Could R1b have moved from the Black Sea to Portugal to found the Beaker Culture ?

[Asturrulumbo]

Well, first off, these are great images. The problem is that the language is pretty much undeciphered as of now, but it doesn't look Indo-European in the slighest. There was a review of Koch's work earlier this year (by a fellow named Zeidler, from the university of Trier), and he pointed out that the Tartessian writing system was hardly suitable for writing an Indo-European language at all. What's absolutely possible, is that there are Indo-European (Celtic or otherwise) names inside a non-Indo-European matrix, but I don't think the language itself was Indo-European.

They certainly are, many more can be found here:
http://www.estelasdecoradas.co.cc/estelas_ext/paginas/catalogo_estelas.htm
The linguistic aspect certainly is a complicated one. What could be is Tartessian originating later in the Iron Age, and/or the stelae being "Proto-Lusitanian" perhaps?

[LeBrok]

In Mexico, there certainly are different accents spoken by the indigenous communities around the country, especially as for many it is their second language.

Exactly my point, and if you heard them speak their original language you would find many similarities, for example, how they pronounce spanish world with accents and sounds of their original language. There are rarely enough conquerors living mixed with indigenous population to teach their language correctly. Without schools and TV it took decades if not centuries for the language of conquerors to become main language for populations. In mean time being a second language it was always twisted, simplified and used with local accent and pronunciation. After few generations even grandchildren of conquerors will speak same "broke" language thinking it is a proper way, because most population speaks this way.

I'm not saying the language won't evolve by itself, or will not get influence by others. In today's modern world it might happen faster than in secluded villages way back. However, what you're saying is that Basque language got bigger influence from Spanish than Portuguese did, although prtuguese and spanish came from same source about 3 thousand years ago. Secondly, I speak second language too, and it's obvious to me that second language is influenced more by first one, and not vice versa. The biggest influence of first language is not in vocabulary or grammar, but in pronunciation, accent and melody of a sentence. If my kids didn't go to english schools and didn't match english tv, and I was the main source of english, they would be speaking english with polish accent and sound pronunciation.

The best example of my point is how English is spoken in India.

[Wilhelm]

In Mexico, there certainly are different accents spoken by the indigenous communities around the country, especially as for many it is their second language. However, in the case of Basque I believe it's different, as Spanish has been around (at least in the urban areas) for a very long time, and even when speaking Spanish Basques don't have a particular accent.

That's wrong. Basques do have their own accent, when they speak spanish you can immediately tell if he is basque, they have a sort of "thick" accent, very characteristic of basques, any spaniard knows what im talking about.

[Knovas]

Yes, they have their own accent, almost all regions in Spain have peculiarities in regards of this. It is told that the most neutral zone is Valladolid and surrounds, where it is believed to speak the most correct Castilian.

[Segia2]

And aslong as I'm making an ars of myself,lol, with this pronunciacion hypothesis, here is some more. I don't know Basque and not much Spanish either, so I can judge these languages by sounds and melody only. When I heard Basque for first time I though they were speaking Spanish. I can easily distinguish Portuguese from Spanish though they are very related, but I have problem doing the same with Basque and Spanish, though they are completely unrelated. Why is that?
I think Celtic in large scale was imposed on non Celtic speaking Iberians, Aquitanians, who took vocabulary and grammar, but retain their native pronunciation. Pronunciation is still similar to original Iberian language therefore to Basque too.

Spanish suffered a phonetic evolution during the Renaissance era, adopting certain traits attributed by some scholars to basque language (partial lost of "f", no distinction between "b" and "v" (betacism), shift from "j" to "kh", five vowels system...The reasons? Mmm, repopulation, high influx of basque clergy and civil workers (the most literated people and best knowing of spanish language, despite not being in most cases their natural language!!!!)

We have to take into account that castilian was born in a zone next -and in some cases overlapping- to basque speakers. However, the presence of basque speakers in Spain is not a datable fact. By using toponymic resources we can conclude that basque language expanded -from Aquitania and the western Pyrennes- during the late roman empire and middle ages over a territory wich showed a clear previous IE affinity (celtic and non-celtic)

Pff, the puzzle is desperating...

[Taranis]

We have to take into account that castilian was born in a zone next -and in some cases overlapping- to basque speakers. However, the presence of basque speakers in Spain is not a datable fact. By using toponymic resources we can conclude that basque language expanded -from Aquitania and the western Pyrennes- during the late roman empire and middle ages over a territory wich showed a clear previous IE affinity (celtic and non-celtic)

Indeed. In Antiquity, the language are of Basque lay more eastward and northward than today, with only the eastern half of the modern-day Basque country being actually Basque, whereas in the north the influence extended approximately to the Garonne (from where they were bordered by the Gauls), and in the east maybe as far as the central Pyrenees (where they were bordered by the Iberians). The western part of the modern-day Basque country was definitely Indo-European, possibly Celtic (the place names are somewhat ambiguous).

Pff, the puzzle is desperating...

What is even more puzzling here is a fact that was first observed by the late vascologist Larry Trask, who pointed out the general rarity of Celtic loanwords into Basque (he lists approximately a dozen words, some of which are even disputed). Given how the Basques were, with exception of the east, seemingly surrounded by Indo-Europeans, and possibly in contact with them for many centuries, it seems remarkably unliekly that there are so very few Celtic loanwords. This also stands quite in contrast to the fact that the amount of loanwords Basque has borrowed from Latin and from the Romance languages is substantial.

[Wilhelm]

Well, there's the question, we do not really know this about Basque. What we do know is this:

- The Basques today are ~80% R1b.

There is ~90% of R1b in Basques. The 80% is in Catalans and the Pyrenees.

[LeBrok]

Spanish suffered a phonetic evolution during the Renaissance era, adopting certain traits attributed by some scholars to basque language (partial lost of "f", no distinction between "b" and "v" (betacism), shift from "j" to "kh", five vowels system...The reasons? Mmm, repopulation, high influx of basque clergy and civil workers (the most literated people and best knowing of spanish language, despite not being in most cases their natural language!!!!)


Pff, the puzzle is desperating...

Yes it is, but if it wasn't we wouldn't have all this fun here, hehe.

I don't think few clergy and civil workers can make a difference how language sounds. It might be the case that records of spoken language in spain are misleading. What I mean is that most records, from the past, of spoken language are from big cities where. This is the language of educated elite, which in spain case, was influenced a lot by germanic speaking tribes invading in middle ages. Mind that way back 90% people lived in villages. But the records how spanish was pronounced there are not existant.
Previous differences in f, v,b, j, might be of germanic way to speak spanish.
Consider a scenario that after renaissance there was faster city growth mostly caused by influx of villagers. If this is a fast process you will see quick shift how the spanish sounds, getting more similarities with village version, which was probably closer to Basque pronunciation.

You can compare it to Latin (educated elite) versus Vulgar Latin for the villagers and the rest. The question is how come the elite and priests couldn't teach plebs the proper Latin? In this case one thing is obvious that few, even educated people, cannot change the way a language is pronounced by many. And we are talking about the ongoing process for few hundred years. That's why I don't see how few Basque intellectualists could change spanish language. It is more of a case of official spanish version in cities were influenced more by latin and germanic. Possibly arab invasion helped "cleaning" elite speaking version of spanish?

Here is a nice explanation about loss of sounds. What happens if english is imposed on Italians or French speakers? The sound H is dropped immediately, especially at the beginning of a word.
The sound shifts, the sound laws need big events to happen. People don't drop sounds or change them just because. Usually the big event is when two different languages are imposed on population, after invasion or migration for example. Make native Italians, Chinese, Indians, etc speak english and you will immediately see their local sound laws in action.

[Mikewww]

... Mallory & Mair (2000), p. 236 :
"Because craniometry can produce results which make no sense at all (e.g. the close relationship between Neolithic populations in Ukraine and Portugal) and therefore lack any historical meaning, any putative genetic relationship must be consistent with geographical plausibility and have the support of other evidence.".

Good catch.

.....But what if R1b people did move to Southwest Iberia first, be it by crossing all Europe without stopping until they reached that corner of the Atlantic coast, or else by boat from the Black Sea ?
.....
Naturally, this doesn't prevent another continental migration of R1b-L11 to have taken place from the Balkans to Central Europe (Unetice, Tumulus, Urnfield, Hallstatt, La Tène group), which would have brought R1b-S28 (U152). Yet another migration, perhaps straight from the steppes, would have brought R1b-S21 (U106) to North Germany and Scandinavia.

This is quite a quandry.

Busby et al presented a key piece of their evidence as portraying L11's STR diversity has geographically indiscernible across Europe. My interpretation of this is the expansion(s) was rapid. The craniometric similarities between the Ukraine and Portugal support this possibility.

R1b-L11 appears relatively youthful in Europe and still hasn't be found in European Neolithic aDNA.

The difficult is in trying to align R1b-L11's phylogenetic trail, which is M269>L23 L23>L51 L51>L11 L11>P312 L11>U106 P312>U152 and P312>L21. L11 and its downstream large subclades seems to have expanded in very rapid succession, but we know for sure that that there was only one father-son transmission where the L11 mutation occurred from an L51+ L11- father. This means this happened at only single location in all of Eurasia or wherever. The same can be said for L11>P312 and L11>U106, etc. yet the geographic distributions are vastly different between U106, U152 and L21. Z196 and P312* are scattered across a wide area.

By 1300 BCE Central and Western Europe was divided between two major cultures: the Atlantic Bronze Age and the Urnfield Culture.

I've asked a N.Ireland archeoligist (who is L21/S145) about the Atlantic Bronze Age as I've never heard it described as a "culture". He suggested it is best to think of it as trade zone rather than a single culture. The best I draw out of the conversation is that the Atlantic coastal regions might be thought of as a "frontier." Given that, I'm not sure if the differentiation between the coastal regions and Urnfield are as a clear as a map might portray.

Just thinking out loud, but the Bell Beaker folks were a maritime bunch and that most would say are enigmatic. Another enigmatic bunch was whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Aren't some of those people thought to be from Lycia, the SW coast of modern Turkey?

I still can't figure out how the L11>U106 occurred to get that many men into NE Europe... must be the "river" version. If so, then L51>L11 did not happen in Western or Central Europe. They seemed to have a spread long way pretty quick.. maybe they were better at water transport than we can imagine.

[Asturrulumbo]

That's wrong. Basques do have their own accent, when they speak spanish you can immediately tell if he is basque, they have a sort of "thick" accent, very characteristic of basques, any spaniard knows what im talking about.

Really? I have a Basque friend and one from Barcelona, and i hear them exactly the same... Then again, maybe you develop a more expert ear for the different accents on the place one lives.

[razyn]

They seemed to have a spread long way pretty quick.. maybe they were better at water transport than we can imagine.

Has anybody played with the notion of Bronze Age (or Chalcolithic) ice transport? I haven't tried comparing climatology with the putative era of the fast R1b expansion. But if a northern route was involved (Volga, Vistula, portage over Jutland, etc.), the river routes may have been ice highways. Seems to me I've seen something about moving Stonehenge components on a frozen Avon? Maybe not. Anyway, the long river and lake systems of Sweden were used for heavy haulage in fairly recent times. Sleds when it was ice, boats when it thawed. Boats on sleds (for ice, or muddy portages), sometimes.

[Taranis]

I've asked a N.Ireland archeoligist (who is L21/S145) about the Atlantic Bronze Age as I've never heard it described as a "culture". He suggested it is best to think of it as trade zone rather than a single culture. The best I draw out of the conversation is that the Atlantic coastal regions might be thought of as a "frontier." Given that, I'm not sure if the differentiation between the coastal regions and Urnfield are as a clear as a map might portray.

This is a very good point! I think this also makes an important point about the problems of ethnic ascription of the cultures in the region.

Just thinking out loud, but the Bell Beaker folks were a maritime bunch and that most would say are enigmatic. Another enigmatic bunch was whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Aren't some of those people thought to be from Lycia, the SW coast of modern Turkey?

There's approximately 1300 years between Beaker-Bell and the appearance of the Sea Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean. Of course it's tempting to speculative if there was a connection, but it's pretty unlikely for obvious reasons. Unless you take Sardinia into consideration and assume that the Sherdana, one of the Sea People ethnicities, indeed came from Sardinia. But, that's too much speculation for my taste.

[zanipolo]

I really do not understand why people deny the 100 Bell Beaker graves found in soutern france between the Rhone river and the alps

[Knovas]

Really? I have a Basque friend and one from Barcelona, and i hear them exactly the same... Then again, maybe you develop a more expert ear for the different accents on the place one lives.

I can assure you that, specially Andalusians, Catalans, Basques, Asturians and Galicians are no way difficult to distinguish for us. However, people from the Castillas can easily cause confusion, since they are much neutral. And of course, there are other's in the middle who deviate, as for example: Murcians towards Andalusians, Cantabrians towards Asturians and Basques (depending on the zone), etc., etc. There are many factors to consider, but the first cases are very clear.

[Christiaan]

Indeed it could be one of several routes of R1b into Western Europe. One swept from the Black sea across the Mediterranean->Atlanticcoast->Northsea->, The other split into two branches when they arrived Karpatian mountain ridge one north, the other west along the Danube.

An interesting thing I noticed is that the Chalcolithicum/copper age in Europe started much earlier than everyone thought this far. In Serbia they have dated a copper axe to ~ 5,500 BC. This makes it contemporary with early/middle neolithic cultures in the north. If this is true,at least even earlier late neolithic cultures like TRB and others are about to be totally reviewed because of these new insights. In the early copper age producing a surplus of copper was probably not that easy. So copper maintained a very scarce good for along time and therefore preventing it to become more common throughout Europe.

I can't post url's yet, so add the http 3w's yourself.

welt.de/kultur/history/article11194556/Vor-7500-Jahren-endete-die-Steinzeit-in-Serbien.html

conservativetimes.org/?p=6875

presstv.ir/detail/151553.html

One implication could be that the late neolithic cultures with their megalithic monuments, were probably already influenced by copper age cultures. So when the bell-beakers folks spread into Europe they used well established exchange-routes/networks. The older overlapping distribution of megalithic monuments are proof for that.

[Mikewww]

Something I find against the theory of the Beaker culture being Indo-European is their practice of megalithism. In Scandinavia and the North European Plain, megalithism was thriving during the non-IE Funnelbeaker Culture, but quickly died out with the arrival of the IE Corded Ware complex (it reappeared in the form of "ship burials" in the Iron Age, but that is obviously an unrelated phenomenon to the Neolithic megalithism). On the other hand, megalithism only died out in western Europe around the Late Bronze age, long after the end of the Beaker culture.

I'm not completely following your logic. When the Bell Beakers came into areas, all pre-existing cultures were not destroyed. They appeared to have been elite incomers, part of a wide ranging trade network.

Are you familiar with the Amesbury Archer? He's a Bell Beaker found right next to Stone Henge. In fact, he's called the "King of Stone Henge" but Stone Henge was built long, long before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer

Stone Henge wasn't built by the Archer's ancestors. He's probably from the continent.

Research using oxygen isotope analysis in his tooth enamel suggests that the man may have originated from an alpine region of central Europe.

He's an interloper. If he was a smart trader and leader he wouldn't exterminate all of the prior traditions.

[Mikewww]

Just thinking out loud, but the Bell Beaker folks were a maritime bunch and that most would say are enigmatic. Another enigmatic bunch was whom the Egyptians called the Sea Peoples. Aren't some of those people thought to be from Lycia, the SW coast of modern Turkey?

There's approximately 1300 years between Beaker-Bell and the appearance of the Sea Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean. Of course it's tempting to speculative if there was a connection, but it's pretty unlikely for obvious reasons. Unless you take Sardinia into consideration and assume that the Sherdana, one of the Sea People ethnicities, indeed came from Sardinia. But, that's too much speculation for my taste.

Taranis, I don't understand your point. Please read the below articles.

Bell Beakers have now been radiocarbon dated to 2900 to 1800/1700 BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture

The earliest ethnic group later considered among the Sea Peoples is believed to be attested in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Byblos obelisk found in the Obelisk Temple at Byblos in modern day Lebanon. The inscription mentions kwkwn son of rwqq-( or kukun son of luqq), transliterated as Kukunnis, son of Lukka, "the Lycian". The date is given variously as 2000 or 1700 BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples

Lycia was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycia

The people that Egypt called "Sea Peoples" were around in Bronze Age times, like the Bell Beakers, who were also maritime oriented. I'm not trying to say that the Bell Beakers were descendants of the Sea Peoples, just that they may have had a common source.

The reference to Lycia may be key. If you follow the R1b ht35 project conversations you'll see that some of the oldest forms of R1b may be in the northern Near East and parts of Anatolia.

My point is speculative. I agree. That doesn't mean it is not valid or not true.

[Asturrulumbo]

I'm not completely following your logic. When the Bell Beakers came into areas, all pre-existing cultures were not destroyed. They appeared to have been elite incomers, part of a wide ranging trade network.

Are you familiar with the Amesbury Archer? He's a Bell Beaker found right next to Stone Henge. In fact, he's called the "King of Stone Henge" but Stone Henge was built long, long before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer

Stone Henge wasn't built by the Archer's ancestors. He's probably from the continent.

He's an interloper. If he was a smart trader and leader he wouldn't exterminate all of the prior traditions.

What I mean is that, although I agree that there was a population movement, I don't think the movement was cultural or linguistic, or that the Beaker folk were ethnolinguistically homogeneous. I think that for example, while the Central European beakers were probably Indo-European (R1b), the Beaker groups of Iberia were probably non-IE.

[Mikewww]

Where did the ancient Eastern European P312 go? Offhand, I don't know of any evidence of ancient P312 in Eastern Europe (same with R1b-U106... and the R1b-P312 and R1b-U106 modals are very close, so we expect them to have arisen in about the same area).

We don't have much ancient evidence of R1b in Europe, period. I think 1000BC at the Lichenstein Cave is as a early as we have.

As far as P312 goes, Busby's study published this year has 9% frequency for Hungary and anywhere from 2% to 20% in different parts of Poland. Please keep in mind when you look at a P312 frequency map, there is usually is a scale much larger than shown typically side by side for other haplogroups. The high frequency of up to 75% in Ireland changes the scale of the graphics so relatively low frequencies seemingly disappear. In Busby's data, P312 is the same or greater in Poland than U106, and is greater in Hungary.

... At which point, Central Europe (probably post-Beaker) makes more sense to me as a launching point for R1b-L11+ in Europe.

I think it is possible that P312 and U106 arose in Central Europe. I don't know. However, STR diversity is much higher for R-L23* in SW Asia than in Europe so at some point the starting point for L11's phylogenetic trail was east.

Why would the R1b-L21 pick up and spread IE if R1b-Z196 didn't, and both represent the Beaker R1b's?

I don't think anyone is saying R-P312 was relegated to just Beaker movements. Who is saying Z196 didn't spread IE? We don't know what the first Z196 guys spoke, but it could easily have been IE.

Are the centers of diversity of R1b-L21 and R1b-Z196 actually in Iberia? (I have no clue, honestly).

Definitely not for L21. It has a light showing in Iberia and L21's highest diversity is in Northern France. Z196 has high frequency in Iberia, particularly since downstream SRY2627 is there, but Z196 is quite scattered going all the way up in to Scandinavia as L165 and North-South cluster and also east into Poland. I think our DNA project data is too limited to comment too much on Z196 diversity, but I wouldn't say it is highest in Iberia.

If we are talking about P312 origin, U152 may be the most important subclade. It easily has the highest diversity and is therefore probably oldest. It has high frequency in N. Italy, but highest diversity on the other side of the Alps in SE France. You will find U152 quite a ways east, Poland, Hungary and even Anatolia and among the Bashkirs.

[Maciamo]

Taranis pointed me to this paper, which raises new questions about the appearance of Indo-European culture, in this case the domestication of horses. All evidence so far was that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian steppes, somewhere between Ukraine and Kazakhstan, roughly 6000 years ago (so during the late Neolithic in that region). This paper (which I notice is already over 2 years old) basically says that modern horses of Iberian origin are directly descended from Neolithic and Bronze Age Iberian horses. If it was only Bronze Age horses that wouldn't be a problem, and indeed would be expected, since the Indo-Europeans are presumably the ones who introduced domesticated horses to Iberia in the Bronze Age. What doesn't fit is that the ancient DNA extracted from the horses from Neolithic Iberia apparently belonged to the same lineage as the Bronze Age ones. I see a few possible explanations :

1) An early migration of steppe people migrated across Europe soon after the domestication of horses, equipped only with Neolithic technologies. That would explain why Iberia has an usually high incidence of the "early" R1b-S116* subclade and developed unique R1b subclades like M153 and M167, which apparently didn't spread from Central Europe like the others but from Iberia. This explanation would also resolved the issues that I stated in the OP of this thread. It is the explanation that makes the most sense since the Bronze Age seems to have arrived fairly late in Iberia compared to the rest of Western Europe.

2) The steppe people only brought a few horses with them to Iberia and domesticated the local wild horses. This could have happened in parallel with the first hypothesis. One doesn't exclude the other. Wild horses lived all over Europe in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic, even though they were most common in the steppes. Unfortunately they didn't test the DNA of Palaeolithic Iberian horses, which is the only way to confirm or reject this hypothesis.

3) The ancient horse remains were misdated and were actually from the Western European Bronze Age period (even if not bronze artefacts was found on those very sites).

4) Horse domestication happened independently in Neolithic Iberia. Alternatively, horse domestication could have happened only once, in Iberia, and spread from there to the rest of the world. This is the most unlikely hypothesis at the moment.

[razyn]

I alluded to this last summer on the "Lack of G2a in Basque" thread, but didn't cite the source. Didier Vernade suggested that the original R1b entry into Iberia might have been by seafaring men (from farther east) who knew how to domesticate horses; and they proceeded to domesticate the local ones (notably what are now called Pottock ponies). This model might apply to your theory whether or not it happens to coincide with the R1b haplogroup. Here is one thread on which Didier posted it, last July 20th:

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/top...ost__p__266688

Such a theory, if correct, could account for a cultural introduction of well advanced horse technology from much farther east without necessarily involving horse DNA from the steppes, the Danube, etc.

[MOESAN]

And aslong as I'm making an ars of myself,lol, with this pronunciacion hypothesis, here is some more. I don't know Basque and not much Spanish either, so I can judge these languages by sounds and melody only. When I heard Basque for first time I though they were speaking Spanish. I can easily distinguish Portuguese from Spanish though they are very related, but I have problem doing the same with Basque and Spanish, though they are completely unrelated. Why is that?
I think Celtic in large scale was imposed on non Celtic speaking Iberians, Aquitanians, who took vocabulary and grammar, but retain their native pronunciation. Pronunciation is still similar to original Iberian language therefore to Basque too.

1- The castillan spoken now in Spain as a whole is not representative of the previous latin dialects of the peninsula - castillan was spred vy the 'reconquista' on the Muslims of Spain, and the first nucleus around of this language was around Burgos in a region close to the present Basque country - the evolution F- >> H- is an Aquitanian one (see Gascon of Aquitaine) - so some common phonetic traits are not so surprising for basque and castillan Spanish -
2- the partial similarity shared by portugues and slavic languages can be found too in mountainous north occitan dialects of France (Auvergnat, North Languedocian) - even modern french (litterary and other dialects) have some similarities with slavic languages: it's based on the hissings and palatizings - and the catalan language have some similarities also (no so far) to portugues
3- I agree that celtic was imposed on non-celtic speaking populations -and they retained their local habits of pronunciation, as proved by the numerous diverse phonetic evolutions in the neo-latine languages that impose themselves in the lands where celtic had been spoken before -

[Taranis]

I alluded to this last summer on the "Lack of G2a in Basque" thread, but didn't cite the source. Didier Vernade suggested that the original R1b entry into Iberia might have been by seafaring men (from farther east) who knew how to domesticate horses; and they proceeded to domesticate the local ones (notably what are now called Pottock ponies). This model might apply to your theory whether or not it happens to coincide with the R1b haplogroup. Here is one thread on which Didier posted it, last July 20th:

http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/top...ost__p__266688

Such a theory, if correct, could account for a cultural introduction of well advanced horse technology from much farther east without necessarily involving horse DNA from the steppes, the Danube, etc.

An interesting fact is that the Basque language has a native word for horse ("zaldi"), and this would be compatible with Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) domesticated horses in Iberia. I must say, however, don't see why the Beaker-Bell Culture should have been speakers of Celtic languages. In my opinion it's too ancient and too widespread (notably spreading into North Africa, southeastern Iberia, Sardinia and southern Scandinavia) to be genuinely considered Celtic.

[MOESAN]

I take it as it is
firstable my thoughts for now, waiting more help from hazard:
B.B was traders but NOT ONLY traders: they seam have pushed sometimes ancient populations further in the inlands in Brittain, so they was not so pacific: neither a sort of rambling traders nor "exterminators" - suerley it was depending on their rapports of numbers
B.B. at the firsts time (Chalcolithic), coming from south Iberia or Eastern Europe, has a very well defined phenotype and every attempt to minimize that or even to make joke about metrics is of no worth: and this type was 'dinaric' , unknown before that in Western Europe - and for me the cradle of 'dinaric' is in S-E Europe, not in W-Europe (where metals were introduced through) - this type never took the majority in the Isles nor in France nor in Iberia, and with time he lost weight, on the contrary -
-I know the Y DNA can explode in density without correspond to a big flow of other genes in a population -but Y-R1b is the 'boss' in W-Europe and has not the 'dinaric' types - we can consider that this dinarics take on their account the transmission of a supposed S-W Iberia B.B. culture in areas of C and N-C Europe -
- But the dinarics had nothing to do in Western Europe and nevertheless they was the elite of people that occuped in a very short time coasts, rivers, moutains passes more as a part of a people that have its own decisions and agendas (prospection more than trade) and NOT a "dealers" population taking advantage of a S-W Iberian cultural eclosion - the center of his population was previously (I believe) betwen) in Bohem and Carpathes -
- THE PROBLEME OF HORSES is interesting: it appear that BB had horses (if I don't mistake) favouring quick movements -
Had the neolithic population of Spain horses?
-after that, what I think was an elite has accultured other people and lost it's previous genetic traits (except Y-DNA? but I believe their Y-DNA was Y-I2a2 (majority) and NOT Y-R1b...

the developpment of calcholithic in Spain seam have been an intrusion from the East (other phenotypes again: estern mediterraneans): Hellades ??? but the very beginning of it seam linked to dinarics types (they could have come as easy by Eastern Mediterranee as bu the Rhone valley : for instance from present Albania or Epire, come down from Donau bassin through Balkans?) - I have no response for now concerning the Y-DNA of the Eastern Mediterranean (various) phenotypes
hypothesis (one more): a neolithic well evolved population in South Iberia (producing the first beakers) with an accretion of metal workers (and so metal prospectors)from East who do this culture grow big and fast: these moving prospectors should have boosted the productions of the previous neolithic cultureand have helped to the propagation? thhat to explain the anteriority of the S-W potteries -

[MOESAN]

Really? I have a Basque friend and one from Barcelona, and i hear them exactly the same... Then again, maybe you develop a more expert ear for the different accents on the place one lives.

local accents had some value in the traditionnal Europe but we hear today young people from big towns linked by all sorts of media's and without any marked accent (or speaking with less numerous diverse accents) - so it's possible that aged people of different regions of Spain had very distinguishable accents previously even we don't hear them to often today... an acute accent could have been the mark of basque prononunciation some years ago yet, but I'm not a specialist on Spain local accents