The CMP tradition is one of several mysterious aspects of Beakerhood that points to Eastern connections or an ultimate origin. Although Beakers probably immigrated to Southwestern Europe via a homeland in the Western Saharan Steppe, it was not much further back that their ancestors came from the interior Near East as part of a larger secodary products expansion.
The Proto-Circumpontic tradition not only resonates strongly in the morphology and use of the metal items they constructed, but importantly their thin sheet metal, foils and solar cult regalia testify to a heritage in the southern domain of the CMP.
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| Early Metal Age "Copper Lunula Pendant" Tell Halula burial 4J-E32 (Molist, 2009) |
It appears that a continuation of massive folk movements in the Pottery Neolithic were emanating from Eastern Anatolia and Northern Mespotamia around this time. These movements seeded the important Maikop and Kura Araxes in later times, which in turn may have planted the later Single Grave Culture. [More]
*Update* It looks like I may have deleted the original published post! I probably did that while screwing around on my phone.
My original comments linked the CMP tradition with the Secondary Products Revolution. It seems to me that the spread of CMP is linked with SPR in their full expressions. Proto-CMP and SPR both likely originated in the same place as well.
Of course for the Beaker Blog, the spread of these traditions in North Africa is my primary interest, because its from one of these westward migrating groups that Beakers probably originated.
Metallurgical Provinces of Eurasia in the Early Metal Age: Problems of Interrelation Institute of Archaeology of Russian Academy of Sciences, CHERNYKH 2014 [Link]
"Beakers probably immigrated to Southwestern Europe via a homeland in the Western Saharan Steppe"
ReplyDeleteWhy? I'm not aware of any evidence pointing in this direction and of some suggesting a migration from Bohemia to SE Europe, and perhaps from the Caucasus Mountains to Bohemia.
Archaeologically, the culture appears to spread from SW Iberia near the Tagus. Even in Bohemia, the culture debuts with Maritime Beakers. The Anti-Atlas and Saharan Steppe has plenty of early evidence of pots and people, but I will make those arguments in the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteThe Middle Pastoral period is defined by immigration from the East. Modern circum-Saharan populations harbor a remnant of this SW Asian ancestry, at a minimum similar to the sender population of the earliest Beaker IMO. Given the many scenarios for how the Beaker phenomenon emerged, I think ancestry from the pastoral belt cannot be excluded
ReplyDelete