La Heredera de Henares I6475 (Olalde et al, 2018)

Let's refocus on the Mesetans*, a people that deserve a much closer look.

The conventional wisdom (now) is that the root relationship between Iberian and Continental Bell Beakers is merely a cultural one, and not much more.  That's retarded, but ok, we'll start addressing this now.

This young wife, labeled I6475, tells us part of her people's story.  She has no appreciable steppe ancestry and, looking at her mtdna (U5b3), we can comfortably presume that her maternal stock is native to the Spanish interior where it enjoyed a relatively high frequency since the Middle Neolithic  (Szecsenyi-Nagy et al, 2017).

La Heredera de Henares, I6475, 4463 in the dig

However, her extended community in Alcala de Henares does have steppe ancestry, and I'd bet dollars to donuts her husband did as well.  Certainly the other two samples from her cemetery, the man in the mound I6471, and the Henares Hermanos I6472, had steppe ancestry.  The bros (I6472) were R1ba1a2 and the man with the baby (I6471) is negative for everything other than R, but lacks resolution.

So far it seems that the heterogeneous Beakers within the Madrid/Castile watershed generally do have steppe ancestry, and about the amount you expect for the offspring in the initial stages of admixture.  Most likely, this young lady represents one of the many mixed marriages between Beaker men and local women, and fully recognized and honored marriage, not just a woman being ravaged while thatch-roofed huts burn in the background.

She is clearly a full member of the Beaker society and her fine grave goods testify to this.  She appears to have either been sprinkled with cinnabar and ochre (more likely a red dress or blanket) and she had a v-perforated button of African ivory.  She holds a hardened copper awl in her left hand, and interestingly, a boar's tusk near her neck.  It also took some effort to dig this grave.  And more to the point, the presence of the copper awl in her left hand signifies her idealized status as the lady of a home (perhaps 'matron' if she had lived past her teenage years).

If you look at her head shape I think it would be fair to assume that she did not have a Beaker babyhood but was instead integrated into this local community by marriage (similar situation to I2787 Szigetszentmiklós).  Or was it the other way around? Maybe it was her husband who benefitted most from what she brought to this union -  ranchland along the river?

Although she was only buried with a cooking pot, some of the other cemetery ceramics are typical of the Ciempozuelos style and tradition  (Heras, Cubas and Bastida, 2012)

Above you can see just how different this girl (I6475 highlighted) compares to the man with the baby in the burial mound (I6471).  That guy is at the high end of steppe spectrum, so high the Olalde authors had to break out Alcala de Henares into MAD1 and MAD2 groups.

(Barroso et al, 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/CMPL.62583)

All of the below is from the big Beaker paper, and I've included this map to show the proximity of the follow sites.  This demonstrates that we're not dealing with one-offs in this area, but that the entire region has this mixed ancestry.  From the Olalde et al, 2018 supplement:

"Presence of steppe ancestry in five individuals from Camino de las Yeseras, LaMagdalena and Humanejos (Madrid, Spain)"

"Similar to the previous case, we show in Table S2 f4-statistics of the form f4(Mbuti,Test; BK_Spain_MAD1, BK_Spain_MAD2) and f4(Mbuti, Test; BK_Spain_MAD1,BK_Spain_Mag1). These statistics support the presence of Steppe-related ancestry inBK_Spain_MAD2 (individuals I6472, I6623, I6539 and I6588) and BK_Spain_Mag1(individual I6471), in contrast to the remaining 7 individuals from Madrid region(BK_Spain_MAD1) who lack this genetic signal. Sample I6471 is assigned a different label as it appears to have significantly more Steppe-related ancestry than theBK_Spain_MAD2 group (Figure S2a)..."

This matters because the truly diagnostic, bona fide Bell Beaker graves in the heart of Iberia, are all heterogenous steppic communities with native women and foreign men. I6475 is a snapshot of this process. Bros are in the next post.

"The archaeological site of La Magdalena is located on the youngest terrace of River Henares, on the right margin, northeast from the city of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid). This site is traversed by at least four paleochannels that lead into the previously mentioned river.
The artificial cave 4463 is the best preserved one. It is a single inhumation (I6475) of a young woman between 16 and 20 years old. She was buried with a V-perforated button made from African ivory and a suid canine next to her neck. Near her head, a non- decorated vessel and an arsenical copper awl in her left hand, were found. She was sprinkled with red ochre containing cinnabar."

The site was straight back, riparian zone of Henares in the background

Rio Henares (Raimundo Pastor, commons)

*Mesetan is used liberally to include the topographical mesetas, but also the Extramadura and the badlands suitable for ranching within the Spanish interior.  Most anywhere the expansive Ciempozuelos group lands, with the assumption that they represent a tribe or confederation of some sort, to be distinguished from other peoples.