"The Fare Frenchman" "I2575" (Grave S. 14)

This guy in Southern France has the most steppe ancestry of any of the French Bell Beakers from "The Beaker Phenomenon and the Genetic Transformation of Northwest Europe" by Olalde et al, 2107

I've included some biographical information and background resources for "I2575" (Grave S. 14).  Unfortunately his y-chromosome did not sequence, at least this time.  His mitochondrial grouping is K1c1.  Here's Lermercier's "La Fare" dig site with more photos.  See also Bernard's Blog for more information on the French Beakers, including our very first representation of European R1b-U152.

"The Fare Frenchman" (Lermecier)

Behind the head of this man you can make out a dagger blade.  I believe Lermercier, Müller and Furestier thought he was probably a native with a Beaker ideology.  Perhaps that is why his "Alpine head" is mentioned in the Olalde paper.  I'm interpreting the statement from Fig 5 of Lermercier, 2006.  To some degree this would be true of his native ancestry, however a very large part of his ancestry is now shown to be not local.

This man's home (Lermercier's site)

Two of his three beakers were characteristic of the local Neolitic Rhône-Ouvèze group (I believe), but the bell beaker below is this early comb and cord style, as mentioned in his Olalde biography and the other linked documents.

Fig 7: Gobelet campaniforme de La Fare (Lermercier, 2006)

His biography from Olalde:

"The site of La Fare (Forcalquier, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) is located in the south-east
of France, in the Pre-Alps of the south about 80 km north of Marseilles. The site  occupies the top of a vast promontory dominating the neighboring valleys. The site was excavated from 1991 to 1999 under the direction of André Müller, Olivier Lemercier and Robin Furestier.  Burial S14 is located on the margin of a small occupation of the regional Late Neolithic attributable to the Rhone-Ouvèze group. It presents itself as a vast oval pit 2.50m by 2.30m, oriented southeast-northwest and extended in its southern part by a basin of 0.50m long by 0.70m wide, forming an access step to the main pit. 324 The pit accessible by  a step under a monolith was probably covered with a floor, blocks and a mound. The body is placed on the bottom of the pit in the west half. It is strictly oriented north south, head to the north. It is positioned on the left side, the upper and lower limbs flexed. 

La Fare (Forcalquier, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) (photo Lemercier) S14/I2575 

The archaeological furniture consists of six objects. A copper dagger blade was placed beside the head behind the skull. A small object in the shape of a bone reel was found on the bottom of the pit in front of the head. In the southern part of the pit, under the "access step", were three ceramic beakers, two of which were inverted in front of a small bench in the substrate and a little higher up in the sediment infiltration mass. One is an early Bell Beaker with mixed decoration (comb and cord), the other two are characteristic beakers of the Rhone-Ouvèze group. Screening of the entire sediment of the structure yielded only one small segmented bone pearl.  The skeleton is that of a man aged between 30 and 40 years, of the so-called "alpine" cranial architectural type, about 1.72m and wounded by inclusion in the olecranon of a fragment of Flint causing ankylosis of the left elbow.   The skeleton is preserved in the Musée de Préhistoire des Gorges du Verdon

(Quinson, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). The radiocarbon date for this individual is: I2575/Grave S. 14: 2476–2211 calBCE (3895±40 BP, GrA-22988)

La Fare (Forcalquier, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) (photo Lemercier) S14/I2575 

Here's more.  This first document has better pictures and more information.  The other two are more detailed:

Olivier Lemercier. "Le Campaniforme et l'Europe a la n du N eolithique." A para^ tre: LEMERCIER O. : Le Campaniforme et l'Europe a la n du N eolithique, in : Actes.. 2006. <halshs-00087402> [Link]

Olivier Lemercier, Jessie Cauliez, Robin Furestier, Christophe Gilabert, Nathalie Lazard, et al.. "Le site n eolithique nal de La Fare (Forcalquier, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). R esultats 1995-1999 et revision chronoculturelle." 5e rencontres m eridionales de Prehistoire recente - Clermont-Ferrand, Auvergne et Midi 2002, 2004, Cressensac, France. Prehistoire du Sud-Ouest, Supplement n9, pp.445-455, 2004. <halshs-00087369> [Link]
 
Olivier Lemercier. "Le Campaniforme dans le sud-est de la France. De l'Archéologie à l'Histoire du troisième millénaire avant notre ère." Sciences de l'Homme et Société. Université de Provence - Aix-Marseille I, 2002. Français. <tel-00087323>

LEMERCIER O. (1998) – The Bell Beaker phenomenon in the Southeast of France : The state of research and preliminary remarks about the TGV-excavations and some other sites of the Provence, in : BENZ M., van WILLIGEN S. (eds.) : Some New approaches to The Bell Beaker Phenomenon, Lost Paradise...?, Proceedings of the 2nd Meeting of the « Association Archéologie et Gobelets », Feldberg (Germany), 18th-20th avril 1997, Oxford : Archaeopress, 1998, p. 23-41.
(British Archaeological Report, I.S. 690). [Link]