A prehistoric culture defined archaeologically by finely-made, pottery drinking vessels for mead or beer, often burnished and geometrically decorated. Found in graves of the 3rd millennium BC from Spain, Czech Republic, and Hungary to Italy and Britain, Beakers have often been taken as evidence for trans-European migrations perhaps originating in Spain. Equally, they could be no more than a status symbol disseminated widely by trade, and copied locally.
The Bell-Beaker culture (sometimes shortened to Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk, German Glockenbecherkultur), ca. 2800 – 1900 BC, is the term for a widely but spottily scattered archaeological culture of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic (stone age) running into the early bronze age.
Pottery
Beaker culture is defined by the common use of a pottery style — a beaker with a distinctive inverted bell-shaped profile found across the western part of the Continent during the late 3rd millennium BC.
Origin
Some believe the Beaker culture to be of Iberian origin (modern day Spain and Portugal). To others, the Beaker culture apparently derives from early Corded Ware culture elements, with the Netherlands/Rhineland region as probably the most widely accepted site of origin, (J.
In contrast to this, Marija Gimbutas derived the Beakers from east central European cultures that became "Kurganized" by incursions of steppe tribes.
Interpretation
Given the unusual form and fabric of Beaker pottery, and its abrupt appearance in the archaeological record, the traditional explanation for the Beaker culture has been to interpret it as a diffusion of one group of people across Europe. During the early twentieth century, Beaker pottery was seen as one element of a people who, through repeated waves of invasion, brought with them metal-working, crouched burials and round barrows, replacing an earlier Neolithic race of Europeans.
There is no necessary correlation between an archaeological culture and an ethnic group however, as there is no one-to-one correlation between the material culture excavated by archaeologists and an ethnicity or society.
Other archaeologists, noting the distribution of Beakers was highest in areas of transport routes, including fording sites, river valleys and mountain passes, suggested that the pan-European style of Beaker 'folk' were originally bronze traders, who subsequently settled within local neolithic or early chalcolithic cultures creating local styles. Close analysis of the bronze tools associated with beaker use suggests an early Iberian source for the copper, followed subsequently by Central European and Bohemian ores. This would support a "two-wave" thesis for the spread of Beaker culture, initially coming from the South West, and subsequently spreading from Central or even Western Europe. Lanting (1976) suggests, from a compilation context, that Bell Beaker culture emerged on the Rhine delta from a Corded Ware culture context.
A recent Strontium isotope analysis of 86 people from Bell Beaker graves in Bavaria suggests that between 18-25% of all graves were occupied by people who came from a considerable distance outside the area.
Many archaeologists now believe that the Beaker 'people' did not exist as a group, and that the beakers and other new artefacts and practices found across Europe at the time that are attributed to the Beaker people are indicative of the development of particular manufacturing skills.
This non-invasionist theory was first proposed by Colin Burgess and Steve Shennan in the mid 1970s and it is now common to see the Beaker culture as a 'package' of knowledge (including religious beliefs and copper, bronze and gold working) and artefacts (including copper daggers, v-perforated buttons and stone wrist-guards for archers) adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees.
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