Bell-Beaker Folk

Prior to 2,500BC, Eurasian nomadic people with domesticated horses migrated westward towards the Atlantic and mixed with the existing Neolithic inhabitants. The integration of their culture, called ‘Bell-Beaker’ after the shape of their pottery, saw the introduction of metalworking, weaving, an alcoholic honey-based mead and a patriarchal societal structure.

However, when they came to the British Isles (c.2,500-1,800BC), the story seems a little different, according to a 2018 study of ancient DNA. The conclusion is that the “Beaker phenomenon” meant a 90% replacement of the gene pool. How the ‘Bell-Beaker Folk‘, as they are sometimes called, achieved this dominance is uncertain, since their spears, daggers and bows-and-arrows were not necessarily for war, but for hunting.

Whether by conquest or seduction, the natives’ capitulation stopped at the western hills, beyond which no Bell-Beaker traces have been found, unlike the area near Stonehenge in Wiltshire, for instance, Here, one important archaeological find, in 2002, has been that of a roughly 4,300-year-old Bell-Beaker man nicknamed the ‘Amesbury Archer‘. He was lying in the foetal position under a round mound, like a reverse birth back to earth, together with the earliest known items made of gold in Britain. This type of single-person grave was another Bell-Beaker characteristic.

(Image: Wessex Archaeology at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC 2.0)