African Origin of Bell Beaker Lithics (Part 3)

There is a false dichotomy that exists for some lithic continuity arguments, particularly how it relates to the demography of Europe.

1)  It is argued that arrowhead typology is driven by environmental selection.

(For example, the transverse pictured below should be optimal for wetland bird and small game hunting in marshy (boggy) environments, such as the Nile, Red Sea and North Sea lowlands.  The Medieval re-invention of this Mesolithic-Neolithic point would seem to give credence to this.)

Egyptian Old Kingdom transverse "chisel" arrowheads

2)  The same may argue for the supremacy of a particular typology, "the barb and tang", which they reason would naturally replace the regional varieties of inferior transverses, kites, leaves, obliques, Eiffels, etc. This would come as a sort of "punctuated equilibrium" since after millennia it suddenly became obvious that radical change was needed to continue hunting water fowl. (joking)

Barb and Tang from Thrupp, Abington [Link]

But these statements can't be used together to justify a smooth evolution in European point typology.  In fact, it's very non-smooth in most places.  As far as the inevitable accession of the pressure-flaked, barbed projectile, it was almost completely replaced by the crude transverses in the Red Sea, Nile and Sinai in the Early Bronze Age. 

Recently discovered Neolithic Danish Tri-face

There is also the efficiency argument.  In the time it takes to make one barb and tang, the next guy can make fifty transverses or three kites.  So we have an arrowhead that is more difficult to make, easier to break, and does average jobs slightly better, like a gold-plated spoon.

These questions strike at the heart of the "cultural inheritance" models which Crema, Edinborough, Kerig and Shennan addressed on Clarivaux and Chatain lithics changes.

To me, the non-gradual change in Western European LNE lithics is a no brainer given the demographic changes happening at the time.  Again, I will summon the growing weight of paternal genetic studies on Neolithic Europe.

Crema et al (2014) essentially concluded that there were two possible inheritance models for LNE southeastern France that achieved equifinality, one being unbiased transmission and the other, anti-conformist bias.  I'll put words in their mouth and simply this down to factors attributable to uncritical knapping (mass migration) or imitation of a cultural minority (foreign elite).  I'll leave that one for you.

Speaking of the "foreignness" of the Beaker projectile, I'll wrap up with one last post on the Middle and Late Pastoral projectiles of the Saharan Dairy Farmers in Part 4.

African Origin of Bell Beaker Lithics (Part 1)

If you have read this blog for a while, you know that I feel very comfortable with the probability that the pre-Bell Beaker phenomenon has its origin in Neolithic Subpluvial of the African Steppe.

Today, I'm going to cover Apel's work on the transmission of "bifacial thinning using pressure flaking" and then in a later post talk about the "Barbed and Tanged" arrowheads of the Heavy Pastoralist Wet Sahara.    I'll explain why the Bell Beaker arrowhead comes from here, not other places.

Jan Apel has a paper on pressure flaking I found a while back.  Although Apel is singularly focused on bifacial surface pressure flaking in this study, there are additional details to the Beaker projectiles that makes them very African.  But overall, as you can see and will read, the projectiles in the Western sphere correspond with the spread of the Bell Beaker phenomenon from Iberia and in the East it corresponds with the formation of the Single Grave Culture.*

Although the Corded and Beaker populations have similar learned male grammers, it is apparently a deep one and one that originates in the Northern Middle East and Eastern Anatolia.  (I will call it Euphratean)  The most important concept about male grammers is that they are transmitted from father to son.  (Think Y-chromosomal DNA, now consider the fifty DNA studies on Neolithic Europe)

I will cover typology and selection in another post.  I am also working on the genetics stuff, rewriting genetics page 1 and other things. 

Tracing pressure-flaked arrowheads in Europe.  Becoming European:  The transformation of the third millennium Northern and Western Europe.  Jan Appel, 2012  [Link]

* there are some pioneering exceptions to this, both in Iberia and Central Europe.  

Nicolas and Guéret on Amorican Arrowheads

These are among the finest stone arrowheads ever made in Europe.

Beginning with the incipient Beaker barb-and-tang in Brittany (with a floor of around 2150 B.C.), the Amoricans develop into incredibly fine, wafer-thin arrowheads.  The translucent flints give an added beauty to these high-quality arrowheads which, like the Danish flint daggers, were probably professionally made with a metal tool set.

Figure 6. Arrowheads stemming from one of the wooden boxes found in the Kernonen barrow at Plouvorn, Finistère (photo C. Nicolas).

There is an unusual story to how these arrowheads were deposited into single graves, usually by the tens up to sixty something.  It appears they were removed from the arrowstock and placed into a charms box which accompanied the dead.  This was not only limited to arrowheads but to daggers also, which sometimes occur to the tune of around ten in a single burial.

Figure 1. Distribution map of the Early Bronze Age graves including Armorican arrowheads in Brittany (mapping C. Nicolas). [additional detail in original document]

Nicolas and Guéret seem to discount the notion that they were only funerary objects as hafting glue and other indicators make it clear they were hafted on arrowshafts.  There's a few other oddities, such as paint traces or polishing agent on a few arrowheads.

It seems that these items could  have been mementos placed in the graves of some men, the same way immediate family members put roses on a casket or certain items in the grave.


Armorican Arrowheads Biographies: Production and Function of an Early Bronze Age prestige good from Brittany (France).  Journal of Lithic Studies.  Clément Nicolas, Colas Guéret, 2014.  [Link]

Abstract:

Brittany can pride itself on the Armorican arrowheads found in Early Bronze Age graves (2150-1700 BC). In the present state of knowledge, these are the only specialized craft products in knapped flint produced in this region at the western edge of continental Europe. Admired since the 19th century, these flint arrowheads have never really been studied. Due to the wealth of graves and grave-goods, a relatively precise study can be undertaken of the development of these craft products, despite the low number of reliable radiocarbon dates.

These arrowheads are characterized by a well-defined type (pointed tang and oblique barbs) most often combined with ogival form. Raw materials show the selection of a high quality yellow translucent flint, of which the origin has to be sought at more than 400 kilometers (Lower Turonian flint from Cher Valley). From a technical point of view, Armorican arrowheads reveal a great mastery of retouch by pressure-flaking. This skill is written in stone by the perfection of forms, the extreme thinness (until 2,5 mm thick) and very long barbs (until 25 mm long). Such work could not have been done without the use of copper, even bronze, awls. Moreover, some marks may testify to the implication of these tools. On 549 arrowheads that have reached to us, none of them presents diagnostical impact features. However, use-wear analysis indicates that most of them were hafted (adhesive traces, bright spots, blunt edges). These facts suggest that they are less functional arrowheads than objects for the show. In the graves, Armorican arrowheads are frequently set down carefully in wooden boxes taking the shaft off.

The Armorican arrowheads with their exotic raw materials, their high-degree of technicality, and their absence of use, have all features of a prestige good. They have been discovered by dozens in few graves under barrows with very rich funeral items (bronze daggers decorated with golden pins, precious bracers, silver beakers, etc.). According to these obvious facts, they symbolize the power of the elites. The genesis of Armorican arrowheads are in all likelihood explained by a climate of increasing social competition, which express itself in Brittany by an individualization of burial rites, a development of metalworking and a reorganization of territories.

In this article, we will stress on raw materials selection, technology and know-how, as well as use-wear analyses. All these approaches will help us to trace the biographies of the Armorican arrowheads.

Bell Beaker Shields?

The image of a Bell Beakers holding shields is not something that immediately comes to mind when we think of the classic personal inventory of the warrior.  But did they have them?


Origin of Hardened-Leather, Wood-Backed Shields?

"Clonbrin Shield"  800 B.C. Irish National Museum

The Kilmahamogue shield remains the oldest European example with the radiocarbon date slightly post-dating the Amesbury Archer,  1,950-1,540 B.C. (AF Harding, 2000) The wooden frame dates to the first part of the second millennium, putting it within the tail end of the Beaker period of County Antrim, Ireland.

Early shields, like the much later Clonbrin to the right,  were made of thick, hardened leather and formed over a wooden backer.  The impregnation and conditioning of the leather with wax and other materials hardened it to a Kevlar-like state which would have provided considerable protection against arrows and tanged daggers.

In fact, most of early (tentatively dated) Middle Bronze Age shields (below) were either non-functional or not-very-functional and merely mimicked "real shields" although growing more useful with time.  We shouldn't assume the Kilmahamogue represents the very first shield ever made which was subsequently thrown into a bog, and then more subsequently tripped over by an archaeologist.  Uckelmann and Mödlinger give a good overview with maps on known European shields to the Middle Bronze Age (Bronze Age Warfare: Manufacture and Use of Weaponry)

Bronze Shield, Found in River Thames, c. 1200 B.C.
(British Museum, 1856,0701.1350)

It is an easier leap to suggest that shielding was common in the Early Bronze Age of the Northwest facade, however it is much more difficult to suggest that shields were used over the entire Beaker world.  But, I think there are some important indicators within the arms inventories of Beaker graves that tell us a little about how they were equipped.

All of this stemming from a deeper look into the Beaker Bow which I should have named "Estimating the Draw Weight of a Beaker Bow" instead of "Calculating" but in any case..it's a blog.

Did the Palmela Point evolve because of shields?

Every design has a hierarchy in what it needs to do functionally. 

A wheel is round because it needs to roll.  A long rifle is long in order to be accurate at distance.

The copper Palmela Point used by Beakerfolk presents a design problem to me because it doesn't do most everyday arrow jobs better or cheaper, but instead presents several drawbacks to everyday Chalcolithic use despite being positively identified with archery.

Palmela Point

Palmela Points were:

-  too heavy for small game (grain + shaft)
-  too valuable to lose on long shots
-  too valuable to bury on a short shot (lose in ground)
-  too valuable to bury in a tree
-  too valuable to lose in the underbrush
-  not barbed, so not really a good arrowhead to have run off in an animal
-  not barbed, so not the torturous, un-removable murder weapon of the Late Neolithic

And if you did hunt large game with a Palmela Point, despite not being barbed, there's always a chance that the animal will take off with the arrow in its hindquarter never to be seen again.  Rarely do animals just drop in place, even with a fatal shot.

We do know however, the average grain of the points and the size of the tangs.  Therefore, we know the approximate diameter of the arrowshaft.  Taken together, we can guess the Palemela Point was delivered with sizable force.  Also, we can look at similar points of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and through the Medieval Period to gain a better understanding of its usage.  As iron and steel body armor reaches increasing hardness in the Medieval period, armor-piercing arrowheads also continue evolving into narrower, nippled blunts.

Looking at Palmela Points, it would appear that their purpose in life was to punch holes in things; like shields.  Of course, copper may have been too soft to do this effectively.  The simple explanation is the current one, that it is just a high status item.

Tanged daggers and close combat, another view

Tanged Dagger, Beaker grave, British Museum

Metal allowed knives to get longer and wider.  In hand to hand combat, reach is half the battle, which is why knives progressively grow to about four feet long in the Middle Ages.

A single punch from a tanged dagger anywhere on the body would have been followed by a quick bleed-out.  There were no second chances for the individual being assaulted.  At some point though, a Beaker man was forced to throw down his bow when the assailant came within close range and fight mano to mano.

Because all early shields on Earth were organic, it's hard to know when or where they came from, but they seem to be of enough antiquity to have been familiar to Late Neolithic Europeans.  The length of tanged daggers seems to grow through the Beaker Age, and I will guess that with it the instinctive desire to protect an increasingly shrinking and vulnerable footing.

Of course this is all speculative on my part, but I would be interested to know if there are any representations of shields from rock art of Neolithic Europe. (?)  Perhaps depictions of ditched enclosures may in fact be depictions of the leather shields??


>>> I'll be adding page three to the Beaker Blog soon.  (Thirty random Bell Beaker burials!)<<<




*  I'll add from my own archery experience in the woods:  I've buried a few aluminum arrows in the woods that archaeologists might find a thousand years from now.

(1) Osgood, Richard; Monks, Sarah (2011) "Bronze Age Warfare" ISBN-13: 9780752476025

(2) Modlinger, Marianne; Uckelmann, Marion (2011)  "Bronze Age Warfare:  Manufacture and Use of Weaponry"  [link in text]