Re: [tied] Re: Gimbutas.

>Marc asked
>
>> Dear Piotr, thank you very much. I thought Glen &
>> John might have found it interesting and I'd liked
>> to hear their opinion. I agree with all your objections
>> (many of which I had heard from you or others before
>> or thought of myself), but it's the combination of the
>> linguistic & archeol.evidence that fits with Gimbutas'
>> theory, esp. Sherrat's maps in Cunliffe ed.1994 "Oxford
>> ill.prehist.of Europe" OUP of how the beakers dispersed
>> over Europe. The dispersal of the beakers out of Ukraine
>> over Europe was the most obvious "movement" in
>> European archeology. Cavalli-Sforza says a gradient
>> with its centre in Ukraine was the 3d most important
>> gradient in European gene distributions (the most
>> important has its centre in the middle East, the 2d in
>> Lapland, the 4th in Greece, the 5th in Biskaya). If the
>> western branch of PIE (Balto-Slavic, Germanic, Celto-
>> Italic) is linguistically a unity (with the Slavic languages
>> later still in contact with Ukraine), most of C-S's 3d
>> gradient & of the dispersal of IE languages over Europa
>> might coincide with the beaker cultures, although
>> I know this is not your favorite idea.
>> Some comments below.
>
>Marc, you asked for my opinion. Well here goes.....
>There is significant arguement over the degree to which "Beaker
>Culture" is a significant unity, as it generally covers two distinct
>cultural assemblages.
>1. The TRB or "Funnel Necked Beakers", called by V.Gordon Childe as
>"Battle Axe" cultures after a very destinctive stone axe made to copy
>a copper prototype.

TRB is earlier than Battle Axe = corded & bell beakers, isn't it? Corded
beakers were mostly associated with battle axes, bell beakers with copper
daggers & bows (women' graves (a minority) with dinner-things & ornaments).

> These cultures certainly did start just north of
>the steppe zone in the Ukraine and spread as far as the North Sea.

Yes. Sherrat says that the corded beakers transformed there (Rhine delta
ca.2800 BC) into bell beakers (where the corded impressions were replaced by
belt impressions AFAIR) & then "radiated" north to Britain & south to the
Rhone (delta ca.2500 BC) and later as far as Portugal & Sicily.

>It has been suggested from microcrystaline deposits found in Funnel
>Beakers that they were associated with the drinking large amounts of
>honey mead. It used to be proposed that they were an adstratum.
>Certainly in Denmark, North Germany and southern Scandinavia, they
>were the first full "neolithic" culture after the Ertebolle people
>("Folkish"), which developed in situ out of the Mesolithic Swiderian
>culture. They were also the first (and last) group to have extended
>from Ukraine into the Baltic region, and have been credited as
>introducing the Balkan IE languages into that region. The problem
>with this identification is that these people also involve the
>Fatyanova culture complex, which is located in what in historical
>times was clearly Finno Ugric. Fatyanova culture extended into
>Estonia and Finland and is usually accepted as the arrival of the
>Finnish cultures (over a Swiderian sub-stratum).
>
>2. The Bell-Beaker culture, associated with the introduction of copper
>working technologies throughout Western Europe and the Western
>Mediterranean. Bell beakers are first attested in Spain, and they
>spread from there to Sicily and Southern Italy as well as travelling
>up the river valleys north of the Pyrenees.

Sherrat says this is not accepted anymore. Now they think it spread from the
Rhine delta south to the Rhone delta (same route as the medieval merchants)
& later west to Spain-Portugal & east to Italy-Sicily.

> Copper hoards are found
>quite often in association with the first generation of Pan-European
>style Bell Beakers, and wrist guards and arrow heads also show an
>increase. Everywhere Bell Beakers are found, pollen analysis shows
>an increase in the growing of barley, and it has been suggested that
>the Bell Beakers were Beer Drinkers. Some have found the first wave
>of the Bell Beaker folk to be the last wave of "Atlantiker" peoples,
>speaking a Berber related Afro-Asiatic language, found by some as
>a substratum under Celtic.

Sherrat says the beakers contained herbs & fermented fruits & barley (mead
or beer?) and thinks they contained perhaps also cannabis (also found in
braziers in Ukraine before 3000 BC).

>In the region from the Rhine to the Elbe, north of the Alps (The
>Celtic Urheimat) these two cultures seemed to fuse, and there is then
>a secondary wave that moved across the Channel into Britain.
>Thereafter the "Pan European" Style of Bell Beakers splinters into a
>large number of local variants. It used to be thought that these Bell
>Beaker folk were itinerant smiths, who came to reside within local
>neolithic cultures (The late First Western group - makers of the
>megaliths), marrying local women and often rising to situations of
>local pre-eminence. The Wessex Culture, possibly a unified polity
>stretching from Pembrokeshire to the Salisbury Plain, and thence to
>Britanny (The builders of stage III at Stonehenge), were the results
>of such a hybrid culture.
>Today, further archaeological work has disputed these "migrationist"
>theories. It is now thought that the spread of "Beakers" of both
>types represents the spread of a cultural fashion, rather than the
>movement of particular ethnic groups. The recent Origin of Human
>Society, for instance, argues that the previous "collectivist" and
>egalitarian neolithic cultures began at this time to produce social
>stratification, as competition over limited resources (land hunger
>caused by the late neolithic population increase) increased rewards
>to agression. The construction of hilltop fortifications, from which
>war bands could organise cattle raids, or capture slaves, saw the
>appearance of a social structure divided into three groups - slaves,
>peasant commoners and warrior aristocrats. Chiefs were successful
>based upon their ability to hold a warband together through their
>generous distribution of largess (captured war booty, or by the skills
>of local craftsmen). The construction of the "chief's hall" capable
>of holding all male members of a warband (and when women were
>involved, their wives and daughters), quite often marks the shift to
>this new kind of society. Excessive ("binge") consumption of alcohol,
>and the ability to "hold liquor" also became a mark of status (hence
>the proliferation of beer, mead, and the recepticals for holding it).
>Brewers became an important adjusct alongside smiths in the chiefs
>retinue and the power of the chief was marked in his ability to "keep
>the beer/mead flowing".

The importance of alcohol is certainly remarkable. It's said that, in the
middle ages at least, drinking beer was safer than drinking water
(gastroenteritis). Sherrat says America later was also conquered with a
combination of weapons + horses + alcohol. Weapons & horses I can
understand, but alcohol? Alcohol drinking as a mark of status? (biologically
speaking cf. the peacock's tail?) - interesting.

>Endemic warfare became the characteristic of this "chiefdom", and the
>spread of chiefly kurgan, tholoi, barrows or tumuli throughout Europe
>and the steppes showed the burrial places of especially successful
>chiefs, theiur families and principle retainers.
>This is precisely the kind of society that could create a social
>cleavage between "noble" and "commoner", a cleavage which would
>be emphasized by speach, dress, behaviour and customs. Into this
>cleavage, an adstratum language could play an important role, and
>endogamy within the class of aristocrats would promote a pan-
>European "cultural style" (be it Funnel or Bell Beaker" folk). In such
>circumstances IE languages from the East could spread rapidly as
>local elites sought to compete with their neighbours for the latest
>fashions in dress, weapons, behaviour and language. Pre-existing
>substratum languages would be kept for the domestic sphere, and
>amongst the commoners.
>This social form appeared immensely enduring. It survived in the
>realm of "inner Eurasia" - stretching from Ireland to the Tarim Basin
>from the Age of the Beakers to the spread of the large land based
>Empires - Archaemenid, Hellenistic, Chinese and Roman. Features
>of it survived even the progressive "Turkification", so the "patronage
>alliance" and continuous distribution of surplus was a feature even
>of the Steppe Empires of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.
>This was the world in which different Indo-European elite groupscould
>travel far, impose themselves on and intermarry with the pre-existing
>elites, and seemingly make cultural shifts that occurred almost
>overnight. The rapid spread of the Gothic peoples from Scandia to the
>Black Sea, the rapid "Anglicisation" of South East Britain (Cerdic of
>the West Saxons had a Celtic name), and the spread of Slavs
>throughout the Balkans and Central Europe under the Avars, are
>all cases in point.
>Archaeologically, it seems such trends extended backwards to the
>spread of the Urn-Field cultures (1300-1100 BCE), the spread of the
>Haalstaat and La Tene Celtic cultures, and the spread of Germans
>south from the Amber Coasts in late Celtic times.
>Hope this helps Regards John

Yes. Thank you very much. Sherrat describes the corded & bell beakers as one
big movement over whole Europe, starting in Ukraine, first north & west
(corded), then (bell beakers) from the rhine delta (celts??) south to Spain
& Italy (italic??). Genetically, Cavalli-Sforza's data suggest that the
Ukrainian gradient (probably IE) was only the 3d most important gradient, so
they did not replace the older populations, though apparently considerable
migration of Ukrainian genes was involved. The gradient is clear, but
whether this was 1 movement (cf. Sherrat's maps) or there were several
movements out of Ukrain, is still uncertain. The 1st gradient was from the
Middle East (probably the first farmers - no linguistics remains?), the 2d -
remarkably IMO - has its centre in N-Scandinavia: Uralic??

Marc