Bell Beaker Common Ware during the third Millennium BC in Europe

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Marie Besse

Published:

2004

Publisher:

University of Geneva

The Bell Beaker Culture embodies the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age during the third millennium BC. It is generally defined by different types of decorated pottery, by the undecorated Bell Beakers and by a set of artefacts such as archer's arm-guards, Palmela points, tongued daggers and arciform pendants. Another pottery style is associated with this culture: the Begleitkeramik, or common ware. Although several studies have been carried out on this time period, it is still badly defined as a whole. Does it represent an ideology? Populations? Migrations of one or several human groups? In one or several peopling waves? Coming from and going where? This study attempts to answer these questions based on Bell Beaker common ware, despite the heterogeneous nature of archaeological documentation, whereas preceding research has focalised on decorated pottery. Our research is based on the study of Bell Beaker sites with common ware in continental Europe. Eight hundred sites have been studied, located in the eleven following countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland. The pottery was grouped in eighty-three types. Preferential associations of these pottery types with a particular type of site (settlement, grave, deposit) as well as their geographical distribution, have made it possible to interpret synchronically the cultural components acting during the third millennium BC i…

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