Bell Beakers versus Bell Beakers - R1b Complications

[Richard Rocca]

Now that we've all had time to digest the news about the R1b1a2 Bell Beakers, I'd like to illustrate how complex the Bell Beaker world may have been.

There are two nearly identical Bell Beaker sites in the Western Alps, one is called "Petit-Chasseur" in Sion, Switzerland and the other is located in Saint Martin de Corleans in Aosta, Italy. I know Jean is very well aware of them. The first phases of these two sites are megalithic tombs dating back to 3070 BC. This dating is important as it aligns well with the placement of the first stones at Stonehenge and the pre-Bell Beaker buildings found in Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão in Guarda, Northern Portugal.

The inhabitants of both the Sion and Aosta sites started to erect their first menhir-stelae around 2750 BC. Now here comes the interesting part. At the end of the Early Bell Beaker period, stelae at boh sites are smashed and used to build new monuments. The newly constructed stelae are even more elaborate than the older ones and depict more wealth. According to Harrison and Heyd (2007):

"The conflict of ideas could therefore be seen as a doctrinal conflict within the Bell Beaker ideology."..."This fits the two distinct Beaker traditions that we identify, coming respectively from the southwest and the east."

Lemercier (2003) has this area receiving Bell Beakers from the SW during the earlier Bell Beaker phases and switching to the central European Bell Beaker sphere in the Late and Final Bell Beaker phases.

Here is a link to an Aosta Bell Beaker menhir: http://www.u152.org/images/stories/Aosta_Stele_Number_30.jpg
The papers I've read have the round thing in the middle as a pocket, but I think it could also be interpreted as a Beaker itself.

This change in Bell Beaker spheres may also have involved different warring Bell Beaker from different areas. In Sicily, Early Bell Beaker skulls are similar to those found in Iberia and the majority are dolichocephalic (82.4%). Final Bell Beakers (Epicampaniforme) skulls are primarily brachycephalic (70%).

From an SNP perspective the possibilities are endless for these movements, with possibly megaclades (DF27/Z196 versus U152), subclades (U152+L2+ versus U152+Z36+ and/or U152/Z56), or even old versus new subclades going up against each other (L23?L51?L11? versus P312).

Is anyone else aware of similar Bell Beaker replacements?

[Jean M]

We have discussed this before. I presumed that the early BB at Petit-Chasseur was R1b xL21 descending from what I have called the Stelae People, with a power base in Iberia, whereas those taking over from the power centres north of the Alps were R1b-L21. That may be somewhat simplistic, now that we have the new SNPs.

I agree with you that the two populations link pretty neatly to skull shape. Menk 1979 shows the clusters, with BB from Portugal and Italy falling into one cluster and most of the other BB into a different cluster, with Switzerland between the two.

[rms2]

Do we know anything about the anthropometrics of the bodies at Kromsdorf?

[Jean M]

Do we know anything about the anthropometrics of the bodies at Kromsdorf?

Not a thing.

[samIsaack]

@Rich

How would SRY2627 fit into all of this?

[MHammers]

On the Menk (1979) dendogram, the German Bell Beakers all seem to cluster together.  This includes Thuringia (Kromsdorf).  The Moravian Beakers are rather close as well.  This possibly links the Kromsdorf people to the eastern Bell Beaker group.

Going back into the late Neolithic and also other Bell Beaker, the Remedello (north Italy) and Gaudo (Sicily) cultures are close.  In addition, the Spanish and south France
crania are close as well.  All of which suggest a Mediterranean source for the German Beakers.  Perhaps, these proto-Bell Beaker people started in the Vucedol culture, then entered the Po Valley.

[Jean M]

On the Menk (1979) dendogram, the German Bell Beakers all seem to cluster together.  This includes Thuringia (Kromsdorf).  The Moravian Beakers are rather close as well.  This possibly links the Kromsdorf people to the eastern Bell Beaker group.

I would assume so.

Going back into the late Neolithic and also other Bell Beaker, the Remedello (north Italy) and Gaudo (Sicily) cultures are close.  In addition, the Spanish and south France crania are close as well.  All of which suggest a Mediterranean source for the German Beakers.

I doubt it. The power shift discerned so clearly at Petit-Chasseur also affected southern France, as shown in the archaeology. See Lemercier (2003), mentioned by Richard Rocca in the top post. Presumably the same applies to the other routes from north of the Alps to the Mediterranean, control of which gave power and wealth to the BB centres north of the Alps, whence sprang Hallstatt.

The problem I think is that Menk is not discriminating by chronology. All BB from a particular place is being lumped together.  

Perhaps, these proto-Bell Beaker people started in the Vucedol culture, then entered the Po Valley.

That is precisely what I argue in Beaker Folk to Celts and Italics. But that was only one strand - The Stelae People. The other strand carried on up the Danube and  snaffled the sites which gave them control of Alpine passes.

[alan trowel hands.]

I do recall someone did a study of Irish Neolithic versus Irish Early Bronze Age skulls (think it was an paper in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology) and a multivariate analysis split them into two distinct, not even overlapping, clusters.  My understanding is that the Irish EBA skulls were of beaker type.  I also understand that the EBA Irish were very tall for the period and much taller than the Neolithic.  I think through googling I have found the abstract

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20567945?uid=3738032&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=56142957423

[Jean M]

@ Alan - Thanks. There were similar results in Britain. I still think that some Irish BB came up the Atlantic route.

[alan trowel hands.]

Now that we've all had time to digest the news about the R1b1a2 Bell Beakers, I'd like to illustrate how complex the Bell Beaker world may have been.

There are two nearly identical Bell Beaker sites in the Western Alps, one is called "Petit-Chasseur" in Sion, Switzerland and the other is located in Saint Martin de Corleans in Aosta, Italy. I know Jean is very well aware of them. The first phases of these two sites are megalithic tombs dating back to 3070 BC. This dating is important as it aligns well with the placement of the first stones at Stonehenge and the pre-Bell Beaker buildings found in Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão in Guarda, Northern Portugal.

The inhabitants of both the Sion and Aosta sites started to erect their first menhir-stelae around 2750 BC. Now here comes the interesting part. At the end of the Early Bell Beaker period, stelae at boh sites are smashed and used to build new monuments. The newly constructed stelae are even more elaborate than the older ones and depict more wealth. According to Harrison and Heyd (2007):

"The conflict of ideas could therefore be seen as a doctrinal conflict within the Bell Beaker ideology."..."This fits the two distinct Beaker traditions that we identify, coming respectively from the southwest and the east."

Lemercier (2003) has this area receiving Bell Beakers from the SW during the earlier Bell Beaker phases and switching to the central European Bell Beaker sphere in the Late and Final Bell Beaker phases.

Here is a link to an Aosta Bell Beaker menhir: http://www.u152.org/images/stories/Aosta_Stele_Number_30.jpg
The papers I've read have the round thing in the middle as a pocket, but I think it could also be interpreted as a Beaker itself.

This change in Bell Beaker spheres may also have involved different warring Bell Beaker from different areas. In Sicily, Early Bell Beaker skulls are similar to those found in Iberia and the majority are dolichocephalic (82.4%). Final Bell Beakers (Epicampaniforme) skulls are primarily brachycephalic (70%).

From an SNP perspective the possibilities are endless for these movements, with possibly megaclades (DF27/Z196 versus U152), subclades (U152+L2+ versus U152+Z36+ and/or U152/Z56), or even old versus new subclades going up against each other (L23?L51?L11? versus P312).

Is anyone else aware of similar Bell Beaker replacements?

I would caution against making the Aosta and Sion paper as anything clinching as we are talking about a very complex interpretation of (in one case) a very disturbed site.  Its very interesting but like I say heed caution on this one.  

[Jean M]

I would caution against making the Aosta and Sion paper as anything clinching as we are talking about a very complex interpretation of (in one case) a very disturbed site.

As Richard pointed out in the top post, the picture from Aosta and Sion of a change of direction of influence is confirmed from southern France.

[Richard Rocca]

Given that Stonehenge was used before, through and well after the BB period, what are the chances that its builders were also M269? As with Sion and Aosta, the date doesn't seem out of reach with the earliest BB.

[Humanist]

Given that Stonehenge was used before, through and well after the BB period, what are the chances that its builders were also M269? As with Sion and Aosta, the date doesn't seem out of reach with the earliest BB.

It is possible.  And a possible link to Syria.  

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2010

"Syrian Megalith May Predate Stonehenge"

Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, believes he has discovered an ancient landscape at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery in the Syrian Desert, consisting of stone circles, stone alignments and what appear to be corbelled roof tombs.

From stone tools found at the site, it’s likely that the features date to some point in the Middle East’s Neolithic Period, a broad stretch of time between roughly 8500 BC and 4300 BC.

It is thought that in Western Europe megalithic construction involving the use of stone only dates back as far as 4500 BC. This means that the Syrian site could be older than anything seen in Europe. Mason described his shock at discovering the apparent tombs, stone circles and stone alignments: “I was standing up there thinking, oh dear me, I’ve wandered onto Salisbury Plain.”

I should add that I have no ties to Syria.  Assyrian = NE Mesopotamia.  Not Syria.  I simply feel that, based on the genetic data, the rough area of Turkey which was once Cilicia, and some parts of Syria, may have played a significant part in the history of R-M269.  

[Humanist]

Cilicia and N Syria are also close to Göbekli Tepe.

Location: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smithsonian_map_g%C3%B6bekli_tepe.jpg

[Jean M]

Given that Stonehenge was used before, through and well after the BB period, what are the chances that its builders were also M269?

I have considered this possibility. When the first farmers entered Britain, it looks as though they were already familiar with dairy farming. I discuss their possible origins under Dairy Farming. One warning. I have been criticised for the conclusion I draw there that dairy farming came with the Carinated Bowl people, because I have not checked whether milk products are mainly found on that pottery. I still haven't got around to that.

[alan trowel hands.]

I kind of imagine the beaker people were welcomed because of their usefulness to the natives and became an element in pockets among the natives and to some degree participated in the traditions of the natives that had been around in the grooved ware phase. I sort of see that every tribe or chiefdom in Neolithic Britain would have wanted their beaker element.  However, in time the beaker folk's approach may have come to form an alternative rival element that soon eclipsed the old and established hegemony.  However that process seems unclear to me.  In Ireland beaker people buried in two traditions.  One was in Wedge Tombs which seem to have a construction span that almost perfectly fits the Irish beaker phase and a distribution in the rocky west and north uplands and other niches elsewhere.  It looks like some sort of more macro separation between beakers and the older elements on the better agricultural lands.  I think that makes sense when you consider that metal-orientated people will be interested in the area of rock exposure.  I think there is a hint that there was more of a macro separation of beaker and native traditions for 2-300 years.  A second Irish beaker burial tradition of cremations in pits with token beaker deposits resembles native traditions and I wonder if this was the natives.  This discusses it in more detail:

http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Strangely in Ireland, more classic beaker type single burials date from the period when beakers were being used as domestic ware but had been replaced by food vessels for burial.  It is almost suggestive to me of a period where beaker traditions were an element but that their traditions were not yet dominant, perhaps spanning 2-300 years. after which they became dominant throughout Ireland.  So, perhaps we are seeing the phase where beakers moved from a novel element to a dominant tradition across 2-300 years. 

[Richard Rocca]

Given that Stonehenge was used before, through and well after the BB period, what are the chances that its builders were also M269?

I have considered this possibility. When the first farmers entered Britain, it looks as though they were already familiar with dairy farming. I discuss their possible origins under Dairy Farming. One warning. I have been criticised for the conclusion I draw there that dairy farming came with the Carinated Bowl people, because I have not checked whether milk products are mainly found on that pottery. I still haven't got around to that.

Carinated Bowl people have parallels to the northern Chasseen, and that seems to be the route attributed to early agriculturalists. If I had to guess, this would be a good place to put L51 or L11 people, with the later Amesbury Archer already being L21. All speculation of course.

I have to go back and re-read the paper about Britain's first wars.

[rms2]

I don't know if this is helpful at all, but I'll throw it out there anyway.

I once read that there is Grooved Ware pottery in a layer with evidence of destruction by fire at Durrington Walls near Stonehenge and that Beaker stuff appears above that, in the more recent layers.

I have since tried to find that reference but have been unable to do so.

[Richard Rocca]

I kind of imagine the beaker people were welcomed because of their usefulness to the natives and became an element in pockets among the natives and to some degree participated in the traditions of the natives that had been around in the grooved ware phase. I sort of see that every tribe or chiefdom in Neolithic Britain would have wanted their beaker element.  However, in time the beaker folk's approach may have come to form an alternative rival element that soon eclipsed the old and established hegemony.  However that process seems unclear to me.  In Ireland beaker people buried in two traditions.  One was in Wedge Tombs which seem to have a construction span that almost perfectly fits the Irish beaker phase and a distribution in the rocky west and north uplands and other niches elsewhere.  It looks like some sort of more macro separation between beakers and the older elements on the better agricultural lands.  I think that makes sense when you consider that metal-orientated people will be interested in the area of rock exposure.  I think there is a hint that there was more of a macro separation of beaker and native traditions for 2-300 years.  A second Irish beaker burial tradition of cremations in pits with token beaker deposits resembles native traditions and I wonder if this was the natives.  This discusses it in more detail:

http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Strangely in Ireland, more classic beaker type single burials date from the period when beakers were being used as domestic ware but had been replaced by food vessels for burial.  It is almost suggestive to me of a period where beaker traditions were an element but that their traditions were not yet dominant, perhaps spanning 2-300 years. after which they became dominant throughout Ireland.  So, perhaps we are seeing the phase where beakers moved from a novel element to a dominant tradition across 2-300 years. 

I hate to say things like this because I know there will be those that will accuse me of being an R1b cheerleader, but I'll say it anyway: I don't think anyone welcomed BB. In places like Ireland, R1b is too dominant for there not to have been an almost complete destruction of the prior people by war. Even a genetic advantage doesn't seem like the culprit to me.

[alan trowel hands.]

I kind of imagine the beaker people were welcomed because of their usefulness to the natives and became an element in pockets among the natives and to some degree participated in the traditions of the natives that had been around in the grooved ware phase. I sort of see that every tribe or chiefdom in Neolithic Britain would have wanted their beaker element.  However, in time the beaker folk's approach may have come to form an alternative rival element that soon eclipsed the old and established hegemony.  However that process seems unclear to me.  In Ireland beaker people buried in two traditions.  One was in Wedge Tombs which seem to have a construction span that almost perfectly fits the Irish beaker phase and a distribution in the rocky west and north uplands and other niches elsewhere.  It looks like some sort of more macro separation between beakers and the older elements on the better agricultural lands.  I think that makes sense when you consider that metal-orientated people will be interested in the area of rock exposure.  I think there is a hint that there was more of a macro separation of beaker and native traditions for 2-300 years.  A second Irish beaker burial tradition of cremations in pits with token beaker deposits resembles native traditions and I wonder if this was the natives.  This discusses it in more detail:

http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Strangely in Ireland, more classic beaker type single burials date from the period when beakers were being used as domestic ware but had been replaced by food vessels for burial.  It is almost suggestive to me of a period where beaker traditions were an element but that their traditions were not yet dominant, perhaps spanning 2-300 years. after which they became dominant throughout Ireland.  So, perhaps we are seeing the phase where beakers moved from a novel element to a dominant tradition across 2-300 years. 

I hate to say things like this because I know there will be those that will accuse me of being an R1b cheerleader, but I'll say it anyway: I don't think anyone welcomed BB. In places like Ireland, R1b is too dominant for there not to have been an almost complete destruction of the prior people by war. Even a genetic advantage doesn't seem like the culprit to me.

I think to survive initially with no real military advantage and surely initially far lower numbers I think they must have been tolerated, even desired.  The late Neolithic communities building these henges and other large monuments in the British Isles are often seen as substantial polities with the power to commission massive projects.  They were archers too and there is even evidence in the pre-beaker Neolithic of massed archery attacks on causewayed enclosures etc.   However they might have been inviting in a Trojan Horse.  The beaker people may have seemed very prestigious to many people and most importantly IMO they were serious networkers and that could have been a big advantage.  Finally after a couple of centuries when Bronze was invented they finally had a really major advantage compared to the copper and gold objects of the earlier generations of beaker people.  Similar situations happened many times in the historical period where invited group overturned their paymasters and took the reigns of power. 

In Ireland, unlike Britain, there does seem to be a hint in the Wedge Tombs and metalworkng that (contra what you will read in many books) that the beaker culture there may have had its first hold in the west and north-west and other pockets here and there.  The sudden establishment of the single grave in the beaker tradition all over Ireland, including the ore-free but good land areas of the east, coincides with the general period where Bronze with it practicality appeared instead of the relatively impractical but prestigious copper and gold objects they produced.  That may have marked the change from a prestigeous but subordinate role to a dominant one.  I call this delayed hegemony. I imagine in Britain it was slightly different with beaker peoples more evenly scatted.  This of course is not proven but something along the lines of a delay between the arrival of beaker elements and the appearance of the beaker type single graves but with Food Vessles a couple of centuries later has been noted by many archaeologists in Ireland.  Of course an alternative for the sudden popularity of single burial across Ireland is maybe influences coming from Britain around the time Bronze appeared.  Its still really a matter of interpretation rather than open-shut though.

[OConnor]

Re: Stonehenge

Archaeological excavation has indicated that around 4600 bp, the builders abandoned timber in favour of stone. Perhaps there is a + or - window to this date.

It was suggested that the Amesbury Archer lived around (4300 bp) around the time that the large stones at Stonehenge were put into place. As I understand it his grave contained beaker pottery.

 

[alan trowel hands.]

I kind of imagine the beaker people were welcomed because of their usefulness to the natives and became an element in pockets among the natives and to some degree participated in the traditions of the natives that had been around in the grooved ware phase. I sort of see that every tribe or chiefdom in Neolithic Britain would have wanted their beaker element.  However, in time the beaker folk's approach may have come to form an alternative rival element that soon eclipsed the old and established hegemony.  However that process seems unclear to me.  In Ireland beaker people buried in two traditions.  One was in Wedge Tombs which seem to have a construction span that almost perfectly fits the Irish beaker phase and a distribution in the rocky west and north uplands and other niches elsewhere.  It looks like some sort of more macro separation between beakers and the older elements on the better agricultural lands.  I think that makes sense when you consider that metal-orientated people will be interested in the area of rock exposure.  I think there is a hint that there was more of a macro separation of beaker and native traditions for 2-300 years.  A second Irish beaker burial tradition of cremations in pits with token beaker deposits resembles native traditions and I wonder if this was the natives.  This discusses it in more detail:

http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Strangely in Ireland, more classic beaker type single burials date from the period when beakers were being used as domestic ware but had been replaced by food vessels for burial.  It is almost suggestive to me of a period where beaker traditions were an element but that their traditions were not yet dominant, perhaps spanning 2-300 years. after which they became dominant throughout Ireland.  So, perhaps we are seeing the phase where beakers moved from a novel element to a dominant tradition across 2-300 years. 

I hate to say things like this because I know there will be those that will accuse me of being an R1b cheerleader, but I'll say it anyway: I don't think anyone welcomed BB. In places like Ireland, R1b is too dominant for there not to have been an almost complete destruction of the prior people by war. Even a genetic advantage doesn't seem like the culprit to me.

Also I wouldnt underestimate the ability of lineages descending from just a few poweful people to utterly change the y-DNA of a place like Ireland.  Indeed, a huge chunk of Irish L21 seems to be down to the descendants of a relatively few men many of whom date to the early historic period and others to the post-beaker prehistoric period.  If a similar process was underway 4500 years ago then their impact could have been massive judging by what was achieved by some lines in 1000 years or so.  

[Jean M]

I have to go back and re-read the paper about Britain's first wars.

I actually splashed out on the 2 massive volumes of Gathering Time (2011) (that the piece on Britain's first wars was based on), but I have barely dipped into them. I  got started today, but have a train to catch in a couple of hours, so have to stop. On frantic first search of those volumes and Copley 2003 on  milk residues, looks like

• The tests for milk products were done on later pottery than carinated, developed in Britain and associated with causewayed enclosures.
• Gathering Time sees the origin of the British Neolithic largely from carinated and coming in from the Picardy area, as proposed earlier by Alison Sheridan

But this is really, really preliminary. Absolutely mad dash through the data.

[Richard Rocca]

I kind of imagine the beaker people were welcomed because of their usefulness to the natives and became an element in pockets among the natives and to some degree participated in the traditions of the natives that had been around in the grooved ware phase. I sort of see that every tribe or chiefdom in Neolithic Britain would have wanted their beaker element.  However, in time the beaker folk's approach may have come to form an alternative rival element that soon eclipsed the old and established hegemony.  However that process seems unclear to me.  In Ireland beaker people buried in two traditions.  One was in Wedge Tombs which seem to have a construction span that almost perfectly fits the Irish beaker phase and a distribution in the rocky west and north uplands and other niches elsewhere.  It looks like some sort of more macro separation between beakers and the older elements on the better agricultural lands.  I think that makes sense when you consider that metal-orientated people will be interested in the area of rock exposure.  I think there is a hint that there was more of a macro separation of beaker and native traditions for 2-300 years.  A second Irish beaker burial tradition of cremations in pits with token beaker deposits resembles native traditions and I wonder if this was the natives.  This discusses it in more detail:

http://charles-mount.ie/wp/?p=349

Strangely in Ireland, more classic beaker type single burials date from the period when beakers were being used as domestic ware but had been replaced by food vessels for burial.  It is almost suggestive to me of a period where beaker traditions were an element but that their traditions were not yet dominant, perhaps spanning 2-300 years. after which they became dominant throughout Ireland.  So, perhaps we are seeing the phase where beakers moved from a novel element to a dominant tradition across 2-300 years. 

I hate to say things like this because I know there will be those that will accuse me of being an R1b cheerleader, but I'll say it anyway: I don't think anyone welcomed BB. In places like Ireland, R1b is too dominant for there not to have been an almost complete destruction of the prior people by war. Even a genetic advantage doesn't seem like the culprit to me.

Also I wouldnt underestimate the ability of lineages descending from just a few poweful people to utterly change the y-DNA of a place like Ireland.  Indeed, a huge chunk of Irish L21 seems to be down to the descendants of a relatively few men many of whom date to the early historic period and others to the post-beaker prehistoric period.  If a similar process was underway 4500 years ago then their impact could have been massive judging by what was achieved by some lines in 1000 years or so.  

That is all fine, but the lineages were/are all overwhelmingly L21. If L21 was invited in from northern France, over several hundred years you would start to see a fusion of Y-DNA. That would dictate that at least a small amount of the successful lineages that are attributable to the last 1000 years would have been L11*, G2a, J2, U152, etc., but you see none of that in Ireland. I just get the feeling that L21 got to the British Isles early (3000 BC?) and routed all those who stood in their paths (sans the women, because we now know R1b types liked variety). Not a pretty picture by today's politically correct standards, but I don't think anyone should apologize for being a part of successful lineage.

[Jean M]

I just get the feeling that L21 got to the British Isles early (3000 BC?) and routed all those who stood in their paths

There had been a dramatic population collapse in Ireland in the Late Neolithic. See http://www.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/images/Turney2006.jpg . It wouldn't take much routing to overwhelm the survivors. I don't have a similar graph for Britain. The collapse may have been less severe there.