mike had already said this in response:

These findings are critical if we can get a number of Y DNA test results out of the skeletons...

If we can get Y DNA from skeletons on the early phases of that time frame that should be before the "reflux" events in Central Europe.

I hadn't read the text any more closely than he, and hadn't initially noticed that there weren't actually any human remains. I disagreed with the premise, because I did at least see the dates, and didn't think the ring "forts" had much to do with the earliest Beaker crockery found. (And I'm not entirely convinced that there were any "reflux" events in Central Europe.) But I didn't post about it, on that Yahoo thread. Also, about 40 minutes later Mike posted a lot of information and links documenting the close relationship between DF27 and U152, as "sons" of ZZ11. I agree with that (basically, Alex Williamson's discovery); I thought it was better to leave the good stuff alone, and just ignore the problematic reflux stuff. This Yahoo group reaches a very much broader audience than does the DF27 project, I don't run it, and I don't feel much calling to interfere there. Even if Mike says:

If we find R1b-P312* and R1b-DF27 among the earliest Bell Beaker skeletons in the first half of the third millennium BC (3000-2500 BC) then a very good case can be made that P312 expanded out of the Iberian Peninsula.

However, we didn't. Certainly not yet; and not in that significantly later ring-enclosure, that prompted the flurry of posts. IMO those rings are generating entirely too much background noise, about stuff for which there's still no aDNA evidence (and contra stuff for which there is such aDNA evidence). About an hour and a half later, still the late morning of Aug. 10th (in my time zone), Mike also said:

Needham's 2014 archaeological study, "Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission", concluded,

The pottery we collectively call Beakers is united by the thread of a potting and style tradition, wrapped up in that tradition are also expressions concerning what such a pot is for and who it may represent. Both style and those embedded meanings mutate through the long currency of British Beakers. Indeed, the newly emerging chronology for Beaker grave groups suggests that there was one critical point of rapid mutation in both pot form and associated artefacts. This phase is referred to as a fission horizon, c. 2250-2150 cal BC, and it underlines the difficulties that past schemes of steady evolution have run into. In reviewing the continental background for Beaker-carrying cultures, a corridor of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion is perceived along the southern flanks of the Channel. This created a modified spectrum of Beaker culture which stands at the head of the insular phenomenon. The long ensuing currency of Beaker pottery and Beaker graves in Britain does not hold up as a unified, steadily evolving entity. Instead, three phases of meaning can be suggested: 1) Beaker as circumscribed, exclusive culture; 2) Beaker as instituted culture; 3) Beaker as past reference. The fission horizon initiates phase 2.

Neeham's "fission" is the same series of events as Desideri's "reflux". They are the same thing.

So, basically I was already quietly disagreeing with some aspects of that whole series of Yahoo posts when I saw Heber's post, around 3:00 the afternoon of the same day, with the recent Larry Walker charts and a 2006 Lemercier map. To which I responded here, because he had posted them here: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=178330&viewfull=1#post178330

I did allude to the problems I had with Mike's interpretation; and there has been plenty of reiteration of that here, in the ensuing couple of days, so it's not really all happening in a vacuum (for people who didn't see the earlier Yahoo discussion).

Btw most of the time I agree with Mike W, we administer a project together and mostly have the same goals. If I knew how to use Excel, I'd probably agree even more. Maybe not about "reflux."

[TigerMW]

I've been attempting to reconstruct why this discussion has been off-putting, for me. It didn't start here on Anthrogenica; it was on one of the Yahoo groups that Mike W moderates [R1b-YDNA at Yahoogroups dot com], and on a rather good thread "The origin and expansion of R1b," to which he adds, periodically. But Mike didn't add the very recent story about the Spanish Bell Beaker ring walls; a guy named Nigel did, the morning of Aug. 10th. It was this story: http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/08/first-bell-beaker-earthwork-enclosure-found-in-spain/112393?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HeritageDaily+%28Heritage+Dai ly+-+Archaeology+%26+Heritage+News%29
That text does refer to bones that were found, although later it specifically states that there were "no human remains" so they were the bones of other animals.

Anyway, within four hours of Nigel's post to the Yahoo group, Mike had already said this in response:


I hadn't read the text any more closely than he, and hadn't initially noticed that there weren't actually any human remains. I disagreed with the premise, because I did at least see the dates, and didn't think the ring "forts" had much to do with the earliest Beaker crockery found. (And I'm not entirely convinced that there were any "reflux" events in Central Europe.) But I didn't post about it, on that Yahoo thread. Also, about 40 minutes later Mike posted a lot of information and links documenting the close relationship between DF27 and U152, as "sons" of ZZ11. I agree with that (basically, Alex Williamson's discovery); I thought it was better to leave the good stuff alone, and just ignore the problematic reflux stuff. This Yahoo group reaches a very much broader audience than does the DF27 project, I don't run it, and I don't feel much calling to interfere there. Even if Mike says:


However, we didn't. Certainly not yet; and not in that significantly later ring-enclosure, that prompted the flurry of posts. IMO those rings are generating entirely too much background noise, about stuff for which there's still no aDNA evidence (and contra stuff for which there is such aDNA evidence). About an hour and a half later, still the late morning of Aug. 10th (in my time zone), Mike also said:


So, basically I was already quietly disagreeing with some aspects of that whole series of Yahoo posts when I saw Heber's post, around 3:00 the afternoon of the same day, with the recent Larry Walker charts and a 2006 Lemercier map. To which I responded here, because he had posted them here: http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=178330&viewfull=1#post178330

I did allude to the problems I had with Mike's interpretation; and there has been plenty of reiteration of that here, in the ensuing couple of days, so it's not really all happening in a vacuum (for people who didn't see the earlier Yahoo discussion).

Btw most of the time I agree with Mike W, we administer a project together and mostly have the same goals. If I knew how to use Excel, I'd probably agree even more. Maybe not about "reflux."

Here is the whole discussion. Everyone is invited. I think I've set enough background that the folks on the group can get a little more in depth.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/R1b-YDNA/conversations/topics/3583

Please do not assume that say if X or if Y that means that is my hypothesis. For example, I don't at all think that P312 originated or emanated solely from Iberia, but it is still a good discussion. People learn more when they discuss rather just read one hypothesis.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/R1b-YDNA/conversations/topics/3583

Didier has done a nice job or adding in, including disagreement, from time to time. Please, Razyn, add your comments.

In some cases, I purposely let an hypothesis that I disagree with go as I don't want to be the only one to challenge others with my own fashionable hypotheses. Beside, I think I've stated several times that besides speculating, I really don't know.

Not everyone likes the deceased Supreme Court Judge, Anthony Scalia, but it is my understanding he sought out those who disagreed because he loved an intelligent debate. I think that is pretty cool. The more intelligent they were, the better.

[Jean M]

Please do not assume that say if X or if Y that means that is my hypothesis. For example, I don't at all think that P312 originated or emanated solely from Iberia, but it is still a good discussion. People learn more when they discuss rather just read one hypothesis.

Thanks Mike. You give me the opportunity to say that I may place in the Vault (or my own collection) material that I disagree with, or partially so. The fact that a paper or book is there does not imply my 100% support for it. Not remotely.

[rms2]

I personally feel a little burned out on what we know about Beaker thus far and am waiting for that big paper that is supposed to appear sometime in the autumn. Of course, I heard that the Iberian Beaker remains it deals with date only to about 2500 BC, so that's not going to tell us much if anything about the very earliest Bell Beaker there.

In the meantime, you've got people who are doing damage control who want to restrict R1b's participation in the PIE phenomenon to Z2103, so that they can either maintain the old Iberian primacy for western Europe or the Corded Ware/R1a primacy for PIE overall. Too late to make it so that R1b had nothing to do with the early Indo-Europeans, but, please, let's limit L51 to some sort of Paleolithic western European origin, and it would be extra good if we could re-Basque-ify P312.

Man, it just gets old.

[Jean M]

Of course, I heard that the Iberian Beaker remains it deals with date only to about 2500 BC, so that's not going to tell us much if anything about the very earliest Bell Beaker there.

Did I miss this, or is my memory failing me yet again? It is really, really disappointing. I feel crushed. :(

[rms2]

Did I miss this, or is my memory failing me yet again? It is really, really disappointing. I feel crushed. :(

I could be mistaken, but I remember it was in a post here announcing the upcoming paper.

[TigerMW]

Bear in mind that Stuart Needham and many others in recent decades were writing within the anti-migrationist framework. That produced an emphasis on regional differences in BB and heavy stress on the pots-are-not-people meme. In fact the whole concept of "Beaker folks" became a thing of the past. The idea of Bell Beaker folk "overrunning" anywhere became taboo.

I have no idea how all the BB specialists in archaeology are reacting to the spate of ancient DNA papers which have proved the anti-migrationists spectacularly wrong. So far we only have a paper from Marc Vander Linden. In the meantime, I will attempt to decode Stuart Needham, Transforming Beaker Culture in North-West Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71, 2005, pp. 171-217.

He follows Humphrey Case's idea of "a corridor of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion ... along the southern flanks of the Channel." This concept was appealing to those British authors who were aghast at the early BB dates in Iberia and the subsequent loss of the "Dutch model" of BB development, which had previously been popular. The imagined fusion corridor enabled them to hang on to a large part of the Dutch model, which had posited that Bell Beaker sprang out of a particular branch of Corded Ware.

If we ignore this element in Needham's paper, it is useful in perceiving a difference between the earliest BB in the British Isles and that which started to appear c. 2250-2150 BC. His map shows one route from Iberia along the coast, while another is ingeniously posited along the Rhone to the Rhine, where he imagines Corded Ware having its effect. He does not realise that Eastern Bell Beaker had absorbed elements not from CW, but from cultures in the Carpathian Basin. The Csepel group is ignored altogether.

From what we know so far, is it likely that P312 spread largely via Corded Ware? Or is it likely that it spread largely up the Danube?

Razyn is asking about this and I've read multiple things about it, but the best I can gather is there were some series of events in Central Europe and France where different Beaker regional groups and Corded Ware groups made contact in some significant way new practices and perhaps new merged groups spun off.

Is this what the words "fusion and fission" and "reflux" were meant to describe? I assume so but is that correct?

[Jean M]

.. the best I can gather is there were some series of events in Central Europe and France where different Beaker regional groups and Corded Ware groups made contact in some significant way new practices and perhaps new merged groups spun off. Is this what the words "fusion and fission" and "reflux" were meant to describe?

Mike - you have read Needham 2005. You know that he postulates a mixture with Corded Ware. Humphrey Case imagined a mixture with Corded Ware. The German prehistorian Edward Sangmeister coined the term "reflux" decades ago. He worked at the German Archaeological Institute in Madrid in the 1950s and excavated Zambujal from 1964 to 1973. Recognizing the differences between the early Bell Beaker of Zambujal and the later Bell Beaker of more easterly Iberia, he argued that the pottery spread from Iberia into Central Europe and mixed with Corded Ware, before its return to eastern Iberia as a different type of BB.

While agreeing with Sangmeister on the general principle of reflux into Iberia, I see the mixing as taking place in the Carpathian Basin. So you could see my position as modified reflux.

[Tomenable]

In the meantime, you've got people who are doing damage control who want to restrict R1b's participation in the PIE phenomenon to Z2103, so that they can either maintain the old Iberian primacy for western Europe

L151 definitely looks like it expanded from Iberia, or somewhere around that place. Maybe a small group came to Iberia from the Steppe and then expanded from that place. Maciamo from Eupedia believes that ATP3 was really R1b but also that he came from the Steppe. He was different autosomally than other samples.

Nobody answered a question that I asked some time ago - where did Vasconic languages come from?

It is possible that Vasconic-speakers also came from the Steppe during the Copper or Bronze Age.

There is no any solid proof that Vasconic was spoken in Europe long before Indo-European.


or the Corded Ware/R1a primacy for PIE overall.

I put I0104 (CW with R1a from Germany) through DNA.Land. I named him Kowalski, but he turned out very Western. This probably means that his modern descendants live mainly in Northwestern Europe:

https://s9.postimg.org/ivs2v27in/CWC_I0104.png

By comparison here are DNA.Land results for Yamnaya R1b man I0443 (Lopatino II, Sok River):

He looks like a modern person with 2/5 Belarusian, 2/5 Norwegian and 1/5 Pakistani ancestry:

https://s10.postimg.org/7cru39ofd/Yamna_I0443.png

[Tomenable]

I'm going to upload a Bell Beaker sample to DNA.Land.

Maybe some "Southwestern European" will show up ???

[TigerMW]

... Of course, I heard that the Iberian Beaker remains it deals with date only to about 2500 BC, so that's not going to tell us much if anything about the very earliest Bell Beaker there.
.....
Too late to make it so that R1b had nothing to do with the early Indo-Europeans, but, please, let's limit L51 to some sort of Paleolithic western European origin, and it would be extra good if we could re-Basque-ify P312.

This is the discussion I was trying to set up that I think Razyn was having heartburn over.
I think several Iberian/early Western Beaker skeletons would be very important. Let's say there were no R1b or let's say there were only R1b L51- types. 2500 BC is still pre-any fusion/fission/reflux spin off migrations so we might have a clue that P311 only came to Western Europe post the fusion/fission/reflux.

If DF27 is found in early Western Beakers then we might have reason to think P311 was around way back in SE Europe at Vucedol.

Richard R, this is what I meant about going down a level or two under L23 and the various regional Beaker groups. It's P311 that dominates Europe. If P311 was in the early Beakers then I think a fair conclusion is that Beaker = P311 or P312 majority. If Early Beaker was not P311 then perhaps the truly big events were not the early migrations but the fusion/fission/reflux driven migrations.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

There is a view that there is no BB in Iberia before 2500 BC, and everything called as such prior this period has been misattributed by Iberian archaeologists (eg mixing of Beakers in old megalithic contexts), or over-dated. If so, it'll do away with the need to address the alleged "out of Iberia" arm.
Hopefully the BB study by reich et al will do direct C14 dating of human remains, which will go toward solving the dating issues

[Jean M]

There is a view that there is no BB in Iberia before 2500 BC, and everything called as such prior this period has been misattributed by Iberian archaeologists (eg mixing of Beakers in old megalithic contexts), or over-dated.

Yes archaeologist Alan R. has put that case with passion over and over again for years on this forum. We couldn't miss it. ;) However even he is weakening, faced with radiocarbon dates from a sealed context at Leceia which is only BB. See João Luís Cardoso, Absolute chronology of the Beaker phenomenon North of the Tagus estuary: demographic and social implications, Trabajos de Prehistoria, 71, N.º 1 (2014), pp. 56-75. There is a copy in the Vault.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Yes archaeologist Alan R. has put that case with passion over and over again for years on this forum. We couldn't miss it. ;) However even he is weakening, faced with radiocarbon dates from a sealed context at Leceia which is only BB. See João Luís Cardoso, Absolute chronology of the Beaker phenomenon North of the Tagus estuary: demographic and social implications, Trabajos de Prehistoria, 71, N.º 1 (2014), pp. 56-75. There is a copy in the Vault.

Very interesting thanks Jean
I can see there is good evidence that Beakers (at least the maritime -Iberian- type) existed in Iberia before 2500 BC.
I also see your point about differentiation in settlements and material culture, raising the probability of coexisting but different social (? & genetic) groups.

This leaves a couple of key questions for aDNA (1) were the (early Iberian) Beaker-using groups just socially differentiated (but "local evolution"), or were they somehow "foreign" (whether from steppe - which I doubt as their material culture looks wholly "Mediterranean"- or elsewhere).

Other questions: (2) what happened after 2200 BC, when the final copper age ends, with cessation of enclosures and appearance of more dispersed settlement pattern. For some parts, Roberto Risch makes a case for some kind of invasion/ colonization being responsible for the end of Los Millares, and commencement of El Agar in its place

[Jean M]

This leaves a couple of key questions for aDNA (1) were the (early Iberian) Beaker-using groups just socially differentiated (but "local evolution"), or were they somehow "foreign" (whether from steppe ... or elsewhere).

No that is not the key question. The earliest Bell Beaker pottery appears in sites such as Zambujal and Leceia, fortified settlements already built by copper-workers before the BB style of pottery appeared. You perhaps recall the paper you cited in an earlier post in which Ben Roberts described the early Bell Beaker copper-working in Iberia as exactly the same technology as the previous Iberian copper-working (on these sites). If you look into the matter further, you will find papers showing that the BB layer in Zambujal seamlessly follows the earlier one. There is no break. There is continuous occupation. In short, the new style of pottery was made either by descendants of the immigrant copper workers who brought the earliest Copper Age to Iberia, or (as I suspect) by people who arrived later of the same origin. Migration can often be a lengthy process, rather than a single event. The trade route created by the first copper workers in Iberia leads back to the Carpathian Basin, where the Csepel group of Bell Beaker appears c. 2500 BC.

It is the same story in another key site elsewhere - Sion in the Alps. The early arrivals brought a Yamnaya package including not just copper-working, but the creation of distinctively Yamnaya metal objects, anthropomorphic stelae etc. Then Bell Beaker pottery arrived later, without any disruption of the culture. The Bell Beaker makers created anthropomorphic stelae to add to those already in the cemetery there, as though they regarded themselves as belonging to this place/culture. See Harrison and Heyd 2007. There is a copy in the Vault. It is massive, but absolutely crucial to understanding what was going on.

Then we see a disruption within the BB community c. 2400 BC. Zambujal and a number of other sites in western Iberia were abandoned. The anthropomorphic stelae at Sion were smashed. Bell Beaker pottery and the rest of the package started to appear in the British Isles and Central Europe, partly of direct Iberian origin, and partly of Csepel origin. There is a shift of power/influence within BB from the mouth of the Tagus to the head of the Rhine. Again see Harrison and Heyd 2007 for the Sion event.

[Jean M]

what happened after 2200 BC, when the final copper age ends, with cessation of enclosures and appearance of more dispersed settlement pattern. For some parts, Roberto Risch makes a case for some kind of invasion/ colonization being responsible for the end of Los Millares, and commencement of El Agar in its place

The case for El Argar as a foreign colonization has been strongly made in recent years by the group who have been exacavating the fearsomely fortified town of La Bastida. See V. Lull et al. 2014. The La Bastida fortification: new light and new questions on Early Bronze Age societies in the western Mediterranean, Antiquity, 88 (340), 395–410. The style of La Bastida is reminiscent of the second phase of Troy and the urban world of the Levant. This looks to me like the arrival of the non-IE speaking Iberes. Further excavation has been going on at La Almoloya. See http://www.heritagedaily.com/2014/10/bronze-age-palace-and-grave-goods-discovered-at-the-archaeological-site-of-la-almoloya-in-pliego-murcia/105240

The El Argar culture was limited to part of southern Iberia, where we later find the Iberes, a non-IE speaking people. If we take it that they were the descendants of the El Argar people, that makes sense of the language layers along that coastal strip of Iberia, where early IE place-names can be detected i.e. the language of the Iberes was intrusive into a previously IE territory.

[Tomenable]

I'm going to upload a Bell Beaker sample to DNA.Land.

Maybe some "Southwestern European" will show up ???

Bell Beaker woman, sample I0112 from Quedlinburg in Germany:

I guessed it right, ~4% "Southwest European" (reference pops: Basques, Iberians, South French):

No any "Central Asian" showed up, unlike in case of Corded Ware sample:

https://s9.postimg.org/zailu3llb/Bell_Beaker.png

[Tomenable]

And this is I1300 Chalcolithic woman from El Mirador in Spain:

https://s9.postimg.org/vztdez7pb/Chalc_Iberia.png

[Gravetto-Danubian]

No that is not the key question.

OK, you're disagreeing over nothing, but sure, I agree that with below ->, in that early BB appears sans transition, in areas where there were early enclosure settlements, and subsequent to introduction of Copper.


The earliest Bell Beaker pottery appears in sites such as Zambujal and Leceia, fortified settlements already built by copper-workers before the BB style of pottery appeared. You perhaps recall the paper you cited in an earlier post in which Ben Roberts described the early Bell Beaker copper-working in Iberia as exactly the same technology as the previous Iberian copper-working (on these sites). If you look into the matter further, you will find papers showing that the BB layer in Zambujal seamlessly follows the earlier one. There is no break. There is continuous occupation. In short, the new style of pottery was made either by descendants of the immigrant copper workers who brought the earliest Copper Age to Iberia, or (as I suspect) by people who arrived later of the same origin. Migration can often be a lengthy process, rather than a single event. The trade route created by the first copper workers in Iberia leads back to the Carpathian Basin, where the Csepel group of Bell Beaker appears c. 2500 BC.

So where do you see these Copper-smiths coming from ? I think the Roberts paper intimated Italy/ Alpine Europe.
DO you still think they came from Yamnaya ?

So my points stand - was the Copper / palisading development (later to become Beaker) due to migration ? Or was the separation to those who lived in non-enclosed settlements, and who did not end up aqcuiring Beaker ceramics, merely a social differentiation ?


It is the same story in another key site elsewhere - Sion in the Alps. The early arrivals brought a Yamnaya package including not just copper-working, but the creation of distinctively Yamnaya metal objects, anthropomorphic stelae etc. Then Bell Beaker pottery arrived later, without any disruption of the culture. The Bell Beaker makers created anthropomorphic stelae to add to those already in the cemetery there, as though they regarded themselves as belonging to this place/culture. See Harrison and Heyd 2007. There is a copy in the Vault. It is massive, but absolutely crucial to understanding what was going on.

I understood it as not all one of continuity. There are distinct changes in 2500 BC and another closer to 2400 BC. The early beaker phase sees an intensification of what began in Final Neolithic (increased regional exchange and status differentiation), with type A stelae, followed by an apparent conflict within the Beaker world, between southwest (Rhone) & eastern (Danube) groups. There is a rift, quite an obvious and violent one, c. 2425 BC, at the transition between early to Mid Beaker phases.

Similar factional tensions are seen in Iberia, between Leceia and Zambujal one the one hand (which adopted Maritime Beaker early) and Los MIllares (which adopted different Beaker styles, later); and it is likely this climate of confclict which caused the 'collapses' c. 2200 BC, in the late Beaker period of Iberia.


Then we see a disruption within the BB community c. 2400 BC. Zambujal and a number of other sites in western Iberia were abandoned. The anthropomorphic stelae at Sion were smashed. Bell Beaker pottery and the rest of the package started to appear in the British Isles and Central Europe, partly of direct Iberian origin, and partly of Csepel origin. There is a shift of power/influence within BB from the mouth of the Tagus to the head of the Rhine. Again see Harrison and Heyd 2007 for the Sion event.

So shifting power centres within BB network ? Are you sure we can extrapolate what was happening in the Rhine-Moselle to Iberia ?


The El Argar culture was limited to part of southern Iberia, where we later find the Iberes, a non-IE speaking people. If we take it that they were the descendants of the El Argar people, that makes sense of the language layers along that coastal strip of Iberia, where early IE place-names can be detected i.e. the language of the Iberes was intrusive into a previously IE territory.
Agreed.
But my point stretched beyond El Agar alone. 2200 BC seems to have been a transition phase throughout Iberia, when BB becomes widespread.

[Romilius]

@ Tomenable

What about Bell Beaker men composition?

[TigerMW]

No that is not the key question. The earliest Bell Beaker pottery appears in sites such as Zambujal and Leceia, fortified settlements already built by copper-workers before the BB style of pottery appeared. You perhaps recall the paper you cited in an earlier post in which Ben Roberts described the early Bell Beaker copper-working in Iberia as exactly the same technology as the previous Iberian copper-working (on these sites). If you look into the matter further, you will find papers showing that the BB layer in Zambujal seamlessly follows the earlier one. There is no break. There is continuous occupation. In short, the new style of pottery was made either by descendants of the immigrant copper workers who brought the earliest Copper Age to Iberia, or (as I suspect) by people who arrived later of the same origin. Migration can often be a lengthy process, rather than a single event. The trade route created by the first copper workers in Iberia leads back to the Carpathian Basin, where the Csepel group of Bell Beaker appears c. 2500 BC.

It is the same story in another key site elsewhere - Sion in the Alps. The early arrivals brought a Yamnaya package including not just copper-working, but the creation of distinctively Yamnaya metal objects, anthropomorphic stelae etc. Then Bell Beaker pottery arrived later, without any disruption of the culture. The Bell Beaker makers created anthropomorphic stelae to add to those already in the cemetery there, as though they regarded themselves as belonging to this place/culture. See Harrison and Heyd 2007. There is a copy in the Vault. It is massive, but absolutely crucial to understanding what was going on.

Then we see a disruption within the BB community c. 2400 BC. Zambujal and a number of other sites in western Iberia were abandoned. The anthropomorphic stelae at Sion were smashed. Bell Beaker pottery and the rest of the package started to appear in the British Isles and Central Europe, partly of direct Iberian origin, and partly of Csepel origin. There is a shift of power/influence within BB from the mouth of the Tagus to the head of the Rhine. Again see Harrison and Heyd 2007 for the Sion event.
Thank you for delving into this. I have read the Harrison and Heyd work several times and some of the related papers. I find the fusion/fission/reflux events fascinating. Europe was changing. I find this graphic particularly ominous. I added a quote from Desideri.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17907527/Beakers-Regional_Groups_meet_at_Sion_by_Harrison_2007.png

Richard R, this is a small jab for humor's sake. Quote from Jean M above, "The earliest Bell Beaker pottery appears in sites such as Zambujal and Leceia, fortified settlements already built by copper-workers before the BB style of pottery appeared... there is a continuous occupation."
So we see the pots are not the people.

[rms2]

L151 definitely looks like it expanded from Iberia, or somewhere around that place . . .

No, it does not. Where does the ancient dna evidence support such a claim? It doesn't.

Even the modern y-dna evidence does not support such a claim, which is reminiscent of 2005 (had we known of L151 in 2005).

[Jean M]

So where do you see these Copper-smiths coming from ? I think the Roberts paper intimated Italy/ Alpine Europe.
DO you still think they came from Yamnaya ?

Yes I think that they came from Yamnaya, but via northern Italy/Alps. This is what I have been saying in print for years.


So my points stand - was the Copper / palisading development (later to become Beaker) due to migration ?

Ben Roberts has said in paper after paper that he does not believe in the independent invention of metallury in Iberia. At least one Iberian archaeologist has continued in recent years to argue patriotically for an independent invention, but the case does not add up and has been demolished by Roberts. That leaves us with migration. Do you not agree?


Similar factional tensions are seen in Iberia, between Leceia and Zambujal one the one hand (which adopted Maritime Beaker early) and Los Millares (which adopted different Beaker styles, later); and it is likely this climate of conflict which caused the 'collapses' c. 2200 BC, in the late Beaker period of Iberia.

There are certainly signs of conflict, but in 2400 BC, when a number of the Vila Nova de São Pedro cluster of sites were abandoned.


But my point stretched beyond El Agar alone. 2200 BC seems to have been a transition phase throughout Iberia, when BB becomes widespread.

2200 BC is the point at which we see the new BB influx (or "reflux") from the east. This is not in the same area as El Argar. The two should be seen as separate events. The influx of BB from the east is in the region where we later find Celtiberian.

[Tomenable]

Where does the ancient dna evidence support such a claim? It doesn't.

But there is also no evidence to the contrary, as long as there is no Y-DNA from Iberian Bell Beaker.

[Jean M]

But there is also no evidence to the contrary, as long as there is no Y-DNA from Iberian Bell Beaker.

Science doesn't work that way. A scientist does not, for example, claim that Jupiter is a planet currently habitable by humans and, when challenged to provide evidence, say "but there is no evidence against until we put a human on Jupiter". There needs to be evidence to support a proposition before anyone will take it seriously.

[Kopfjäger]

No, it does not. Where does the ancient dna evidence support such a claim? It doesn't.

Even the modern y-dna evidence does not support such a claim, which is reminiscent of 2005 (had we known of L151 in 2005).

It's been over a year, but Tomenable still hasn't been able to digest those Yamnaya results. Poor guy.

[Tomenable]

^^^ Come on, show me that L151 from Yamnaya or any other Steppe culture.

It is funny that you think that L21 in Bronze Age Ireland is a proof that Celtic was spoken there, or that Z2103 in Yamnaya is a proof that Celts had come from the Steppe, but when R1a-Z280 was found in Bronze Age East Germany - nobody declared it a proof that Slavs lived at the Elbe already in the Bronze Age.

Please be consistent with what you consider "sufficient evidence" in each case.

If R1a-Z280 at Halberstadt is not sufficient to declare Slavic presence in BA Germany, then certainly Z2103 or other L23(xL151) in Yamnaya is not sufficient to declare that L151 was present in Yamnaya.

[Tomenable]

Science doesn't work that way. A scientist does not, for example, claim that Jupiter is a planet currently habitable by humans and, when challenged to provide evidence, say "but there is no evidence against until we put a human on Jupiter". There needs to be evidence to support a proposition before anyone will take it seriously.

Nope. The burden of proof is not on me in this case.

Advocates of the "Beaker Pots from Iberia, but Beaker Folks from the Steppe" theory are supposed to provide evidence that a culture was spreading from Iberia to Central Europe (which is acknowledged by archaeologists), but that people who were "Kulturtragers" of that culture, were spreading in the opposite direction.

This idea sounds like nonsense, and that's why the burden of proof is on those who advocate it.

I don't need to prove that people were spreading in the same direction as their material culture. This assumption is logical. The opposite assumption - people moving west but their pots moving east - is illogical.

I could also claim that in the 6th century Prague pots were spreading from Ukraine to Poland, but Slavs were spreading from Poland to Ukraine. Just like you claim about Beaker pots and Beaker people.

[Jean M]

Advocates of the "Beaker Pots from Iberia, but Beaker Folks from the Steppe" theory are supposed to provide evidence that a culture was spreading from Iberia to Central Europe (which is acknowledged by archaeologists), but that people who were "Kulturtragers" of that culture, were spreading in the opposite direction.

Not exactly. ;) The names and descriptions of cultures are made up by archaeologists. I had to make up a new name "The Stelae People" for the Yamnaya-based culture which spread west. In Iberia the Stelae People eventually started making BB pots. It is a logical deduction that if the Stelae People carried with them from the steppe a Yamnaya cultural package, that will also have carried an Indo-European language and one or more Y-DNA haplogroups found in Yamnaya.

I do not say that it is proved. We of course await the results of aDNA testing from Bell Beaker in Iberia. I simply say that it is a logical deduction.

[Tomenable]

Not exactly. ;) The names and descriptions of cultures are made up by archaeologists. I had to make up a new name "The Stelae People" for the Yamnaya-based culture which spread west. In Iberia the Stelae People eventually started making BB pots. It is a logical deduction that if the Stelae People carried with them from the steppe a Yamnaya cultural package, that will also have carried an Indo-European language and one or more Y-DNA haplogroups found in Yamnaya.

I do not say that it is proved. We of course await the results of aDNA testing from Bell Beaker in Iberia. I simply say that it is a logical deduction.

Jean, so you do acknowledge that L151 was spreading from Iberia after it had gotten there from the East. I'm not disputing that L151 or its ancestral branch L51 or L23 had ultimately come from the East. After all to the west of Western Europe there is just the Atlantic Ocean, so R1b had to come from somewhere in the East - there is no other option. Unless those R1b-s sailed to Europe from America in a Kon-Tiki boat. :)

[Jean M]

Jean, so you acknowledge that L151 was spreading from Iberia after it had gotten there from the East. .

No. Why would I specify that particular haplogroup? It looks to me as though P312 and U106 took different routes from the steppe, P312 up the Danube and U106 east of the Carpathians. Then I picture a group splitting off from the P312 stream (leaving the body of it behind in the Carpathian Basin) and moving west as copper prospectors. These I label the Stelae People.

This is a complex story, Tomenable, which really needs a book to explain it. That's why I wrote one. Indeed two.

[Tomenable]

It is a logical deduction that if the Stelae People carried with them from the steppe a Yamnaya cultural package, that will also have carried an Indo-European language and one or more Y-DNA haplogroups found in Yamnaya.

Only if we assume that 100% of Yamnaya people spoke one and the same language.

It is possible that Yamnaya culture was linguistically heterogeneous and only one part spoke IE.

I've asked a question about the origins of Vasconic languages and still nobody answered.

Vasconic, Etruscan and few other Non-IE languages did not really come to Europe long before IE, but either shortly before IE, at the same time as IE, or even later than IE. Phoenicio-Punic is another example of Non-IE languages which expanded to Western Europe (including Iberia) from the East relatively recently.

People are too focused on just IE languages, only because they eventually prevailed everywhere.

But even in Early Iron Age in Western Europe, there were still many Non-IE speaking peoples.

[Tomenable]

It looks to me as though P312 and U106 took different routes from the steppe

Ah, so you say that L151 emerged on the Steppe, and P312 and U106 also emerged on the Steppe.

And only later they expanded from the Steppe, but for some reason each of them took a different route (as if those people knew who is P312 and who is U106, and introduced some "genetic segregation" - ordering all Yamnaya men with P312 to go that way, while all Yamnaya men with U106 to go this way).

Aren't P312 and U106 (and even L151) too young to have been part of Yamnaya culture?

TMRCA of these clades seems to be younger than even the youngest stage of Yamna culture.

The fact that there was little geographical overlap between P312 and U106 (as you wrote, it looks like they took entirely different routes and initially settled in entirely different parts of Europe) suggests that they expanded as separate founder effects, rather than as part of one and the same massive migration.

It is not difficult to imagine expansions of U106 and P312 as founder effects. After all, I1-M253 almost certainly expanded as a founder effect from somewhere around Scandinavia or Central Europe, and nobody really doubts it. Or do we assume that I1 also came as part of that mass migration from the Steppe?

[Tomenable]

There are kurgans along the Lower Danube. And I guess people assume that there will be L51+ buried in those kurgans. But just take a closer look at modern distribution of Z2103 in South-Eastern Europe, and try to say that it doesn't match the Danube "kurgan trial". Here is Eupedia's map of Z2103 in Europe:

http://cdn.eupedia.com/images/content/Haplogroup-R1b-Z2103.png

[alan]

Nope. The burden of proof is not on me in this case.

Advocates of the "Beaker Pots from Iberia, but Beaker Folks from the Steppe" theory are supposed to provide evidence that a culture was spreading from Iberia to Central Europe (which is acknowledged by archaeologists), but that people who were "Kulturtragers" of that culture, were spreading in the opposite direction.

This idea sounds like nonsense, and that's why the burden of proof is on those who advocate it.

I don't need to prove that people were spreading in the same direction as their material culture. This assumption is logical. The opposite assumption - people moving west but their pots moving east - is illogical.

I could also claim that in the 6th century Prague pots were spreading from Ukraine to Poland, but Slavs were spreading from Poland to Ukraine. Just like you claim about Beaker pots and Beaker people.

One way of looking at distribution maps of artefacts, technology and cultural traits is they represent routes. A route to be successful has to have a reason, some form of transport that makes it viable, some agreements/arrangements to make it safe etc etc. The difference in looking at distribution maps as routes is that once you do that and look at them that way you quickly realise routes once opened are not uni-directional. I think the best way to look at the spread of beakers and other culture is that they are evidence of the opening and/or continuing use of routes rather than a unidirectional A to B migration. Yes of course human migration is important and took place along such routes BUT it probably wasnt in the simple event or unidirectional way people tend to think of these things. It may be better looking at it like the opening of the EU freedom of movement zone. People could move in any direction within the EU but some strong trends predominated.

My own belief is the beaker network started with an Iberian branch that reached as far as the southern Alps and in crossing the latter soon joined onto existing routes in central and eastern Europe. The initial beaker era thrust c. 2600-2500BC was south-west to east but the emphasis slowly reversed over the following centuries. The people living along or using these routes could, according to their position and the exact chronology, absorb traits from both/many directions and create a myriad of variations on beaker culture.

Personally my reading is that beaker arose in Iberia c. 2800BC and remained Iberia-only for 200 years or so before there was perhaps 2 or 3 generations c. 2600-2500BC when Iberian beaker users spread to southern France, the southern Alps and poked there way through the passes northwards. I suspect these people will be genetically the same as mid Neolithic south-west Europeans lacking eastern genetics (just my opinion and I may be wrong). I think the change in beaker genetics will be seen c. 2500BC give or take a few decades and began in central or east-central Europe where P312 and steppe genes became associated with beaker pot use by that time for sure. However, I believe the spread of these eastern genes only made it into southern Europe slowly - possibly very late in the beaker era (say 2200BC) in Spain and Italy.

[Tomenable]

Alan,

Good points, but it is all quite speculative at this point. Not enough aDNA samples.

The more we know about aDNA, the more we realize how many "gaps" still exist...

[alan]

Ah, so you say that L151 emerged on the Steppe, and P312 and U106 also emerged on the Steppe.

And only later they expanded from the Steppe, but for some reason each of them took a different route (as if those people knew who is P312 and who is U106, and introduced some "genetic segregation" - ordering all Yamnaya men with P312 to go that way, while all Yamnaya men with U106 to go this way).

Aren't P312 and U106 (and even L151) too young to have been part of Yamnaya culture?

TMRCA of these clades seems to be younger than even the youngest stage of Yamna culture.

The fact that there was little geographical overlap between P312 and U106 (as you wrote, it looks like they took entirely different routes and initially settled in entirely different parts of Europe) suggests that they expanded as separate founder effects, rather than as part of one and the same massive migration.

It is not difficult to imagine expansions of U106 and P312 as founder effects. After all, I1-M253 almost certainly expanded as a founder effect from somewhere around Scandinavia or Central Europe, and nobody really doubts it. Or do we assume that I1 also came as part of that mass migration from the Steppe?

The common ancestor of P312 and U106 is L11. One L11 guy goes straight north, the other takes the Danube. Many estimates would now place L11 old enough to be Yamnaya before it expanded from the steppes. However not a lot older. So we may be talking a relatively small no of people. Maybe just a couple of clans, each established from an ancestor 2 or 3 generations earlier.

[Tomenable]

I think the change in beaker genetics will be seen c. 2500BC give or take a few decades and began in central or east-central Europe where P312 and steppe genes became associated with beaker pot use by that time for sure.

"Central or east-central Europe" = where exactly (or more approximately where) ???

[alan]

Alan,

Good points, but it is all very speculative at this point. Not enough aDNA samples.

The more we know about aDNA, the more we realize how many "gaps" still exist.

true - and that is why this forum exists - intelligent speculation to fill in the gaps. Back in say 3000BC L11 may have barely come into existence and literally have been a small clan of 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins. The chances of finding one of the earliest L11 is extremely low as by definition it goes back to one guy. Finding a few men in a modestly stratified society is just not going to happen.

[alan]

"Central or east-central Europe" = where exactly (or more approximately where) ???

If I knew that the century or more of speculation fun would all be over :0)

[Tomenable]

^ If we are talking about explosive expansions of Y lineages from small clans to larger populations (as you suggested), then we can't exlcude the possibility that an L11, Proto-P312, guy came from Iberia to Central Europe without having any Steppe admixture, married a woman with a lot of Steppe admixture, and had several P312 sons with 50% Iberian 50% Steppe ancestry. Those sons then married women with a lot of Steppe ancestry, and had their own P312+ sons, who were 75% Steppe and 25% Iberian. With explosive expansions of Y-DNA lineages, autosomal DNA of carriers of these lineages can change within few generations.

Take a look for example at I1-M253.

The earliest carriers of pre-bottleneck I1 were Mesolithic WHG and SHG hunters.

Later Hungarian LBK was an I1 man, but with very Neolithic Farmer autosomal DNA.

Finally we have modern Scandinavians - also I1, but 40-50% "Steppic" autosomally.

Exactly the same thing could happen to P312, or in fact any other Y-DNA lineage.

[Tomenable]

^ If we are talking about explosive expansions of Y lineages from small clans to larger populations (as you suggested), then we can't exlcude the possibility that an L11, Proto-P312, guy came from Iberia to Central Europe without having any Steppe admixture, married a woman with a lot of Steppe admixture, and had several P312 sons with 50% Iberian 50% Steppe ancestry. Those sons then married women with a lot of Steppe ancestry, and had their own P312+ sons, who were 75% Steppe and 25% Iberian. With explosive expansions of Y-DNA lineages, autosomal DNA of carriers of these lineages can change within few generations.

Take a look for example at I1-M253.

The earliest carriers of pre-bottleneck I1 were Mesolithic WHG and SHG hunters.

Later Hungarian LBK was an I1 man, but with very Neolithic Farmer autosomal DNA.

Finally we have modern Scandinavians - also I1, but 40-50% "Steppic" autosomally.

Exactly the same thing could happen to P312, or in fact any other Y-DNA lineage.

And in fact this is exactly what Carleton Stevens Coon once wrote (I quoted him previously on this forum). Coon wrote, that Beaker Folks came from Iberia to the Rhineland and mixed with local Corded Ware women in the Rhineland (as we know Corded Ware were "Steppic" autosomally). Then - during and after that mixing - they for some reason exploded demographically - which fits the narrative of rapid Y-lineage expansions. And after that demographic explosion, they back-migrated in direction from which they had previously come (towards Iberia), and also migrated to Britain. So by the time of entering Britain, they were already Steppe-admixed.

I am NOT just making up all of this right now, only to ruin your party of "Steppe P312" enthusiasts.

This is all in Coon's books, written many decades ago.

Rathlin L21 were Steppe-admixed but this does not contradict what Coon wrote. Because Coon wrote that Beakers invaded the British Isles only AFTER mixing with Corded Ware women in the Rhineland.

Or maybe L21 also emerged already among the Yamnaya, and then came in a massive migration?

Yamnaya chief said: "all of my L21 warriors go to Britain, don't you dare staying on the continent".

[Tomenable]

Or maybe L21 also emerged already among the Yamnaya, and then came in a massive migration?

Yamnaya chief said: "all of my L21 warriors go to Britain, don't you dare staying on the continent".

But I am awaiting my R1b-M343 Backbone SNP Pack test results.

And it is probable that I'm some basal clade of L21 (see my "R1b subclade prediction" thread). So maybe I am the "missing link" in your "L11 from the Steppe" theory, and I will confirm that L11 is from Yamnaya? Maybe I'm descended from a disobedient Yamnaya warrior, who did not listen to his chieftain's order that all of L21 should go to Britain and none of them should stay in continental Europe.

And as we know Yamnaya were better at predicting SNPs than FTDNA. They segregated themselves according to subclades. "U106 go to the northern land where the ice prevails, P312(xL21) go to warm territories where 72 Basque virgins with nice Beaker pots full of alcohol await, and L21 - you the damned stock, you are doomed to stay where there is always rain, in cloudy British Isles far away".

Said the SNP-predicting Shaman of the Yamnaya culture... :biggrin1:

[alan]

^ If we are talking about explosive expansions of Y lineages from small clans to larger populations (as you suggested), then we can't exlcude the possibility that an L11, Proto-P312, guy came from Iberia to Central Europe without having any Steppe admixture, married a woman with a lot of Steppe admixture, and had several P312 sons with 50% Iberian 50% Steppe ancestry. Those sons then married women with a lot of Steppe ancestry, and had their own P312+ sons, who were 75% Steppe and 25% Iberian. With explosive expansions of Y-DNA lineages, autosomal DNA of carriers of these lineages can change within few generations.

Take a look for example at I1-M253.

The earliest carriers of pre-bottleneck I1 were Mesolithic WHG and SHG hunters.

Later Hungarian LBK was an I1 man, but with very Neolithic Farmer autosomal DNA.

Finally we have modern Scandinavians - also I1, but 40-50% "Steppic" autosomally.

Exactly the same thing could happen to P312, or in fact any other Y-DNA lineage.

in theory anything is possible but I just dont think anyone would look at the totality of the available ancient DNA evidence blind unbiased by pottery etc and even vaguely think of Iberia as a like origin of P312. They would look at L23-Z2103 in Yamnaya in the steppes is the only hard anchor point we have in the pre-3000BC L23 story. The most striking thing otherwise is the absence of L23 or indeed any M269 (or even P297) in non-steppe Europe until the beaker era despite an ever growing sample. The several Italians, French and Iberians from the immediate pre-beaker copper age provide not suggestion of the right form of R1b or steppe autosomal ancestry. I believe steppe ancestry only reached Iberia and Italy in the very late beaker era, 2-300 years after steppe genes had become linked to the beaker culture in central and northern Europe. However, this will not be proven one way of another till a decent sample of pre-2500BC Iberian beaker users are tested.

[alan]

But I am awaiting my R1b-M343 Backbone SNP Pack test results.

And it is probable that I'm some basal clade of L21 (see my "R1b subclade prediction" thread). So maybe I am the "missing link" in your "L11 from the Steppe" theory, and I will confirm that L11 is from Yamnaya? Maybe I'm descended from a disobedient Yamnaya warrior, who did not listen to his chieftain's order that all of L21 should go to Britain and none of them should stay in continental Europe.

And as we know Yamnaya were better at predicting SNPs than FTDNA. They segregated themselves according to subclades. "U106 go to the northern land where the ice prevails, P312(xL21) go to warm territories where 72 Basque virgins with nice Beaker pots full of alcohol await, and L21 - you the damned stock, you are doomed to stay where there is always rain, in cloudy British Isles far away".

Said the SNP-predicting Shaman of the Yamnaya culture... :biggrin1:

the parting of the ways of the ancestors of U106 and P312 may well have happened when there was just 2 guys involved or at least two small families. So no SNP sorting skills would be needed :0) Most patterning is probably down to founder effects

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Ha, surely these founding events requires more than one-man or even one-family.

[Kopfjäger]

^^^ Come on, show me that L151 from Yamnaya or any other Steppe culture.

It is funny that you think that L21 in Bronze Age Ireland is a proof that Celtic was spoken there, or that Z2103 in Yamnaya is a proof that Celts had come from the Steppe, but when R1a-Z280 was found in Bronze Age East Germany - nobody declared it a proof that Slavs lived at the Elbe already in the Bronze Age.

Please be consistent with what you consider "sufficient evidence" in each case.

If R1a-Z280 at Halberstadt is not sufficient to declare Slavic presence in BA Germany, then certainly Z2103 or other L23(xL151) in Yamnaya is not sufficient to declare that L151 was present in Yamnaya.
Tomenable,

L21 in Britain is proof that Indo-European was spoken there during the Bronze Age, not necessarily Celtic. Get over it.

[Kopfjäger]

in theory anything is possible but I just dont think anyone would look at the totality of the available ancient DNA evidence blind unbiased by pottery etc and even vaguely think of Iberia as a like origin of P312.

Bias is the difference between science and pseudo-science, and is evident in Tomenable's posts on this forum, as well as in Klyosov's "Übermensch" R1a-ers. Too bad some "unfortunate" papers shut some traps.

[Tomenable]

They would look at L23-Z2103 in Yamnaya in the steppes is the only hard anchor point we have in the pre-3000BC L23 story. The most striking thing otherwise is the absence of L23 or indeed any M269 (or even P297) in non-steppe Europe until the beaker era despite an ever growing sample.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially since large swathes of Europe still remain unsampled or poorly sampled untill this day - including most of the Balkans, which is the right place from which R1b-M269 could expand both into the Steppe, Western Europe and Anatolia.


Bias is the difference between science and pseudo-science, and is evident in Tomenable's posts on this forum

Yeah, surely, everyone else is unbiased, only I am biased. OK, I'm sorry for preventing this forum from ceasing to be a discussion board and turning into a mutual admiration society.

[Tomenable]

L21 in Britain is proof that Indo-European was spoken there during the Bronze Age

Did you read what I wrote about Coon and his theory about Rhenish Beaker migration into Britain?

Clearly you didn't. And nobody has proven Coon to be wrong so far.


the parting of the ways of the ancestors of U106 and P312 may well have happened when there was just 2 guys involved or at least two small families.

But this is not "massive migration from the Steppe". Two small families is not really so massive.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially since large swathes of Europe still remain unsampled or poorly sampled untill this day - including most of the Balkans, which is the right place from which R1b-M269 could expand both into the Steppe, Western Europe and Anatolia.

My money is still on the steppe. The most western and "Balkan" possibility for M269 would be CT or Varna (& subsequent offshoots like Usatavo-Cotofeni); not classic Balkan farmers like Starcevo etc which be basically Anatolian

[Helgenes50]

But this is not "massive migration from the Steppe". Two small families is not really so massive.

That depends on the size of the family !!!

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Ben Roberts has said in paper after paper that he does not believe in the independent invention of metallury in Iberia. At least one Iberian archaeologist has continued in recent years to argue patriotically for an independent invention, but the case does not add up and has been demolished by Roberts. That leaves us with migration. Do you not agree?

Thanks for your reply Jean, i sort of agree, but I'd pick at some of the details of your reconstruction, and most of all, the region which you'd like to place it arriving from (see later).

We have to distinguish between the first appearance of (finished) Copper objects from when production actually began, and these stages might be different for different parts of Iberia. Iberia is a very metalo-genetic peninsula, and individual & sporadic working of fahlore isn't too shocking, especially in the light of exchange of finished products and individual mobility of craftsmen to inspire such. All accounts for this look to southeastern France, or Alpine Europe, and this appeared - as you correctly point out, by ~ 3100 BC.

There is a difference between northern Iberia & southern Iberia. For the north, Soriano concludes


1) There is no archaeological evidence of metallurgical production in these communities. The origin of the first gold and copper objects cannot be linked to the early metallurgy of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula.
It is, without a doubt, to be found on the other side of the Pyrenees, in the south of France and western Switzerland.

2) There were virtually no socioeconomic repercussions resulting from the introduction of metal. The new objects fulfilled similar functions to those made with other materials and in no case did they come to replace them in any sphere of society. Likewise, there was no change in community social relations.

3) The knowledge of this new technology remained “captive” in its area of origin and the other communities were mere consumers with little or no knowledge of the metallurgical process. There may be several reasons for this, although the available data point to two possible hypotheses. The first indicates that the increase in hierarchisation and conflict between the communities of the south of France, attested by a large amount of human remains showing
evidence of violent death, may have restricted knowledge of metallurgy to the neighbouring groups, thus monopolising the new technology (Guilaine & Zammit 2002: 160). The second proposes that the communities themselves would not necessarily have shown any great interest in this production. They would have been content with occasionally receiving the finished products in a similar way to other artefacts, such as the “large flint blades” or globular-winged beads.

4) Only with the emergence of the Bell Beaker phenomenon (c. 2800 cal BC) do we see the first metal production using the smelting crucible technique. It is only then that the great leap forward from a simple object of curiosity to a material with known properties was taken.

The earliest metallurgy in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula: origin, use and socioeconomic implications



It is different in southern Iberia, eg Zambujal, where Copper Metallurgy occurred from the get-go of establishing the walled settlement - as you pointed out. (eg Zambujal and the beginnings of metallurgy in southern Portugal. Pernicka et al.)



Yes I think that they came from Yamnaya, but via northern Italy/Alps. This is what I have been saying in print for years.

I am sceptical of this explanation. The material culture in late Chalcolithic Iberian Copper-enclosures has nothing to do with Yamnaya. Ditched enclosures, macro-villages, megaliths, hypogea, tholos tombs, ivory exotica, a palaeo-zoological profile characterised by hunting wild deer, a lithic industry continuous with the preceding Neolithic, etc, etc; are features which are wholly unknown the steppe. In fact, we're looking at polar opposites.

Further, lets remember that these south Iberian copper sites appear from 3200 BC. Yamnaya had barely begun to emerge in 3200 BC, and only really began to expand into Hungary after 2900 BC.
So how do you suggest they managed to teleport to southern Iberia ? Its simply not possible. I don't buy at suggestions they all of a sudden acquired shipwrighting knowledge. All previous (Eneolithic) trade from Balkans to the steppe (eg the Khvalynsk copper) was mediated overland care of the Suvorovo trade-camp on the lower Danube. If you'd suggested some sophisticated Black Sea centres like Varna or Ilpinar (In NW Anatolia), then i'd consider it a possibility.

As the metal provenance studies suggest, I'd look to Alpine Europe. Cultures like Mondsee & Pfyn knew arsenical copper metallurgy. Movements within Late Neolithic Europe, as seen by subtle but diacernable increased affinities between certain Anatolian centres, Oetzi, & future Balkan aDNA, might be a clue to itinerant craftsmen & families.

Lastly, I don't think the "Stelae trail' is evidence, as the earliest Beaker period Stelae - type A- clearly echo toward the Rhone, not the steppe.



2200 BC is the point at which we see the new BB influx (or "reflux") from the east. This is not in the same area as El Argar. The two should be seen as separate events.

Yes 2 different phenomena were occurring in 2200 BC. 1) the first arrival of actual steppe-related admixture, mediated by late Beaker and even later Bronze Age groups.
2) the different, Argaric - Nuragic connection in south.

So i take the position that early Beaker Iberia (pre-2300 BC) will not have any significant steppe admixture. But if the aDNA proves you right, let me pre-emptively congratulate you on your finding.



The influx of BB from the east is in the region where we later find Celtiberian.

I doubt it's that simple. No sane linguist has ever suggested that Celtic is a Copper Age language (eg A Garrett places its formative period to 2nd Mill BC). In fact, we very well know it isn't - *proto-Celtic has shared terminology for iron and chariots (John Waddell - the Celticization of Ireland). Such items did not exist in 2400 BC, so whatever language(s) BB spoke, it would have been some pre-Celtic, western - IE at best.

[Kopfjäger]

And nobody has proven Coon to be wrong so far.


You're wrong. That's all that matters.

[Jean M]

Ah, so you say that ... P312 and U106 also emerged on the Steppe.

No. I would not care to say if the mutations that created P312 and U106 happened on the steppe or en route from it up the Danube and the Dniester respectively. It does not really matter. Bear in mind that they happened in just one person in each case. One person could not follow both routes. Or if the man in question in each case already had sons, the family would most likely migrate together. Or then again we may find a bit of a mixture up these routes, which simply by drift led to the dominance of P312 in the Danube corridor and U106 east of the Carpathians. All we can actually see right now is a pattern suggestive of different routes.


Aren't P312 and U106 (and even L151) too young to have been part of Yamnaya culture?

Not as far as I know.

[Tomenable]

not classic Balkan farmers like Starcevo etc which be basically Anatolian

Yes but we can see resurgences of Mesolithic WHG lineages in various parts of Europe - I2 and I1.

Assuming that R1b was a Mesolithic Balkan lineage, there could be a similar resurgence of it there.

[Jean M]

We have to distinguish between the first appearance of (finished) Copper objects from when production actually began, and these stages might be different for different parts of Iberia.

This is exactly what I pointed out in a previous post on this thread http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=178881&viewfull=1#post178881


The important thing is whether actual metallurgy is present (not just metal items that could be acquired by trade). Actual metallurgy arrived in Iberia with copper workers c. 3100 BC. So by any sane system that means that those sites with evidence of copper mining and/or working are Chalcolithic. That does not mean that the whole of Iberia instantly became Chalcolithic the minute copper was mined at a single site. (This is where things can get confusing.) Here is a map of some early copper-mining and working sites:


these south Iberian copper sites appear from 3200 BC. Yamnaya had barely begun to emerge in 3200 BC, and only really began to expand into Hungary after 2900 BC. So how do you suggest they managed to teleport to southern Iberia ?

The first copper mining sites in Iberia are c. 3100 BC. Yamnaya emerged c. 3300 BC and spread into the Carpathian Basin 3100–2800 BC (Anthony and Ringe 2015). What I suggest is that the very first arrivals in Iberia were a few copper prospectors, well ahead of any significant migration.


No sane linguist has ever suggested that Celtic is a Copper Age language... In fact, we very well know it isn't - *proto-Celtic has shared terminology for iron and chariots (John Waddell - the Celticization of Ireland). Such items did not exist in 2400 BC, so whatever language(s) BB spoke, it would have been some pre-Celtic, western - IE at best.

Donald Ringe dates the split between Italic and Celtic c. 2500 BC. The argument re the shared terminology was followed by Mallory in The Origins of the Irish (2013) to suggest a relatively late arrival of Celtic in Ireland. I dismiss it, since there is every evidence of waves of Hallstatt and La Tene technology arriving in the British Isles. Whether or not they came with waves of new arrivals, as I believe they did, they would certainly come with the word for "iron" *îsarna/îsarno (Old Irish iarn, Gaulish isarnodori) derived from a PIE basic word for metal. I don't think enough Celtiberian survives to know what word they used for "iron".

My original suggestion (AJ 2013) was that the language which moved into Iberia with the earliest prospectors was Proto-Italo-Celtic, to be followed by the earliest Celtic with the BB reflux into NE Iberia c. 2200 BC. I revised this for AJ 2015 and Blood of the Celts to the earliest IE language into Iberia being Alteuropäisch, for reasons explained therein.

[Jean M]

Lastly, I don't think the "Stelae trail' is evidence, as the earliest Beaker period Stelae - type A- clearly echo toward the Rhone, not the steppe.

Harrison and Heyd 2007 is a massive and dense paper. If you simply flicked through, you might miss the crucial point. I will repeat it. The site at Sion does not start with Bell Beaker i.e. there is no Bell Beaker pottery in its first stage. The culture of the early stage was clearly Yamnaya derived, as explained fully by Harrison and Heyd. The Type A stelae at Sion were set up c. 2700 BC. The Stelae of type B (Bell Beaker) were set up in the next phase.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

The first copper mining sites in Iberia are c. 3100 BC. Yamnaya emerged c. 3300 BC and spread into the Carpathian Basin 3100–2800 BC (Anthony and Ringe 2015). What I suggest is that the very first arrivals in Iberia were a few copper prospectors, well ahead of any significant migration.

It's the fine details which matter- and for that one needs to use propper sources, like Heyds recent article, not palaeo-linguistic overviews.

A significant Yamnaya presence in Hungary only begins after 3000 BC "The situation might have changed after 2950...to a real current of immigration".

There are some early tumuli and Yamnaya-like burials even in 5th century, but most are "by no means Yamnaya burials in strict definition!" (Exclamation point his).

So we have a handful, literally a handful of potentially Yamnaya burials in Hungary before 3000 BC, and what's more, we should expect they also reached (southern) Iberia by 3200 BC. What's more, these handful somehow conquered or convinced the demographically thieving Iberian Neolithic population to accept them as conquerors, whilst still maintaining their own material culture ? Possible but very tenuous, sorry Jean


Donald Ringe dates the split between Italic and Celtic c. 2500 BC.

Don Ringe's tree doesn't consider the effects of ongoing contacts and secondary convergence phenomena, thereby artificially swelling the age of the Celtic & Italic nodes. Moreover, we can't dismiss that the palaeo-lexicon of Celtic points to a late Bronze Age environment, and or that many linguists do not recognize "Italo-Celtic" to be an actual node. Moreover, it's unlikely to be correct from collateral evidence - if Italic really did split in 3200 BC, where did they hide ? Becuase these proto-Italics certainly weren't in Italy until after 2200 BC.


The argument re the shared terminology was followed by Mallory in The Origins of the Irish (2013) to suggest a relatively late arrival of Celtic in Ireland. I dismiss it, since there is every evidence of waves of Hallstatt and La Tene technology arriving in the British Isles. Whether or not they came with waves of new arrivals, as I believe they did, they would certainly come with the word for "iron" *îsarna/îsarno (Old Irish iarn, Gaulish isarnodori), which appears to have been borrowed into Proto-Germanic, and so can be dated to La Tene at least and presumably the Iron Age stages of Hallstatt, and derived from a PIE basic word for metal. I don't think enough Celtiberian survives to know what word they used for "iron".

Jean, Brittonic is basically Gallic. It can't have separated more than a few hundred years before the Roman conquest. You said it yourself, several linguistic waves into Britain. Whatever came with BB was some very early form of IE. Celtic was yet to evolve, and it came much later through small-scale movements and interaction. I thought you were with me on this ? :)

[Jean M]

Soriano concludes..

Thanks for pointing out that paper. It fills a gap.

[Jean M]

So we have a handful, literally a handful of potentially Yamnaya burials in Hungary before 3000 BC, and what's more, we should expect they also reached (southern) Iberia by 3200 BC.

Why should we expect that they reached southern Iberia a thousand years prior to the evidence of copper workers? It would only take a few months to mount a prospecting expedition.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Harrison and Heyd 2007 is a massive and dense paper. If you simply flicked through, you might miss the crucial point. I will repeat it. The site at Sion does not start with Bell Beaker i.e. there is no Bell Beaker pottery in its first stage. The culture of the early stage was clearly Yamnaya derived, as explained fully by Harrison and Heyd. The Type A stelae at Sion were set up c. 2700 BC. The Stelae of type B (Bell Beaker) were set up in the next phase.

It is, and I did skim, but Im pretty sure of what I read. My point was the the Stelae reflect cultural forms typical of late Neolithic western Europe, not eastern newcomers.



"The cultural affiliation of the type A and B stelae is
quite clear from the ornaments and weapons (Fig. 30).
The double-spirals and triangular ribbed daggers are
copper artifacts that belong to the Final Neolithic in
the Swiss Valais. This horizon, which until the 1990’s
was seen as part of the Saône-Rhône Culture (Gallay
1976b; 1976c), belongs in wider European terms to the start of the Late Copper Age

Page 170


And


The megalithic design and architecture is distinctive to this region of the western Alps, yet the type A stelae with Remedello-daggers and double-spirals show
that the community is already connected to the process of transformation that effects all Europe from 2900 BC (see De Saulieu 2004, 69–93). A further sign of longdistance
contacts is the presence of imported daggers of Grand-Pressigny flint (from sources over 400 km to the west), and boar’s tusk plaques......|

An ideological change takes place around 2500 BC, when type B stelae are erected.

Remedello, Grand-Pressigny, .... Early BB west of the upper Danube is clearly rooted in Late Neolithic western Europe. No one has ever claimed contrary



Why should we expect that they reached southern Iberia a thousand years prior to the evidence of copper workers? It would only take a few months to mount a prospecting expedition.

Yamnaya people weren't copper prospectors. They were specialist cattle-herders. What business do they have looking for Copper in Iberia, from where did they manage to learn to how to build elaborate enclosures, and why did they abandon their kurgan -burials to be buried in rock-cut megaliths ?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

delete

[Jean M]

It is, and I did skim, but Im pretty sure of what I read. My point was the the Stelae reflect cultural forms typical of late Neolithic western Europe, not eastern newcomers.

You really need to read a bit more. That quotation alone should tell you that Harrison and Heyd do not go along with Gallay in seeing these features in a purely local context. They set the anthropomorphic stelae within the Yamnaya package, of which they provide a scheme on page 197. Actually they use the term "anthropological stelae" in the upper left quadrant of the scheme.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

You really need to read a bit more. That quotation alone should tell you that Harrison and Heyd do not go along with Gallay in seeing these features in a purely local context. They set the anthropomorphic stelae within the Yamnaya package, of which they provide a scheme on page 197. Actually they use the term "anthropological stelae" in the upper left quadrant of the scheme.

Yes it bears hallmarks of the "Yamnaya package", but Svend Hansen calls it the "Caucasus package", and really, its just the culmination of the Secondary Products development seen throughout Eurasia. Undoubtedly, the proximate inspiration for that as far as central & western Europe are concerned was Yamnaya. But we see this also in Remedello, and it wasn't very steppe admixed at all.
So currently, we really aren't sure if earliest BB phase in Sion, or indeed any part of western Europe, was due to actual Yamnaya colonists/ prospectors/ conquerors, are we ?

And the fact about the Stelae is- why are they reifying the Rhone region, if they are just recently arrived from the Tiezsa ?

[Jean M]

Yamnaya people weren't copper prospectors. They were specialist cattle-herders. What business do they have looking for Copper in Iberia, from where did they manage to learn to how to build elaborate enclosures, and why did they abandon their kurgan -burials to be buried in rock-cut megaliths ?

As David Anthony so wisely says, "cultures don't move, people do," by which he means that migration will not always take the form of an exact and complete copy of culture in place A appearing in place B. So for example the first European arrivals in North America did not immediately build a replica of 17th century London.

Yamnaya people included metallurgists. Groups of metallurgists apparently related to the people of the Yamnaya horizon moved eastwards across the Urals to create the Sintashta fortified settlements. There was nothing like them at the time on the European steppe. Why were they fortified? I presume to prevent raids on their metal and/or horses. It seems they adapted the wagon-ring probably used by the more mobile Yamnaya for that purpose (and thousands of years later by Europeans in North America) into something more suited to long-term occupation. People are inventive and adapt to circumstances.

The fortified settlements in Iberia of the Zambujal and Los Millares type can be seen as protection for colonists. Like many later colonial settlements by Phoenicians and Greeks, they were well placed for sea contacts. These people were clearly traders as well as actually producing metal goods. Both Zambujal and Los Millares are close to rivers from which gold could be panned. I really would not care to say whether these people needed instruction on how to place one stone on top of another. The general idea had been around since Neolithic dolmens. At Sion the tombs were rock-built.

I presume that the re-use of local megalithic tombs was an adaptation to local custom. But I have to tell you that this point has been argued so incessantly on this forum that you are unlikely to be able to wring anything further out of it.

[Jean M]

And the fact about the Stelae is- why are they reifying the Rhone region, if they are just recently arrived from the Tiezsa?

Just recently arrived? The Stelae People had probably been coming and going for centuries along routes between the Carpathian Basin and Iberia before the site at Sion was created. Reifying the Rhone? Harrison and Heyd conclude that the earliest BB at Sion came from the west i.e. the Southern or Early Bell Beaker group. Then there was a break, with the stelae being smashed and the BB influences coming from the NE i.e. the Eastern Bell Beaker group.

Since they place the site as an offshoot of Yamnaya, and they place Yamnaya on the European steppe and up the Danube corridor into the Carpathian Basin, it should be obvious that they do not see its ultimate ancestor as the Iberian Neolithic or the Rhone Neolithic.

Please don't force me to explain Harrison and Heyd 2007 point by point yet again. I have had to do this so many times. :(

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Sorry Jean, I realize you've debated this a lot before.

[Jean M]

Yes it bears hallmarks of the "Yamnaya package"

So glad that we agree on something.


really, its just the culmination of the Secondary Products development seen throughout Eurasia.

The Secondary Products Revolution is indeed part of the Yamnaya package, and I argue that the adoption of the SPR was the chief asset of Yamnaya and helps enormously to explain the success of those of its offshoots which entered regions which had not previously profited from the SPR.

However, if you look more closely at the Yamnaya package as described by H & H, you may notice some items that are not just SPR, such as decorated bone or metal discs, precious metal Lockenringe, cord decoration on pottery, cross-footed bowls, shaft-hole axes, tanged daggers and bone toggles, in addition to the anthropomorphic stelae so characteristic of Yamnaya, which travelled with several of its cultural descendants. The type of precious metal Lockenringe on the steppe was spiral. These are also found in the Bell Beaker of Portugal.

[Jean M]

Sorry Jean, I realize you've debated this a lot before.

Very much appreciated. And I do realise that Harrison and Heyd 2007 is not the easiest paper to get to grips with. Several people have complained that they nowhere make a really simple statement that summarises what they concluded.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Very much appreciated. And I do realise that Harrison and Heyd 2007 is not the easiest paper to get to grips with. Several people have complained that they nowhere make a really simple statement that summarises what they concluded.

Yes, admittedly it is confusing, especially when Heyd repeatedly states :

"Recent research again calls the Iberian peninsula the starting point of the Bell Beaker phenomenon... Several new radiocarbon dates have confirmed the early assignment of the phenomenon on the Iberian peninsula – as early as 2700 BC – and therefore put it in close proximity to the transformational wave that had set the stage for the Corded Ware / Single Grave cultures. ..Expanding westwards along the Atlantic and Mediterranean shores in the early 26th century BC and reaching the British islands, northern Italy, Central Europe and the Carpathian basin around or shortly after 2500 BC, the Bell Beaker phenomenon arrives at its peak. This should also be the moment when the underlying ideology and, deriving from that, the typical Bell Beaker package is fully developed. '

and that "It is obvious that cultural assimilation by indigenous people of an ideological ‘Package’ was important".

I hope a new paper is on the way.


NB: In central Europe, BB is everywhere preceded by CWC. A clarification of their interaction would be enlightening.

[R.Rocca]

Yes it bears hallmarks of the "Yamnaya package", but Svend Hansen calls it the "Caucasus package", and really, its just the culmination of the Secondary Products development seen throughout Eurasia. Undoubtedly, the proximate inspiration for that as far as central & western Europe are concerned was Yamnaya. But we see this also in Remedello, and it wasn't very steppe admixed at all.

GD, you are right, and for this reason, I thought for sure that Remedello and Baden were shoe-ins to be R1b+. However, I would not make the same mistake now and attribute the entire secondary products revolution to one single culture nor one single haplogroup. Individual parts of the Yamnaya package (besides horses) probably had their own similar but different flavors in Europe during the Copper Age. It doesn't mean that they weren't partially replaced by Yamnaya related people at a later time.


So currently, we really aren't sure if earliest BB phase in Sion, or indeed any part of western Europe, was due to actual Yamnaya colonists/ prospectors/ conquerors, are we ?

The sequence of Bell Beaker at the sister sites of Sion & Aosta are still debated, Gallay on one side and Harrison & Heyd on the other. Given that, I don't think anything Bell Beaker in Sion is "early" in a pan-European sense.

[Jean M]

"It is obvious that cultural assimilation by indigenous people of an ideological ‘Package’ was important".

The full quotation:


In this transformation, under the impact of ideas originating in the Yamnaya culture, different processes were taking place together, and their mutual interactions are more complicated than one might expect. It is obvious that cultural assimilation by indigenous people of an ideological ‘Package’ was important; but so too was the arrival of individual people from the steppes and Pontic area.

This paper was written within the old paradigm of anti-migrationism. It does not press the case for migration, while leaving the way open for it.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

The sequence of Bell Beaker at the sister sites of Sion & Aosta are still debated, Gallay on one side and Harrison & Heyd on the other. Given that, I don't think anything Bell Beaker in Sion is "early" in a pan-European sense.

Of course, Sion is part of BB east from the outset

[R.Rocca]

Of course, Sion is part of BB east from the outset

Sion has Bell Beaker material from the French, Northern Italian and Eastern Bell Beaker provinces, so I don't know. I don't recall anything that dated the eastern influences earlier than the western, but I'd have to re-read some material. And please note that the site contains plenty of stelae with Remedello knives which are pre-Bell Beaker.

[Jean M]

NB: In central Europe, BB is everywhere preceded by CWC. A clarification of their interaction would be enlightening.

I think Volker Heyd is the man for this. See V. Heyd, Families, Prestige Goods, Warriors and Complex Societies: Beaker Groups of the 3rd Millennium cal BC along the Upper and Middle Danube. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 73 (2007), p. 321-370, section headed "Evaluating the relationship between Corded Ware and Bell Beaker users" pp. 362-68. Extracts:


On the one hand, we see evidence suggesting rejection and aversion. On the other hand, the evidence suggests that there was some form of special social discourse between the groups. ...

... While we may not be able to prove the existence of Late Copper Age territoriality using the archaeological evidence at our disposal, nevertheless the dialectic in terms of material culture, practices and traditions between the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker cultures, and the observed pattern of spatial separation followed by partial integration (ie, dissolution of the spatio-cultural divide) provide indirect evidence that something like a land capture could have taken place. To emphasise the special situation described here: this also implies an ethnic dimension between Corded Ware and Bell Beaker users along the upper Danube. This is not only based on different pot shapes, decoration, and temper, but all aspects of cultural expression are either dialectic or different, including even the physical anthropology (see also Heyd et al. 2005).

[Jean M]

Sion is part of BB east from the outset

No. Once Sion became BB, it and the BB sites of southern France were initially part of the southern or early Bell Beaker province. Then there was a switch of influence, with Eastern BB dominating Sion and the southern French sites. This is explained by Harrison and Heyd 2007 for Sion and Olivier Lemercier in various papers for Southern France.

[Tomenable]

According to this analysis by Krefter, there was 6.5% of EHG admixture in Iberian Middle Neolithic:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IjnDNbzT4kJrSp0TbQm_12uVXD7YUk54FOpO_QyOHto/edit#gid=957962955

[rms2]

But there is also no evidence to the contrary, as long as there is no Y-DNA from Iberian Bell Beaker.

There is plenty of evidence that L151 (which most of us usually refer to as L11) did not expand from Iberia. Take a look at the L11 clades and their distributions. We can go into that if you would like. The only one of them that looks like it might have expanded out of Iberia is DF27, and even that fails to deliver upon closer inspection.

Then take a look at the ancient y-dna evidence. We don't need Iberian Bell Beaker to see that L11 is conspicuous by its absence from Iberia in the Neolithic and earlier. Thus far the oldest L11 is found in ancient Bell Beaker remains, all of which have substantial Yamnaya-like autosomal dna (and that includes Irish Bell Beaker). Recall too that Z2103 is a brother clade of L51 under L23 and that, thus far, no western Yamnaya remains have yet been tested. It's not that L51 is actually missing from western Yamnaya: NO WESTERN YAMNAYA REMAINS HAVE EVEN BEEN TESTED.

Since this thread was started to discuss Gimbutas' opinions on Bell Beaker and their possible relevance to R1b, it won't hurt to reiterate that Gimbutas was one of the world's foremost archaeologists and that she was right about most of what she had to say. She was right big time, for example, on the Indo-European homeland. And Gimbutas believed that Bell Beaker was the product of the melding of Vucedol and Yamnaya in the Carpathian basin.

I expect Iberian Bell Beaker to be mostly R1b-P312, but the real question is what will the very earliest Iberian Bell Beaker look like. If it is R1b, then that will probably mean Jean is right and Bell Beaker got to Iberia from the steppe. If it's not, then that will mean that Beaker began as something non-steppic and only acquired its steppic elements (including its R1b) once it moved east.

[R.Rocca]

According to this analysis by Krefter, there was 6.5% of EHG admixture in Iberian Middle Neolithic:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IjnDNbzT4kJrSp0TbQm_12uVXD7YUk54FOpO_QyOHto/edit#gid=957962955

And Swedish Hunter Gatherer is 48.7% EHG? Something looks wrong in those numbers, no?

[rms2]

And Swedish Hunter Gatherer is 48.7% EHG? Something looks wrong in those numbers, no?

Honestly, I think a lot of the thinking about autosomal dna is really in its infancy and is confusing as hell. But autosomal dna is a recombinant crap shoot in each generation.

That is why I think the uniparental markers are a safer bet and much easier to follow.

[Tomenable]

Thus far the oldest L11 is found in ancient Bell Beaker remains

All Bell Beakers so far have been P312+, none of them was L11*.


And Swedish Hunter Gatherer is 48.7% EHG?

It has been known for a while that SHG were a mix of WHG and EHG.

[rms2]

All Bell Beakers so far have been P312+, none of them was L11*. . .

All of the P312+ Beakers are L11+ because P312 is downstream of L11. That is what I meant when I said the oldest L11 thus far has been found in ancient Bell Beaker remains. That is still true.

RISE564 (a Bell Beaker man from the Osterhofen/Altenmarkt site in Germany) was L51*.

BTW, even if we had an L11* Bell Beaker man, that would not mean L11 was really his terminal SNP. It would just mean that was the most the scientists could squeeze out of his crusty old bones. Even RISE564 was probably U152 or something.

[Tomenable]

Thus far the oldest L11 is found in ancient Bell Beaker remains, all of which have substantial Yamnaya-like autosomal dna (and that includes Irish Bell Beaker).

If you take a map and draw a straight line from Hamburg to Augsburg, then all of our continental Bell Beaker remains tested so far were buried to the east of that line. And the fact that they were Steppe-admixed is not surprising because already Coon wrote that Beaker Folks became admixed by Steppe Folks in the Rhineland. We need to test some Bell Beaker remains from areas to the south and to the west of Rhineland (including France, Italy, Iberia) and see if they also had R1b, and see if they also had Steppe ancestry. We only have Eastern Beakers so far. And British-Irish Beakers were derived from Eastern (Rhenish) Beakers.

[rms2]

If you take a map and draw a straight line from Bremen to Augsburg, then all of our continental Bell Beaker remains tested so far were buried to the east of that line. And the fact that they were Steppe-admixed is not surprising because already Coon wrote that Beaker Folks became admixed by Steppe Folks in the Rhineland. We need to test some Bell Beaker remains from areas to the south and to the west of Rhineland (including France, Italy, Iberia) and see if they also had R1b, and see if they also had Steppe ancestry. We only have Eastern Beakers so far. And British-Irish Beakers were derived from Eastern (Rhenish) Beakers.

We also have a Vucedol Period skeleton from Hungary that thus far is R1b-M343. It is supposed to be undergoing further testing in Reich's lab.

One thing we do not have is any R1b-L51 from the Neolithic or earlier in Iberia.

We also still do not have any Yamnaya y-dna from west of the Don, that is, from the very people who actually moved west and are likely responsible for the introduction of Indo-European languages into Europe west of the Dniester.

Coon never said Bell Beaker was purely Iberian but became steppe admixed in the Rhineland. I know you have pushed the idea that Bell Beaker acquired its Yamnaya-like autosomal dna from Corded Ware women, but that just makes no sense whatsoever. Do you need to be told why, again?

[R.Rocca]

All Bell Beakers so far have been P312+, none of them was L11*.

Only two have had enough downstream reads an indeed both were P312... doesn't mean all will be, although I don't think there is anything to suggest that most won't be. We'll just have to wait and see. Either way, the progression of L23>L51>L11 goes East to West, and there is no denying it.


It has been known for a while that SHG were a mix of WHG and EHG.

That I know, but that much of a mix?

[Tomenable]

Nearly all of our BB and CWC samples from Germany come from two specific areas:

Area 1. - Quedlinburg-Kromsdorf-Esperstedt-Eulau (see the 1st map below).
Area 2. - Osterhofen(Altenmarkt)-Augsburg-Tiefbrunn (see the 2nd map below).

Bell Beaker samples from area 1. include:

QLB26 - dated to 2467-2142 BC
QLB28 - dated to 2296-2206 BC
Krom5 & 8 - dated to 2600-2500 BC

Corded Ware samples from area 1. include:

ESP11 - dated to 2473-2348 BC
ESP8, 20, 28, 32, 33, 36 - dated to 2500-2050 BC
ESP14 & 17 - dated to 2500-2400 BC
EUL9, 11 & 12 - dated to ca. 2600 BC

Bell Beaker samples from area 2. include:

RISE560 (Augsburg) - unknown age
RISE563 & 564 (Osterhofen) - unknown age

Corded Ware samples from area 2. include:

RISE434 (Tiefbrunn) - dated to 2880-2630 BC
RISE436 (Tiefbrunn) - dated to 2868-2580 BC

=============================

Those particular CWC and BB lived next to each other and in the same time.

There had to be interactions between them, and if they intermarried (or even just raped each other's women) then autosomal DNA had to be similar at least to some extent.

Now tell me please, which of those groups living at the same time and in proximity to each other had more of Steppe ancestry? Because as far as I know, CWC had more of it.

Area 1. map:

Distance from Eulau to Kromsdorf = 39 km
Distance from Quedlinburg to Esperstedt = 55 km
Distance from Esperstedt to Kromsdorf = 52 km

https://s4.postimg.io/nf0c3f3bx/Area_1.png

Area 2. map:

Distance from Tiefbrunn to Osterhofen = 61 km
Distance from Tiefbrunn to Augsburg = 118 km

https://s4.postimg.io/je4ajnqcd/Area_2.png

[rms2]

Where's the R1a in Bell Beaker if it acquired its patriarchal, horse-riding, steppe culture from Corded Ware?

Are you claiming that Corded Ware women introduced a male-centered (that's basically what patriarchal means) culture to Bell Beaker men?

Don't you find it at all curious that Gimbutas said Bell Beaker was the product of Vucedol and Yamnaya, and R1b-L23 has turned up in both Yamnaya and Bell Beaker . . . and we have an R1b-M343 Vucedol Period skeleton from Hungary that will probably turn out to be R1b-L23 at the very least?

Corded Ware currently has more Yamnaya_Samara autosomal dna than BB has. Ever wonder how things will look once we have some Yamnaya_Carpathian Basin autosomal dna?

Here's a thought: let's apply your own reasoning to Corded Ware. Thus far Yamnaya is pretty solidly R1b, but Corded Ware is mostly R1a.

Maybe Corded Ware acquired its Yamnaya_Samara autosomal dna via Yamnaya women?

[Tomenable]

I forgot about one BB sample from Rothenschirmbach, which is in Area 1. as described above (this town is located only 10 km from Esperstedt). This sample - I1530 (or ROT1) - is dated to 2345-2198 BC so within the same timeframe as CWC samples from nearby Esperstedt. All of our BB samples are both temporally and geographically from BB-CWC borderland territory. Y-DNA haplogroup of this BB man from Rothenschirmbach is described as only R1+ (it is not specified whether he was R1b or R1a by Jean's website).

Rms2 - so you are just simply totally ignoring the fact that all of our BB samples from Germany known so far lived within one-day horseback rides from all of our CWC samples from Germany known so far? They lived in the same areas (see my two maps above) and were also contemporary with each other.

[Tomenable]

Thus far Yamnaya is pretty solidly R1b, but Corded Ware is mostly R1a.

Poles are pretty solidly R1a, Bosniaks are pretty solidly I2a.

Do we speak different languages, or are both of them Slavic?

Also Swedes are pretty solidly I, Bosniaks are pretty solidly I.

So I guess that Swedes speak Slavic just like Bosniaks do ???

You need to get into specific subclades. Z2103 is not L11.

[rms2]

. . .

Rms2 - so you are just simply totally ignoring the fact that all of our BB samples from Germany known so far lived within one-day horseback rides from all of our CWC samples from Germany known so far? They lived in the same areas (see my two maps above) and were also contemporary with each other.

How does that prove that BB acquired its steppe autosomal dna from CW? It does not.

Once again, where is the R1a in BB if it acquired almost everything that made it what it is from CW?

And once again, applying your reasoning, maybe CW acquired its Yamnaya-like autosomal dna from Yamnaya women. After all, thus far, no Yamnaya men have been R1a.

[rms2]

. . .

You need to get into specific subclades. Z2103 is not L11.

But both Z2103 and L51 are L23+. How likely does it seem to you that the former is Indo-European but the latter is something else altogether and from the opposite end of the continent?

Really?

[rms2]

. . .

You need to get into specific subclades. Z2103 is not L11.

BTW, Z2103 isn't R1a either.

But it is L23+, just like what? L51 maybe?

[Tomenable]

But both Z2103 and L51 are L23+

Yes, so what? They are also both R1+, R+, P+, K2+, K+, IJK+ and so on.

========================================

As for the Beaker people - here they say that they were mainly traders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmHXBXG7Loo#t=3m05s

Traders would move to a place as singles and marry local women there. Traders move alone. But when they marry a woman, they settle down, and become farmers (as the documentary says).

[Tomenable]

Here's a thought: let's apply your own reasoning to Corded Ware. Thus far Yamnaya is pretty solidly R1b, but Corded Ware is mostly R1a. Maybe Corded Ware acquired its Yamnaya_Samara autosomal dna via Yamnaya women?

Or Corded Ware is decended from Sredni Stog, from which also Yamnaya is descended (but from another branch of Sredni Stog).

[rms2]

Yes, so what? . . .

Really? Come on.

Z2103 and L51 are both brother clades immediately under L23. Are you really dismissing that as meaningless and of no help whatsoever in deciphering the genesis of Bell Beaker and the spread of Indo-European throughout Europe?

The "so what" is that Z2103 and L51 are pretty closely related and are not likely to have have arisen very far from one another in either space or time.




As for the Beaker people - here they say that they were mainly traders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmHXBXG7Loo#t=3m05s

Traders would move to a place as singles and marry local women there. Traders move alone. But when they marry a woman, they settle down, and become farmers (as the documentary says).

Since Yamnaya has been pretty solidly R1b thus far (just one exception, and that was I2, not R1a), perhaps Corded Ware (by far mostly R1a) acquired its Yamnaya-like autosomal dna from Yamnaya women, and Bell Beaker acquired its from its own men, who, like the Yamnaya men, were mostly R1b-L23.

[rms2]

Duplicate post. Please delete.

[Tomenable]

Z2103 and L51 are both brother clades immediately under L23.

But then there was a one thousand year long gap between L51 and L11.

L51 did not "explode demographically".

L11 did "explode", but one thousand years after L51 had split from L23.

[Tomenable]

perhaps Corded Ware (by far mostly R1a) acquired its Yamnaya-like autosomal dna from Yamnaya women

No, probably Corded Ware was descended from Sredni Stog horizon, rather than from Yamnaya.

Yamnaya was also descended from Sredni Stog horizon, but from another part of that horizon.

Remember that Yamnaya emerged 3300 BC and Corded Ware 3200 BC - it is not much younger.


The "so what" is that Z2103 and L51 are pretty closely related and are not likely to have have arisen very far from one another in either space or time.

That's why I suggested that maybe L23+ lineages expanded from the Balkans.

Z2103 came from the Balkans to the Steppe, L51 from the Balkans to Western Europe.

We also have some L23* in the Steppe, who came there together with Z2103.

Probably some L23* also came to Western Europe with more derived L51 lineages.

[Tomenable]

There is no any M269+ or L23+ on the Steppe before Yamnaya.

There is some R1b(xL23), but in Europe as well (e.g. Villabruna).

We can't be sure where exactly did M269 / L23 start its expansion.

[rms2]

No, probably Corded Ware was descended from Sredni Stog horizon, rather than from Yamnaya . . .

I was merely applying your own reasoning to Corded Ware, and what I came up with actually makes more sense than what you suggested.

I don't really believe that CW acquired much of anything from Yamnaya women or vice versa.

I also do not believe that CW women are responsible for the steppe autosomal dna in BB. In fact, I think that's ridiculous.




That's why I suggested that maybe L23+ lineages expanded from the Balkans.

Z2103 came from the Balkans to the Steppe, L51 from the Balkans to Western Europe.

We also have some L23* in the Steppe, who came there together with Z2103.

There is no reason to believe that other than a desire for it to be true.

We know that Indo-European languages are spoken throughout Europe, and they got there somehow. We also know that R1b-L23, like Indo-European languages, is pervasive in western Europe, and it got there somehow. Scientists took a look at Yamnaya remains, since Yamnaya is thought to be the primary vehicle for the introduction of IE languages into Europe west of the Dniester. They found the male remains to be by far mostly R1b-L23, even though all they have tested thus far has come from the eastern part of Yamnaya's range. Thus, although Yamnaya has been solidly R1b-L23, it has been mostly of the Z2103 branch of L23. We need some test results from western Yamnaya, the part that was actually responsible for spreading IE to the west. A big clue is that the L51 branch of L23 has been found in Bell Beaker, and it was likely Bell Beaker that was "Yamnaya 2.0" for the West and carried the IE torch all the way to the Atlantic.

[Tomenable]

There is no reason to believe that

OK so maybe you should tell me what was the Y-DNA of cultures such as Vinca and Varna?


In fact, I think that's ridiculous.

We have contemporary with each other CW and BB samples, who lived next to each other, and CW had more Steppe admixture than BB. Yet you claim that they both got it independently, rather than BB acquiring their smaller amount from CW living next door, who had a significantly higher amount.


We also know that R1b-L23, like Indo-European languages, is pervasive in western Europe.

Are Indo-European languages pervasive only in western Europe?

Is India located somewhere next to France? Perhaps in London?

BTW:

How do you explain that e.g. Armenians have a lot of L23 but hardly any Yamnaya/Steppe admixture?

And Basques have the highest percentage of L23 yet they don't even speak an IE language.

In Britain and Ireland people speak English and people who brought it to Britain were less R1b than Celts (we can say that Old English language was transmited largely by I1-M253, I2-M223 and R1a-Z284).

[rms2]

There is no any M269+ or L23+ on the Steppe before Yamnaya.

Well, that could be because L23 is not much older than Yamnaya.



There is some R1b(xL23), but in Europe as well (e.g. Villabruna).

We can't be sure where exactly did M269 / L23 start its expansion.

Villabruna is really irrelevant to this discussion since it is not R1b-L23 or even R1b-M269 and is very likely a one-off. Tomorrow an R1a could turn up in Paleolithic Italian remains. Hunter-gatherers wandered all over Europe in search of game.

Let's stick to what we know of Bell Beaker, Yamnaya, and Corded Ware.

When I am doing my own genealogy, I start with my 3rd great grandfather, who was born West Virginia. I don't jump to Villa Bruna (or even Bell Beaker).

[Tomenable]

Villabruna is really irrelevant to this discussion since it is not R1b-L23 or even R1b-M269

All Pre-Yamnaya Steppe samples were also not L23 or even M269.

So you have no proof that L23 or M269 originated in the Steppe.


Well, that could be because L23 is not much older than Yamnaya.

Old enough to have originated in Balkan Copper Age or Early Bronze cultures.

[rms2]

OK so maybe you should tell me what was the Y-DNA of cultures such as Vinca and Varna ???

Perhaps you could tell me. After all, you are the one stumping for the Balkans as the birthplace of L23.

I believe L23 arose on the steppe, and I am on firmer ground than you are, since we actually have some L23 from the steppe.




We have contemporary with each other CW and BB samples, who lived next to each other, and CW had more Steppe admixture than BB. Yet you claim that they both got it independently, rather than BB acquiring their smaller amount from CW living next door, who had a significantly higher amount.

BB is thus far solidly R1b, but CW is solidly R1a. BB did not acquire its patriarchal culture or its steppe autosomal dna from CW. If it did, it would be at least 50% R1a rather than 0% R1a. Yamnaya, like Bell Beaker, but UNLIKE Corded Ware, is solidly R1b-L23. It is ridiculous to claim that BB acquired its steppe autosomal dna from Corded Ware women.

The reason Bell Beaker is only about 50% Yamnaya_Samara is because Bell Beaker is the product of Yamnaya in the Carpathian basin. Its steppe peoples encountered larger numbers of Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers than did Corded Ware, which came across the relatively more lightly populated North European Plain. This is not hard to understand. The genetic milieu in the Carpathian basin was different from that on the North European Plain.

Here's another thing. The standard of comparison right now is Yamnaya_Samara. We don't have any Yamnaya_Carpathian Basin. When we do, you may see that Bell Beaker is closer to Yamnaya_Carpathian Basin than Corded Ware is.




Are Indo-European languages pervasive only in western Europe?

No, but we are discussing Bell Beaker in this thread, not Patagonia.



Is India located somewhere next to France? Perhaps in London?

Well, London is becoming more and more Indian, but that's another matter.

Anyway, India is irrelevant to this discussion, unless you are claiming that India is the PIE homeland.

[Tomenable]

As you noticed we have one R1b - M6-116.8 - dated to 2860-2620 BC from Lánycsók, Csata-alja, Hungary. Another sample - M6-116.10 - from that place was I2a2a-M223. Also 2860-2620 BC.

Has anybody tested their autosomal DNA ???

Jean M doesn't describe them as Vučedol.

[rms2]

All Pre-Yamnaya Steppe samples were also not L23 or even M269.

So you have no proof that L23 or M269 originated in the Steppe.

Except that we actually have ancient L23 and M269 from the steppe and the R* Mal'ta Boy from Siberia.

Thus far you are merely pulling the Balkans out of your *whatever* because for some reason you don't want L23 to be Indo-European.

If L23 arose in the Balkans, where is it in all those Neolithic remains from there?




Old enough to have originated in Balkan Copper Age or Early Bronze cultures.

Old enough to have originated anywhere, even Hawaii.

[jdean]

Out of curiosity, whenever we are having this argument that 'all Yamnaya are Z2103 so don't count and anyway Villabruna proves R1b originated in Italy' how come I0124 isn't mentioned or has something happened to put those results into doubt ?

[rms2]

As you noticed we have one R1b - M6-116.8 - dated to 2860-2620 BC from Lánycsók, Csata-alja, Hungary. Another sample - M6-116.10 - from that place was I2a2a-M223. Also 2860-2620 BC.

Has anybody tested their autosomal DNA ???

Jean M doesn't describe them as Vučedol.

Neither did I. The paper's author says "Vucedol period" because she is not prepared to assert that either of them came from the Vucedol culture.

That leaves an opening for you to say the R1b-M343 one was a Basque on vacation among the Vucedol people in Hungary.

[Tomenable]

And where do you see alleged Yamnaya influence on Vucedol?

Vucedol developed from Baden culture and Kostolac culture of Serbia.

So R1b in Vucedol was native to Balkan Copper Age cultures.

[rms2]

And where do you see alleged Yamnaya influence on Vucedol?

Vucedol developed from Baden culture and Kostolac culture from Serbia.

So R1b in Vucedol was native to Balkan Copper Age cultures.

Nope. Vucedol was the product of the mixing of steppe peoples and local Neolithic farmers, at least according to Gimbutas. It is thought to have been an IE-speaking culture.

[Tomenable]

That leaves an opening for you to say the R1b-M343 one was a Basque on vacation

No, he was a Serbian on vacation (Vucedol culure originated in the Balkans).

So as I wrote, L23 probably emerged in the Balkans during the Copper Age.

[Tomenable]

at least according to Gimbutas

Many of Gimbutas' ideas were wrong. She was a crazy feminist after all.

[Tomenable]

the product of the mixing of steppe peoples and local Neolithic farmers

And that's why we can see only WHG / HG haplogroups - R1b and I2a2a - among them ???

Where are typically Neolithic haplogroups ??? R1b is WHG (see Villabruna) and I2a is WHG too.

It was a resurgence of males with Mesolithic Y-DNA. We observe similar resurgences elsewhere.

[rms2]

Out of curiosity, whenever we are having this argument that 'all Yamnaya are Z2103 so don't count and anyway Villabruna proves R1b originated in Italy' how come I0124 isn't mentioned or has something happened to put those results into doubt ?

Yep. That's a pretty old one, 5650-5555 BC, from the steppe, and it was P297+ (or the equivalent).

[rms2]

No, he was a Serbian on vacation (Vucedol culure originated in the Balkans).

So as I wrote, L23 probably emerged in the Balkans during the Copper Age.

Vucedol was not limited to Serbia.

10963

[Tomenable]

I0124 was only L278+, AFAIK. P297 was not confirmed.

[rms2]

And that's why we can see only WHG / HG haplogroups - R1b and I2a2a - among them ???

Ridiculous. What are you talking about? All y haplogroups as old as R1b are hunter-gatherer haplogroups, because that's all that people were that long ago.

Don't dissemble.



Where are typically Neolithic haplogroups ??? R1b is WHG (see Villabruna) and I2a is WHG too.

It was a resurgence of males with Mesolithic Y-DNA. We observe similar resurgences elsewhere.

What are you talking about? R1b has not turned up in the numerous results from the Balkans in the Neolithic.

Villa Bruna is a red herring as far as this discussion is concerned. You bring it up out of sheer desperation.

[rms2]

I0124 was only L278+, AFAIK. P297 was not confirmed.

And he was on the branch leading to M478, not P297:

He was PF6513+, which is a P297 equivalent.

[Tomenable]

R1b has not turned up in the numerous results from the Balkans in the Neolithic.

Neither has I2a2a - which turned up in Vucedol next to R1b.

[Tomenable]

He was PF6513+, which is a P297 equivalent.

OK. But he was Pre-M478, and negative for M269:


[M478 equivalent Y13872+, Y13866- (The presence of positive and negative markers in the M478 node can reflect an intermediate stage of its formation.)]

[rms2]

Neither has I2a2a - which turned up in Vucedol next to R1b.

Goody. Neither has O. How does the absence of I2a2a prove that R1b-L23 originated in the Balkans?

It doesn't.

[Tomenable]

Goody. Neither has O.

But O was not present in Pre-Neolithic Europe. While I2a and R1b were.

And for some reason Mesolithic lineages did better during the Neolithic-to-Metal Ages transition.

It refers also to Non-R1 Mesolithic lineages, such as mainly I2a, or I1.

[rms2]

OK. But he was Pre-M478, and negative for M269:

M478 and M269 are both P297+, and we know there was ancient M269 on the steppe because we have found it. Even today those P297 brothers, M478 (M73) and M269, are found in close proximity to one another only in far eastern Europe and western Asia.

If you want to find the old homestead, look for the place where the kinfolk hang out.

[Tomenable]

Today the 4 main haplogroups of Europe are R1b, R1a, I1 and I2a.

R1b - Villabruna. R1a - Karelia. I1 - Stora Förvar. I2a - all over Europe.

All of these haplogroups were present in Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe.

The "takeover of Europe" by foreign Neolithic lineages was only temporary.

Later a resurgence of native European hunter lineages took place.

[rms2]

But O was not present in Pre-Neolithic Europe. While I2a and R1b were.

And for some reason Mesolithic lineages did better during the Neolithic-to-Metal Ages transition.

It refers also to Non-R1 Mesolithic lineages, such as mainly I2a, or I1.

I don't accept your premise, i.e., that all European R1b should be regarded as WHG because of a single, R1b-L278 result.

Villa Bruna is not relevant to this discussion.

You claimed L23 originated in the Balkans. You have no evidence, not even circumstantial evidence, so you pull Villa Bruna out, even though it is meaningless as far as this is concerned.

[rms2]

Today the 4 main haplogroups of Europe are R1b, R1a, I1 and I2a.

R1b - Villabruna. R1a - Karelia. I1 - Stora Förvar. I2a - all over Europe.

All of these haplogroups were present in Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe.

The "takeover of Europe" by foreign Neolithic lineages was only temporary.

Later a resurgence of native European hunter lineages took place.

Why don't you start a thread to assert that all of us R1b's are descended from Villa Bruna? That ought to be a classic.

In the meantime, let's stick with reality.

[Táltos]

Many of Gimbutas' ideas were wrong. She was a crazy feminist after all.

Please refrain from using sexist speech.

[rms2]

Personally, I have the utmost respect for Marija Gimbutas. She was one of the all-time greats, IMHO.

[Tomenable]

Ok, she was a non-crazy feminist (which is why she is listed in "feminist archaeology" article):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_archaeology#See_also

[Tomenable]

Personally, I have the utmost respect for Marija Gimbutas. She was one of the all-time greats, IMHO.

Yes but she was not unbiased and not all of her ideas were later confirmed by other archeologists.

Only the "core" was confirmed.

Besides if you believe in everything Gimbutas told then you shouldn't consider Yamnaya to be PIE.

Because according to Gimbutas Yamnaya was just one of several IE-speaking cultures, not PIE.

[rms2]

Where Gimbutas was wrong, she was wrong mostly as a matter of degree, not wrong in absolute terms. She got most things right.

She went too far in asserting that the people of Old Europe were completely pacific and were slaughtered like sheep by the male dominated kurgans. Still, there is a certain element of truth in what Gimbutas said. The peoples of Old Europe do appear to have followed a mother goddess cult, while the PIE people were patriarchal and worshiped a male sky god. And it is likely some violence was involved in the spread of IE.

[rms2]

Yes but she was not unbiased and not all of her ideas were later confirmed by other archeologists.

Only the "core" was confirmed.

Besides if you believe in everything Gimbutas told then you shouldn't consider Yamnaya to be PIE.

Because according to Gimbutas Yamnaya was just one of several IE-speaking cultures, not PIE.

You think Yamnaya was the sole IE-speaking culture?

I don't.

What of Corded Ware?

Who is unbiased?

[Jean M]

Yes but she was not unbiased and not all of her ideas were later confirmed by other archeologists..

You are absolutely right there. J.P. Mallory and David Anthony have not supported every single one of the ideas of Gimbutas. That would be impossible for anyone, because her views changed over the years, including about which cultures were IE speaking. Her vision of the Neolithic and "Old Europe" as a peaceful matriarchy has dissolved, now that archaeologists are permitting themselves to discover the heritage of violence.

Her core supposition that PIE developed on the steppe was not original to her. It is an idea that occurred before her time. She developed it in interesting ways, for example her proposals of several waves of IE speakers. But these ideas are not slavishly followed in all details by Mallory or Anthony. When new archaeologists come along they should make their own evaluations, especially when the body of data has increased substantially.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

No. Once Sion became BB, it and the BB sites of southern France were initially part of the southern or early Bell Beaker province. Then there was a switch of influence, with Eastern BB dominating Sion and the southern French sites. This is explained by Harrison and Heyd 2007 for Sion and Olivier Lemercier in various papers for Southern France.

Correct, I was meaning geogrphically, as we've already discussed all the changed and shifts
Although to be precise, it's ok the frontier of southern, western and eastern- I guess that's why they chose to discuss it

But the major question here is of early western beaker (and pre-Beaker) was from the steppe.
Let's wait and see...

[rms2]

You are absolutely right there. J.P. Mallory and David Anthony have not supported every single one of the ideas of Gimbutas. That would be impossible for anyone, because her views changed over the years, including about which cultures were IE speaking. Her vision of the Neolithic and "Old Europe" as a peaceful matriarchy has dissolved, now that archaeologists are permitting themselves to discover the heritage of violence.

She had the anti-migrationists beat by a good country mile, and most of her errors were matters of degree rather than absolute errors.

Suppose Gimbutas did not know that 7 is the cube root of 343. Does that make her wrong about Bell Beaker?

[Jean M]

Correct, I was meaning geographically... Although to be precise, it's ok the frontier of southern, western and eastern- I guess that's why they chose to discuss it

Maps can be deceptive. The frontiers shifted about. The reason that Sion is of interest is that


It makes the link between Yamnaya and Bell Beaker crystal clear.
It demonstrates a "political" shift in the middle of Bell Beaker.


This one site is therefore a perfect case study for a crucial point of archaeological theory. Archaeologists long ago divided up the past into chunks called "archaeological cultures" in order to make prehistory more comprehensible. Despite decades of archaeological theorists pointing out the dangers of this, the system has never been abandoned, because there is no effective replacement. So we need to be aware that these "cultures" are archaeological constructs, otherwise we fall into a mind set of thinking that change can only occur at the start or end of one of these officially designated cultures.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

The full quotation:



This paper was written within the old paradigm of anti-migrationism. It does not press the case for migration, while leaving the way open for it.

But Heyd obviously isn't an immobilist (let's use this term, as it avoids confusion with modern political policy ;))
He clealry talks of migration, and defines the western most extent on an actual steppe burial was that Kurgan grave from the middle Elbe. Everything else he attributed (by default) as a "reaction to" and "assimilation of " Yamnaya package traits, not the least proto-Bell Beaker. Let's not deflect. ;)
The ideas that Yamnaya arrived in southenr Iberia in 3100 BC is yours alone

[Jean M]

She had the anti-migrationists beat by a good country mile, and most of her errors were matters of degree rather than absolute errors.

Suppose Gimbutas did not know that 7 is the cube root of 343. Does that make her wrong about Bell Beaker?

I have no idea if she knew the cube root of anything! :biggrin1: As you know, I have followed the more recent David Anthony, and have not even read the full Gimbutas corpus. So you know more that I do about what she wrote on Bell Beaker.

When I was trying to make sense of the stelae trail, I simply looked for a convenient route from the Carpathian Basin to northern Italy and hit upon Vučedol and Cetina (where the elite were buried with archers' wrist guards, as in the Bell Beaker culture). I only found out later (from you, I'm pretty sure) that Gimbutas had connected Vučedol and Bell Beaker.

[Tomenable]

She went too far in asserting that the people of Old Europe were completely pacific

Indeed. In fact, it turns out that they were the opposite:

"The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe":

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/36/11217.abstract


The Early Neolithic massacre-related mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten presented here provides new data and insights for the ongoing discussions of prehistoric warfare in Central Europe. Although several characteristics gleaned from the analysis of the human skeletal remains support and strengthen previous hypotheses based on the few known massacre sites of this time, a pattern of intentional mutilation of violence victims identified here is of special significance. Adding another key site to the evidence for Early Neolithic warfare generally allows more robust and reliable reconstructions of the possible reasons for the extent and frequency of outbreaks of lethal mass violence and the general impact these events had on shaping the further development of the Central European Neolithic.

Conflict and warfare are central but also disputed themes in discussions about the European Neolithic. Although a few recent population studies provide broad overviews, only a very limited number of currently known key sites provide precise insights into moments of extreme and mass violence and their impact on Neolithic societies. The massacre sites of Talheim, Germany, and Asparn/Schletz, Austria, have long been the focal points around which hypotheses concerning a final lethal crisis of the first Central European farmers of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) have concentrated. With the recently examined LBK mass grave site of Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany, we present new conclusive and indisputable evidence for another massacre, adding new data to the discussion of LBK violence patterns. At least 26 individuals were violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries before being deposited in a commingled mass grave. Although the absence and possible abduction of younger females has been suggested for other sites previously, a new violence-related pattern was identified here: the intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs. The abundance of the identified perimortem fractures clearly indicates torture and/or mutilation of the victims. The new evidence presented here for unequivocal lethal violence on a large scale is put into perspective for the Early Neolithic of Central Europe and, in conjunction with previous results, indicates that massacres of entire communities were not isolated occurrences but rather were frequent features of the last phases of the LBK.

"Europe's First Farmers Were Shockingly Violent":

http://io9.gizmodo.com/europes-first-farmers-were-shockingly-violent-1724792763?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=io9 _twitter


Indeed, this isn’t the first time that archaeologists have found something like this. In the 1980s, two similar Neolithic mass graves containing more than 100 bodies were uncovered in Germany and Austria. The new discovery strongly suggests that these clashes were not isolated or infrequent; during the Early Neolithic, it appears that farming communities went to war against rival farming communities.


Check also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

[Jean M]

The ideas that Yamnaya arrived in southern Iberia in 3100 BC is yours alone

Could well be. But then I have had a string of ideas that I thought were original, only to find out later that someone was before me. Imagine my horror when I discovered that my deductions re the Ligurians were going to look like the resurrection of a 19th-century idea. Had to write a footnote dissociating myself from same. :biggrin1:

[ADW_1981]

In Britain and Ireland people speak English and people who brought it to Britain were less R1b than Celts (we can say that Old English language was transmited largely by I1-M253, I2-M223 and R1a-Z284).

Not true at all. You clearly don't follow R1b subclades that closely. Unlikely that any language spread to old Britain as late as 400 AD was spoken by three different male founders. I mean really?

[George]

Please refrain from using sexist speech.

BTW What is the male equivalent of "feminist"? ;)

[George]

Personally, I have the utmost respect for Marija Gimbutas. She was one of the all-time greats, IMHO.

She was a very interesting writer. Apart from being dead wrong about a "peaceful Old Europe" destroyed by nasty war hunks from the steppes ;) Not the first person to have made important mistakes while contributing a lot of good stuff.

[Tomenable]

BTW What is the male equivalent of "feminist"? ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_movement

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/India_MHRM_commons.jpg

[alan]

Indeed. In fact, it turns out that they were the opposite:

"The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe":

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/36/11217.abstract



"Europe's First Farmers Were Shockingly Violent":

http://io9.gizmodo.com/europes-first-farmers-were-shockingly-violent-1724792763?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=io9 _twitter



Check also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

and they had the same key weapon - bow and arrow as the beaker people. IMO any military advantage that copper knives or flat axes brought were minimal. So any advantage the beaker people had militarily was probably not heavily based on technology. The main advantage they had may have been organisational (loose mobile clans rather than compact territorial groups) and perhaps transport (horse). However, I do not believe the beaker people carried out a military territorial conquest. The furthest I would go is that they may have wrested control of routes, passes, fords, searoutes from others - although IMO that would have quickly have become a battled among different beaker lineages.

[George]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_movement

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/India_MHRM_commons.jpg

"homonists"? :noidea: "virists"?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

She was a very interesting writer. Apart from being dead wrong about a "peaceful Old Europe" destroyed by nasty war hunks from the steppes ;) Not the first person to have made important mistakes while contributing a lot of good stuff.

I think one of her 5 "Kurgan waves" (number 3) were actual migrations
Jokes aside; she did very well for her time, minimal Carbon dates, no ancient DNA, etc
She got the ball rolling that's for sure, and painted the big picture correctly in outlining the transformative nature of the Final Copper age

[alan]

Personally, I have the utmost respect for Marija Gimbutas. She was one of the all-time greats, IMHO.

Mallory was not only influenced by her but was taught by her.

[alan]

Ha, surely these founding events requires more than one-man or even one-family.

true. Judging by similar clan-sept-clientship societies such as the Gaelic one of early Historic times, the mechanism for expansion of a branch of a clan or lineage who were starting to fall out the chiefship competition would break off and settle a new area. Though small they would be under the protection of the chiefly parent branch who stayed 'home' - probably under some sort of free clientship/protection. The stay home chief might have been a 4th cousin of the group who broke of for example. Initially they would be a thin upper strata in the new territory but would slowly demographically expand and push down from the top. Their safety during the period when they were a minority was down to protection of the main chiefly branch who stayed home.

[lgmayka]

Ok, she was a non-crazy feminist (which is why she is listed in "feminist archaeology" article):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_archaeology#See_also
This 1990 article in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/13/science/idyllic-theory-of-goddesses-creates-storm.html?pagewanted=2) tells us a lot about Gimbutas, and what others thought of her. At that time, apparently, the more common opinion of her among archaeologists and anthropologists was not too far from the first-mentioned epithet.
---
Bernard Wailes, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, says that most of Dr. Gimbutas's peers consider her ''immensely knowledgeable but not very good in critical analysis.''

''She amasses all the data and then leaps from it to conclusions without any intervening argument,'' Mr. Wailes said. ''Most of us tend to say, oh my God, here goes Marija again,'' he said.
...
Linda Ellis, an archeologist at California State University at San Francisco, who took courses from Dr. Gimbutas as an undergraduate at U.C.L.A. and has worked at some of the same archeologiscal sites in southeastern Europe...

''In a way she's a very brave woman, very brave to step over the boundary and to take a guess,'' said Ms. Ellis. But Ms. Ellis strongly rejects Dr. Gimbutas's detailed assertions.

Dr. Gimbutas calls the enthusiastic reception of her work by artists and feminists ''an incredible gift'' coming late in her life. But ''I was not a feminist and I had never any thought I would be helping feminists,'' she said.
---

[Gravetto-Danubian]

true. Judging by similar clan-sept-clientship societies such as the Gaelic one of early Historic times, the mechanism for expansion of a branch of a clan or lineage who were starting to fall out the chiefship competition would break off and setting a new area. Though small they would be under the protection of the chiefly parent branch who stayed 'home' - probably under some sort of free clientship/protection. The stay home chief might have been a 4th cousin of the group who broke of for example. Initially they would be a thin upper strata in the new territory but would slowly demographically expand and push down from the top. Their safety during the period when they were a minority was down to protection of the main chiefly branch who stayed home.

Nice analogy
It's somewhat consistent with what Heyd wrote (in "Families, Prestige Goods...")

"were essentially isolated communities, living in fertile areas in closely packed single farmsteads. These farmsteads seem to consist of a single dwelling house inhabited by one family unit, perhaps with additional farm buildings. Considering also the regular use of the cemeteries over several phases, and the estimates of generation cycles (see above), it becomes clear that the number of inhabitants in any farm would be small. However, we have to reckon with a certain grave deficit,.."

[A] model of small, family-based, economically somewhat specialised social units seems helpful in defining and understanding the emergence of Early Bronze Age social structures.... Adopting these considerations for
the features of the 3rd millennium cal BC along the Danube, however, one can see some revealing coincidences. Here in southern Germany, as in other parts of Central Europe, an inland expansion into naturally unfavoured areas takes place in the Late Copper Age (Schefzik 2001; Haas et al. 2003). Researchers agree that this is true not only for the Bell Beaker people, but also for the preceding Corded Ware Culture, with the process starting in the second
quarter of the 3rd millennium cal BC. Internal analyses of Corded Ware cemeteries and of the Corded Ware settlement system, especially in Bohemia, support this idea (Neustupný & Smrž 1989, 380–2; Buchvaldek 1999; Turek & Peška 2001, 414ff.). Certainly we have such a social system of equal, independent, single farmsteads in our Bell Beaker areas (Fig. 8). Together with this a major shift in the economic base of the Late Copper Age towards stock-breeding has long been suspected, although the economy would still have been mixed, with plant cultivation increasingly centred on less demanding species."

"It is a remarkable fact that, even though around 650 graves are known in the Bell Beaker groups along the upper Danube (including some with extraordinary grave structures), there is no single grave that indicates a person of superior status at a regional, or supra-regional, level. Nevertheless, we cannot conclude from this funerary evidence that we are dealing with a wholly egalitarian society. Rather, it appears that there are many levels of complexity in thegrave goods and funerary structures of the EastGroup, ranging from unequipped individuals in a shallow pit to graves richly equipped with objects of gold, copper, stone, amber, and bone, some of which are associated with elaborate, over-sized, and excessively deep wooden chambers'

Also;

"The advantages of such an organisation are obvious: such economic units, in which each local group is independent and makes opportunistic alliances, can react more flexibly to emergencies and
dangers from outside. They are substantially more mobile, not only the units as a whole, but also each member, and the settlements are less permanent. They
command an increased communication system with internal exchange of information, goods, genes, and social values.'

[alan]

Nice analogy
It's somewhat consistent with what Heyd wrote (in "Families, Prestige Goods...")

"were essentially isolated communities, living in fertile areas in closely packed single farmsteads. These farmsteads seem to consist of a single dwelling house inhabited by one family unit, perhaps with additional farm buildings. Considering also the regular use of the cemeteries over several phases, and the estimates of generation cycles (see above), it becomes clear that the number of inhabitants in any farm would be small. However, we have to reckon with a certain grave deficit,.."

[A] model of small, family-based, economically somewhat specialised social units seems helpful in defining and understanding the emergence of Early Bronze Age social structures.... Adopting these considerations for
the features of the 3rd millennium cal BC along the Danube, however, one can see some revealing coincidences. Here in southern Germany, as in other parts of Central Europe, an inland expansion into naturally unfavoured areas takes place in the Late Copper Age (Schefzik 2001; Haas et al. 2003). Researchers agree that this is true not only for the Bell Beaker people, but also for the preceding Corded Ware Culture, with the process starting in the second
quarter of the 3rd millennium cal BC. Internal analyses of Corded Ware cemeteries and of the Corded Ware settlement system, especially in Bohemia, support this idea (Neustupný & Smrž 1989, 380–2; Buchvaldek 1999; Turek & Peška 2001, 414ff.). Certainly we have such a social system of equal, independent, single farmsteads in our Bell Beaker areas (Fig. 8). Together with this a major shift in the economic base of the Late Copper Age towards stock-breeding has long been suspected, although the economy would still have been mixed, with plant cultivation increasingly centred on less demanding species."

"It is a remarkable fact that, even though around 650 graves are known in the Bell Beaker groups along the upper Danube (including some with extraordinary grave structures), there is no single grave that indicates a person of superior status at a regional, or supra-regional, level. Nevertheless, we cannot conclude from this funerary evidence that we are dealing with a wholly egalitarian society. Rather, it appears that there are many levels of complexity in thegrave goods and funerary structures of the EastGroup, ranging from unequipped individuals in a shallow pit to graves richly equipped with objects of gold, copper, stone, amber, and bone, some of which are associated with elaborate, over-sized, and excessively deep wooden chambers'

Also;

"The advantages of such an organisation are obvious: such economic units, in which each local group is independent and makes opportunistic alliances, can react more flexibly to emergencies and
dangers from outside. They are substantially more mobile, not only the units as a whole, but also each member, and the settlements are less permanent. They
command an increased communication system with internal exchange of information, goods, genes, and social values.'

some people make jokes like 'how did all the L21s etc know to go in the same direction - did they have special SNP detecting kits'. The reality may be simpler and again I envisage this based on the simplest clan-sept type part of early historic Gaelic society.

While not literally one guy splitting off, the founder effects may have been done by a group of people who were closely enough related to well aware of their common descent, genealogy and relationships to each other (which was terribly important to know in such societies - usually specialist genealogists existed).

The offshoots who formed founder effects may well have been a small group consisting of brothers, 1st cousins and 2nd cousins who shared a common great granddad (themselves a branch who broke of of a larger clan tree stretching out to perhaps 4th cousins) and a older senior representative or two surviving from a previous generation. I suspect the former was probably on average a small group of say 20 men (but obviously varying hugely from less than this to significantly more).

In the early Gaelic laws the fine or immediate clan from a legal and inheritance point of view was the Fine 'finn-eh'. This had four divisions, the gelfine (descendants of common grandfather) derbfine (descendants of common great grandfather), iarfine (descendants of a common GG grandfather) and indfine (descendants of a common GGG grandfather) each group with a generation more remote degree of kinship. I think this simple building block is an ancient one and probably very similar to early IE ones.

So I see the reason why it appears they had magic SNP detecting abilities when migrating is really down to the fact the founder effects were due to the fission of branches off a deeper male lineage. This splinter group would have consisted of people who were well aware they were a group of people out to 2nd cousins. Most aspects of their lives revolved around the rights and repsonsibilities these varying kinships imposed so they would have known them very well. They may have been most typically a group of young to early middle aged adult males with out to 2nd cousin relationships (and a few surviving elders from previous generation). As degree of relationships dictated legal rights, responsibilities and inheritance they knew very well their paternal relationships. So it is not remotely odd that a single lineage neatly split off and formed a perfect founder effect. In fact when you consider the likely social structure it was almost inevitable.

[alan]

some people make jokes like 'how did all the L21s etc know to go in the same direction - did they have special SNP detecting kits'. The reality may be simpler and again I envisage this based on the simplest clan-sept type part of early historic Gaelic society.

While not literally one guy splitting off, the founder effects may have been done by a group of people who were closely enough related to well aware of their common descent, genealogy and relationships to each other (which was terribly important to know in such societies - usually specialist genealogists existed).

The offshoots who formed founder effects may well have been a small group consisting of brothers, 1st cousins and 2nd cousins who shared a common great granddad (themselves a branch who broke of of a larger clan tree stretching out to perhaps 4th cousins) and a older senior representative or two surviving from a previous generation. I suspect the former was probably on average a small group of say 20 men (but obviously varying hugely from less than this to significantly more).

In the early Gaelic laws the fine or immediate clan from a legal and inheritance point of view was the Fine 'finn-eh'. This had four divisions, the gelfine (descendants of common grandfather) derbfine (descendants of common great grandfather), iarfine (descendants of a common GG grandfather) and indfine (descendants of a common GGG grandfather) each group with a generation more remote degree of kinship. I think this simple building block is an ancient one and probably very similar to early IE ones.

So I see the reason why it appears they had magic SNP detecting abilities when migrating is really down to the fact the founder effects were due to the fission of branches off a deeper male lineage. This splinter group would have consisted of people who were well aware they were a group of people out to 2nd cousins. Most aspects of their lives revolved around the rights and repsonsibilities these varying kinships imposed so they would have known them very well. They may have been most typically a group of young to early middle aged adult males with out to 2nd cousin relationships (and a few surviving elders from previous generation). As degree of relationships dictated legal rights, responsibilities and inheritance they knew very well their paternal relationships. So it is not remotely odd that a single lineage neatly split off and formed a perfect founder effect. In fact when you consider the likely social structure it was almost inevitable.

to put this into L11 terms, by the time of mr L11's great great great grandchildren, they may have been a clan of hundred or so men living a century or so later. At that point, if not a generation before, the maximum extent of a small sept or clan (and its legal/inheritance aspects) would be being reached reached and fission of branches would start. It seems likely that several branchings off of tighter 2nd cousin groups would happen around this sort of time 5 generations after Mr L11. Each of these breaking off branches were probably small groups of perhaps 20 men with a common great grandfather. My guess is that the SNPs below L11 that formed the main derivative uppermost branchings - L21, U152, DF27 etc belong to the shared great grandfathers of these small subbranches who would be breaking off. They probably occurred in the grandsons of Mr L11 and by 3 generations later had formed into several small branches that were splitting off. That IMO is the origin of the major branches of L11. Once they broke off into branches then geographical separation becomes possible and probably a necessity. So my belief is that it at the point of the commencing of geographical moving away from each other, the three main L11 branches carrying their marker SNPs were probably three small groups each containing men of common paternal descent out to 2nd cousins. I suspect we are talking small groups 20 men on average although varying.

[Kopfjäger]

Thus far you are merely pulling the Balkans out of your *whatever* because for some reason you don't want L23 to be Indo-European .

That's pretty much the main reason Tomenable posts here. He's not fooling anyone though.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Thanks again Jean, Alan, & Rich for your comments. I appreciate the discussions, not to prove my own view point, but to compare and critique it.

[Tomenable]

A person of mixed Corded Ware / Bell Beaker ancestry?:

https://s3.postimg.io/uoiget7cz/Alberstedt.png

From: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml

[Tomenable]

A person of mixed Corded Ware / Bell Beaker ancestry?:

https://s3.postimg.io/uoiget7cz/Alberstedt.png

From: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml

By the way what languages did those neighbouring CW and BB groups in Germany speak?

Did they speak mutually intelligible dialects of "Late PIE" language or different languages?:

Or maybe CWC spoke "Pre-Proto-Balto-Slavic" and BB spoke "Pre-Proto-Italo-Celtic" ??? :

https://s3.postimg.io/r5e1b02rn/CW_BB_borderland_1.png

https://s3.postimg.io/r5e1b02rn/CW_BB_borderland_1.png

https://s3.postimg.io/ifjyf3jwz/CW_BB_borderland_2.png

https://s3.postimg.io/ifjyf3jwz/CW_BB_borderland_2.png

[Tomenable]

Is there any Non-IE toponymy in Germany, that can be linked to some known language family?

Perhaps some Vasconic or Uralic toponymy in Germany?

[Tomenable]

Here is a documentary about those Corded Ware skeletons from Eulau:

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1118362/Tatort+Eulau#/beitrag/video/1118362/Tatort-Eulau

Did they fall victim to cannibalism? Eaten by Beakers or by other CW-s?

[Dubhthach]

Just to comment on speed of how a lineage could take over lordship of land, in case of Maguires it took them under 300 years to gain ownership/lordship of about 3/4th of land of Fermanagh. They did this by lineage expansion and gradual accumulation of land (through pledge/mortgage/outright theft). It's recurring theme across the history of Gaelic Ireland.

One way that "displaced" kindreds could often maintain land was by been in church service, so for example you see the uniquely Irish positions of Comhraba and Airchinneach. A secular lord could not seize church lands, so often older ruling lineages would persist in such positions. Interesting article here explaining how one lineage branched from parent one during middle ages:

http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/don_tran/fam_his/mcinerneys/early_erenagh_origins.htm

[Jean M]

A person of mixed Corded Ware / Bell Beaker ancestry?

Looks like it. I quote from Haak 2015, supplement, pp. 33-34:


The site Alberstedt in Merseburg-Querfurt, Saxony-Anhalt, on the loess-bearing Querfurter Platte, is located on a hilltop. This promontory site was used by the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker people as a burial ground. The single grave of individual ALB3/I0118 (feature 7144.2, 2459-2345 calBCE, MAMS 21492) was uncovered within a strip of 20m width in preparation for major roadworks. The grave was initially ascribed to the Bell Beaker culture but is rather an unusual burial complex strewn with cattle bones as well as a few sherds of Corded Ware-like pottery in the back filling. The radiocarbon date falls in line with both the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware occupation phases of this region. Given the ambiguous archaeological classification we have decided to use the location and date to classify this sample (Late Neolithic Alberstedt). The intermediate position of this sample on the PCA plot (Figure 2a) between unambiguously assigned Corded Ware (Esperstedt) and Bell Beaker (Rothenschirmbach) individuals, and >50% Yamnaya ancestry are consistent with an individual who has mixed Corded Ware and Bell Beaker ancestry.

In the main the people of the two cultures seemed to keep their distance from each other. Sometimes Bell Beaker arrived to fill a gap where CW had moved on. But in other cases some CW seems to be absorbed into BB, as BB moved into previously CW territory. See the Haak paper that I gave extracts from earlier re the relationship between BB and CW. He goes into detail.

[Tomenable]

BB moved into previously CW territory

All the samples seem more or less contemporary with each other.

I don't see any clear pattern of CW = older and BB = younger.

But perhaps CW-s were less numerous in that area than BB-s.

BB-s created farming villages while CW-s were quite nomadic.

[Jean M]

By the way what languages did those neighbouring CW and BB groups in Germany speak?

I postulate that Late BB people (2200BC +) spoke the earliest form of Celtic, which would be not all that different from the PIE dialect spoken by CW people.

[Tomenable]

Rms2,

Don't forget to read bold text (you said that Coon's and my claim that BB and CW mixed was "nonsensical"):


Looks like it. I quote from Haak 2015, supplement, pp. 33-34:


The site Alberstedt in Merseburg-Querfurt, Saxony-Anhalt, on the loess-bearing Querfurter Platte, is located on a hilltop. This promontory site was used by the Corded Ware and Bell Beaker people as a burial ground. The single grave of individual ALB3/I0118 (feature 7144.2, 2459-2345 calBCE, MAMS 21492) was uncovered within a strip of 20m width in preparation for major roadworks. The grave was initially ascribed to the Bell Beaker culture but is rather an unusual burial complex strewn with cattle bones as well as a few sherds of Corded Ware-like pottery in the back filling. The radiocarbon date falls in line with both the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware occupation phases of this region. Given the ambiguous archaeological classification we have decided to use the location and date to classify this sample (Late Neolithic Alberstedt). The intermediate position of this sample on the PCA plot (Figure 2a) between unambiguously assigned Corded Ware (Esperstedt) and Bell Beaker (Rothenschirmbach) individuals, and >50% Yamnaya ancestry are consistent with an individual who has mixed Corded Ware and Bell Beaker ancestry.

Remember that CW-s had more of "Yamnaya", BB-s had less, and this one had an intermediate amount.

[Jean M]

All the samples seem more or less contemporary with each other. I don't see any clear pattern of CW = older and BB = younger.

The two cultures were roughly contemporary taken overall, but CW was older in Central Europe than BB. The earliest CW sample in my table is RISE434 Tiefbrunn, Germany 2880-2630 BC. The earliest CW from Poland is not much later RISE1 from Oblaczkowo 2865-2578 BC. Then you have to scroll down my table through quite a lot moree CW sample before the earliest BB sample, which from is Kromsdorf (grave 3) which has been given a rough date of 2600-2500 BC, but that could be too early. The sample was not directly radiocarbon dated.

[Gravetto-Danubian]

All the samples seem more or less contemporary with each other.

I don't see any clear pattern of CW = older and BB = younger.

But perhaps CW-s were less numerous in that area than BB-s.

BB-s created farming villages while CW-s were quite nomadic.

Corded ware is definitely older than BB by 200 years - as far as the "BB east" oikumene is concerned (from Netherlands to Poland to Moravia). BB then appears; sometimes seamlessly (eg Moravia), and with it everything becomes less pastoral, with more substantive settlements.
In turn, GAC was 200 years earlier than CWC, expanding into parts of central Germany from northern Poland

10973

The Haak paper didn't highlight this, &!they didn't sample GAC (which would be an interesting gap filler between their TRB and CWC samples-)

[Tomenable]

The two cultures were roughly contemporary taken overall, but CW was older in Central Europe than BB. The earliest CW sample in my table is RISE434 Tiefbrunn, Germany 2880-2630 BC.

But your table has no exact dating given for Bell Beaker samples from areas neighbouring Tiefbrunn:

RISE560 (Augsburg) - age not given
RISE563 & 564 (Osterhofen) - age not given

Augsburg and Osterhofen are located near Tiefbrunn.

And samples of BB and CW from the more northerly region (to the west of Leipzig) have similar age:

BB:

QLB26 - 2467-2142 BC
QLB28 - 2296-2206 BC
Other Quedlinburg - 2500-2050 BC
Benzingerode - 2500-2050 BC
Rothenschirmbach - 2497-2436 BC
Another from ROT - 2414-2333 BC
Alberstedt - 2494-2344 BC
Krom5 & 8 - 2600-2500 BC
Etc., etc.

CW/BB mix:

Alberstedt - 2471-2246 BC

CW:

KAR53 (CW from Karsdorf) - 2260-2203 BC
QUEXII 1 (Quedlinburg CW) - 2300-2130 BC
ESP8, 20, 28, 32, 33, 36 - 2500-2050 BC
ESP11 - dated to 2473-2348 BC
ESP14 & 17 - dated to 2500-2400 BC
EUL9, 11 & 12 - dated to ca. 2600 BC
Etc., etc.

I really don't see any clear pattern of CW being older than BB in this region.

[Jean M]

you said that Coon's and my claim that BB and CW mixed was "nonsensical"

Tomenable - I have never denied the possibility of some BB/CW mixing on the fringes of their shifting ranges in Central Europe. Mixing with the neighbours tends to go on. But the real argument is not over what was going on in what is now Saxony-Anhalt or Denmark. The argument is over an idea which has been quite popular: the supposed "fusion corridor" south of the English Channel and along the lower Rhine i.e. in what is now the Netherlands. The idea has been that various cultural features were adopted by BB from CW. In fact the cultural mixing that created eastern BB had happened further south and was not with CW. In general the BB/CW interactions in Central Europe seem to involve BB displacing or absorbing CW, with BB traits becoming dominant, as described by Heyd.

[Jean M]

I really don't see any clear pattern of CW being older than BB in this region.

I commend your willingness to question the experts, :) but Gravetto-Danubian has it right in his post above. Where we do have radiocarbon dates, the story they tell is CW as the earlier culture of the two in Central Europe. That was recognised initially from the sites in which CW is followed by BB. In other words the CW layer is beneath the BB layer. That tends to convince archaeologists.

[Jean M]

Is there any Non-IE toponymy in Germany, that can be linked to some known language family? Perhaps some Vasconic or Uralic toponymy in Germany?

The idea that "Vasconic" place-names could be detected all over Europe and represented a pre-IE population was the product of a single, over-enthusiastic brain and has been dismissed by many other linguists. See for example the review by Philip Baldi and Richard Page in Lingua 116 (2006), pp. 2183–2220 of Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica (2003), a collection of 27 of Theo Vennemann’s controversial essays. As they say:


Vennemann argues that after the last ice age most of Central and Western Europe was inhabited by speakers of Vasconic languages, the only survivor of which is Basque. These speakers formed a substrate to the later-arriving Indo-Europeans. The primary evidence for the presence of Vasconic throughout much of Europe is drawn from the Old European hydronyms originally identified by Hans Krahe as Indo-European and reanalyzed by Vennemann as Vasconic. ....

They rip Venneman's ideas apart. There is no objectivity to them. Krahe's identification of the Old European hydronyms as IE is far more plausible. There are some of these Old European (alteuropaisch) hydronyms in Germany.

The idea of Uralic as a palaeolithic language of Europe has also been taken apart by linguists and dumped in the bin.

[Tomenable]

Old European hydronyms originally identified by Hans Krahe as Indo-European

Given that PIE were essentially descended from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers - then who knows, maybe something PIE-related had been spoken in Pre-Neolithic Europe; later expansion of Neolithic farmers De-Indo-Europeanized Europe; and then it was Re-Indo-Europeanized, when descendants of hunters re-emerged.


The idea of Uralic as a palaeolithic language of Europe

See above, maybe languages of Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe were PIE-related.

Who knows, maybe Villabruna HG spoke something PIE-related, and so did Karelian HG.

There is a "Paleolithic Continuity" theory for PIE languages - its supporters include among others C. Renfrew, M. Alinei, H. Kuehn, G. Schwantes, and probably also Genetiker supports this theory. :)

There is also ANE ancestry, but it was present already in EHG, SHG and Mesolithic Hungarian HG. So there was Ancient North Eurasian even in Mesolithic Central Europe (Hungary, likely Poland too).

CHG ancestry could be responsible for bringing Vasconic and similar languages to Europe.

[Jean M]

Another little snippet from Heyd, Families, Prestige Goods, Warriors & Complex Societies: Beaker Groups of the 3rd Millennium cal BC Along the Upper & Middle Danube (2007), pp. 367-8:


at the beginning Central European Early Bronze Age. Here, we see the evolution of three large but now spatially separated cultural complexes, each resting on a different culturalbase – namely the Danubian Early Bronze Age, with its Bell Beaker foundation; the Unetice Early Bronze Age, on its Carpathian foundation; and the ‘Mierzanowice/Nitra’ Early Bronze Age, with its origins in the CordedWare Culture (Bertemes & Heyd 2002).

The source cited: Bertemes F. & Heyd, V. 2002. Der Übergang Kupferzeit/Frühbronzezeit am Nordwestrand des Karpatenbeckens – kulturgeschichtliche und paläometallurgische Betrachtungen. In Bartelheim et al. (eds), Die Anfänge der Metallurgie in der Alten Welt, 185–228.

[Tomenable]

the Unetice Early Bronze Age, on its Carpathian foundation; and the ‘Mierzanowice/Nitra’ Early Bronze Age, with its origins in the CordedWare Culture (Bertemes & Heyd 2002).

Both of them - Unetice and Mierzanowice/Nitra - had their origins in the Corded Ware. The idea that Unetice did not originate from Corded Ware has been proven wrong by ancient DNA. Compare autosomal ancestry of Unetice and CW samples, as well as Y-DNA (we have R1a from Unetice). Łęki Małe in Poland were Early Unetice kurgans, and we found R1a there. There is also no any R1b in Unetice, only I2a and R1a.

[Jean M]

Given that PIE were essentially descended from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers

No PIE was not spoken by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. But you are not the first to get confused between genetics and linguistics. ;) Once upon a time, everyone was a hunter-gatherer. So we all, without exception, have 100% ancestry from hunter-gatherers, if you go back far enough. Farming was invented by hunter-gatherers. Then all sorts of things were invented by farmers, including new ways to farm (like the plough), wheeled vehicles, metal-working etc.

PIE was a language spoken by people who had words for farming, metals, the plough, wheeled vehicles etc. So we know that they lived after 4000 BC and mainly closer to 3500 BC. Of course their ancestors millennia before spoke a language of hunter-gatherers, but that is too far back for linguists to be able to reconstruct it.

[Jean M]

See above, maybe languages of Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe were PIE-related....

There is a "Paleolithic Continuity" theory for PIE languages - its supporters include among others C. Renfrew, M. Alinei, H. Kuehn, G. Schwantes

The "Paleolithic Continuity" theory was invented by Mario Alinei and is totally dotty. No mainstream linguists support it. To understand why, see a series of posts in 2009 by linguist Don Ringe on Language Log, The Linguistic Diversity of Aboriginal Europe. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=980

[Tomenable]

Then all sorts of things were invented by farmers

Actually "cities" had been invented by hunters before they invented farming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Qaramel


Before the excavations began, it was assumed that permanent sedentary settlements would occur only in combination with the first farming of cereals, and the first domestication and keeping of animals such as sheep and goats, marking the start of the Neolithic period, part of a transition between the proto-Neolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A cultures. However the remains of the structures uncovered at Tell Qaramel appear to be older than this, giving the first evidence of permanent stone-built settlement without signs of animal domestication or organised farming.[3][4] Particularly striking are the remains of a succession of five round, stone-built towers, each over 6 metres in diameter, with stone walls over 1.5m thick. These have been carbon-dated to between the eleventh millennium and 9650 BC. This dating makes the towers roughly two thousand years older than the stone tower found at Jericho, which was previously believed to be the oldest known tower structure in the world.[1]

[Tomenable]

PIE was a language spoken by people who had words for farming, metals

Having words for metals doesn't necessarily mean that they knew metal-working.

People who use only wood for building also have words for stones. ;) Stones and metals can be found in nature. For example you can find nuggets of gold in a river. So already primitive hunter-gatherers without any knowledge of metallurgy could have their own word for gold, as well as for other metals.


the plough, wheeled vehicles etc.

IIRC the Anatolian branch of IE languages had a different word for wheeled vehicles than other branches. So maybe Anatolian split from the rest of PIE before they learned about existence of wheeled vehicles. By the way, the oldest evidence of wheeled vehicles is the Bronocice pot from Central Europe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronocice_pot

[Jean M]

Actually "cities" had been invented by hunters before they invented farming:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Qaramel

That is not a city. That is "the first stages of a proto-urban organism" i.e. it is a small settlement with stone building. Nor was it built by hunter-gatherers. It is early Neolithic. I will fix the over-excited text in Wikipedia. We had the same sort of drama over Göbekli Tepe, where the press ran with the idea that its earliest stages could be pre-Neolithic, when the archaeologist in charge had a gleam in his eye of the possibility. They are not. Said archaeologist has come down to earth.

Prof. Mazurowski, the sensible Polish archaeologist in charge at Tell Qaramel, says that it is pre-pottery Neolithic.
http://www.eduskrypt.pl/yet_another_sensational_discovery_by_polish_archae ologists_in_syria-info-6775.html

Whether pre-pottery was translated by the press into pre-farming, or whether an early report was misleading, I do not know.

[Jean M]

Having words for metals doesn't necessarily mean that they knew metal-working.

The words for metals are just part of the story Tomenable.


IIRC the Anatolian branch of IE languages had a different word for wheeled vehicles than other branches. So maybe Anatolian split from the rest of PIE before they learned about existence of wheeled vehicles.

Yes that is correct. Anatolian has the PIE word for thill, and so its Proto speakers left the rest of PIE after the invention of some form of animal traction, such as the plough or sled. The latter was an earlier invention (by 3600 BC) than wheeled vehicles; the plough comes at around the same time.

10974

Extract from AJ (wherein the precious pot from Poland gets two mentions. Though it is not the earliest evidence of the wheel, it is still pretty important!):


The invention of the wheel increased human mobility immensely. Images from Sumeria led to the supposition that it took the lead. The war wagons on the Standard of Ur have wheels of the earliest type, solid rather than spoked .... Yet these are by no means the earliest images of wheeled vehicles. Pictographs of wagons appear around 3500 BC on clay tablets from Uruk in Mesopotamia and on a Funnel Beaker pot from Poland. Wagons were still rare then. Pictographs of sledges are far more common from Uruk.

The earliest evidence of the wheel comes from the Late Cucuteni-Tripolye culture in the form of wheeled toys. Around 3600 BC this culture produced models of sledges harnessed with oxen. By the inventive stroke of adding wheels, it seems that the sledge became the cart. The forest-steppe zone had both the big trees needed for solid wheels and also access to plains traversable by wheeled traffic, and so was ideal for the development of vehicles. Just as oxen had pulled sledges and the first ploughs, they were the early choice for wheeled vehicles, as shown in cart models of c. 3000 BC from Altyn-depe, in Western Central Asia. At Bronocice, where the pot with a wagon pictograph was found, some 20 per cent of the cattle bones came from castrated males.

[rms2]

A person of mixed Corded Ware / Bell Beaker ancestry?:

https://s3.postimg.io/uoiget7cz/Alberstedt.png

From: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/copperbronzeagedna.shtml

Note the question mark.

This hardly demonstrates widespread mixing between CW and BB. Once again, where is the R1a in BB and the R1b in CW if they mixed so thoroughly that BB acquired all its steppic autosomal ancestry from CW?

And once again, perhaps CW acquired its Yamnaya-like ancestry from Yamnaya women, since Yamnaya, like Bell Beaker, is overwhelmingly R1b-L23, but Corded Ware is overwhelmingly R1a. In terms of y-dna, Bell Beaker looks more like a derivative of Yamnaya than Corded Ware does.

And how did Bell Beaker acquire a patriarchal, horse-riding, warrior culture from mixing with Corded Ware without acquiring Corded Ware's y-dna?

[Tomenable]

Maybe both R1a and R1b originated from Corded Ware ???

But for some reason mostly P312 (and only some R1a-L664) advanced to Western Europe.

Just like only R1a-Z93 (and not R1a-Z282 or R1b) advanced to India.

And e.g. U106 and R1a-Z284 (but not P312) advanced to Scandinavia.

Remember that R1a-Z93 could also be from Corded Ware, according to Allentoft et al. 2015.


how did Bell Beaker acquire a patriarchal, horse-riding, warrior culture

Wasn't that a packhorse trader-miner-smith culture rather than a horse-riding warrior one?

Is there evidence that Beakers used horses in combat or for riding to combat?

[rms2]

Maybe both R1a and R1b originated from Corded Ware ???

But for some reason mostly P312 advanced to Western Europe.

Just like R1a-Z93 (and not R1a-Z282 or R1b) advanced to India.

And e.g. U106 (but not P312) advanced to Scandinavia.

If that's the case (and that would be fine with me), then we should see some P312 start showing up in Corded Ware remains.

I think it more likely that P312, or the L11 that gave rise to P312 and U106, derives from the Yamnaya that came around the south side of the Carpathians and up the Danube Valley. As Gimbutas believed, it mixed with Vucedol and Vucedol-derived elements, which were already heavily admixed with Near Eastern-derived Neolithic farmers, and became Bell Beaker. It was Beaker, as a kind of "Yamnaya 2.0", that spread an early form of Italo-Celtic north and west through Europe.

As I said before, the reason CW has more Yamnaya_Samara autosomal dna than BB has is because of the different routes the two cultures took into Europe. The steppe people who became Bell Beaker had to wade through and mix with a much larger population of Near Eastern-derived and WHG-derived Neolithic farmers than did the steppe people who became Corded Ware.

In addition, the standard for autosomal comparison right now is eastern Yamnaya, that is, Yamnaya_Samara. We don't have any Yamnaya from west of the Don or from the Carpathian basin. Things may change dramatically when we finally get a sufficient number of western Yamnaya remains tested to set them as a standard. If Gimbutas is right, western Yamnaya was the source population, or one of the main source populations, for Bell Beaker. That should show up, if we ever do get any Yamnaya results from west of the Don.

It baffles me that thus far the researchers have neglected the people who actually moved west into Europe.

[rms2]

She was a very interesting writer. Apart from being dead wrong about a "peaceful Old Europe" destroyed by nasty war hunks from the steppes ;) Not the first person to have made important mistakes while contributing a lot of good stuff.

I think "dead wrong" is an overstatement. Gimbutas went too far in characterizing Old Europe as a completely pacific, essentially weaponless bunch of mother goddess-worshiping hippies, but, like so many archaeologists of that period and today, she was a child of her times. I remember what was going on in the sixties and seventies and the entirely predictable ways experts in various fields reacted to popular trends. You see the same thing today. At least Gimbutas bucked the anti-migrationist, immobilist orthodoxy of the period.

[Kopfjäger]

Wasn't that a packhorse trader-miner-smith culture rather than a horse-riding warrior one?



Who happened to be archers? In many places throughout Northwest Europe (including Northern Denmark), the advent of Bell Beaker is coincidental with male-dominated, chiefdom-like structures.

[rms2]

Since Gimbutas' name is in the title of this thread, here are some relevant quotes from her book, The Civilization of the Goddess, with page numbers in parentheses.



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

The specific correspondence between the Yamna, Late Vucedol, and Bell Beaker complexes is visible in burial rites which include grave pits under round barrows, the coexistence of cremation and inhumation rites, and the construction of mortuary houses. (FIGURE 10-38) In armaments we see tanged or riveted triangular daggers made of arsenic copper, spear points of arsenic copper and flint, concave-based or tanged triangular arrowheads of flint, and arrow straighteners. In ornaments there are necklaces of canine teeth, copper tubes, or bird bones; boar tusks; and crescent-shaped pendants resembling breast plates. In solar symbolism we find sun or star motifs excised and white encrusted on the inside of braziers, or incised on bone or amber button-shaped beads. Techniques of ceramic decoration include stamping or gouging in zoned metopes, encrustation with white paste of delicate geometric motifs, zigzags, dashes, nets, lozenges, and dots or circles (a Baden-Kostolac-Vucedol tradition). Certain ceramic forms placed in graves, such as braziers and beakers, are from the Kurgan tradition. The Bell Beaker people, wherever they spread, continued the traditional ceramic art connected with their faith. Only the ritual importance of their uniquely beautiful stereotyped beakers could have motivated their production for hundreds of years in lands far from the homeland. The correspondences linking the Bell Beaker and Yamna with the Vucedol - in armament, costume, funeral rites, beliefs in life after death, and in symbolism - are precisely the most significant and revealing. It is very likely that the Bell Beaker complex is an amalgam of Vucedol and Yamna traditions formed after the incursion of the Yamna people into the milieu of the Vucedol culture, i.e., in the course of 300 to 400 years after 3000-2900 B.C. (pp. 390-391)
. . .

Horse bones in a series of sites provide a clue to the mobility of the Bell Beaker people. Analysis of animal bones from the sites at Budapest (Csepel Hollandiut and Csepel-Haros) have shown that the horse was the foremost species of the domestic fauna, constituting more than 60 percent of the total animal bones. This suggests a large-scale domestication of the horse in the Carpathian basin. Bell Beaker migrations were carried out on horseback from central Europe as far as Spain (where horse bones have also been found in Bell Beaker contexts). The horse also played a significant role in religion, as can be seen from the remains of the horse sacrifice where skulls are found in cremation graves . . .

The striking similarity of burial practices ties the Bell Beaker complex to the Kurgan (Late Yamna) tradition. (p. 391)

There is hardly any reason to treat these groups [Vinkovci-Samogyvar and Bell Beaker] as separate cultures. (p. 391).

4. The warlike and horse-riding Bell Beaker people of the middle and second half of the third millennium B.C., who diffused over western Europe, are likely to have originated from an amalgam of remnants of the Vucedol people with the Yamna colonists (after Wave No. 3) in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Their parent culture is called Vinkovci-Samogyvar. This was the largest and last outmigration, from east-central Europe into western Europe, up to the west Mediterranean and the British Isles, before the onset of a more stable period, and the formation of Bronze Age cultural units. (p. 401)

[rms2]

Wasn't that a packhorse trader-miner-smith culture rather than a horse-riding warrior one?


Who happened to be archers? In many places throughout Northwest Europe (including Northern Denmark), the advent of Bell Beaker is coincidental with male-dominated, chiefdom-like structures.

I0805, a Bell Beaker man from the Quedlinburg site in Germany, had actual osteological evidence of extensive horseback riding (Mathieson, 2015). He was R1b-M269.



• I0805 / QLB26 Feature 19614.

This 35-45 year-old individual is osteologically and genetically male. The body was buried in NO-SW orientation with the head in the north facing east. Grave goods are scarce and include three silex arrowheads, a few potsherds, and animal bones. A notable observation from the physical anthropological examination is traits at the acetabulum and the femur head suggesting that the individual frequently rode horses.

[Jean M]

The September issue of British Archaeology has a feature on Bell Beakers in Britain. http://new.archaeologyuk.org/british-archaeology-magazine/


4,000 years ago continental immigrants swept across Britain, bringing new ideas and technologies. Even their heads looked different – at least, that was once a popular theory. Could it be true? A major scientific project may have the answer.

This is a report by Mike Parker Pearson on the Beaker People Project, so a lot of it is about the isotope results of same, but he also covers two other topics of interest here:


Crania. The flattened occipital bone in some Bell Beaker skulls was the result of a cradleboard, while there are signs that some Neolithic skulls in Britain had been artificially elongated in infancy. So not all of the cranial differences between Neolithic Britons and Bell Beaker Britons were genetic. However he thinks that is not the whole story. Physical characteristics that were admired by culture X might be accentuated by such techniques.
aDNA. "Geneticists are currently extracting ancient SNA from Beaker skeletons across Europe. It's early days, but preliminary results suggest that the people had ancestries among both indigenous neolithic farmers, and migrants from the steppe regions of Eurasia, known to archaeologists as the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures."


[Added] He ends with this summary:


So were the British Beaker people migrants, or native adopters of a new material culture? We shall have to wait and see: but it looks likely that many of them were migrants.

[rms2]

The September issue of British Archaeology has a feature on Bell Beakers in Britain. http://new.archaeologyuk.org/british-archaeology-magazine/



This is a report by Mike Parker Pearson on the Beaker People Project, so a lot of it is about the isotope results of same, but he also covers two other topics of interest here:


Crania. The flattened occipital bone in some Bell Beaker skulls was the result of a cradleboard, while there are signs that some Neolithic skulls in Britain had been artificially elongated in infancy. So not all of the so-obvious cranial differences between Neolithic Britins and Bell Beaker Britons were genetic. However he thinks that is not the whole story. Physical characteristics that were admired by culture X might be accentuated by such techniques.
aDNA. "Geneticists are currently extracting ancient SNA from Beaker skeletons across Europe. It's early days, but preliminary results suggest that the people had ancestries among both indigenous neolithic farmers, and migrants from the steppe regions of Eurasia, known to archaeologists as the Yamnaya and Corded Ware cultures."


Neat cover photo.

Wonder what they mean by the reference to Corded Ware. AFAIK, CW never made it to Britain and no one derives BB from CW.

Guess we have to wait for the big paper. Hope it's not a big disappointment.

The missing piece, in my opinion, is ancient dna from Yamnaya west of the Don, especially in the Carpathian Basin. Why that has been skipped is baffling to me.

[Jean M]

Wonder what they mean by the reference to Corded Ware. AFAIK, CW never made it to Britain and no one derives BB from CW.

There could be a CW element in some of the BB in its easternmost range - Poland say. By that time the BB people had rolled over quite a swathe of former CW territory. But we shall have to wait and see.

[Kopfjäger]

There could be a CW element in some of the BB in its easternmost range - Poland say. By that time the BB people had rolled over quite a swathe of former CW territory. But we shall have to wait and see.

Jean, I know you touched on this in an earlier post, but I've read that Bell Beaker in Britain was the result of a confluence of BB and CW in the vicinity of the Lower/Middle Rhine. Is this not the case, or only one theory that may explain BB's arrival to Britain?

[Jean M]

Jean, I know you touched on this in an earlier post, but I've read that Bell Beaker in Britain was the result of a confluence of BB and CW in the vicinity of the Lower/Middle Rhine. Is this not the case, or only one theory that may explain BB's arrival to Britain?

This is one theory. I do not think that it is the correct theory. It has been quite a popular theory, but does not explain what we see in the archaeology or linguistics, in my view.

[Tomenable]

Jean, I know you touched on this in an earlier post, but I've read that Bell Beaker in Britain was the result of a confluence of BB and CW in the vicinity of the Lower/Middle Rhine. Is this not the case, or only one theory that may explain BB's arrival to Britain?

Here is what Coon wrote about migrations of Beaker Folks:


(...) While Copper Age civilization was thus spreading westward along the
Danube and the lands to the north, a countermovement in the form of the
Bell Beaker invasion travelled eastward from the Rhine to the Danube,
and as far as Poland and Hungary. The remains of these Bell Beaker people
occupy single graves or groups of graves, rather than whole cemeteries;
they were apparently wandering traders, trafficking in metals, for their
gold spirals have been found in Danish graves of the corridor-tomb period.
They were thus in all likelihood rivals of the Battle-Axe people in their
search for amber.
It is not known how they went from Spain to central Europe. Sporadic
finds in France and northern Italy suggest the Rh6ne-Rhine and the
Brenner Pass routes as alternatives. 61 In neither case is the evidence very
satisfactory, and neither excludes the other. From the Rhine Valley as a center,
Bell Beaker expeditions moved eastward into Bohemia, Austria, Poland,
and Hungary; those who took part in these movements were eventually
absorbed into the local populations. The Bell Beaker people who
remained in the Rhinelands, however, came into intimate contact with the
Corded people, who had invaded from the east and northeast, and with the
corridor-tomb megalithic population to the north, whose domain extended
down into the Netherlands. These three, of which the Bell Beaker
element formed perhaps the dominant one, amalgamated to form an
Early Bronze Age cultural unit, the so-called Zoned Beaker people, who
invaded England and Scotland as the first important carriers of metal.
The Bell Beaker physical type is known to us from sixty or more skulls
from scattered burials in Germany, Austria, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, and
Hungary. 62 Of these, about one-third are truly brachycephalic, while
the others are, almost without exception, mesocephals. In the Rhine
country around Worms, three-fourths or more of the Bell Beaker crania are
brachycephalic; in Austria, one finds an equally high ratio; but in Bohemia
and Poland the high brachycephaly becomes less frequent, and at
Tokol in Hungary, in a series of ten crania, four are mesocephalic and
six are dolichocephalic. (...)

Coon wrote that ancestors of Beaker Folks could originate from Cyprus:


(...) The series of skulls from the Rhineland, including nine adult males, is
the most suitable for comparison (see Appendix I, col. 21). It is identical
in the cranial index mean with that of Furst's forty-four male Bronze Age
skulls from Cyprus, which have already been studied, and which have
been called Dinaric. The Rhenish crania are a little larger in vault dimensions,
and particularly in height; but are almost identical facially. Morphologically,
the two groups are also similar, but the Bell Beaker group is
more extreme in many ways; the browridges are often heavy, the general
ruggedness frequently greater. The faces are characteristically narrow, the
orbits medium to high, the nasal skeleton high and aquiline; the occiput
frequently flat. The stature for six males reached the high mean of 177 cm.
The deviation of the Rhenish Bell Beaker skulls, such as it is, from the
Aegean and eastern Mediterranean Dinaric form, lies in a Borreby direction.
It is, therefore, more than likely that the invaders mixed with the
descendants of the earlier Neolithic brachycephals, whose territory
stretched along the North Sea coast from southern Sweden to Belgium.
On the whole, however, at the period represented by the Worms crania,
the eastern or Dinaric element was the more important.
The Spanish Bell Beaker problem now stands in a somewhat clearer light
than before. The Dinaric type, with which the Rhenish Bell beakers are
associated, is one which entered the western Mediterranean by sea from
the east, and eventually moved, by some route yet to be determined in
an accurate manner, to the north, and eventually to central Europe.
The paucity of brachycephals in Spain may be due to the paucity of remains
of this culture in general. It is still possible, one might add, that
certain North African elements became involved in the Bell Beaker racial
type, but such an accretion is unnecessary and hardly likely.
The Bell Beaker people were probably the first intrusive brachycephals.
to enter the Austrian Alps, and the mountains of northeastern Bohemia,
for the push of Lake Dwelling Alpines southeastward toward the Balkans
happened later in the Bronze Age. (...)

And here about mixing of Beaker Folks with Corded Ware people:


(...) In their Rhineland center, the more numerous Bell Beaker people had
constant relationships with the inhabitants of Denmark, who were still
burying in corridor tombs. Furthermore, the Corded people, one branch
of whom invaded Jutland and introduced the single-grave type of burial,
also migrated to the Rhine Valley, and here amalgamated themselves
with the Bell Beaker people, who were already in process of mixing with
their Borreby type neighbors. The result of this triple fusion was a great
expansion, and a population overflow down the Rhine, in the direction
of Britain. (...)

This is what he wrote about Beaker Folks in Britain and Ireland:


(...) The consideration of the Bell Beaker problem leads naturally to that of
the Bronze Age in the British Isles, where the Beaker people found their
most important and most lasting home. Coming down the Rhine and out
into the North Sea, they invaded the whole eastern coast of England and
of Scotland, and also the shore of the Channel.
The Beaker invasion of Britain was not a simple affair. Not only did the
newcomers land in many places, but they brought with them somewhat
different traditions. Although most of them brought zoned beakers and
battle axes, in consequence of their blending with the Corded people in
the Rhinelands, others, with the older type of bell beakers and with stone
wrist-guards of Spanish inspiration, seem to have entered unaffected by
Corded influence.
Like their predecessors the Long Barrow people, the new invaders who
went to England chose open lands for settlement, and eschewed the forest
of the Midlands, and the Weald of Surrey, Sussex, and Kent. Yorkshire
with its moors was a favorite spot, while other centers were Wiltshire and
Gloucestershire in the south, and Derbyshire and Staffordshire in between.
64 On the whole, the Beaker people chose the same regions which
had attracted the builders of the long barrows, except that the concentration
in Yorkshire was an innovation. The Beaker people did not exterminate
the Long Barrow people, who continued for a while to build
their characteristic earth-covered vaults, in some of which Beaker pots
have actually been found. The remains of the newcomers, however, are
always buried singly under round barrows, of a type which the Corded
people contributed to the Zoned Beaker complex.
In comparison with the Continent, Great Britain contains a great plenty
of Beaker skeletal material. The invasions which reached this island
brought the wholesale migration of a large population. Over two hundred
and sixty crania from England alone have been preserved and studied.
Out of a series of one hundred and fifty exhaustively analyzed by Morant,
the brachycephals exceed the pure long heads in the ratio of three to one,
while the intermediate forms are about equal in number to the latter.
This segregation would indicate that the blending between the Corded
racial element and its round-headed companions was incomplete at the
time of invasion, as well as afterward. In all the regions from which a
considerable number of skulls have been taken, the proportion between
round heads and long heads is constant, and this would indicate that the
survivors of the Long Barrow people were not buried in the tombs of the
invaders.
The Bronze Age people of England, as represented by this Beaker
series, were clearly heterogeneous. The three ancestral elements which met
in the Rhinelands may be distinguished easily. All three were tall, and
the mean stature of the whole group was about 174 cm. (...)

Rathlin R1b-L21 were Food Vessel culture, descended from Bell Beaker:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_Vessel

Irish L21 could be descended from the Adlersburg BB group in Germany:


(...) The thirty odd known Irish skeletons
of the Bronze Age, taken from short cists, were associated with food vessels
in most cases, or at least when there is known to have been any pottery.
The series as a whole 70 (see Appendix I, col. 26) is tall and slender
boned; the skulls, almost exclusively brachycephalic, are often thin walled;
the bony relief is rarely as prominent as in the British specimens. Metrically,
the Irish crania are narrower headed and narrower faced than the
Scottish, and are almost identical with the Adlersburg group in Germany,
and quite close to the series from Cyprus. Their most notable difference
from the British group, which confirms their similarity to the skulls from
Cyprus, is in their narrow facial breadth. In this and in many other ways,
the Scottish skulls are intermediate between the English and the Irish.

The Irish Bronze Age people who were buried in association with food
vessels were, therefore, members of the racial type which was originally
linked with the Beaker complex, without the associated Borreby and
Corded elements. Childe finds possible prototypes of the food vessels both
in Germany and in Spain.71 Without doubt, in any case, there were movements
from northern Spain and the western end of the Pyrenees during
the Bronze Age, which brought halberds to Ireland, and thence to Scotland,
along with other cultural innovations. These movements were quite
late, but so, in all probability, was the spread of the Food Vessel people,
who often incinerated.

It is necessary to choose between two routes of invasion for the Food
Vessel people, for they were obviously not indigenous. The first, from
Germany and Holland, would be somehow separate from the Beaker invasions,
but yet would bring the most basic Beaker physical element. The
second is from Spain, where the Beaker people were probably only one of
a number of related brachycephalic groups. (...)

Source: https://ia800300.us.archive.org/20/items/racesofeurope031695mbp/racesofeurope031695mbp.pdf

[Tomenable]

Nakho-Dagestanian speakers have R1b (e.g. 30% among Lezgins, 15% among Caucasian Avars, etc. - per Balanovsky 2011). According to some linguists Vasconic languages (including Basque language) are related to Nakho-Dagestanian (Northeast Caucasian) and other Caucasian (including Georgian) languages:

http://www.kondaira.net/eng/Euskara0004.html


Basque-Caucasian Theory

According to some linguists, Euskara is related to the Caucasian languages and especially to Georgian and Dagestani, from a grammatical point of view. They share some features like being agglutinative (3), ergative (4) languages and with the same declension system.

This relationship is not totally established since we do not have yet the Proto-Caucasian language (which would mean the origin of the current languages of the Caucasus) in order to make an exhaustive comparison with Proto-Euskara. This might solve the question about if all these languages took part of the same linguistic group in a remote past. Although the development of Proto-Euskara (or Euskara previous to the arrival of the Romans) is well advanced, we face many problems regarding the Caucasus: while the southern Caucasian languages (Dagestani and Georgian among others) show clearly that they take part of a same linguistic group, the northern languages are very different among them and even with regard to the southern ones, what complicates the development of the Proto-Caucasian language.

The Basque-Caucasian theory that holds a common origin of the Basques and the Caucasian peoples, explains two hypotheses regarding the migration starting point. The first and oldest one considers that the Caucasians migrated westwards to the Pyrenean area during remote ages, what would mean that the Basques are descendants of the Caucasian immigrants. (...) As kindly indicated by Prof Peter Forster to this web site (he was responsible for the research in archaeogenetics that was carried out by the Cambridge University, which points to a Proto-Basque expansion in Europe after the last Ice Age), the Caucasians are much more diverse than the Basques, so that it is unlikely to find a clear relationship among them. However, the study is waiting for more genetic information from Eastern Europe, so that a definitive answer to this supposed common origin can be given.

(3) Agglutinative Language: each word contains several 'stuck' components and in turn, each one of them has its own meaning. The union of those components is made in such a way that they keep their form, that is to say, without any variation, what allows the word to be easily segmented. Let us have a look at the following example in Euskara, which is an agglutinative language: the term 'gizon' means 'man'. The component '-aren' means 'of the' and the particle '-a' is the article of the word under construction. The resulting word is 'gizonarena', that means '(the thing) of the man'. As we can see, each segment of the word sticks to the rest, they agglutinate without suffering any change what makes easier the word segmentation in its components with their meanings.

(4) Ergativity of Euskara: the Basque language distinguish grammatically between the intransitive subject and the transitive or active subject. The following examples show how Euskara uses the ergative mark or active mark in the transitive clauses, which consists of a final '-k':

Gizona etorri da ....[the man has come]: the instransitive subject does not receive the mark

Gizona ikusi du.......[(she/he) has seen the man]: the object of the transitive verb does not receive a mark.

Gizonak ikusi du.....[the man has seen]: the transitive subject receives the mark '-k'.

The behaviour of Euskara, that is, the ergative construction, is exceptional in the world and especially in this area of the world. Almost all of the Caucasian languages use this kind of construction as well, although each one uses it in a differentiated way. This is the peculiar typological feature of the so-called 'ergative languages'.

The Basque verb agrees with the subject (like in Castilian), and also with both direct and indirect objects. The verbal form changes depending on the number of things (direct object) and people (indirect object) involved. That is, the verb varies according to the person and the number of the subject as well as the direct and indirect objects.

In the following example, the auxiliary verb 'dizkiozu' means: 'you have ... them to (him/her)'. The letters '-zki' indicate that there are several things involved (them); the vowel '-o' means that the beneficiary of the action is the third-person singular (him/her) and finally, the letters '-zu' indicate that the subject is the second-person singular (you).

This interesting way of verbal conjugation is only shown in the northwestern and southern Caucasian languages and in Euskara. There is another similarity between Georgian and Euskara: the use of the vigesimal numeral system, where even the location of each figure components is the same. (...)

[Jean M]

Here is what Coon wrote about migrations of Beaker Folks

I realise that people on some other anthropology forums are delighted by Coon and quote his Races of Europe constantly. These amateurs are thrilled to find a source which apparently tells them everything they want to know about the origins of the people of Europe. But Coon does not figure on the reading list for today's archaeology students. In fact Coon was not an archaeologist himself. He was a physical anthropologist.

If you were to suggest to a current professor of archaeology in Europe that he should read Coon, he would probably react much as though he were a doctor who had just been advised to try leeches on his patients. I think I can safely say that not a single source that I have cited in AJ has cited Coon as an authority on anything. That includes the few physical anthropologists that I cited before sufficient aDNA was available to replace the guesswork from them by solid data from DNA. Both anthropology and archaeology have moved on since Races of Europe (1939). Quoting Coon is just a waste of time and space.

[alan]

I realise that people on some other anthropology forums are delighted by Coon and quote his Races of Europe constantly. These amateurs are thrilled to find a source which apparently tells them everything they want to know about the origins of the people of Europe. But Coon does not figure on the reading list for today's archaeology students. In fact Coon was not an archaeologist himself. He was a physical anthropologist.

If you were to suggest to a current professor of archaeology in Europe that he should read Coon, he would probably react much as though he were a doctor who had just been advised to try leeches on his patients. I think I can safely say that not a single source that I have cited in AJ has cited Coon as an authority on anything. That includes the few physical anthropologists that I cited before sufficient aDNA was available to replace the guesswork from them by solid data from DNA. Both anthropology and archaeology have moved on since Races of Europe (1939). Quoting Coon is just a waste of time and space.

I believe he was even thought to be a bit of a crackpot in his day. However this book is peak crackpot IMO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passing_of_the_Great_Race

[Kopfjäger]

Nakho-Dagestanian speakers have R1b (e.g. 30% among Lezgins, 15% among Caucasian Avars, etc. - per Balanovsky 2011). According to some linguists Vasconic languages (including Basque language) are related to Nakho-Dagestanian (Northeast Caucasian) and other Caucasian (including Georgian) languages:

http://www.kondaira.net/eng/Euskara0004.html

What does this have to do with Bell Beaker and R1b? Last time I checked, the Indo-European-speaking population of Great Britain and Ireland is overwhelmingly R1b. You're a few scholarly papers too late to pull the ol' Basque card. Nice try, though.

[Agamemnon]

Tomenable, the "Basque-Caucasian" theory is a rehash of the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis, which makes zero sense.


What does this have to do with Bell Beaker and R1b? Last time I checked, the Indo-European-speaking population of Great Britain and Ireland is overwhelmingly R1b. You're a few scholarly papers too late to pull the ol' Basque card. Nice try, though.

He really doesn't want R1b to be associated with the genesis and spread of IE speakers for some odd reason.

[Silesian]

What does this have to do with Bell Beaker and R1b? Last time I checked, the Indo-European-speaking population of Great Britain and Ireland is overwhelmingly R1b. You're a few scholarly papers too late to pull the ol' Basque card. Nice try, though.

They both share R1b and ANE, although Tabassarans are most likely Z2103+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_by_populations_of_the_Caucasus
http://eurogenes.blogspot.ca/2014/09/corded-ware-culture-linked-to-spread-of.html


Eurogenes table of ANE
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v4zYizoWtsoW1MNBN7SUrLf8R62NHPbMRySUJ2J48_Q/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=1410860471
+/-give and take a little accuracy, rough map
http://cdn.eupedia.com/images/content/Ancient_North_Eurasian_admixture.png

[Kopfjäger]

He really doesn't want R1b to be associated with the genesis and spread of IE speakers for some odd reason.

You know, it's one thing if the data suggest R1b has nothing to do with IE. I would accept that; big deal. But if the overwhelming evidence supports the theory that R1b (and Bell Beaker as a corollary) expanded with the IE languages, yet some folks continue to deny this based on personal/nationalist biases, that's where I have a problem.

Don't pretend to be objective or a "scientist" if that's the case. Come out and say it. It may be because Tomenable is Polish/Eastern European, so he feels uneasy about ascribing the spread of IE into places like Great Britain/Ireland to a "Western" haplogroup. It's silly.

Back to Bell Beaker. Since we know R1b (L21, in particular) is found in Great Britain and Ireland during this period, are these migrants speaking an early form of Celtic, or something more like a generic Northwest Indo-European, like Mallory suggests?

[Gravetto-Danubian]

Since we know R1b (L21, in particular) is found in Great Britain and Ireland during this period, are these migrants speaking an early form of Celtic, or something more like a generic Northwest Indo-European, like Mallory suggests?

My view is the latter, although imaginable a minority position here.

There is irrevocable evidence that several IE languages existed in western Europe, before they were overlain by later Celtic, then Germanic. Not only does this evidence come from 'Old European' hydronymy, which can be criticized as being indirect, but we have actual attested inscriptions of non- or para-Celtic languages like Lusitanian & Ligurian (which date to as late as the pre-Roman Era).
What's more, apart from Don Ringe's tree (which probably was looking at the 'bigger picture' of IE branching), and the "Celtic from the West" crowd, most rational scholars place proto-Celtic in M2, and toward the latter end at that. As I mentioned earlier, Waddell reconstructed shared terms in (mainstream) Celtic languages such as Iron and Chariots which obviously preclude anything too early, not to mention their sheer similarity.

In fact, Brittonic is basically Gaulish, and must have been a very recent introduction to SE Britain. Pictish must be considerably older, but certainly not Copper Age.

The situation is similar in eastern Europe. A myriad of balto-Slavic like languages existed, and the recent expansion of Slavic over much of the region erased this diversity, leaving Lithuanian and Latvian as relicts of the older continuum.

I don't think new aDNA overrides linguistic consensus. This view has to explain the population continuity (at a macro level) since 2400 BC, but that only requires some lateral thinking

http://www.anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10987&d=147131672]

[Kopfjäger]

My view is the latter, although imaginable a minority position here.

There is irrevocable evidence that several IE languages existed in western Europe, before they were overlain by later Celtic, then Germanic. Not only does this evidence come from 'Old European' hydronymy, which can be criticized as being indirect, but we have actual attested inscriptions of non- or para-Celtic languages like Lusitanian & Ligurian (which date to as late as the pre-Roman Era).
What's more, apart from Don Ringe's tree (which probably was looking at the 'bigger picture' of IE branching), and the "Celtic from the West" crowd, most rational scholars place proto-Celtic in M2, and toward the latter end at that. As I mentioned earlier, Waddell reconstructed shared terms in (mainstream) Celtic languages such as Iron and Chariots which obviously preclude anything too early, not to mention their sheer similarity.

In fact, Brittonic is basically Gaulish, and must have been a very recent introduction to SE Britain. Pictish must be considerably older, but certainly not Copper Age.

The situation is similar in eastern Europe. A myriad of balto-Slavic like languages existed, and the recent expansion of Slavic over much of the region erased this diversity, leaving Lithuanian and Latvian as relicts of the older continuum.

I don't think new aDNA overrides linguistic consensus.

http://www.anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10987&d=147131672]
That makes me think of Nordwestblock. Like you said though, these areas were later overlain with Celtic, then Germanic.

[Agamemnon]

My view is the latter, although imaginable a minority position here.

There is irrevocable evidence that several IE languages existed in western Europe, before they were overlain by later Celtic, then Germanic. Not only does this evidence come from 'Old European' hydronymy, which can be criticized as being indirect, but we have actual attested inscriptions of non- or para-Celtic languages like Lusitanian & Ligurian (which date to as late as the pre-Roman Era).
What's more, apart from Don Ringe's tree (which probably was looking at the 'bigger picture' of IE branching), and the "Celtic from the West" crowd, most rational scholars place proto-Celtic in M2, and toward the latter end at that. As I mentioned earlier, Waddell reconstructed shared terms in (mainstream) Celtic languages such as Iron and Chariots which obviously preclude anything too early, not to mention their sheer similarity.

In fact, Brittonic is basically Gaulish, and must have been a very recent introduction to SE Britain. Pictish must be considerably older, but certainly not Copper Age.

The situation is similar in eastern Europe. A myriad of balto-Slavic like languages existed, and the recent expansion of Slavic over much of the region erased this diversity, leaving Lithuanian and Latvian as relicts of the older continuum.

I don't think new aDNA overrides linguistic consensus. This view has to explain the population continuity (at a macro level) since 2400 BC, but that only requires some lateral thinking

http://www.anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=10987&d=147131672]

^^I second that.