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The Beaker culture (also Bell-Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk, German Glockenbecherkultur), ca. 2600 — 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.

Extent

Its remains have been found in what is now Portugal, Spain, France (excluding the central massif), Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and Germany between the Elbe and Rhine, with an extention along the upper Danube into the Vienna basin (Austria), with Mediterranean outposts on Sardinia and Sicily; there is less certain evidence for direct penetration in the east.

Pottery

Beaker culture are defined by the common use of a pottery style -- a beaker with a distinctive bell-shaped profile found across the western part of the Continent during the late 3rd millennium BC. Some of these beakers are quite beautiful. The beakers seem to be associated with the consumption of mead or perhaps beer and are likely part of a larger prestige-oriented cultural package.

Origin

The precise and definite origin of the Beaker culture still has not been completely and thoroughly settled (e.g., on-line discussion publicly posted at Roman numeral V). One problem arising is the world's earliest known appearance of Beaker culture pottery, dating to the early 5th millennium BC in Predynastic Egypt (see Black-Topped Beaker, Cleveland Museum of Art artifact, Naqada I period). This would of course suggest a Predynastic Egyptian origin that may have subsequently spread elsewhere over the following millennia, in particular perhaps vis-à-vis early Predynastic Egyptian maritime travels (see Predynastic Egypt).

It has been suggested, however, that the Beaker culture of Europe seems to have derived from early Corded Ware culture elements, with the Netherlands/Rhineland region as seemingly the most widely accepted site of origin (ref. J. P. Mallory,EIEC p. 53). It is also often suggested as a candidate for an early Indo-European culture.

In contrast to this, Marija Gimbutas derived the Beakers from east central European cultures that became "Kurganized" by incursions of steppe tribes. Despite this, an eastern origin is not often sought, even by supporters of the Kurgan hypothesis.

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. Vere Gordon Childe wrote of the Beaker culture as:

Warlike invaders imbued with domineering habits and an appreciation of metal weapons and ornaments which inspired them to impose sufficient political unity on their new domain for some economic unification to follow

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. Additionally, material culture and technological innovations can spread independently of population movement that is, through cultural diffusion rather than demic diffusion. Childe's view is now seen as being incorrect, its connections erroneous and based on limited knowledge, whilst its assumption of a Beaker invasion is considered an attempt to attribute numerous different cultural changes to one cause.

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 new knowledge may have come about through the influence of neighbouring peoples, rather than as a result of mass migrations, knowledge that could spread independently of any population movement. An example might be as part of a prestige cult related to the production and consumption of beer, or trading links such as those demonstrated by finds made along the sea-ways of Atlantic Europe.

This non-invasionist theory was first propounded 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 adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees.

See also

• Prehistoric Britain
• Mount Pleasant Period
• Nebra skydisk
• Linear Ceramic culture (6th to 5th millennia)
• Funnelbeaker culture (ca. 4500-2700)
• Unetice culture (ca. 2300-1600)
• Tumulus culture (ca. 1600-1200)
• Urnfield culture (ca. 1300-800)

External links

• A Beaker from Kent
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/archaeology/bronzeageman_2.shtml
• http://www.stephen.j.murray.btinternet.co.uk/bronze.htm
• http://www.stonepages.com/scotland/cairnpapple.html

Sources

• Oxford Concise Dictionary of Archaeology, Darvill, T, OUP, 2003
• J. P. Mallory, "Beaker Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.

• Ancient peoples
• Archaeological cultures
• European archaeology
• Indo-European
• EIEC
• Bronze Age