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The Beaker People

M

Melf

Gone But Not Forgotten
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4716207.stm

Bones examined in settler mystery

The life of the first prehistoric settlers in north-east Scotland is to be examined in a Europe-wide research programme.

Aberdeen University is sending 23 skeletons from its collection to Sheffield University where they will be analysed with the latest technology.

The research will concentrate on a little-known race of Bronze Age settlers called the Beaker People.

It is thought they may have introduced metalwork to Britain.

They may also have built many of the country's stone circles, including Stonehenge.

Scientists want to know if they were a peaceful tribe who shared their knowledge or warmongers who fought their way across Britain and the continent.

(c) bbc 05
 
Based on DNA analysis, it now appears the Beaker People arrived and supplanted the prior population in a relatively short period of time. This occurred circa 4400 - 4500 years ago ...

Ancient Britons 'replaced' by newcomers
The ancient population of Britain was almost completely replaced by newcomers about 4,500 years ago, a study shows.

The findings mean modern Britons trace just a small fraction of their ancestry to the people who built Stonehenge.

The astonishing result comes from analysis of DNA extracted from 400 ancient remains across Europe.

The mammoth study, published in Nature, suggests the newcomers, known as Beaker people, replaced 90% of the British gene pool in a few hundred years. ...

People in Britain lived by hunting and gathering until agriculture was introduced from continental Europe about 6,000 years ago. These Neolithic farmers, who traced their origins to Anatolia (modern Turkey) built giant stone (or "megalithic") structures such as Stonehenge in Wiltshire, huge Earth mounds and sophisticated settlements such as Skara Brae in the Orkneys.

But towards the end of the Neolithic, about 4,450 years ago, a new way of life spread to Britain from Europe. People began burying their dead with stylised bell-shaped pots, copper daggers, arrowheads, stone wrist guards and distinctive perforated buttons.
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FULL STORY: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43115485
 
See Also:

Arrival of Beaker folk changed Britain forever, ancient DNA study shows
At least 90% of the ancestry of Britons was replaced by a wave of migrants, who arrived about 4,500 years ago, say researchers

The largest ever study on ancient DNA has shown that Britain was changed forever by the arrival of the Beaker folk, a wave of migrants about 4,500 years ago who brought with them new customs, new burial practices, and beautiful, distinctive bell-shaped pottery.

The very existence of the Beaker folk – whose ancestry lay in central Europe and further east to the Steppes – and Beaker culture has been questioned in the past. The actual beakers, striking clay drinking vessels with an elegant flared lip, were clearly among the most treasured possessions of the people who were buried with them, and have been excavated from graves across Europe for centuries. However, archaeologists could not agree whether they represented a fashion spread by trade and imitation, or a culture diffused by migration.

Now a massive international project, involving hundreds of scientists and archaeologists and almost all the major laboratories in the field, has provided some of the answers. Using samples of more than 400 prehistoric skeletons from across Europe, researchers have uncovered new information about a period when a wave of migration rolled westward across Europe, almost totally displacing the earlier population in many places – including Britain. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.theguardian.com/science...anged-britain-forever-ancient-dna-study-shows
 
I'd assume that is what "central europe and further east to the steppes" refers to.
 
The mammoth study, published in Nature, suggests the newcomers, known as Beaker people, replaced 90% of the British gene pool in a few hundred years. ...
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That would be a genocide, no? Not an interbreeding with locals, a wipeout.


People in Britain lived by hunting and gathering until agriculture was introduced from continental Europe about 6,000 years ago. These Neolithic farmers, who traced their origins to Anatolia (modern Turkey)
Click to expand...

Out of Anatolia, Turkey ~ I like to speculate that there's a deep dark well in Turkey/Kurds from which the inhumane esssssence emerges every 2000 years or so to corrupt and educate the world. Imagine it, thousands upon thousands of these guys swarming out of a hole and running in all directions, each carrying a bushel of ripened cornstalks in one hand and a scimitar in the other. By my calcs, we're due for the next eruption. Maybe a few more Big Walls wouldn't be such a bad thing.

180

~ mooks out
 
The Beaker (aka 'Bell Beaker') people were originally identified or circumscribed in relation to their distinctive pottery cups (and subsequently with other styles or technologies strongly associated with the cups).

There's been a debate all along as to whether the spread of Beaker Culture represented movements (including expansions) of a particular human population possessing the paradigmatic artifacts versus dissemination of innovative technologies or fashions via trade or copying.

The significance of this study is that it demonstrates a shift in the human population coincident with the appearance and proliferation of the paradigmatic artifacts, at least in the case of the British Isles.

This doesn't necessarily settle the debate for Europe overall ...

Both articles I cited above refer to evidence of the extant population's decline prior to the appearance of the Beaker people, as well as a lack of clear evidence for wide-ranging violence or invasion during the period in question.
 
JP Mallory's Origins of the Irish has a lot more detail on the genetic heritage of the Irish over time. I do not recall there being any evidence of a sudden reduction of a racial gene type there, but that each wave of occupation was subsumed into the next over far greater amounts of time. I can't check that as my Da has the book.
 
The focal article (Nature) reporting the genetic study:

http://www.nature.com/articles/natu...CGIta9-MNxHonE=&tracking_referrer=www.bbc.com

... would seem to indicate Ireland wasn't covered in this inaugural survey. The article does cite arrival of Eastern Steppe genomes and Beaker culture artifacts in Ireland, but from other sources attributing it to what may be a later period. It also specifically claims more data is needed from Ireland.
 
Yes, I shouldn't have assumed a concurrent or repeated set of circumstance at all. Quite right. Each space would have experienced an entirely diverse set of circumstantial variables.
 
The mammoth study, published in Nature, suggests the newcomers, known as Beaker people, replaced 90% of the British gene pool in a few hundred years.
Click to expand...

skinny said:
That would be a genocide, no? Not an interbreeding with locals, a wipeout.
Click to expand...
There is still a respectable amount of genetic heritage from the earlier people in the Modern gene pool. Western European Hunter-gatherers, I think they call them; Cheddar Man was an early example.

One theory holds that the hunter-gatherers were fairly depopulated when the Beaker People arrived (perhaps by illness), so it wasn't so much a genocide, as a welcome boost in numbers.
 
eburacum said:
... One theory holds that the hunter-gatherers were fairly depopulated when the Beaker People arrived (perhaps by illness), so it wasn't so much a genocide, as a welcome boost in numbers.
Click to expand...

That's a good point illustrating a key reason this Beaker culture survey is significant. By focusing on cultural artifact dissemination along with DNA analyses we can discern major (pre-)historical shifts without relying exclusively on evidence of large-scale invasions and wars (mass graves, piles of spear heads, etc.).
 
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