P312 clades - distribution, size and hitting the metal jackpot

[alan trowel hands.]

I was just thinking there (and I have mentioned it before) that the peaks of varous P312 clades and indeed the size of the clade could relate to who got lucky and who didnt in the search for copper and other ores and a position of advantage controlling it.  Its obvious that U152 and the Alps and L21 in Atlantic parts of France and the isles could be said to have an advantageus position in a period when metal meant power.  However, I wonder if you can go futher and say that clades that did not flourish basically were seeds on barren ground in terms of the search for metals.  You could call L51* clade that ran parallel to the L11* lines one of the failures. 

http://www.u152.org/images/stories/L51_Map_with_Neolithic_Path_003.png

It clearly followed and interacted along the beaker networks but it didnt prosper.  Looking at its distribution I do wonder if we are looking at a group who went into the Massive Central looking for copper and ended up poor cousins.  I understand that only on the southern edge of the massive central has copper age been indicated.  There distribution suggests they moved inland into the interior of this area.  Perhaps they did not find what they were looking for and ended up settling down or dispersing in small numbers along the beaker network to join their distant cousins in other areas where where there was metal but they didnt have the first-in power as they were already settled and controlled by U152 and L21 or DF 27 groups.  The L51* group has that look about it in terms of distrubution.  Not everyone would have been winners in the 'copper and gold rush' of the copper age. 

[alan trowel hands.]

Another thought on this.  U106 total variance may fall into at least the later beaker period.  However U106 on the continent appears to have settled on the Baltic for a long period before spreading west in the late Bronze and Iron Ages.  Following my metal seekers winners model, that poses two questions

1. What did the U106 group in the Baltic find to exploit and control (Amber?) or were they just dissapointed and settled down after a long fruitless treck?

2. What L11 clades were in Holland before the late spread of U106 west from the Baltic?  You could say that going to Holland was not exactly the jackpot in terms of metals.  However there was a lot of beaker there.  I suppose the theory is that they were middle men in the trade between the the Alps, the Isles and the Atlantic.  However variance suggests that these middle men may not have been U106.  the variance in the area is not indicative that U106 was around in the beaker period.  I would tend to think that the pre-U106 pattern in this area may be preserved in Belgium and NE France where it was a mixed bag.

There seems little question to me that U152 and L21 respectively hit the jackpot in Alpine/central Europe and L21 did the same in the north Atantic coasts where there was a lot of metal wealth.   Success probably meant power which meant a lot of descendants.  I suppose that leaves DF27 as the big third player.  Its European wide distribution is not clear but we do know it was big in Iberia.  Was it the Pyrenness/Languedoc etc that gave them their wealth. 

One other area that seems to have had a lot of metal wealth was the south of France including the southern/SW edge of the Massive Central with its beaker age copper mines of Herault and Aveyron.  Following the copper=wealth=many descendants model then which clade should we associate with them?  Is it DF27 or something else?  I dont know enough about southern France's P312 clade balance to say.  I am workng on the theory that P312 intruded into Iberia in the beaker period and was not there pre-beaker although clearly I dont know that for sure.   

[Heber]

Alan,

I agree. The largest metal mine in the ancient world and probably the most worked mines in human history is Rio Tinto. This is not just any old open cast mining landscape. It is the epicentre of the Celtic world, Huevla, Tartessos, and the probable source of Celtic language (Cunliffe and Koch). The other important Altlantic copper mining of that era was Ross Island in South West Ireland and Cornwall for Tin in South West Britain. Cornwall was so important that it attracted the Phoenician fleets from Byblos, Tyre and Troy.

http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_11/gamito_6_11.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

[alan trowel hands.]

Alan,

I agree. The largest metal mine in the ancient world and probably the most worked mines in human history is Rio Tinto. This is not just any old open cast mining landscape. It is the epicentre of the Celtic world, Huevla, Tartessos, and the probable source of Celtic language (Cunliffe and Koch). The other important Altlantic copper mining of that era was Ross Island in South West Ireland and Cornwall for Tin in South West Britain. Cornwall was so important that it attracted the Phoenician fleets from Byblos, Tyre and Troy.

http://www4.uwm.edu/celtic/ekeltoi/volumes/vol6/6_11/gamito_6_11.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

That a lot of periods though from 3000BC-500BC,   It best to look at one period at a time IMO.  We are very fortune that R1b's main clades from L51 downstream to its major early clades may track the beaker movement.   

What I would be really interested is a map of all known European copper mines and likely ore hotspots of the period 2800-2000BC and consider that against the clade hotspots. Cornwall is in an interesting point although its importance on tin is a little later in the beaker period.  I just suspect the most major old clade division may represent control of different key metal resources.  L21 looks like it dominanted the isles and Atlantic French sources.  Its hard to look past U152 in terms of the Alpine sources.  They probably also controlled nodal points on the trade routes as middle men away from the actual ore sources.  I am interested in what clades predominate in the area of the southern French copper mines.  I have a suspicion that the early Portugese pre-beaker sources may have not initially been in R1b control.  As far as I can see the varous clade dates keep coming up centred on the same mid 3rd millenium.  I know there are wide confidence intervals but the centre points seem to be consistent in interclade.  These are not as old as pre-beaker copper mines and indeed not as old as beakers in Iberia.   I suspect R1b entered Iberia from the east in the mature beaker phase. 

[A.D.]

Alan you mentioned arsnicated copper on Spanjool's thread. I was wondering is there anything noticeable in mutation rate in these areas?

[Heber]

Alan,

Dienekes latest contribution has an interesting discussion on the expansion of metal making skills and it is so interesting, I will post an extended extract. He was initially commenting on "A physico-anthropological study of skeletal material from Neolithic age to Hellenistic times in Central Greece and surrounding region". My question is could this metal making expansion be associated with the expansion of Bell Beakers. Would it fit L51* migration path. There are some maps associated with the study which would appear to support this.
 
"Personally, I see something important in these developments: why would broad-headed mountaineers make their appearance in the lowlands at this time in history? I am strongly leaning towards the idea that this has to do with metallurgical innovation during this time. According to Roberts et al. (2009), from which the figure on the left is taken:
Metallurgy in Eurasia originated in Southwest Asia due to the widespread adoption of, and experimentation in, pyrotechnology and the desire for new materials to serve as aesthetic visual displays of identity, whether of a social, cultural or ideological nature. This can be demonstrated through the early use of metal for jewellery and the use of ore-based pigments along with the continued use of stone, bone, and other materials for most tools. The subsequent appearance of metals throughout Eurasia is due to the acquisition of metal objects by individuals and communities re-inventing traditions of adornment, even in regions hundreds of kilometres from the nearest sources of native metals or ores. The movement of communities possessing metallurgical expertise to new ore sources and into supportive societies led to the gradual transmission of metallurgy across the Eurasian landmass. By the second millennium BC, metallurgy had spread across Eurasia, becoming firmly rooted in virtually all inhabitable areas (Sherratt 2006). The ability to smelt different ores, create different metals or increase metal production did not occur in a linear evolutionary fashion throughout Eurasia, but rather appeared sporadically over a vast area – a result of regional innovations and societal desires and demands.
There is no evidence to suggest that metallurgy was independently invented in any part of Eurasia beyond Southwest Asia. The process of metallurgical transmission and innovation created a mosaic of (frequently diverse) metallurgical traditions distinguished by form, composition and production techniques. It is within this context that innovations such as the earliest working of gold in the Balkans or the sudden emergence of distinctive tin-bronze working in Southeast Asia should be seen

The richest ore deposits were found in mountain areas as Thornton (2009) makes clear:
Models for the development of metallurgy in Southwest Asia have for a long time been focussed on research carried out in the lowland regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia. These models do not take into account the different developmental trajectories witnessed in the resource-rich highlands of Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Iran. In this paper, the beginnings of the use and production of metals in Iran will be juxtaposed with a cursory overview of the lowland model (the ‘Levantine Paradigm’) in order to highlight these differences. By synthesizing data from a number of current research projects exploring the early metallurgy of the Iranian Plateau, this paper demonstrates how at least one of the highland regions of Southwest Asia was at the very forefront of technological innovation from the seventh through the second millennium BC. "

http://dienekes.blogspot.ie/2012/07/a-physico-anthropological-study-of.html

[alan trowel hands.]

Very interesting.  I will take a look at that.  R1b does have a tendency to peak in mountain areas as well as the rocky parts of the Atlantic west.  I once thought this was down to dairy pastoralism but it could be metals or a hand combo of both.

[OConnor]

Moutains, and large bodies of water are probably natural barriers to the spread of most people(though some would have gone further) I suspect that's why we have a Western Atlantic Model. Mountains could also provide a haven.

I wonder if new people coming into an area peacefully might settle in the less desireable areas, like low lands, or high lands, because the best land had already been taken. There they could multiply till such time they could spread further.

[glentane]

I wonder if new people coming into an area peacefully might settle in the less desireable areas, like low lands, or high lands, because the best land had already been taken. There they could multiply till such time they could spread further.

That was the contention of the late and greatly missed Ian Shepherd with regard to the apparent congruity between the earliest beakers in Scotland and the early appearance of metalworking in certain key localities.
I can't run down an online reference to his ideas, so hope you don't mind me copying out a chunk from his pamphlet produced for the interested general public, "Powerful Pots: Beakers in north-east prehistory" (1986) (ISBN 0 9511411 0 4).

After pointing out the scattered and sparse distribution of local early beakers, All-Over-Ornamented ( and All-Over-Cord-decorated), having their origin in the lower Rhine basin and ultimately the Protruding-Foot tradition, and a noticeable and well-debated change in the skeletal type associated with such burials and the artefacts deposited with them, which "all point to an intrusive ethnic element in much of the earlier phases of the beaker phenomenon", he adds "It is probable that the skills of metalworking were introduced to Britain by the makers of "middle style" beakers" (using Humphrey Case's 3-phase definitions throughout, dated I know, but as good as any of the intricate and gnarly schemata produced before or since). Goldwork appears (Amesbury Archer type ear?/hair? rings from Morayshire and elsewhere in N Scotland), decorated disks, lunulae, and Cu-As alloys with the odd bit of tin-bronze, in the form of thin-butted axes, jet and amber jewelry.

  "In the north-east of Scotland, as elsewhere in Britain, beakers appeared in a society that was already showing signs of change and disruption. They implanted best where there were men ready to exploit them against established power."
...
  "It is also significant that echoes of the pattern noted in Wessex in which the earliest beaker burials avoid (or were excluded from? ;glentane) the major ritual enclosures (Thorpe and Richards 1984, 79) can be seen in Grampian. The Garioch (agricultural breadbasket of NE Scotland ;glentane) is almost devoid of early beakers and evidence of metalworking, whereas areas peripheral to the Neolithic heartland, and in particular east and west Buchan, not only have more evidence of early beaker activity but also have substantial evidence of the earliest metalworking."
  "It would appear that although the initial contacts made in Grampian by the beaker metal-workers from the lower Rhine and Holland in particular were by way of nearly all the main rivers, the Deveron, the Ugie, the Ythan, the Dee and the Don, as the last-named led straight to the Neolithic power-centres, beakers were not encouraged in the Garioch."

Goes on to show how the links skipped round the solid farming core areas, in a trajectory ending in Ireland's copper sources. The recent findings at Upper Largie, unarguably intrusive or rather satellite ("Dutch") beaker burial, and "Yorkshire" polypod bowl, at the Ireland-bound end of the Great Glen, within a vast "native" Neolithic complex, tend to bear this out.

  "Control of access to such high status goods as metalwork and fine pottery ( and perhaps more importantly the 'rocket-fuel' mead they seem to have contained? It'd get my vote :) ;glentane) would have led to the development of a prestige goods economy in the hands of several grandees - not too fancifully, 'the Big Men of Buchan' - who could have risen in status in opposition to the adjacent, older ritual (my bold; g) authority of the Garioch."

The early metalwork types and the ceramics all point seductively to the Netherlands. I could bore you rigid with a list if you like. :)

Oh, and, because I'm a horrible old man who likes to stir, I have a vague recall that there's a distinct R-U106 peak in this very part of NE Scotland, which was kicked all up and down the park in discussions on the defunct DNAForums, with everyone from Maglemose hunters (cf. Starr Carr) to mediaeval Flemings (local "Norman" aristocracy and their homies) being mustered to fill the ranks. Just sayin' ..

(oh there you go, it's risen from the grave again .. just noticed this thread).

For balance, here's a more recent treatment of early metal in Scotland, which points to all corners of the map, as opposed to the Lower Rhine and the Netherlands exclusively.
http://independent.academia.edu/BOConnor/Papers/1292032/The_earliest_Scottish_metalwork_since_Coles
It's not you, is it?

Hey, you got 12 at DYS393 too. Cool (4YWRX).