tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post7224230168620673544..comments2024-02-07T23:25:07.429-06:00Comments on Bell Beaker Blogger: A Late (and telling) Almerian Culture Tombbellbeakerbloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848982163843593127noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-76964313865350071362014-08-26T05:39:47.587-05:002014-08-26T05:39:47.587-05:00I do not really discard that the "neo-Megalit...I do not really discard that the "neo-Megalithic" tomb styles such as the tholos are Mediterranean imports. You have explained in some other occasion that you have some reasons to think so, although the details were not fully clear (other than a few Portuguese-like slabs found in West Asia in an apparent out-of-context reality). What I would rather think most unlikely would be new significant migration from East to West in the Mediterranean after the Neolithic or meaningful cultural discontinuity between classical and late Megalithic cultures. <br /><br />Naturally, I could be wrong, and I agree that genetic sequencing of old remains can only produce important information regarding the nature of these ancient societies and is always desirable. <br /><br />As for the term "collective", it is somewhat misleading. It was probably conceived as a "neutral" technical term but personally I'd think of them as family or clan tombs. Later fashions, as well as many older Neolithic ones of more-or-less Oriental roots, were instead "individual", what somehow seems to imply some degree of transference in the social ideology from ancestors to individuals. <br /><br />I wonder if there are "collective" burials in West Asia at all (before the dolmenic fashion arrived there from the West). Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-53677097576368758912014-08-25T23:26:03.873-05:002014-08-25T23:26:03.873-05:00I apologize in advance for the brief comment.
I...I apologize in advance for the brief comment. <br /><br />I think its possible that the last phases of Atlantic and North Atlantic Dolmen Megalithism saw the infiltration of a foreign group (of ME or NE origin). I'm not really dogmatic about that, BTW. I have some graphics I hope to put in another post concerning oculos Which I think illustrates more clearly the cultural connections if non <br />E else.<br /><br />As to the second comment, I agree that they are collective burial in general. It is mainly a nuance of how corpses were interred originally. One in which the corpse has a primary burial or decomposition period followed by storage of the bones. The scenario described in the paper sounds more like a simple burial that usually got moved, but not for ritual purposes. Still both collective.<br />bellbeakerbloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01848982163843593127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-22642862987776054612014-08-25T19:29:16.601-05:002014-08-25T19:29:16.601-05:00An interesting finding indeed.
However I must (a...An interesting finding indeed. <br /><br />However I must (again?) disagree on your hypothesis of tholos builders being foreigners. As we see in many areas like Alentejo, tholoi were built where dolmens had been built previously, integrated in the very same wider structures as happens in Perdigoes, strongly suggesting continuity with previous dolmen builders. But also because what we see in the genetic change in Iberia (and many other areas of Europe) after Neolithic is not further Oriental inputs but rather the opposite: loss by strong dilution of the affinity of Neolithic farmers had with the Eastern Mediterranean, what indicates flows from the west. The architectural concept may still have been borrowed from the East (although there is a big chronological gap) but I would not expect any significant genetic inputs to have arrived with them. <br /><br />"The current view is one that stresses the group and continuity. However, like the emptying of the Tholos at Perdigoes, if they were simply shoveling out bones to make room for new flexed burials, then that seems to be a somewhat different worldview than previously thought".<br /><br />I do not understand this either. Pushing out older bones to make room for new burials is exactly what indicates continuity and it is almost exactly what is still done in many family tombs, although nowadays there is a specific space for those old bones known as ossuary. Although today burials are done in extended position, as was often common in dolmens and "collective" burials in caves, and not flexed position, more typical of the first (largely immigrant) farmers, detail no doubt with an Oriental origin but a well documented Neolithic one in fact. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.com