That's a problem.
Where something happened is an important characteristic in our communications. We want to know location of things and people, whether it is in the context of a joke or describing a previous conversation.
When it comes to ancient cultures, maps are used extensively to organize our linear minds around the characteristics of a certain group. Having a better understanding of time and space allows us to create some dimensional space, kind of like a box in which we can begin to add complexity as we learn details.
A lot of ancient cultures can be roughly depicted like the Zambolators and So and So's below. They live in one climate which is their natural homeland. They fish, or do whatever. They might spread from one place to another. They might be compared to each other.
This absolutely does not work for Bell Beakers!
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The Bronze Age is born in Europe as the direct result of the old Beaker Culture losing its international identity. This was the inevitable result of local mixture creating local Bronze Age identities. It's in the post-Beaker age that the full weight of the Beaker cultural and genetic legacy is brought to bear against Europe. It's during this time previous cultural and genetic identities are extinguished.
It is important to understand that the "Bell Beakers" selected in these genetic studies aren't necessarily representative of humans that lived in that region. They're not necessarily excellent examples of Bell Beakers either. Many were selected because there were questions about the strength of the diagnostic set, their apparent gender, familial relationships, or to validate the osteological interpretations.
Identifying Zambolators for genetic study would be easy. Time, place and a few stone tools might be enough context to assign a genetic profile to this culture. It's a different situation with Beakers, especially in highly cosmopolitan areas.
Make no mistake, this was the Copper Age. Paternity and family blood ruled the school. They were at war with each other and they likely disrespected or hated everyone else unlike themselves.
Let's not mis-interpret "Pax Campaniforme". Anything with "Pax" in front of it doesn't come nicely.
Because I'm a layman's layman and I don't know the questions to ask, I was really hoping some comments would expound or expand on this. But I guess not, so pardon my unschooled questions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the arterial system of Europe and western North Africa? Rivers, seaways, trails? Was there already a rudimentary system of roads?
I didn't know the Beakers were in North Africa. Are there any DNA profiles for North African Beaker folk? Were they Iberian?
Were the Beakers of the British Isles more like the Zambolators than other Beakers because of the disappearance of the native farmers?
Again, I'm probably making some wrong assumptions here, so please excuse or correct me. Thanks.
NP.
DeleteThe African question deserves an updated post which is on my to-do list. I'll try and comment a little here. The extent to which Bell Beakers colonized or travelled North Africa really isn't known. One of the main problems is that Bell Beaker pottery sherds could be easily mis-identified for other local ceramics, and that appears to have been the case with a museum in Tunisia (I'm interpreting that based on something Turek mentioned in "Echos".
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330598080_Turek_J_2013_Echoes_and_Traditions_of_the_Bell_Beaker_Phenomenon_In_From_Copper_to_Bronze_Cultural_and_Social_Transformations_at_the_Turn_of_the_3rd2nd_Millennia_BC_in_Central_Europe_Gewidmet_PhDr_Vac
If you find beaker sherds turned over by the plow in Germany, it is distinct enough from many European ceramics to give a quick identification and European archaeologists are trained to easily identify it at a glance. I'm not sure that Libyan or Tunisian archaeologists/collector should necessarily be expected to identify a beaker sherd since the Bell Beaker Horizon is/was a European notion. But that may be changing.
Also, the landscape is enormous with poor archaeological coverage (unlike Southern Britain or Central Europe), but this also may present possibilities as human activity has tended to be more concentrated since then.
Another problem with interpretation is that some of the Moroccan Neolithic pottery like Akabar ware combines elements of Late Neolithic Saharan pottery with local Neolithic pottery that is considered by some prominent archaeologists (Case) to be proto-Beaker, or be an influencing factor to later Iberia maritime Beaker. So again, mis-identification is a potential problem. Aside from pottery there is stray finds like barb and tang arrowheads and the mtdna of Berbers may also be a vestige of the Beakers or their Iberian-colonist predecessors.
Without getting in too deep, as Turek mentioned in that paper, which is a very reasonable position, that Beakers must have spanned the entire North African coast to Tunisia, not necessarily a big population, but trading posts, long-hunters and herders. This scenario has been hypothesized even recently based on the trading routes and other activities involving North Africa in the Western Mediterranean. I think Southern Libya is also very likely based on peoples living there in the photo-historical era.
The arterial system of Europe is more of an abstract notion, but it does require those modes of movement. This comparison is a bit forced and it doesn't work on many levels, but you might consider the history of Jews pre-1948 as being a nation in many nations without a nation but in most cities, trading a lot. Beakers are in the lands of others but they're also a violent lot, so like I said.
"Were British Beakers like Zambolators". No, not as I see it. British Beakers didn't come from one place, even if large clumps of Beakers came from the lower Rhine. Also, you'll remember that a single British 'Beaker' did not have the characteristic y-chromosome. His diagnostic set? I think he was just a flexed human in a hole in the ground with a radiocarbon date, so we really can't be 100% sure of the interpretation of how he related to his contemporaries. Maybe that's too nitpicky, but sure, over time you could say Food Vessel Tradition is more Zambolator.