Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Bell Beaker culture" in English language version.
the Pömmelte–Schönebeck complex can be best understood as a sacral landscape in which the two enclosures were focal points standing in dialectic relation to each other. This sacral landscape began to be established in the early 3rd millennium BC with a small sanctuary and a burial of a warrior-leader of the Corded Ware Culture.
The form and decoration of the Danish lunulae are dependent on Anglo-Irish lunulae, which can be attributed to the Beaker Culture of western Europe.
From ca. 2300 to 1700 BC a new historical period of cultural integration prevailed in south Scandinavia. It was initiated by the migration of Bell Beaker groups into Jutland, who brought with them new skills in mining and sailing, and who started to mine flint in northern Jutland for mass production of flint daggers that were soon distributed to most of Scandinavia. It was later followed by a similar production in southeast Denmark. This period marks the first introduction of metal into Scandinavia, and the dagger production represented an imitation of copper and bronze prototypes. It also represents the introduction of a new more ranked social organization. Large chiefly houses similar to those found in the Unetice Culture appear in south Scandinavia, and speak of a radical reorganization of economy and social organization
The form and decoration of the Danish lunulae are dependent on Anglo-Irish lunulae, which can be attributed to the Beaker Culture of western Europe.
The Cabeceiras de Basto discs were found with a lunula whose similarities to the Irish series were noted by Cardoso in the first publication of the find (Cardoso, 1930: 6-16, fig. 2). Even if the Cabeceiras de Basto lunula is 'a very peripheral cousin of the British lunula' (Taylor, 1980: 24, pl. 23, b), it is still related. The association of lunula and discs, both types of object that are well known in Ireland (Case, 1977; Cahill, 2015) is unlikely to be coincidental. It has been demonstrated recently in relation to the Coggalbeg, Co. Roscommon find that lunulae and sun discs were sometimes associated in Ireland (Kelly & Cahill, 2010). The pair of gold discs from Oviedo is less well known than the Cabeceiras de Basto finds and although their decoration differs from the Irish discs in detail, they are similar in their shape and size, in having a central cross and central holes, and in having been made as a pair (Macwhite, 1951: 50, lám. viii). These finds seem likely to be broadly contemporary with the Tablada del Rudrón ornaments.
European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
Genome-wide data have revealed high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry in Beaker Complex-associated individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.
The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high resolution time transect of the Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers prior to the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE, and by ~2000 BCE the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. ... the lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.
We started by modeling the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia (Iberia_CA_Stp), dated to ~2500-2000 BCE. ... Only one 2-way model fits the ancestry in Iberia_Copper_Age_Stp: Germany_Beaker (Germany Bell Beaker) + Iberia_CA (Iberia Copper Age). Finding a Bell Beaker-related group as a plausible source for the introduction of steppe ancestry into Iberia is consistent with the fact that some of the individuals in the Iberia_CA_Stp group were excavated in Bell Beaker associated contexts. ... For Iberia_BA (Iberia Bronze Age), we added Iberia_CA_Stp to the outgroup set as a possible source. The same Germany_Beaker + Iberia_CA model shows a good fit, but with less ancestry attributed to Germany_Beaker. Another working model is Iberia_CA+Iberia_CA_Stp, suggesting that Iberia_Bronze_Age is a mixture between the local Iberia_CA population and the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia.
These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of non-local ancestry on the X-chromosome, a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
The earliest Bell Beaker individuals occupy a similar position in PCA as Corded Ware individuals, suggesting a degree of genetic continuity. [...] We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage in Bell Beaker.
all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker [...] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials [...] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe [...] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
Takabuti belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1. [...] in the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in sixth–fourteenth century CE remains sourced from the Canary Islands, and three additional ancient DNA samples, two from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) at Quedlinburg and Eulau, both in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and one individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria [...] Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our findings, which is of great archaeological interest and importance, is the observation of a predominantly European haplogroup in an Egyptian individual located in Southern Egypt.
Haplogroup R1b1a1b [R1b-M269] isolated in the studied samples is also uncharacteristic of the modern Egyptian population; its frequency in the population is less than 1%, while it is found in approximately half of the male population of Western Europe.
Atlantic halberds are characteristic weapons of the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in western Europe ... Some scholars support an origin in Ireland
each of the trilithons could be considered conjoined deities, pairs of gods, or an early form of the Divine Twins born at the same time from a single union (Darvill 2006, 144–145). The Great Trilithon to the southwest is the largest and most prominent. It is set astride the principal axis and might cautiously be identified with a pair of deities representing day and night, the sun and moon, summer and winter, life and death, perhaps even the prehistoric equivalents of the twins Apollo and Artemis as they are known in later pantheons across the Old World.
all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker [...] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials [...] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe [...] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
Atlantic halberds are characteristic weapons of the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in western Europe ... Some scholars support an origin in Ireland
Genome-wide data have revealed high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry in Beaker Complex-associated individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.
The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high resolution time transect of the Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers prior to the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE, and by ~2000 BCE the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. ... the lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.
We started by modeling the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia (Iberia_CA_Stp), dated to ~2500-2000 BCE. ... Only one 2-way model fits the ancestry in Iberia_Copper_Age_Stp: Germany_Beaker (Germany Bell Beaker) + Iberia_CA (Iberia Copper Age). Finding a Bell Beaker-related group as a plausible source for the introduction of steppe ancestry into Iberia is consistent with the fact that some of the individuals in the Iberia_CA_Stp group were excavated in Bell Beaker associated contexts. ... For Iberia_BA (Iberia Bronze Age), we added Iberia_CA_Stp to the outgroup set as a possible source. The same Germany_Beaker + Iberia_CA model shows a good fit, but with less ancestry attributed to Germany_Beaker. Another working model is Iberia_CA+Iberia_CA_Stp, suggesting that Iberia_Bronze_Age is a mixture between the local Iberia_CA population and the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia.
These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of non-local ancestry on the X-chromosome, a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
The earliest Bell Beaker individuals occupy a similar position in PCA as Corded Ware individuals, suggesting a degree of genetic continuity. [...] We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage in Bell Beaker.
all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker [...] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials [...] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe [...] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
Takabuti belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1. [...] in the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in sixth–fourteenth century CE remains sourced from the Canary Islands, and three additional ancient DNA samples, two from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) at Quedlinburg and Eulau, both in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and one individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria [...] Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our findings, which is of great archaeological interest and importance, is the observation of a predominantly European haplogroup in an Egyptian individual located in Southern Egypt.
Tutankhamun belongs to the haplogroup R-M269, which more than 50% of all men in Western Europe belong to.
this crescent-shaped golden necklace from the beginning of the third millennium BC is extremely rare evidence of contact between early Bronze Age elites in Central Europe and the British Isles, as it is possible that the find was imported from Ireland at the time. To date, 69 golden lunulae (Latin lunula = small moon), as the necklace is also called because of its shape, have been found in Ireland alone. The Schulenburg gold jewelry consists of almost pure gold, which was probably driven into a thin sheet by hammering a gold rod, then ground and finally polished. The striking similarity to the crescent moon indicates a corresponding symbolic meaning of this gold jewelry.
Genome-wide data have revealed high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry in Beaker Complex-associated individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.
The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high resolution time transect of the Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers prior to the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE, and by ~2000 BCE the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. ... the lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.
We started by modeling the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia (Iberia_CA_Stp), dated to ~2500-2000 BCE. ... Only one 2-way model fits the ancestry in Iberia_Copper_Age_Stp: Germany_Beaker (Germany Bell Beaker) + Iberia_CA (Iberia Copper Age). Finding a Bell Beaker-related group as a plausible source for the introduction of steppe ancestry into Iberia is consistent with the fact that some of the individuals in the Iberia_CA_Stp group were excavated in Bell Beaker associated contexts. ... For Iberia_BA (Iberia Bronze Age), we added Iberia_CA_Stp to the outgroup set as a possible source. The same Germany_Beaker + Iberia_CA model shows a good fit, but with less ancestry attributed to Germany_Beaker. Another working model is Iberia_CA+Iberia_CA_Stp, suggesting that Iberia_Bronze_Age is a mixture between the local Iberia_CA population and the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia.
These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of non-local ancestry on the X-chromosome, a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
The earliest Bell Beaker individuals occupy a similar position in PCA as Corded Ware individuals, suggesting a degree of genetic continuity. [...] We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage in Bell Beaker.
all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker [...] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials [...] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe [...] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
Takabuti belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1. [...] in the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in sixth–fourteenth century CE remains sourced from the Canary Islands, and three additional ancient DNA samples, two from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) at Quedlinburg and Eulau, both in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and one individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria [...] Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our findings, which is of great archaeological interest and importance, is the observation of a predominantly European haplogroup in an Egyptian individual located in Southern Egypt.
Genome-wide data have revealed high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry in Beaker Complex-associated individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.
The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high resolution time transect of the Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers prior to the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE, and by ~2000 BCE the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. ... the lineages common in Copper Age Iberia (I2, G2, H) were nearly completely replaced by one lineage, R1b-M269.
We started by modeling the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia (Iberia_CA_Stp), dated to ~2500-2000 BCE. ... Only one 2-way model fits the ancestry in Iberia_Copper_Age_Stp: Germany_Beaker (Germany Bell Beaker) + Iberia_CA (Iberia Copper Age). Finding a Bell Beaker-related group as a plausible source for the introduction of steppe ancestry into Iberia is consistent with the fact that some of the individuals in the Iberia_CA_Stp group were excavated in Bell Beaker associated contexts. ... For Iberia_BA (Iberia Bronze Age), we added Iberia_CA_Stp to the outgroup set as a possible source. The same Germany_Beaker + Iberia_CA model shows a good fit, but with less ancestry attributed to Germany_Beaker. Another working model is Iberia_CA+Iberia_CA_Stp, suggesting that Iberia_Bronze_Age is a mixture between the local Iberia_CA population and the earliest individuals with steppe ancestry in Iberia.
These patterns point to a higher contribution of incoming males than females, also supported by a lower proportion of non-local ancestry on the X-chromosome, a paradigm that can be exemplified by a Bronze Age tomb from Castillejo del Bonete containing a male with Steppe ancestry and a female with ancestry similar to Copper Age Iberians.
The earliest Bell Beaker individuals occupy a similar position in PCA as Corded Ware individuals, suggesting a degree of genetic continuity. [...] We observe a closer phylogenetic relationship between the Y chromosome lineages found in early Corded Ware and Bell Beaker than in either late Corded Ware or Yamnaya and Bell Beaker. R1b-L151 is the most common Y-lineage among early Corded Ware males (6 of 11, 55%) and one branch ancestral to R1b-P312, the dominant Y-lineage in Bell Beaker.
Two indigenous individuals belong to the R-M269 haplogroup: one from Punta Azul (El Hierro) and one from Guayadeque (Gran Canaria). R-M269 is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, although it is also found in North Africa in lower frequencies. When ancient individuals were further classified within R-M269, both showed derived SNPs on the branch clustering R-L11 individuals. Although the R-L11 lineage is commonly restricted to Western Europe, it was common in Early Bronze Age populations from Europe and could have reached North Africa with Bronze Age migrations from this region (as implied by the presence of Bell Beaker pottery).
Takabuti belonged to mitochondrial haplogroup H4a1. [...] in the archaeological record H4a1 has been reported in sixth–fourteenth century CE remains sourced from the Canary Islands, and three additional ancient DNA samples, two from Bell Beaker and Unetice contexts (2500–1575 BCE) at Quedlinburg and Eulau, both in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, and one individual from early Bronze Age Bulgaria [...] Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of our findings, which is of great archaeological interest and importance, is the observation of a predominantly European haplogroup in an Egyptian individual located in Southern Egypt.
There are cases where the practice of building a barrow could be carried to extreme lengths. The pyramids of the Old Kingdom of Egypt are essentially barrows, of a special sort; maybe Silbury Hill near Marlborough in southern England was a burial mound, though this has never been proven.
The Gristhorpe log-coffin burial is one of 75 recorded in Britain that range in date from the twenty-third to seventeenth centuries BC. They are found throughout Britain from Scotland to the south coast and from East Anglia to Wales. ... the coffin was roughly square cut at the foot end, but the base and lid had been rounded off at the head end. ... In 1834 the excavators identified 'a rude figure of a human face' carved into the lid. This carving, now much degraded, is surrounded by a cut which flares, possibly to indicate shoulders. (Melton 2015)
The haplogroup for three of the investigated mummies, namely Tutankhamun, KV55 (Akhenaten) and Amenhotep III, was R1b
European Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures such as Corded Ware, Bell Beakers, Unetice, and the Scandinavian cultures are genetically very similar to each other... The close affinity we observe between peoples of Corded Ware and Sintashta cultures suggests similar genetic sources of the two... Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures... The Andronovo culture, which arose in Central Asia during the later Bronze Age, is genetically closely related to the Sintashta peoples, and clearly distinct from both Yamnaya and Afanasievo. Therefore, Andronovo represents a temporal and geographical extension of the Sintashta gene pool... There are many similarities between Sintasthta/Androvono rituals and those described in the Rig Veda and such similarities even extend as far as to the Nordic Bronze Age.
all the Bronze Age groups from North and Central Italy presented here support a scenario in which Chalcolithic-like individuals received a contribution of Steppe-related ancestry, possibly through Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic groups from the north, such as Germany Bell Beaker [...] Consistent with the previously reported co-spread of Steppe-related ancestry and Y-chromosome haplogroup R1, we observed that three out of the four Italian Bronze Age males for which a Ychr haplogroup could be determined belong to haplogroup R1 and two of those were of the R1b lineage. This haplogroup does not appear in the Chalcolithic samples. The two Italian R1b lineages belong to the L11 subset of R1b, which is common in modern Western Europe and in ancient male Bell-Beaker burials [...] Our qpAdm results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have arrived through Late Neolithic/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe [...] Together with the autosomal affinity of North and Central Italian Bronze Age groups with Late Neolithic Germany, the Ychr data point to a possibly Northern-, trans-alpine-, and potentially Bell-Beaker-associated source of the Italian Steppe-related ancestry.
Haplogroup R1b1a1b [R1b-M269] isolated in the studied samples is also uncharacteristic of the modern Egyptian population; its frequency in the population is less than 1%, while it is found in approximately half of the male population of Western Europe.
Atlantic halberds are characteristic weapons of the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in western Europe ... Some scholars support an origin in Ireland
each of the trilithons could be considered conjoined deities, pairs of gods, or an early form of the Divine Twins born at the same time from a single union (Darvill 2006, 144–145). The Great Trilithon to the southwest is the largest and most prominent. It is set astride the principal axis and might cautiously be identified with a pair of deities representing day and night, the sun and moon, summer and winter, life and death, perhaps even the prehistoric equivalents of the twins Apollo and Artemis as they are known in later pantheons across the Old World.
each of the trilithons could be considered conjoined deities, pairs of gods, or an early form of the Divine Twins born at the same time from a single union (Darvill 2006, 144–145). The Great Trilithon to the southwest is the largest and most prominent. It is set astride the principal axis and might cautiously be identified with a pair of deities representing day and night, the sun and moon, summer and winter, life and death, perhaps even the prehistoric equivalents of the twins Apollo and Artemis as they are known in later pantheons across the Old World.
the Vinge house was approximately 45.5 metres long by 7.2 metres wide, covering an area of approximately 320 m2 ... the monumental size of the Vinge house, compared to common Late Neolithic houses, and its position on the elevated plateau with a wide view in all directions and high visibility show that the inhabitants were of special importance. This was likely the residence of a magnate, his family, his farmhands and his livestock, all included in one enormous building. In addition to its practical functions, the house was thus an imposing monument displaying the inhabitant's wealth and power
on the British Isles the Bell Beaker communities have created monuments such as the late phase of construction of Stonehenge shrine or a giant burial mound of Silbury Hill, which are comparable with Egyptian temples and pyramids.
Atlantic halberds are characteristic weapons of the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in western Europe ... Some scholars support an origin in Ireland
In the statue-stelae of Le Petit-Chasseur, Sion, in the Rhone Valley of Switzerland ... male figures are carved with bows, arrows, axes, bead necklaces, belts, sporran-like pouches and daggers, while the female figures are embellished with lunula-like necklaces and their own distinctive belt types along with more elaborately decorated textiles. It has been speculated that the male textile patterns might represent quilted armour, known to be particularly effective against the archer's bow. The distinctive patterns of their clothing are also remarkably similar to the decorative motifs on Beaker pottery.
Genome-wide data have revealed high proportions of Steppe-related ancestry in Beaker Complex-associated individuals from Germany and the Czech Republic, showing that they derived from mixtures of populations from the Steppe and the preceding Neolithic farmers of Europe.
The Y-chromosome composition of Beaker-associated males was dominated by R1b-M269 (Supplementary Table 4), a lineage associated with the arrival of Steppe migrants in central Europe after 3000 BCE.
migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier [...] British Beaker Complex-associated individuals show strong similarities to central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals in their genetic profile.
While Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b was completely absent in Neolithic individuals (n=33), it represents more than 90% of the Y-chromosomes during Copper and Bronze Age Britain (n=52) (Fig. 3). The introduction of new mtDNA haplogroups such as I, R1a and U4, which were present in Beaker-associated populations from continental Europe but not in Neolithic Britain (Supplementary Table 3), suggests that both men and women were involved.
Our genetic time transect in Britain also allowed us to track the frequencies of alleles with known phenotypic effects. Derived alleles at rs16891982 (SLC45A2) and rs12913832 (HERC2/OCA2), which contribute to reduced skin and eye pigmentation in Europeans, dramatically increased in frequency between the Neolithic period and the Beaker and Bronze Age periods (Extended Data Fig. 7). Thus, the arrival of migrants associated with the Beaker Complex significantly altered the pigmentation phenotypes of British populations.
