The Handsome Horseman

A 20 year old Bell Beaker man was recently discovered in Rock, Northumberland wrapped in a horsehair blanket.  He was about 5'10" or 1.79m with remarkable skeletal symmetry and healthy, straight teeth.

A short video was later produced by the BBC here.

Handsome Horseman

You can see his grave is practically a vault.  Graves from Howick a few miles away are pretty stout as well.  Even though graves continue to be found in this area and along the beach, archaeologists have had a difficult time locating settlement activity in this neck of the woods during the time of the Beakers.

Head and horsehair (BBC)

The horsehair blanket is an interesting twist.  Assuming the coloration of the hair coat is in fact bay, then we should assume that the horsehair blanket was made from the hair coat of a domesticated horse.

the funerary beaker (Jessica Turner via the BBC)

Archaeozoologist Laura Kaagan has done work on the Beaker period horses and believes the Exmoor pony to be similar in form, if not an unimproved descendant of those early Beaker period horses.  Hopefully we will see some genetic testing of this horsehair blanket since we can be fairly sure of its color and utilization by the Beakers.  Although I'm not too optimistic about genetic analysis on domestics, we may get some surprise relations to the Exmoor.

Exmoor ponies (commons)

Ava's Scapula - Supper, Supplication or Sound?

Archaeologist Allison Sheridan takes questions on "Ava the Beaker" in the Achavanich Beaker Burial Project podcast with archaeologist-interviewer Maya Hoole.

At 7:50 Sheridan discusses Ava's high status as indicated by a cow shoulder blade in the grave.  But does a cow scapula necessarily point to a food offering, or are there other possibilities?  If it was a food offering, could the preference of this cut tell us something about food preparation in the Scottish Early Bronze Age?

By Hew Morrison via Smithsonian Magazine

The right-hand scapula is an interesting selection for Beakers to have included in her grave.  After all, they were a cattle people and no strangers to the anatomy or mythology of cattle parts.

Since the animal may have been butchered for the occasion of Ava's death, we should assume that she had a favorable cut, or at least some non-random process determined what ended up in her grave.

I'll offer two and a half alternative purposes for Ava's cow bone selection.  The first has quite a bit of historical support, though I can't say to what degree if ever it was used as a grave item.  The second is much more speculative, but interesting nonetheless.  The third is just a few notes.

1.   Scapulimancy.  A scapula reader saw a good omen in the bone.

The prominence of European scapulimancy can't be under-appreciated when considering this case.  In Scotland, this is called slinneineachd in the old tongue, which is interpreting a boiled, right-hand scapula. (Spence, 1999).  Beakers were cattle folk and it would be difficult to see superstitious Beakers inserting an unread scapula into the grave.  OTOH, it looks as if Ava's scapula is a left-hand shoulder, so maybe not? Did this bone have meat on it?  

Also, does the bone appear to have a few red stains?  Is that cinnabar or ochre?  If so, how did it get on the bone?

In a scapulmancy scenario, we might imagine that different relatives came in for the wake.  Hillbillies walk by and touch her cold hands and they all drink very heavily and process a bullock, quartering it out for the guests.  Some bug-eyed person reads the boiled scapula, it's a message of fortune.  Maybe Ava shared a number of fears toward her end, like the well-being of her child(ren) or the meaningfulness of her own life.  The good answer may have been inserted in the grave for that reason.

See also Scapulimancy in occultopedia,

2.  Ava played some sort of harp or lyre.

Again, it's a bit curious that she is buried with a scapula, although it may be a left-hand. A hypothesis by Matahisa Koitabashi, 2013 concerned Near Eastern RH-notched bovine scapulas.  Basically, he believes it's the frame is some sort of scraper musical instrument, but not a lute bridge as previously suggested.  Without notches, it's hard to see it as a warping paddle, although I've suggested previously that Beaker women were often buried with sewing kits.

The scapular bone is easily scraped from the beef (here at two minutes), and you can see how large the harp-like bone actually is.  Maybe it's ironic that a scapula looks like a harp or lyre, or even that the harp is associated with a goddess like Egyptian Hathor or the bovine lyres of Sumeria. 

Freeze from "A Journey through Scotland's Part: The Age of Bronze"

3.  And finally, let's get to the beef cuts.

One thing that may not be so obvious is how beef is cut and prepared in the island of Britain historically.  In the United States, Bar-b-Que is a tradition originating in Southern England (Narnia) and in which the preference for meat was typically over the fire.  For this reason, blackening leaner cuts gives a flavorful taste and so the back cuts, rump and flanks come out pretty good.

The forward of the cow which has lots of marbling (the round) gets turned into ground beef or stew cubes.  This is important because in the borderlands and northern areas of Britain making beef stews was the cooking preference, so fatty meats may have been the prime for boiling with vegetables.

Even in the most primitive, hunter-gatherer society, cutting beef or buffalo is a science, so I highly doubt Beakers simply tossed a slab of beef over the shoulder into a grave.  That bone is evidence of something:  supper, supplication or sound. 

Beakerfolk and Cystic Fibrosis (Farrell et al, 2018)

Smithsonian Magazine has an article of interest for Beakerwatchers and migration archaeology specialists:

"Tracking Down the Origins of Cystic Fibrosis in Ancient Europe" - Smithsonian Magazine

Farrell via Smithsonsian Mag

That Smithsonian article reduces down the most recent study by Philip Farrell et al in the August 2018 issue of Nature "Estimating the age of p.(Phe508del) with family studies of geographically distinct European populations and the early spread of cystic fibrosis"

Back in 2015 I blogged about their previous research in "Origin and Spread of Cystic Fibrosis".

That's enough reading anyway, but I'll give you the ultra Cliff's Notes version:

- Cystic Fibrosis is mostly limited to Caucasians and it clearly peaks in Northwestern Europeans
- The mutation spread around the time Beakerfolk were marauding through Western Europe
- Cystic Fibrosis sucks to death if you have two copies
- But for others, it must have some useful purpose - exposure to heavy metals is a strong possibility
- The ancestral carriers were from the neighborhood of the Black and Caspian Seas

GlockenSpleißer (Gleba & Harris, 2018)

Via DailyMailUK:

"4,000-year-old textiles found in Cambridgeshire reveal Bronze Age Britons used a thread-making technique previously believed to have never left Ancient Egypt"

Moonmen from Far Away?

What genders were the primary solar and lunar deities of the Bell Beaker Culture?
 
It's generally agreed that among the gods worshiped by PIE's, two prominent gods were a solar goddess (*suh₂lio-) and a lunar god (*Meh₁not-).  These assignments were in opposition to the Mediterranean Basin where gender roles of the sun and moon were reversed, and different from the basque religion which apparently lacked opposing genders in favor of female celestial deities.

Proto-historical descriptions of the far north and northwest raise the possibility that this region at one time concentrated attention toward a feminine solar figure.  Because of the implications of steppe-like ancestry, let's re-examine the gendered artifacts that suggest celestial dualism.

Boar's tusk pendants as worn

It is only with men where we find the bone-colored, lunar pendants associated with many Continental European Beakers.  In previous posts, Greek mythology was used to interpret their suggestive values because it is better attested.  And while the attributes are sensible, there is some residual evidence that the original Proto-Greek moon god was instead male.  Do these masculine tusk artifacts point to the veneration of a god?

Is the down-facing position of these tusks in someway suggestive?  Maybe not, but have a look at the inverted, feminine lunulae and then compare to the representation of the goddess Nut and her consort, Geb.

via National Museum of Wales

Solar-boat lunulae were probably worn by women due to their geographical opposition to jet-bead lunulae in Britain.  At least in the far north of Europe, it might make more sense to see a goddess driving a solar-boat full of dead people than a male god like Ra.  Plus, we have many respectable warriors buried with the complete "man's room" - never this golden boat.

Excluding men's basket earrings*, the later golden solar hats and cape of the EMBA appear to be associated with women based on body and head sizes.  Though the phallic hats would seem rude for goddess worship, as Sulis was patroness of fertility, rude may have been the order of business.

man things and woman things

The metaphor of the wolf-tooth necklaces might make a little more sense when looking at wolf-teeth and bi-valve spring shell necklaces of Corded Ware women (might she be associated with springs like Bath?).  Maybe a more direct understanding of these necklaces could be made with Saule from the Baltic religions.  All this is just food for thought.  There's a lot of contradictions that can be seen.

Marian Catholics of both genders often wear a gold cross or Marian medallion.  Obviously Beakers of both genders are worshiping the same gods in ways that are similar and different.

*Until another idea takes its place, I proposed the idea that basket earrings were attached to quills.  Based on the shaped of the missing Kirkhaugh half, raptor quills that men wore in their headband.
I have no idea what that means.