Upcoming paper on the Iberian Neolithic

The pottery from the Calcolithic culture of Monte Claro in Sardinia (2700-2200 bc) resembles that of the Fontbouisse culture in Southern France. Stone Fortifications are present in both cultures. Copper blades were largely used by the people of the Monte Claro culture and their stelae statues depicted male figures with daggers. Crucibles, hammers, grinders and metal slags belonging to this phase were also found. While the earliest real swords to show up in the Western Mediterranean area (1700-1600 bc) appear in Sardinia with the Bonnannaro (Early Nuragic) culture and in South Eastern Iberia with the Late Argaric culture, the swords are similar and this has led archaeologists to think that there were contacts between the Sardinian and Iberian elites: http://www.academia.edu/1138694/LE_...E_DEREIVAZIONE_DAI_PUGNALI_CAMPANIFORME._2012

Yes, all very suggestive of these interconnections.

My point, however, was solely about the fact that copper-working, metallurgy, spread from the east. In terms of Europe, we know that it was centered in the Balkans. Then we see a spread of copper working along the Mediterranean, including a very early copper mine in Liguria. All of that is suggestive to me of exploration and exploitation along the northern Mediterranean littoral. Copper working did not arise in Iberia. It arrived from elsewhere. If large groups of people came with it is speculative until we get ancient dna.

We discussed some of this in this thread.
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...in-Europe/page3?highlight=copper+mine+Liguria
 
Yes, all very suggestive of these interconnections.

My point, however, was solely about the fact that copper-working, metallurgy, spread from the east. In terms of Europe, we know that it was centered in the Balkans. Then we see a spread of copper working along the Mediterranean, including a very early copper mine in Liguria. All of that is suggestive to me of exploration and exploitation along the northern Mediterranean littoral. Copper working did not arise in Iberia. It arrived from elsewhere. If large groups of people came with it is speculative until we get ancient dna.

We discussed some of this in this thread.
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...in-Europe/page3?highlight=copper+mine+Liguria

I know it’s long but do you mind critiquing my post above? It makes sense to me.

And just to mention, as you may have a knee-jerk reaction against it, these R1b people aren’t some kind of master race - besides I clearly outline the fact that wherever the went, by and large, they mixed with the population they dominated, sharing their genomes with these populations. They also in my opinion didn’t invent civilisation (Sumer being the first) - I put that down to J2 tribes, albeit with a significant minority of R1b.

So yeah, let me know :)
 
i think that megalithic circular graves are older, c. 3500 BC. There are many in Corsica, North East Sardinian and one example near Civitavecchia. These monuments are of Iberian-Occitan origin.

Btw weren't Monte Claro "eastern" immigrants (oven tombs, oriental metallurgy) ? My guess was that they brought CHG related ancestry.

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I've never read about the Monte Claro culture being from the East and their pottery looks very different from that of the Aegean, although the Monte Claro pottery is really close to that of the contemporary Pianoconte culture in Lipari so some connections with the East shouldn't be discarded. Some archaeologists have proposed that later on the Bell beaker pottery reached Sicily from Sardinia which in turn got it from Iberia and/or Southern France.

I know it’s long but do you mind critiquing my post above? It makes sense to me.
And just to mention, as you may have a knee-jerk reaction against it, these R1b people aren’t some kind of master race - besides I clearly outline the fact that wherever the went, by and large, they mixed with the population they dominated, sharing their genomes with these populations. They also in my opinion didn’t invent civilisation (Sumer being the first) - I put that down to J2 tribes, albeit with a significant minority of R1b.

So yeah, let me know :)
I doubt you can attribute things like civilization to the people carrying a haplogroup. Civilization arose where the right conditions were present and sometimes the arrival of new cultured groups sped up the process but nevertheless saying that the Sumerians or even worse the "J2 people" were responsible for every civilization in the old world it's a gross simplification.
 
I've never read about the Monte Claro culture being from the East and their pottery looks very different from that of the Aegean, although the Monte Claro pottery is really close to that of the contemporary Pianoconte culture in Lipari so some connections with the East shouldn't be discarded.

Lilliu wrote that they were "permeated by oriental traditional elements" and highlighted that they were immigrants. If they came from (Copper Age) Sicily is not unlikely that they already had CHG and J2 Y-DNA (?).

Their metallurgy look eastern to me, leaf shaped dagger
https://img.ibs.it/images/9788887758351_0_0_300_75.jpg



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It could be though Lilliu is a little outdated on some topics. But yes there were surely some links with Sicily and especially Lipari, which we see again in the late bronze age. What I find striking is that since the calcolithic there seems to have been a direct route from Southern Sardinia to Sicily looking at the cultural links between Sardinia and Sicily both in the Monte Claro period and with Bell beaker, the Monte Claro culture is in fact named after a site in Cagliari, and this is especially clear later on during the bronze age where Sardinian pottery first appears in Sicily rather than in mainland Italy and when Mycenaean pottery finds in Sardinia are mostly focused on the gulf of Cagliari rather than in the North. There's also a relatively recent study on pigs' DNA that suggests the existence of a pig trade between Sicily/South Italy and Sardinia during the middle bronze age which against suggests a direct route.
 
Look what I've found looking up the history of the Elba island:
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piane_alla_Sughera
"The megalithic necropolis of the Piane alla Sughera - in some texts also Piana alla Sughera - is located on the island of Elba, on the plateau above the village of Seccheto and in the municipal area of Campo nell'Elba, at an altitude of 335 m ( 42 ° 44'25.16 "N 10 ° 09'33.17" E). The site hosts some circle tombs with vertical markings (menhirs), along with small groups of dense stones. The entire complex belongs to the so-called Culture of Arzachena-Ozieri, developed in northern Sardinia."
That's why it looks just like the Li Muri necropolis in North East Sardinia
 
There is another similar site in the Elba island but of a later period

https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circolo_megalitico_di_Monte_Còcchero

Interesting:
Il toponimo Còcchero deriva dal termine elbano chiùccolo («altura»), in modo analogo a cùcculu (Corsica) e cùccuru (Sardegna). [in basque "kukurh", asturian "cucuruta"]

Other site : https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassi_Ritti

A good paper about this subject
http://www.academia.edu/2442140/All...l_mediterraneo_occidentale_le_tombe_a_circolo

The origins of Megalithic Civilization in the west Mediterranean area can be placed between the fifth and the fourth millennium B.C in north-eastern Iberia(Catalunya), southern France (Languedoc and Provence) and in the islands of Sardinia and Corse. Its early monuments are lithic cists which were usually structured within circular tumular graves. Among these different geographical areas it is possible to recognize both common features and regional characteristics

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This has just been published:
" two "water deserts" in the central and western Mediterranean were defeated [..] one of these was constituted by 250 km of open sea between Sardinia and Sicily, 5 or 6 days of euphoria or terror, even in a fast canoe with an appropriate free board. We know that this sea was furrowed, because towards the middle of the III mill. B.C. Sardinian-style Western ceramics appeared in Sicily in large numbers, along with megalithic tombs and another Western custom: the drilling of the skull. What happened in the southern tip of Sardinia is sufficiently indicative, in the area located on the opposite side to Sicily, which at the time appeared like the end of the world, that region shows clear signs of greater social dynamism "

https://books.google.it/books?id=iP...nfängen bis zum klassischen Zeitalter&f=false



40136623_1993095174063750_3224631114777755648_n.png
 
Probably ritual cannibalism in the late Neolithic


Málaga, 11 Mar (EFE) .- Archaeological remains found in the Cave of El Toro, in El Torcal de Antequera (Málaga), reveal practices of cannibalism in the Old Neolithic, 7,000 years ago, since they consist of a skull "cup" , carved to get the shape of a bowl, and a jaw next to containers deposited as an offering.

This finding, together with the interpretation of the evidence, has led to establish the hypothesis that it is an aggressive cannibalism linked to violent episodes between groups in which they were members of the same family or that it occurred in the family context and were consumed as part of a funeral ritual.

https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultur...icas-de-canibalismo-en-neolitico-antiguo.html
 
Probably ritual cannibalism in the late Neolithic


Málaga, 11 Mar (EFE) .- Archaeological remains found in the Cave of El Toro, in El Torcal de Antequera (Málaga), reveal practices of cannibalism in the Old Neolithic, 7,000 years ago, since they consist of a skull "cup" , carved to get the shape of a bowl, and a jaw next to containers deposited as an offering.

This finding, together with the interpretation of the evidence, has led to establish the hypothesis that it is an aggressive cannibalism linked to violent episodes between groups in which they were members of the same family or that it occurred in the family context and were consumed as part of a funeral ritual.

https://www.lavanguardia.com/cultur...icas-de-canibalismo-en-neolitico-antiguo.html

similar rituals and practices were observed in the contemporary LBK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herxheim_(archaeological_site)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talheim_Death_Pit

this is the first time I read about such thing in Cardial Ware
 

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