Early Horses in the Czech Republic (Kyselý & Peške, 2016)

If Kyselý & Peške are correct, it's possible horses were being improved in Central Europe well before the early Funnel Beaker Culture and possibly as early as the wagon-wheeling Lengyel Culture.  Although larger outlier horses would have had to come from the Eastern sphere, these potential domestics would be as old or older than the oldest accepted domesticated horses of the Botai Culture.* 

They analyze a large set of post cranial bones beginning with the Magdalenian and look at successive periods to the Unetice then calculate the deltas in adult horses for various periods.  They conclude that within the Lengyel period there is the beginning of unnatural variance and a larger-than-to-be-expected population, suggesting human involvement.

(Commons)

One way to understand the variance argument is to look at the size range of domesticated dogs.  While there may be a place somewhere in the time-space continuum where English bulldogs could survive longer than a day on their own, it probably isn't a place that includes Tibetian mastiffs.  An archaeologist excavating a San Diego suburb thousands of years from now might also conclude that the Tibetian mastiff being excavated doesn't make sense for this ecology.  This is the problem with outlier Lengyel and TRB period horses and it is why human action is implicated.

Kyselý & Peške's dataset reveals that as the Eneolithic progresses through the Bronze Age the variability gradually decreases as well as the overall size of the horses.  This is evidence that the horse breed is being improved and neotenized, and this same trend can be seen in most domesticates.

I'll close with several factoids.  The Bell Beaker and Corded Ware horse remains are rather thin for this area, but they examine surrounding areas and conclude that the Hungarian Beaker horses were generally large (suggesting a horse with Eastern roots for this group), however with a great degree of variability, and possibly co-existing with more than one type of horse in the Carpathian Basin. 

- As the Late Bronze Age closes, horses are at their smallest, being called the 'Celtic Pony'.

- They don't believe environmental changes offer an appealing explanation for the changes in size or population, especially since those changes are not positive responses.

- There is little indication horses were used primarily for consumption and this is also not supported by age at death or sex.

Kyselý R. & Peške L. 2016. — Horse size and domestication: Early equid bones from the Czech Republic in the European context. Anthropozoologica 51 (1): 15-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.5252/az2016n1a2  [Link]

ABSTRACT
We collected and evaluated, by the ‘logarithmic size index’ (LSI) method, all available postcranial equid bones found in the Czech Republic from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. Material from the Upper Paleolithic (Magdalenien) and Bohemian Late Bronze Age (Knovíz culture) was also included. Two different species of equids were documented: Equus hydruntinus Regalia, 1907 and Equus ferus Boddaert, 1785. The variation in the size of true horses was compared with data published for neighbouring countries. In most periods, the horses are found to be larger in the eastern part of
Central Europe than in the western part. The Czech lands appear to span the border of two worlds: the Pannonian plains and the western, geomorphologically diverse regions. The status of horses in the Neolithic Lengyel period from Moravia remains disputable. However, a high size variability in Eneolithic Funnel Beaker culture (TRB, 3800-3350 BC) together with a non-homogeneous distribution in Řivnáč culture (3100-2800 BC) and a significant increase in size between Lengyel and Baden-Řivnáč horizons (probably already in TRB) combined with the occasional occurrence of unexpectedly large individuals probably indicate the importation of tamed or even domesticated horses as early as the times of TRB culture, which is earlier than claimed in other recent studies, and possibly reflect multiple origins of the horse population. The large variability and repeated diminution in size of horses in the Early Bronze Age (Únětice culture, 2200-1700 BC) could indicate advanced domestication or multiple origins of the populations (or both). The persistence of wild horses in the Early Bronze Age cannot be proved osteometrically, but the presence of domesticated horses is considered certain.

See also Horse of Botai [here]

Prehistoric Britain, Part 4 (Neil Oliver)

Part 4 of 4 of a documentary by Neil Oliver on Prehistoric Britain. Hat tip Mandy Chamerblain

This is the story of the arrival of metal workers in Britain.  Around 10.40ish or so is where the Beaker story begins. 



All of the videos are good viewing, about 50 minutes each, posted on the Beaker TV tab.

Out of Iberia and into Germany (Eurogenes)

There is now additional signals of Iberian influence in Northern Europe apart from mitochondrial haplogroups.

See Eurogenes:  "German Bell Beakers in the Context of the Prehistoric Near East"

 

It'll be interesting to see the Iberian components as they come into focus.  One of the big questions I have is whether there is a presence of anything resembling an Eastern European like ancestry, or will we see something distinct that only later becomes more steppe-like after commingling with the Corded Ware?

See also [here],

Risk in a Beaker Economy (Rivero, Nunez, Taylor, 2016)

I've got the paper, read it, here it is.  Thanks to Eurogenes.

This paper examines the set of Plain Common Ware associated with Bell Beaker pottery at the San Blas Beaker settlement/fortress on the Guadiana.  The purpose of the authors isn't so much to understand the habits of San Blas as to create a model that can inform how prehistoric people mitigated food risk.

At San Blas there are two phases, a clearly defined pre-Beaker phase A, and a clearly defined Bell Beaker phase B, both about the same size.  The evolution of phase B is the source of interest because throughout the life of phase B, Type III larger containers and type IV bowls drop off and the number of plates and beaker containers increase.

There could be many reasons why there is an apparent reduction in storage containers and an increase in tableware.  But if Bell Beakers were truly storing less food, then that could indicate a behavioral change, a security change or growing sophistication in the local economy, all suggested by the authors.  It's also possible that in the early days of the San Blas fortress, storing food in the homes behind the walls was important and became less important as time went on.

Might we see something similar in other Beaker settlements?

On a somewhat related note...  I've wondered before if it would be possible to find enough metrics to run a prehistoric culture through something like Gerhard Hofstede's Cultral Dimensions paradigm. You can see that post [here].

One of the key indicators for risk aversion in modern times is personal savings.  If you were able to quantify several aspects among prehistoric cultures, like storage, would there be enough data to make some determinations?

As one example, Materialistic cultures like America save little and engage in high risk activities and ventures, financially, professionally and personally.  East Asia is very risk adverse with low debt and high personal savings. These differences are probably driven by culture since the economic realities of East Asia are as diverse as Western Europe, yet Asians cluster together and Western Europeans cluster together.

So I realize there just isn't enough hard data for Bell Beakers, but I wonder where they would plot below?

One of Hofstede's dimensions

Bell Beaker and the evolution of resource management strategies in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula

Daniel García RiveroJesús María Jurado NúñezRuth Taylor

Journal of Archaeological Science

August 2016, Vol.72:10–24, doi:10.1016/j.jas.2016.

AbstractThis paper addresses the plain common pottery associated with Beaker contexts in the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The detailed systematic study focuses on the pottery assemblage provided by one of the region’s most important settlements, San Blas (Badajoz, Spain), while comparisons are made with other important sites in the study area. By means of the stratigraphic, typological and statistical analysis of the data, the main patterns of change in this material culture throughout the temporal sequence are identified and the historical explanatory factors are inferred. Specifically, during the second half of the 3rd millennium cal BC, an important change took place in the management of economic risk, which is materialised by a significant reduction in food storage and by the more immediate direct or indirect consumption of resources. We suggest that these patterns reflect a shift towards a short-term projection of the future, in a context with strong evidence of instability.

Small Cattle Suddenly in EFC with Halaf (Arbuckle et al, 2016)

Here's one of two recent papers that are very prescient when reading the recent Neolithic genomes.

Let me apply some filters first.  The authors here do not apply any distinctions on the race of cattle, which they may have avoided for a any number of reasons.   The distinction is solely size differences with full size animals obviously being aurochs, smaller cattle as domestics and yet smaller cattle.

The important take away is the speed to which cattle 'appear'.  In others, they were imported or more likely, Halafians imported themselves, which, 60 years ago would be like 'duh'.

Link at the bottom.

2.5" Halaf Obsidian Link, part of a collection in corner of house

 (British Museum, 1934,0210.502AN258429001, FI-000841148)

"Documenting the initial appearance of domestic cattle in the Eastern Fertile Crescent (northern Iraq and western Iran)"

Benjamin S. Arbuckle, Max D. Price, Hitomi Hongo, Banu Oksüz

Abstract

In this paper we address the timing of and mechanisms for the appearance of domestic cattle in the Eastern Fertile Crescent (EFC) region of SW Asia through the analysis of new and previously published species abundance and biometric data from 86 archaeofaunal assemblages. We find that Bos exploitation was a minor component of animal economies in the EFC in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene but increased dramatically in the sixth millennium BC. Moreover, biometric data indicate that small-sized Bos, likely representing domesticates, appear suddenly in the region without any transitional forms in the early to mid sixth millennium BC. This suggests that domestic cattle were imported into the EFC, possibly associated with the spread of the Halaf archaeological culture, several millennia after they first appear in the neighboring northern Levant.

[Link]