Here is more oil on the fiery question of the relation between R1b and Bell-Beaker folks.
While looking at the Wikipedia article about Tarim mummies, I stumbled on this sentence quoted from 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."
At first sight it is true that such craniometric results don't make any sense... until you realise that R1b originated in southern Ukraine during the late Neolithic to early Bronze age, and that the oldest Bronze age culture in Western Europe is found in Portugal (2600 BCE, and possibly as early as 2900 BCE). Add to that that the Bell-Beaker Culture seems to have spread from Portugal to all Western Europe where R1b is now found in high frequencies, and that the oldest subclades of R1b-S116 are also apparently confined to Western Iberia. There has also been heated discussions on the forum about the possibility of Tartessian language (from Southwest Iberia) being a precursor of Celtic languages.
I have never been an advocate of the theory of the South-western Iberian expansion of R1b to Western Europe, simply because I do not see how R1b would have gotten there in the first place from the Pontic Steppes or the Balkans without passing first by Central Europe and France.
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 ?
Three years ago, I envisaged the possibility of a major Indo-European invasion from the Maykop Culture in the North Caucasus. These would have been seafaring people, colonising all the shores of the Black Sea at first, founding Troy (the Trojans were Indo-European, speaking Luwian, a language related to Hittite, or the early Anatolian branch). Troy itself was founded around 3000 BCE, just before the Corded Ware and Bell-Beaker cultures started. Troy was a maritime and mercantile power, trading mostly around the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, but possibly all over the Mediterranean too. What if the Trojans founded a colony in Portugal or Southwest Andalusia, and that the new culture started expanding from there ? This would explain the sudden flourishing of maritime trade all over the Atlantic coast, and how a bronze age culture could have originated at all at the opposite end of Europe from where the Bronze Age started. It would also explain the similarities in R1b subclades (L21, M167) between Iberia, Atlantic France, Britain and Ireland.
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.
By 1300 BCE Central and Western Europe was divided between two major cultures: the Atlantic Bronze Age and the Urnfield Culture.
While looking at the Wikipedia article about Tarim mummies, I stumbled on this sentence quoted from 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."
At first sight it is true that such craniometric results don't make any sense... until you realise that R1b originated in southern Ukraine during the late Neolithic to early Bronze age, and that the oldest Bronze age culture in Western Europe is found in Portugal (2600 BCE, and possibly as early as 2900 BCE). Add to that that the Bell-Beaker Culture seems to have spread from Portugal to all Western Europe where R1b is now found in high frequencies, and that the oldest subclades of R1b-S116 are also apparently confined to Western Iberia. There has also been heated discussions on the forum about the possibility of Tartessian language (from Southwest Iberia) being a precursor of Celtic languages.
I have never been an advocate of the theory of the South-western Iberian expansion of R1b to Western Europe, simply because I do not see how R1b would have gotten there in the first place from the Pontic Steppes or the Balkans without passing first by Central Europe and France.
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 ?
Three years ago, I envisaged the possibility of a major Indo-European invasion from the Maykop Culture in the North Caucasus. These would have been seafaring people, colonising all the shores of the Black Sea at first, founding Troy (the Trojans were Indo-European, speaking Luwian, a language related to Hittite, or the early Anatolian branch). Troy itself was founded around 3000 BCE, just before the Corded Ware and Bell-Beaker cultures started. Troy was a maritime and mercantile power, trading mostly around the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea, but possibly all over the Mediterranean too. What if the Trojans founded a colony in Portugal or Southwest Andalusia, and that the new culture started expanding from there ? This would explain the sudden flourishing of maritime trade all over the Atlantic coast, and how a bronze age culture could have originated at all at the opposite end of Europe from where the Bronze Age started. It would also explain the similarities in R1b subclades (L21, M167) between Iberia, Atlantic France, Britain and Ireland.
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.
By 1300 BCE Central and Western Europe was divided between two major cultures: the Atlantic Bronze Age and the Urnfield Culture.