The Bell Beaker by Olalde and Reich et al. 2017

[Elizabeth60]

Regarding the ydna I'm presuming it will be R1b. Yamnaya were R1b-M269 and as the Yamnaya horizon is quite large I'm sure it is not a leap of faith to presume R1b-L51 might be found somewhere between the Steppes and Central Europe. Also I don't see any problem with BB being 50% Steppe as they obviously mixed with EEF types. I'm sure the paper will clarify some of these questions once it is released.

 

[Elizabeth60]

That's exactly how I understood it. But since Bell Beaker pottery originated in Chalcolithic Iberia and then spread through trade or minor migrations around western and central Europe, this pottery style ceased to be associated with one specific ethnic/genetic group. That is why it is senseless to be talking about 'Bell Beaker people'. Anybody who uses that terms does not understand it. It would like like saying people from industrialised countries today and expect that they are of European descent, even though many East Asian countries are now just as industrialised. The link between technology and ethnicity has vanished when the technology starting spread far and wide.

Aren't German Bell Beakers virtually identical to British/Irish Bell Beakers? The earlier Bell Beakers from the Iberian Penisular are genetically different. I guess discussing this when only an abstract has been released is a bit presumptuous. This is only an appetizer to what will hopefully answer a lot of people's questions.

 

[Sile]

That's exactly how I understood it. But since Bell Beaker pottery originated in Chalcolithic Iberia and then spread through trade or minor migrations around western and central Europe, this pottery style ceased to be associated with one specific ethnic/genetic group. That is why it is senseless to be talking about 'Bell Beaker people'. Anybody who uses that terms does not understand it. It would like like saying people from industrialised countries today and expect that they are of European descent, even though many East Asian countries are now just as industrialised. The link between technology and ethnicity has vanished when the technology starting spread far and wide.




Then it means that the Reich team does not understand what I explained above (and you neither). It's fine to talk of Starcevo people, of Yamna people, or Corded Ware people, as they belonged to an ethnic culture. But the Bell Beaker culture is one of the first non-ethnic cultures.

I agree........many thousands of years before BB potters there where other "potters", from LBK in germany as an example.

logically, these LBK potters just learnt a new style of "BB potting" from a trader or some immigrants......so there is no guarantee that there was mass BB migration into germany due to potting styles.

a potter in ancient times or modern times will take just one day to learn a new style of potting

 

[MarkoZ]

If so how do you explain the decrease of steppe ancestry and the change in Y-DNA?

A decrease in 'steppe' ancestry could be the result of a different migration route of BB's paternal ancestors. We'd be talking about a route through Ukraine, the Carpathians into Hungary and ex-Yugoslavia culminating in Vucedol culture which has its epicenter in North-Eastern Croatia. Naturally, due to higher population densities the potential to pick up foreign aDNA would be greater than in the north.

Now, I consider that unlikely due to the complete absence of Z2103 in Western Europe as per Balanovsky, and the French centrality of L51 and S116, but ultimately we'll need ancient samples to shed light on this.

It seems that the talk about aDNA is ultimately a waste of time when it comes to BB, if the pattern in the Lech paper is indicative of broad cultural trends within the Beaker horizon. If more than 50% of all women were foreigners at any given time, the genetic makeup could be completely changed within just a few generations.

 

[MarkoZ]

I agree........many thousands of years before BB potters there where other "potters", from LBK in germany as an example.

logically, these LBK potters just learnt a new style of "BB potting" from a trader or some immigrants......so there is no guarantee that there was mass BB migration into germany due to potting styles.

a potter in ancient times or modern times will take just one day to learn a new style of potting

The problem with this is that BB pottery didn't convey any discernible advantages. In fact it was quite ugly looking and generally badly made when compared to some of the painted pottery traditions of the Neolithic.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I found 3 samples to compare, first one is Iberian Chalcolithic, second Iberian Bronze Age, third one is German Bell Beaker to compare. The third one is way different.
We can see that there is some change from Iberian Chalcolithic to Bronze Age, however the Bronze Age sample is not the highest quality, and might be misleading.
I think, I estimated some time ago that if there was BA invasion into Spain it would be more from Hungarian Bronze/Baden than CW area.

Do we have other BA Iberian sample on GedMatch?

there was an invasion into Iberia which initiated the BA, look at the history of El Argar
but the invasion of the El Argar people and the Iberian BA postdates the initial Central European BB, your sample too, it is I guess 3.7 ka (not 1.7 ka)
if Iberian BB were not immigrants to Iberia, they were Iberian CA

 

[bicicleur 2]

I agree........many thousands of years before BB potters there where other "potters", from LBK in germany as an example.

logically, these LBK potters just learnt a new style of "BB potting" from a trader or some immigrants......so there is no guarantee that there was mass BB migration into germany due to potting styles.

a potter in ancient times or modern times will take just one day to learn a new style of potting

there is style and there is technique
a potter can easily take over a new style without learning the new technique (tempering materials, baking methods, ..)
it often happened and archeology can tell the difference
but I don't know about different techniques in BB
it has been suggested though that the pottery was made by the women

 

[bicicleur 2]

If so how do you explain the decrease of steppe ancestry and the change in Y-DNA?

a hypothetical possibility would be a tiny BB colony like Csepl merging with a larger culture of steppe origin, like Vucedol

 

[Olympus Mons]

@Maciamo,
All studies done with Nmdentral traits says south France, Switzerland, Hungary BB folk were different from local populations. It will need a lot of aDna to turn that fact/postulation. If those were of a different stock then where did they come from?

On the other hand, is Reich saying that the transition of those Iberian BB that were in Switzerland, when they crossed the alps and went to central Europe they did not replace people, but actually sold them their way of life? I means either kidnapped and Rapped their women from each other.

So, if reich has good adna from Iberia, south France, western Atlantic France and Switzerland and they show that bell beaker were from different stock of each other... than ok. He is absolutely right on stating it as he did.

 

[Maciamo]

@Maciamo,
All studies done with Nmdentral traits says south France, Switzerland, Hungary BB folk were different from local populations. It will need a lot of aDna to turn that fact/postulation. If those were of a different stock then where did they come from?

Were BB also different from the locals in Portugal or other parts of Iberia? If BB spread from Portugal to the rest of western and central Europe, then it would make sense that these BB people were autosomally like Chalcolithic Portuguese, and therefore somewhat different from Chalcolithic French, Swiss, Hungarian, etc. I don't see any problem with that. Do you know of any study that say that BB people in France or Iberia had dental traits like those of Corded Ware people?

Another explanation for the different traits in BB people compared to locals is that Bell Beaker pottery was spread by merchants travelling around Europe. The BB pots probably contained something of value inside. I am not sure if enough DNA has been preserved inside to determine what it was, but it's possible that the content wasn't the same in Iberia and Central Europe.

 

[Olympus Mons]

@Maciamo,
Yes it does, Shovel, double-shovel, Cusp5 and 6, bla blab la all those Nm dental traits.
Unless someone is re-carving teeth of bell beakers all over Europe. The answer is yes.
Iberia BB where of the same stock as chalcolithic Iberia, and the same as South France up until Switzerland. And those were different from Local endogenous populations in those other places.
Czepel was a bit strange, but still very related to those Iberians ….and Bohemia a complete mess!
So, to try to figure out the bell beakers conundrum they choose the complete mess? – Ah, ok.

 

[Aaron1981]

If so how do you explain the decrease of steppe ancestry and the change in Y-DNA?

Admixture from residual LBK groups in central Europe prior to moving to Britain. That's what the Rathlin paper suggested. I suspect the new paper will say the same. This isn't difficult folks. tr0lling for the sake of tr0lling and being contrary for the sake of it isn't beneficial.

The latest paper concluding that BB spreading to central Europe from Iberia via ideas rather than genetics is an argument against R1b arriving from Iberia. All the central European BB have been derived for L23+. None of the genetic results will prove anything beyond a doubt, but the arguments have certainly been suggestive.

R1b arrived in Britain from Germany/Czech during the Bronze Age with BB, and modern Brits are a very closer match to these people. Nothing else is being concluded in the paper, and frankly, nothing else is relevant.

 

[Olympus Mons]

I don't have much in my files....
.....
Simply SHOCKING !!! "Genetical Sardinians" everywhere. And a few Basques. But no any R1b.

Yes and to figure out what Sicilians look like genetically , lets go and sample people in Milan and Turin, shall we?

 

[LeBrok]

there was an invasion into Iberia which initiated the BA, look at the history of El Argar
but the invasion of the El Argar people and the Iberian BA postdates the initial Central European BB, your sample too, it is I guess 3.7 ka (not 1.7 ka)
if Iberian BB were not immigrants to Iberia, they were Iberian CA

From these two samples, Iberia Copper and BA, we can see some shift towards WHG type genome. Increased NE Euro and decreased Med. I think the source of potential newcomers could have been Hungarian Bronze, which was high in extra WHG. BA Iberian is missing Baloch, so CW area should be excluded from being the invaders. However it is hard to be certain, because BA Iberian sample is of low quality.
I wish we had another one.

 

[Olympus Mons]

@Lebrock,
Whatever comes out for Iberia bell beakers (and I care much less than what transpires) they were not random in Iberia. Although it sounds like I might say that because I am Portuguese - The basic tradition that ended up in Bell beakers, like Copos and Long useless daggers (and there was a place 20km from VNSP that just did long and useless daggers) were typical of the VSNP guys that blocked the passage from the south Tagus to the Northern (Near Muge and so forth). They blocked the passage to the guys that for instance brought lots os cattle and sheep and pigs to be slaughtered in Zambujla, which as you all know is seen the Urhermeit of the Bell beakers.
We find Bell beakers moving to north Portugal and into Douro and then to northern Spain and to rest of europe.
So it was a very specific people. That lot of people we know from roth that they had an increase amount of WHG and their Mtdna had a bit more WHG like profile than the rest of Iberia, so less EEF.

If one wants to know than must sample those and not some washout guys in some caves in Atapuerta or whatever!

 

[bicicleur 2]

From these two samples, Iberia Copper and BA, we can see some shift towards WHG type genome. Increased NE Euro and decreased Med. I think the source of potential newcomers could have been Hungarian Bronze, which was high in extra WHG. BA Iberian is missing Baloch, so CW area should be excluded from being the invaders. However it is hard to be certain, because BA Iberian sample is of low quality.
I wish we had another one.

CW didn't have no metallurgy, neither copper nor bronze, only few prestige copper objects, so also from that viewpoint they are ruled out.
could Balkan CA be the source for Iberian CA - and for Austrian/Italian CA (Remedello and the like)?

Iberian CA were an elite using local workforce to make a fortune with copper industry & trade

 

[Angela]

@Angela, the posted samples are all pre Bell Beaker.

Then what are the access numbers for Iberian Beaker versus Central European Copper Age samples? Let's run them through calculators. For that matter, how different are Iberian Beaker people from the prior population?

Without data we'retalking out of our hats.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Then what are the access numbers for Iberian Beaker versus Central European Copper Age samples? Let's run them through calculators. For that matter, how different are Iberian Beaker people from the prior population?

Without data we'retalking out of our hats.

AFAIK there are no Iberian BB samples, the ones in the study will be the 1st ones published.

 

[Olympus Mons]

AFAIK there are no Iberian BB samples, the ones in the study will be the 1st ones published.

Hey...lower your expectations. There will be no Iberian BB in this reich et al either. That is why I am a little tense about it. We need to have references in any LOB, and agreeing with him or not, he is a reference. If reference show bullshit its the all spectrum that falls.

 

[Olympus Mons]

how different are Iberian Beaker people from the prior population?

according to Nm dental traits... not really different, or at least very related. -- but very different from Local population hereafter up until Bohemia were all messes up.