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The 'Bell-Beaker culture' (sometimes shortened to 'Beaker culture', 'Beaker people', or 'Beaker folk'; ), ca. 2800 – 1900 BC, is the term for a widely but spottily scattered archaeological culture of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic (stone age) running into the early Bronze Age. The term was coined by John Abercromby, based on their distinctive pottery drinking vessels.

Contents

Extent

Pottery

Origin

Interpretation

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Extent

As derived from the western extremity of the Corded Ware culture in the Netherlands, otherwise marginal groups of Corded Ware took advantage of their contacts by sea and rivers and started a diaspora of North West European culture from Ireland to the Carpatian Basin and south along the Atlantic coast and following the Rhone valley until Portugal, North Africa and Sicily, even penetrating northern and central Italy. ^[1]
Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Germany between the Elbe and Rhine, with an extension along the upper Danube into the Vienna basin (Austria) and Hungary (Czepel-Island), with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily; there is less certain evidence for direct penetration in the east. Beaker-type vessels remained in use longest in the British Isles, late beakers in other areas are classified as early Bronze age (barbed wire Beakers in the Netherlands, Giant Beakers (Riesenbecher)). The new international trade routes opened by the Beaker people where there to remain and the culture was succeeded by a number of Bronze Age cultures, among them the Unetice culture (Central Europe), ca. 2300 BC, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany-Poland, ca. 1800 BC.

Pottery

Beaker culture is defined by the common use of a pottery style — a beaker with a distinctive inverted bell-shaped profile found across the western part of the Continent during the late 3rd millennium BC. The beakers seem to be associated with the consumption of mead or perhaps beer and are likely part of a larger prestige-oriented cultural package.

Origin

Many theories of the origins of the Bell Beakers have been put forward and have subsequently been seriously challenged.^[2] At one time, the Iberian peninsula was seen as the most likely place of Beaker origin. However, the earliest Beaker vessels were found in the Netherlands and, since Lanting and Van der Waals put forward a chronology for the development of Bell Beakers from the earlier Corded Ware forms and Funnelbeaker culture (TRB) antecedents of that regionLanting, J.N. & J.D. van der Waals, (1976), "Beaker culture relations in the Lower Rhine Basin" in Lanting et al (Eds) "Glockenbechersimposion Oberried l974". Bussum-Haarlem: Uniehoek n.v., the Netherlands/Rhineland region became the most widely accepted site of origin, (J. P. Mallory,EIEC p. 53). As such, it is often suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture or, more specifically, an ancestral proto-Celtic culture. Bodmer(1992)^[3] suggested that the Celtic populations of Britain trace their origins to an early settlement of the British Isles by Paleolithic Europeans, rather than by a later migration associated with the spread of the Celtic culture from central Europe in the first millennium B.C.

In contrast to this, Marija Gimbutas derived the Beakers from east central European cultures that became "Kurganized" by incursions of steppe tribes. Despite this, an eastern origin is not often sought, not even by supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.

Interpretation

Given the unusual form and fabric of Beaker pottery, and its abrupt appearance in the archaeological record, the traditional explanation for the Beaker culture has been to interpret it as a diffusion of one group of people across Europe. During the early twentieth century, Beaker pottery was seen as one element of a people who, through repeated waves of invasion, brought with them metal-working, crouched burials and round barrows, replacing an earlier Neolithic race of Europeans. Vere Gordon Childe described the Beaker people as "[w]arlike invaders imbued with domineering habits and an appreciation of metal weapons and ornaments which inspired them to impose sufficient political unity on their new domain for some economic unification to follow."
There is no necessary correlation between an archaeological culture and an ethnic group however, as there is no one-to-one correlation between the material culture excavated by archaeologists and an ethnicity or society. Additionally, material culture and technological innovations can spread independently of population movement that is, through cultural diffusion rather than demic diffusion. Childe's view is now seen as being incorrect, its connections erroneous and based on limited knowledge, whilst its assumption of a Beaker invasion is considered an attempt to attribute numerous different cultural changes to one cause.
Other archaeologists, noting the distribution of Beakers was highest in areas of transport routes, including fording sites, river valleys and mountain passes, suggested that the pan-European style of Beaker 'folk' were originally bronze traders, who subsequently settled within local Neolithic or early chalcolithic cultures creating local styles. Close analysis of the bronze tools associated with beaker use suggests an early Iberian source for the copper, followed subsequently by Central European and Bohemian ores. This would support a "two-wave" thesis for the spread of Beaker culture, initially coming from the South West, and subsequently spreading from Central or even Western Europe. Lanting (1976)Lanting, J.N. & J.D. van der Waals, (1976), "Beaker culture relations in the Lower Rhine Basin" in Lanting et al (Eds) "Glockenbechersimposion Oberried l974". Bussum-Haarlem: Uniehoek n.v. suggests, from a compilation context, that Bell Beaker culture emerged on the Rhine delta from a Corded Ware culture context.
A recent Strontium isotope analysis of 86 people from Bell Beaker graves in Bavaria suggests that between 18-25% of all graves were occupied by people who came from a considerable distance outside the area. This was true of children as well as adults, indicative of some significant migration wave. Given the similarities with readings from people living on loess soils, the general direction of the movement according to Price et al, is from the northeast to the southwest.^[4]
Many archaeologists now believe that the Beaker 'people' did not exist as a group, and that the beakers and other new artefacts and practices found across Europe at the time that are attributed to the Beaker people are indicative of the development of particular manufacturing skills. This new knowledge may have come about through the influence of neighbouring peoples, rather than as a result of mass migrations, knowledge that could spread independently of any population movement. An example might be as part of a prestige cult related to the production and consumption of beer, or trading links such as those demonstrated by finds made along the sea-ways of Atlantic Europe. Palynological studies of pollen analysis conducted, associated with the spread of beakers certainly suggests increased growing of barley, which may be associated with beer brewing.
This non-invasionist theory was first proposed by Colin Burgess and Steve Shennan in the mid 1970s and it is now common to see the Beaker culture as a 'package' of knowledge (including religious beliefs and copper, bronze and gold working) and artefacts (including copper daggers, v-perforated buttons and stone wrist-guards) adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees.

See also

★ Prehistoric Britain

★ Prehistoric Iberia

★ Mount Pleasant Period

★ Nebra skydisk

★ Linear Pottery culture (6th to 5th millennia BC)

★ Funnelbeaker culture (ca. 4500 BC–2700 BC)

★ Chasséen culture (ca. 4500 BC–2500 BC)

★ Unetice culture (ca. 2300 BC–1600 BC)

★ Tumulus culture (ca. 1600 BC–1200 BC)

★ Urnfield culture (ca. 1300 BC–800 BC)

★ European Megalithic Culture

★ Synoptic table of the principal old world prehistoric cultures

References

Notes

1. The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory of Europe - Barry Cunliffe, Oxford University Press, p250-254, 1994
2. A Test of Non-metrical Analysis as Applied to the 'Beaker Problem' - Natasha Grace Bartels,University of Albeda, Department of Anthropology, 1998 [1]
3. Bodmer, W. F. (1992) Proc. Br. Acad. 82, 37-57; The Eurasian Heartland: A continental perspective on Y-chromosome diversity, , RS, Wells, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.,
4. Price, T. Douglas; Grupe, Gisela and Schröter, Peter "Migration in the Bell Beaker period of Central Europe