Piotr wrote
> With all due respect for your archaeological expertise, you're
partly confusing TRB (the Funnel Beaker culture) with the Corded
Ware/Battle Axe complex. The Funnel Beakers started out in northern
Germany ca. 4300-4000 BC according to calibrated radiocarbon datings
(if you include the Michelsberg culture, the process may have begun
somewhat earlier in southern Germany). At the peak of its Middle
Neolithic expansion in the North European Plain (in the mid-fourth
millennium BC) the TRB cultural sphere extended from the Netherlands
to W Ukraine and from S Norway to the Czech/Austrian border. The
beginnings of the Late neolithic Corded Ware culture (identified by
Gimbutas with the second and more important "Kurgan" invasion of
Central Europe after the earlier and territorially more restricted
Globular Amphorae) date to about 3100 BC. The Fatyanovo culture has
direct affinities with the Corded Ware, not the TRB culture (the
latter was already extinct at the time).
I realised my confusion just after the post I made. Thanks Piotr.
Mark's post on the cultures also corrects my post too. The "Funnel
beakers" culture was referred to by V.Gordon Childe as Danubian II,
and he saw it as a development out of LBK (Danubian I). Whilst
Funnel
Beakers do have clear affinities with the Danubian I wave, more
recently others are seeing attenuated steppe influences (Mallory for
instance has a good discussion on the problem).
Sorry for the confusion.
Regards
John