The hot topic at the moment is social inequality in Bronze Age Europe, thanks to a new paper by Mittnik et al. at
Science. The full article is sitting behind an exceedingly robust paywall
here.
However, the genotype dataset from the paper is freely available at the Max Planck Society's Edmond data repository
here. Below is my Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of ancient West Eurasian genetic variation featuring 41 of the highest quality ancients from the new dataset. Almost all of them are from the Lech Valley in the Bavarian Alps, covering the period from the Bell Beaker culture (BBC) to the Middle Bronze Age (MBA). Two of the samples are from a mass Corded Ware culture (CWC) burial in the more northerly Tauber Valley.
I've also highlighted other ancients on the plot associated with the BBC and CWC from present-day Netherlands and Germany, respectively. The relevant PCA datasheet can be downloaded
here.
Social stratification in ancient Europe is a fascinating topic, and it's an issue that I've started looking at myself (see
here). However, I can't see any correlation between the inferred social standing of the individuals from the Lech and Tauber valleys and their positions in my PCA.
Nevertheless, the PCA is interesting in that it highlights considerable genetic heterogeneity within the Lech Valley BBC population. Indeed, how is this heterogeneity even possible, if, as per Mittnik et al., ancient DNA "has shown that the spread of the BBC throughout continental Europe did not involve large-scale migrations"?
Below is another version of my PCA, but this time focusing on three males: Lech Valley Beakers UNTA58_68Sk1 and WEHR_1192SkA, as well as ALT_4 from the aforementioned mass CWC grave in the Tauber Valley. Note that UNTA58_68Sk1 and WEHR_1192SkA represent genetically the most southern and northern, respectively, Lech Valley BBC samples that had enough data to be run in my analysis. I chose to focus on males because they carry the Y-chromosome, which can be informative about male-mediated ancient population expansions.
The PCA outcomes for these individuals are generally in line with their results in other types of genetic analyses, including those based on formal statistics. For instance, compared to the other two, ALT_4 harbors excess early steppe herder ancestry, UNTA58_68Sk1 excess early European farmer ancestry, and WEHR_1192SkA excess European hunter-gatherer ancestry. Moreover...
- UNTA58_68Sk1 shows a non-local isotopic signature and belongs to Y-haplogroup G2a, a marker essentially missing from BBC populations north of the Alps, and is best modeled as a two-way mixture between Bronze Age populations from the Balkans and the Pontic-Caspian steppe (see here), which probably means that he was a migrant to the Lech Valley from south of the Alps
- importantly, UNTA58_68Sk1 is not an isolated case, at least in the sense that several other BBC individuals from Bavaria, Bohemia, Hungary and Poland show varying ratios of Balkan-related ancestry, although almost all of these people are women
- WEHR_1192SkA is very similar to Bell Beakers from the northern Netherlands with whom he shares the R1b-P312 Y-haplogroup, suggesting that he was part of a population that moved into the Lech Valley from potentially as far away as the North Sea coast
- although ALT_4 probably shares the R1b-L51 Y-haplogroup with WEHR_1192SkA and many other BBC and Bronze Age individuals from the Bavarian Alps and surrounds, this can't be used as evidence of significant local genetic continuity after the CWC period, especially considering the comparatively eastern genome-wide structure of ALT_4.
Of course, archeological data suggest that the BBC was influenced in some important ways by the Copper and Bronze Age cultures of the Balkans and Carpathian Basin. So much so, in fact, that Marija Gimbutas, author of
The Civilization of the Goddess, believed that the BBC originated in the Balkans from a synthesis of the local Vucedol culture and the intrusive Yamnaya culture from the Pontic-Caspian steppe.
Considering the ancient DNA evidence, however, the main demographic center of the early BBC could not have been south of the Alps.
Rather, it appears that early BBC and even CWC groups from north of the Alps moved into the Balkans and Carpathian Basin, where they may have established contacts with the local elites. If so, this might explain the significant southern cultural influences on the BBC, but limited accompanying genetic impact. This scenario also has support from archeological data (for instance, see
here).
See also...
Is Yamnaya overrated?
The Boscombe Bowmen
Single Grave > Bell Beakers
238 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 238 of 238@Matt
Don't expect any major archeological differences between the CWC burials with M417 and L51.
That's the issue. They might use CW pots and other items, but would still be a different people than the main CW groups.
Like non-Celtic speakers which adopted La Tene culture! If they were just superficially adapted to CW neighbours, this would make their next adaptation to BBC even easier to explain: They were no fully integrated part of the CW networks in the North!
If they would have been, whole R1b clans and mixed groups would have popped up in the North. I2 seems to be like surviving allies, POW/slaves and specialist. The original CW core group was all about males from the same paternal ancestor. They were agnatic and relatives were defined that way, while the female side was downplayed.
If the BB ancestors took a Southern path, this might even mean they avoided the Northern CW realm deliberately!
No friendly passing. And if they moved along the mountains from the Carparthians through Slowakia into the Alps, this would make them more mountaino affine, like they were in Central Europe later too.
Question is: Did they migrate still with CW inventory and when/where/how did they adopt/develop their long list of typical Beaker elements and more advanced metallurgy.
More likely in the Carparthian region already with Balkan masters, or what else?
Rather unlikely they were typical CW pastoralists, moved to the Alps and suddenly reinvented themselves on their own to become typical BB.
Not possible in such a short time.
@ Davidski
“Don't expect any major archeological differences between the CWC burials with M417 and L51.”
How do you mean ?
I mean that both M417 and L51 will be found in typical CWC burials, with no signs that they represent different sub-cultures within the CWC.
My guess is that there won’t be L51 in the early classic CWC male burials with battle axes
And later; the P312 BB guys made a very conscious effort to create a new display
These were different peoples
@Gaska
"R1a and R1b migrations are independent"
Apparently they were not, but in fact traveled together, which always made sense considering how closely linked the two were on the steppe, and the obvious relationships between modern populations.
The real question is if there was significant geographical and network overlap. If not, its like with BB in the West: Two different ethnicities which adopted a similar material culture. Just the main CW group kept the tradition, the smaller branch left it under the influence of other cultures. BB tried to deliberately distinguish themselves from CW. Probably because they wanted to make their break up with the old tradition and the main group a very obvious thing and cultural signal.
But how long did they share CW material culture and where? How often did intermarriage, obviously mostly bride exchange, took place how long.
If not, its like with BB in the West: Two different ethnicities which adopted a similar material culture. J”
There aren’t “2 different BBs”- this a fallacious paradigm
BBC formed in central Europe & intereacted with other groups on its periphery. In the West, they completely marginalised the local Megalithic groups. In Carpathian basin, they admixed, and ultimately were absorbed into local groups. Some even ventured south of the Carpathians due to marrying into, or providing military service to southern elites.
The only mystery is which mountain pass or plane L51 took to get to C.E.
Can agree, but there is pre-steppe BB culture im Iberia and I consider these being of a different ethnicity than CE BB. They became "marginalised" by CE bearers, but were BB before.
There are BB with Neolithic and those with steppe ancestry. The latter conquered and marginalised the former.
You don’t consider these two different groups of people?
Strange to me.
zardos/ and what Y-haplogroup have first?
I don’t know, but usually the main group is first to develop and in SSC we have R1a as well.
But thats not that important anyway. More important is an early split being still likely, even if the BB founding clans took part in the CW culture for some time.
@ Zardos
“There are BB with Neolithic and those with steppe ancestry. The latter conquered and marginalised the former.
You don’t consider these two different groups of people?
Strange to me”
That’s correct . There aren’t 2 different BB groups. I didn’t accidentally say that- it’s what the data shows.
Unless you Analyse the data yourself; there’s no point in debating
You know the Olalde paper and that a completely new ancestral component was introduced by force to an already BBC people in Iberia from Central Europe. You don’t make sense.
Yes , the Olalde paper shows that BB culture correlates with R1b-P312 & some degree of steppe ancestry throughout its domain. In other words; virtually every person with BB material , both in & out of Iberia.
So as I suggested- there’s only one BBC, and it’s from CE
I guess thats more a question of definition more than anything else. Probably you mean the full Beaker package we know from CE first and you don’t agree with the early maritime forms to being part of it?
Anyway, there are other material cultures with an ethnic label which still show other ethnicities as an exception, like "Celtic La Tene".
The same might be true for CW if an R1b tribe can be identified as a Southern branch in the distribution of CW material culture.
“I guess thats more a question of definition more than anything else. Probably you mean the full Beaker package we know from CE first and you don’t agree with the early maritime forms to being part of it?”
That’s Not what I mean . Beaker pottery & other Beaker elements correspond closely; they didn’t evolve in opposite parts of Europe.
Maritime Beaker evolved from CWC pottery. Copper daggers are from Yamnaya style. Etc
All these elements come together in Central Europe.
“Anyway, there are other material cultures with an ethnic label which still show other ethnicities as an exception, like "Celtic La Tene".”
There is to date very few la Tene individuals. Better first analyse some data than making theoretical proposals
Well, it was an example coming from one of my archaeology teachers and he used it because of the proven continuity and historical records.
La Tene material culture is for the most part but not always associated with historical Celts.
Seems we deal with 3 related steppe groups which adapted to different habitats:
- Yamnaya on the PC steppe
- R1a-CW forest steppe and Northern European flatlands
- R1b-CW related?/BB primarily to the mountaineous areas, secondarily maritime expansions, metallurgy and long distance trade.
So far there is little early overlap. BAC too is firmly in the Northern flatland CW-R1a realm.
@Davidski, but also would "early Corded Ware" burials that may have R1a-M417 and R1b-L51 have the full complement of distinguishing CWC burial features, or will they have only some, common to the later developed Bell Beaker and CW horizons?
That is, will Bell Beaker be culturally derived from CW, or will both be derived from some common ancestor culture that is not quite CW?
Kristiansen in 2017 described the formation of the CWC from Yamnaya and MN European influences.
("There is additional evidence to support the idea that males dominated the initial Yamnaya migrations and the formation of the early Corded Ware Culture: in burials from the earliest horizon, often with males, as in Tiefbrunn and Kujawy, there was no typical Corded Ware material culture. This was followed shortly afterwards by the deposit of A type battle-axes in male burials, but there was as yet no pottery (Furholt 2014: 6, fig. 3). Corded Ware pottery appeared later in Northern Europe, and we may suggest that this did not happen until women with ceramic skills married into this culture and started to copy wooden, leather and woven containers in clay. This process began in the early phase both south and north of the Carpathians (Ivanova 2013; Frînculeasa et al. 2015).".
Now that is open to criticism, that Yamnaya is too late and in y-dna not viable, but if the formation of CW culture over time is a process, then at what point and where did the BB branch? Before or after the formation of "typical Corded Ware material culture" from a background which can be linked with the steppe, but in which clearly diagnostic signs of CW material culture are not yet evident?
IRC CWC's battle-axes habit tend to be linked to Funnel-beaker Culture (which including "hordes" of stone battles axes - https://twitter.com/In2thepast/status/1103567571675156480), though the form is different.
Furholt 2014 ("Upending a ‘Totality’") also seems to indicate that there are different burial orientations and practices in early CWC.
("Corded Ware funerary practices are frequently por-trayed as being highly uniform, with the individual dead laid out in a west–east and east–west orientation, with a strict gender differentiation in which male individuals are laid on their right side, with their heads to the west and looking south, and female individuals are laid on their left side, with their heads to the east and also looking south. However, closer examination of the evidence reveals considerable regional variation and deviation from these supposedly strict norms.")
Interestingly Furholt calls out the "Hesse and Tauber valleys" as one area of variation within a core CW burial region that does hold up
(Furholt also comments on axes - "Flint axeheads are only abundant in those regions, concentrating in the north, where they had previously played an important role (Brandt, 1967;Hubner 2005).").
@zardos, while the scenario may be as is said or not (the BBC has a patchwork distribution over much of Western Europe?), it is not clear if the people of this era can really be termed megalithic or not.
In many regions such as Britain or Central Iberia, megaliths were not in use ("In southern England, earthen long barrows and megalithic tombs have now been shown to have passed out of widespread use over a thousand years before the arrival of the Bell Beaker set" / "there is a very long chronological hiatus (more than 1000 years) between the abandonment of megaliths (in Central Iberia) and reusing in Beaker times").
The "Europe of monumentality" (megalithism) in Western Europe is a phenomenon which may peak earlier than anything to do with Bell Beaker.
I know, I was not the commenter which brought Megaliths up. But I completely agree with your two last comments.
@Matt
"Ref, my plotting of the paper's f4 stats: https://imgur.com/a/DiUomEm
There is no "jump" in Barcin_N related ancestry at the time of the MBA samples, and the BarcinN f4 stat is continuous.
In the MBA set there is no striking drop towards Anatolia in the f4 stat, but rather the MBA represents the same level and variance as in the latest EBA (which is not very different to the early EBA)."
Good point, fair enough. Actually I see only one MBA male in your f4 stats, and this one is more Anatolian than the EBA average. And the females are all quite early MBA, if not even epi-EBA. So in theory, if there was a sex bias in the supposed Tumulus migration, then the data would still be compatible with a migration, but needless to add: More MBA samples, preferrably with complete Tumulus burial rite, are necessary.
@Matt
These L51 samples are Corded Ware. Not proto-Bell Beaker or some other culture parallel to Corded Ware.
@ Matt
“The "Europe of monumentality" (megalithism) in Western Europe is a phenomenon which may peak earlier than anything to do with Bell Beaker.”
It was just shorthand for their descendants in Western Europe . You should also mention the earthworks , enclosures and causeways as part of the similar phenomenon
But that doesn’t change anything neither does cremation.
Re: variation in CW burial traditions. In Switzerland there are also CW burial sites with cremation. The biggest being Schöfflisdorf in the canton of Zurich, with 31 burial mounds. The dead were all cremated, the ashes then covered with pottery, the whole covered with a wooden construction or by stones, which in turn was covered by a flat mound.
Re: what I said about the similarity between Hungary_LBA and Hallstatt_Bylany DA111 (and keeping in mind that these are just two individuals, there's simply no further data availabe ATM).
I noticed that Hungary_LBA looks like a two way mix of 1/3 Hungary_BA and 2/3 Welzin_BA. Because Welzin_BA has these ancestry proportions:
[1] "distance%=4.9069"
DEU_Welzin_BA
Yamnaya_Samara,38.2
Barcin_N,37.3
WHG,24.5
And Hungary_BA, like I said:
[1] "distance%=2.0484"
HUN_BA
Barcin_N,69.3
Yamnaya_Samara,19.9
WHG,10.6
Even without nMonte it's quite evident that Hungary_LBA can be modelled as 1/3 Hungary_BA + 2/3 Welzin_BA.
Using nMonte I obtained this:
[1] "distance%=2.9942"
HUN_LBA
DEU_Welzin_BA,68
HUN_BA,32
Now, what is Welzin_BA? I guess it can be argued that they might be mostly warriors from the Lusatian culture. And the Lusatian culture is the oldest Urnfield culture. So it appears to make complete sense to see some of it in the Urnfield culture of eastern Hungary. (Even though the Welzin warriors are not that old, about 1200 BC, their genomic composition may have existed already earlier in the Lusatian culture.)
BTW, I noticed on https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/ancient-human-dna_41837#6/53.794/24.412 that these Lech valley samples (at least those called UNTA which are recorded on that map) are not really from the Alpine Lech valley proper (Lechtal in German) but rather just from sites along the river Lech. The Alpine Lech valley or Lechtal is anyway mostly an Austrian thing that ends just beyond the Bavarian border in the extreme south of Bavaria. So most (or maybe all) of these samples are from the Lech in the Alpine Foreland of Bavaria, and not from the Alps.
@Simon, looking at that comment, it's probably fair to say that at an even finer grained resolution than I went into, it is not incompatible with a shift that is as late as the latest sample. But it doesn't provide any active support for such a model, for sure.
@Davidski, when the dust has settled and folk like Furholt have looked at the grave data for any early L51 graves, we will see what they come up with when the dust has settled, and whether this influences how they conceptualize all these population/culture labels. If Furholt is already looking at a model against an early CWC "totality" in favour of "SGBR", then it may bolster that. Unless your source has gone through the grave materials with you in higher detail than most adna folk seem to bother with even in their main paper, I would be doubtful that you could strongly make such a claim?
@Matt
I'm not very impressed with Furholt's new take on the Corded Ware complex, because it makes some sweeping generalizations based on incomplete data, and I don't expect it to be taken seriously in future ancient DNA papers on the topic.
I'm surprised by that, it seemed to me upon reading the paper that it was doing the opposite of a sweeping generalisation, breaking down the evolution of the "Corded Ware" and "Bell Beaker" complexes into parts over space and time, and highlighting variability within them and change over time and space, to try and leverage a better archaeological definition that gives less of a false impression of a homogenous "bloc" of an early Corded Ware complex. Kristiansen and other scholars seem to be moving in a similar direction of thinking of Corded Ware material as evolving over time, and lacking clearly distinctive breaks ("Corded Ware is overrated"?).
There’s something to be taken from Furholt; although “SGBR” needs in turn to be broken down
@Matt
Can you show me an example where Furholt's theory of Type 1 and Type 2 Corded Ware actually aligns with ancient DNA evidence?
That is, are you actually aware of any Corded Ware remains from his so called Type 2 burials that lack steppe ancestry? Because I'm not.
@David, hmmm... Interesting question - this is not the part of the paper I've focused on actually (I was more interested in reading about the variability within these cultures).
Now, reading through Furholt's classification of Type 1 vs Type 2 the questions seems twofold:
1) Can we identify any early graves (around 3000 BCE, poss 3100 - 2800 BCE is a good bracket?) in the literature which can be linked to settlements with Corded Ware materials, but which lack Single Grave Burial Ritual?
2) Do the people in these graves them tend to have steppe ancestry or not?
It seems like it would take for us to have a good set of samples around 3100 - 2800 BCE, then a deep dive into all the actual archaeology, to say for certain.
Furholt himself admits In Type 1 Corded Ware graves, we consistently find individuals with steppe ancestry, in Type 2 Corded Ware contexts there are almost no connected burials from which to draw.
So I think there is a question about how we actually test his theory.
But that said, I think his contention is reasonable that Single Grave Burial Ritual is, in the data we have, apparently closely associated with steppe ancestry, while actual Corded Ware materials alone or independently are not, despite the serious question of testing.
So I don't think it's a bad suggestion that Corded Ware materials are a secondary element of the package that builds up in some cultures over time, and the actual movement in the 3000-2800 BCE timeframe is more defined by SGBR.
Though this itself is probably still a generalization which will admit exceptions, it seems less of a totality than a "fully formed" Corded Ware Culture expansion (where "pots and people" are together from the beginning, in a fully formed association, contrary to as Kristiansen notes "in burials from the earliest horizon, often with males, as in Tiefbrunn and Kujawy, there was no typical Corded Ware material culture." and so on).
@Matt
Furholt's Type 1 and Type 2 distinction sounds like bullshit to me.
OK...
'- WEHR_1192SkA is very similar to Bell Beakers from the northern Netherlands with whom he shares the R1b-P312 Y-haplogroup, suggesting that he was part of a population that moved into the Lech Valley from potentially as far away as the North Sea coast'
Indeed, catch! Even compared to later on, so presumably closer, early middle age samples this is number 3 in G25 distance! of my mother!!
Distance to: FinnMom
0.02504162 England_Saxon:I0159]
0.02541477 ITA_Collegno_MA:CL84
0.02617796 DEU_Lech_BBC:WEHR_1192SkA
0.02624255 England_Saxon:I0777
0.02641409 HUN_MA_Szolad:SZ7
0.02660708 SWE_Viking_Age_Sigtuna:vik_grt035
0.02723781 HUN_MA_Szolad:SZ16
0.02777626 England_Saxon:I0161
0.02809972 England_Saxon:I0774
0.02877784 England_Roman:3DT16
@ Andrzejewski
‘ Are you suggesting by your comments about the WEHR_1192SkA having an excess of WHG ancestry and at the same time being very similar to Bell Beakers from the northern Netherlands - that Bell Beakers were rich in WHG ancestry compared to CWC and Single Grave Culture? It's seems like you're also alluding to it when you referenced the Boscombe Bowman link, whereby you wrote that current Anglo-Saxon Brits and modern day Scandinavians are richer in WHG ancestry.’
It’s very clear that WEHR_1192SkA is very close to the Dutch BB. It’s also clear that it looks like an offshoot of the North Dutch/NW German Beakers (‘North Sea Bell Beakers’). Even more because it pops up in a best fit in G25 of someone with only ancestry from a BB stronghold in a North Dutch area.
It’s seems obvious that WEHR_1192SkA is the common ground between the Britons and the Anglo Saxons. See the best fit of WEHR_1192SkA:
[IMG]https://www.mupload.nl/img/bi6uewz26rj.19.08.png[/IMG]
Why? Because the North Sea Beakers and the Anglo-Saxons had the same heartland in NW Germany. There is certain kind of genetic drift that makes the difference but Britons and Anglo-Saxon are both highly ‘North Sea Bell Beaker.`
Does it explain the whole Beaker phenomenon. No. It’s not one size fits all. BB in Europe are not one in culture and/or genetics. Still the North Sea Beakers had tentacles to Central Europe and Northeast Europe. Archeological and genetical proven.
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