This handsome 158-page volume focuses on the Mediterranean and its role in the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Throughout the book, the sea emerges both as an inhabited space and as a medium for communication and circulation. This maritime perspective shifts attention…
REVIEW BY OLIVIER LEMERCIER To begin with, the Bell Beaker referred only to a small ceramic cup with a very recognisable morphology and decoration. In burials, this drinking vessel was often associated with weapons (particularly daggers and archery equipment) and…
Archaeological work around the ring sanctuary of Pömmelte in Saxony-Anhalt has uncovered a landscape rich in ancient monuments and settlements. Franziska Knoll tells us more about the discoveries.
Analysis of prehistoric pottery is improving our understanding of the changing culinary practices and ceramic usage of people living in central Germany between the Early Neolithic and the Late Bronze Age, c.5500-750 BC. The area of present-day Saxony-Anhalt was a…
A new investigation has now seen an international team of more than 200 geneticists and archaeological scientists discover aDNA evidence for a second significant and hitherto unknown Bronze Age migration into Britain
Twenty years ago, one of the richest Bell Beaker burials ever found in Europe was discovered close to Stonehenge. At that time, DNA analysis was not sufficiently advanced to learn more about the individual, dubbed ‘the Amesbury Archer’ – but the intervening decades have seen significant scientific advances that have shed illuminating light on this enigmatic figure, as well as his relationship to a younger man buried nearby. Andrew Fitzpatrick, Jacqueline McKinley, Alistair Barclay, Ian Armit, Iñigo Olalde, and David Reich report on what has been revealed.
One of the most exciting discoveries was that of a massive square pit burial holding the skeletal remains of a horse and a wolf-sized dog
A public-interest piece in Nature – published in response to their research paper about the Bell Beaker culture – discusses the ‘sometimes straining’ relationship between archaeologists and geneticists.
More than 4,500 years ago, a hugely popular cultural phenomenon – today known as the Bell Beaker Complex – captured the prehistoric imagination, flourishing across much of Europe. Archaeologists are still deliberating over how this Complex, first identified in the 19th century, developed so quickly and effectively. Now the largest ancient DNA study to-date has shed revolutionary new light on the question, with surprising implications for our understanding of ancient populations – particularly that of Britain, which seems to have undergone an almost complete genetic turnover in just a few centuries. Kathryn Krakowka reports.