My Mother's Hands

Ultra-clever study using chaîne opératoire analysis.

In essence, you slap the clay as you were taught by your mother, shocking to people who fried their brains in the 60's.

Sion Beaker Pottery, from the paper.

Quotes:

"The question here is therefore: does the site of Sion ‘Petit-Chasseur’ present arguments in favor of a division or of a continuity between the Final Neolithic and the Bell Beaker Culture?Pottery technological traditions can assist with this answer. As we described earlier, Bell Beaker pottery revealed manufacturing and finishing techniques that contrasted strongly with the ones that we found for earlier periods. "

"To sum-up the results of our technological analysis, each period demonstrates a different chaîne opératoireAfter reexamining the site’s history, we found four additional indications of disruption linked to the Bell Beaker phases. The first one appears in the architecture of the dolmens and cists built after 2450 BC. Indeed, unlike their Final Neolithic predecessors, they did not feature a triangular base; their burial chamber stood alone. The breaking of the “type A” stelae and their use to build the first Bell Beaker monuments marks a second change. Their systematic destruction, with a particular emphasis on the heads, could be a powerful sign of rejection towards the preceding individuals buried in the necropolis (Harrison and Heid 2007, p. 151). A third sign of a shift is the erection of a new type of stela, “type B”. These stelae’s anthropomorphic features were exacerbated and engraved with specific patterns. Representations of bows and arrows, weapons never before depicted, replaced those of Remedello daggers (Gallay, 1995, Harrison and Heyd, 2007). The last indication of disruption is the level 5B of dolmen MVI – here marks a caesura as the Final Neolithic remains and their accompanying grave goods were thrown outside of the structure to allow for the first Bell Beaker funerary deposit (Bocksberger 1976 vol 1, p. 144). 

"Nonetheless, Bell Beaker populations used the same necropolis and perpetuated the tradition of stela-engraving, and some researchers have claimed that these elements “must be understood as part of a millennial tradition of respect for the site, and an intense desire to use its monumentality as a means of social validation for the community, by those who believed they were its legitimate heirs and successors.” (Harrison and Heyd 2007, p. 185).We thus conclude that a significant break in pottery traditions happened with the emergence of the Bell Beaker Culture. As strontium isotope analyses previously suggested (Desideri et al. 2010), this break was most probably linked to the arrival of foreigners, either a few individuals or a larger group, whose geographical origin remains unclear."

Pottery technology as a revealer of cultural and symbolic shifts: Funerary and ritual practices in the Sion ‘Petit-Chasseur’ megalithic necropolis (3100–1600 BC, Western Switzerland)

Derenne, Ard, Besse 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101170

Abstract
Research on the third millennium BC in Western Europe has tried for decades to understand the mechanisms of the large-scale cultural changes that took place during its course. Few studies have focused on technological traditions, although these are key to considering continuities and disruptions. In this article, we used pottery technology to approach the evolution of social and symbolic practices at a major megalithic site in Switzerland: the necropolis of Sion, Petit-Chasseur (Valais). We reconstructed technological traditions for the Valaisian Final Neolithic (3100–2450 BC), the Bell Beaker Culture (2450–2200 BC), and the Early Bronze Age (2200–1600 BC). This was done using the chaîne opératoire approach, analyzing fashioning methods, finishing treatments, and decoration. The sequence of these technological traditions, along with architectural and historical aspects, confirms that significant breaks happened during the use of the site with specific traits coinciding with the emergence of the Bell Beaker Culture and then again with the Early Bronze Age. These findings support the idea that the transition between the Final Neolithic and the latter periods marked an important cultural and symbolic shift in Western Europe and that this shift was, at least in Western Switzerland, linked to several exogenous components.