Bell beaker ceramic origin

[secherbernard]

I am reading again the book of Anthony: "The wheel, the horse and the language".
About yamnaya ceramic, he says:

archaeological traits that defined the early Yamnaya horizon included shelltempered, egg-shaped pots with everted rims, decorated with comb stamps and cord impressions; tanged bronze daggers; cast flat axes; bone pins of various types; the supine-with-raised-knees burial posture; ochre staining on grave floors near the feet, hips, and head

Bell Beaker ceramics are also decorated with comb stamps and cord impression. The shape is different. But decoration of Bell Beaker pots seems influenced by Yamnaya pots.

Is there any scientific works about the influences of Bell Beaker ceramics ?

[Jean M]

There have been endless speculations about the origin of Bell Beaker.

One line of argument by Dutch archaeologists was very persuasive for a long time. It traced the origin through Corded Ware (which also has cord-impressions) and Funnel Beaker (with a large everted lip) to Swifterbant pottery which has a similar shape to Bell Beaker, but a pointed bottom. However we now realise that

1) Swifterbant pottery is derived from the earliest pottery in Europe, of the Elshanka Culture, which appeared in the Samara region of south-eastern Russia (on the Pontic-Caspian steppe) about 7000 BC.  It was made by hunter-gatherers, and is quite different from the pottery that arrived with farmers from the Near East.  It influenced Sredni Stog pottery. See D. Anthony, The Horse, The Wheel and Language (2007), pp. 148-9, and fig. 11.7 on p. 242.


2) Bell Beaker is the same age as Corded Ware and so is not derived from it.

3) As you say, some Yamnaya pottery was decorated with cord impressions.

This explains why we find cord-impressed pottery, both Bell Beaker and Corded Ware, and pottery shapes with large everted lips (both Funnel Baker and Bell Beaker) appearing in far distant places, but in each case there is a trail back to the Pontic-Caspian Steppe.