The Bell Beaker phenomenon stands proud in the archaeological historiography as one of those later European prehistoric behemoths, whose geographical extents are only matched by the magnitude of the academic debates they have triggered. The Bell Beaker problem is as simple as it is daunting: from the shores of the Irish Sea to the outskirts of Budapest, and from southern Norway to the northern tip of the Maghreb, generations of archaeologists have recurrently identified various types of material culture, most prominently the eponymous S-shaped bell beaker and numerous items seemingly related to archery practices (e.g. stone wrist-guards, arrowheads). How do we account for this apparent level of uniformity, considering that many other categories of evidence at the same time strongly exhibit regional diversity? All in all, Bell Beaker research ought to be about ways to describe and explain variability, although this has not always been the case (Vander Linden, Reference Vander Linden, Harding and Fokkens2013). Indeed, the past two decades or so have witnessed a renewed interest in the Bell Beaker phenomenon, characterized by a will to re-describe corresponding assemblages in novel and robust ways, a trend which is materialized in an extensive pedigree of papers and edited books.
This volume naturally extends this lineage: stemming from a conference organised in 2011, it brings together a preface, seventeen chapters, and concluding remarks covering a large part—but far from all (missing regions including for instance Italy, Hungary, Ireland, and the Netherlands)—of the distribution area of the Bell Beaker phenomenon. The geographical scope is somewhat biased, with two chapters dedicated to northern Europe, four to central Europe, one each to Britain and France, six to the Iberian Peninsula, and only a couple to wider ranging surveys. Setting aside the unremarkable preface and concluding remarks, a wide array of topics is addressed, ranging from the usual focus on funerary practices and pottery, to more original and welcome contributions on the environmental setting of the Bell Beaker phenomenon.
Without much surprise, the central theme of several of the chapters lies in the characterisation of the underlying unity of the Bell Beaker phenomenon, the putative cultural, social, or ideological glue which would provide its overall coherence. In this spirit the volume opens―in a bold editorial move―with a chapter dedicated to the linguistic, and especially Celtic, hypotheses concerning the Bell Beaker phenomenon (Ch. 2, ‘Introduction. A Folk Who Will Never Speak: Bell Beakers and Linguistics', by Alexander Falileyev). If there is such a thing as a coherent archaeological culture spanning most of Europe, is it not reasonable indeed to match it to another presumed unity, in this case linguistic? Falileyev not only provides an interesting review of these theories, but also a strong critical appraisal of the methodological pitfalls involved in melding archaeology and linguistics for this period. As he points out, apparent unity in material culture and other practices does not ipso facto translate into linguistic uniformity.
Several chapters discuss the question of the Bell Beaker unity through the lens of mobility, of both people and goods. Andrew P. Fitzpatrick (Ch. 6, ‘The Emergence of the Bell Beaker Set: Migrations to Britain and Ireland’) offers a solid summary of his work on the outstanding discoveries of the ‘Boscombe bowmen’ and the ‘Amesbury archer’, the latter corresponding without doubt to an early migrant of eventual continental descent. Fitzpatrick rightly stresses the need to move away from older narratives linking a single point of origin to the explanation of the entire Bell Beaker phenomenon, and rather to focus on multiple journeys across its entire distribution area. In a more traditional way, Elżbieta Haduch (Ch. 3, ‘Bell Beakers and Corded Ware People. Anthropological Point of View in the Little Poland Upland’) shows that, in Little Poland, Bell Beaker individuals exhibit changes in cranial morphology, possibly suggestive of an influx of new people―although, by her own admission, the factors governing these changes remain unclear. Another avenue explored to discuss mobility lies in the identification of trade. In a splendid paper, Ewen Ihuel and colleagues (Ch. 11, ‘The Dagger Phenomenon: Circulation from the Grand-Pressigny Region (France, Indre-Et-Loire) in Western Europe’) review the evidence for the production and distribution of Grand-Pressigny flint, and convincingly demonstrate that this exchange network was mostly active prior to the Bell Beaker phenomenon and that, during the latter, it only concerned an early, chronologically and spatially limited, sphere centered upon the Rhine. Likewise, Carlos Rodriguez-Rellán et al. (Ch. 12, ‘Long-Distance Contacts: The North-West Iberia during the Third Millennium bc’) discuss, through a single but exquisite example, the movement of flint across the entire Iberian Peninsula―but, once more, this happened before the Bell Beaker phenomenon.
Both examples highlight the long-stated importance of looking beyond the Bell Beaker phenomenon in order to understand its specifics, and especially to focus the analysis on the periods immediately preceding it. This approach is adopted by Jessie Cauliez, in a thorough and important review of Late Neolithic (i.e. pre-Bell Beaker and Bell Beaker) pottery production in southern France (Ch. 10, ‘The Bell Beaker Complex: A Vector of Transformations? Stabilities and Changes of the Indigenous Cultures in South-East France at the End of the Neolithic Period’). Through in-depth re-examination of the chronology and of decorative and morphological pottery traits, she demonstrates in a compelling way to what extent the local―typological and social―trajectory of the Bell Beaker phenomenon is determined by dynamics deeply set in the local preceding cultures. She thus argues that the Bell Beaker phenomenon does not stem from a competitive environment, as implied by its traditional identification with elites, but rather testifies to a complex process of integration within existing communities.
Social readings of the Bell Beaker phenomenon have indeed long been favoured, and the literature is littered with emergent elites who would have manipulated prestige goods to enhance their upcoming social power and position. This theme is echoed in the contribution by Müller, Hinz, and Ullrich (Ch. 7, ‘Bell Beakers—Chronology, Innovation, and Memory: A Multivariate Approach’) who, using some elegant statistics, argue for the existence of alternating episodes of stylistic creativity and standstill. These are, in turn, interpreted in terms of ‘social memory’ and a ‘chain of ideological patterns'. Whilst appealing at first sight, these ideas completely overlook a simple fact: they assume that pottery styles give us a direct window into past societies as a whole, but do not even discuss the specifics of pottery production, distribution, and consumption. A similar over-arching interpretation can be found in Elisa Guerra Doce et al.’s discussion of the suggested―though hardly proven in any robust way―association of Bell Beaker pots with potentially ritually charged practices such as metallurgy and, in this particular case, salt production (Ch. 16, ‘Bell Beaker Pottery as a Symbolic Marker of Property Rights: The Case of the Salt Production Centre of Molino Sanchón II, Zamora, Spain’). Rather than assumptions about the supposed extraordinary role of bell beakers, a discussion of the many social dimensions of salt production and distribution would have been of more interest.
Several papers explicitly discuss the existence of widely shared practices within the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Barbara Armbruster and Beatriz Comendador Rey (Ch. 13, ‘Early Gold Technology as an Indicator of Circulation Processes in Atlantic Europe’) provide a solid summary of early gold metallurgy, highlighting the key socially valued role of goldsmiths, the common technological systems and symbolism observed across Atlantic Europe, although they remain elusive regarding the role of gold in contributing, or not, to any Bell Beaker cohesion. This last theme is more explicit in the contributions by Przemysław Makarowicz (Ch. 4, ‘Personal Identity and Social Structure of Bell Beakers: The Upper Basins of the Oder and Vistula Rivers') and Jan Turek (Ch. 5, ‘Bell Beaker Stone Wristguards as Symbolic Male Ornament: The Significance of Ceremonial Warfare in the Third Millennium bc Central Europe’) on ornaments and archery kits.
Although the emphasis upon the characterisation of Bell Beaker unity makes a lot of sense, one is nonetheless left wondering if, sometimes, this focus is totally warranted. After all, the Bell Beaker phenomenon only exists as a pan-European entity for two or three centuries at most between c. 2500 and 2300/2200 bc. Expressions during the first half of the third millennium bc are limited to at best one or two regions, whilst local groups only exist after 2200 bc in part of the entire domain, often parallel to independent Early Bronze Age groups. In this sense, pan-European narratives are hardly ever relevant and there is much to be gained by focusing on regional perspectives towards the end of the sequence. Nowhere is this more evident than in southern Scandinavia, where Danish and Norwegian local Bell Beaker facies―discussed by Magnus Artursson (Ch. 8, ‘The Long-House as a Transforming Agent. Emergent Complexity in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Southern Scandinavia 2300–1300 bc’) and Christopher Prescott and Håkon Glørstad (Ch. 9, ‘Expanding Third Millennium Transformations: Norway’) respectively―begin more or less when, elsewhere in Europe, the Bell Beaker phenomenon shows increasing signs of falling apart. As shown by these two high-quality papers, this does not make the late northern European Bell Beaker group less interesting, as it witnesses interesting developments in terms of architectural traditions and farming practices. This shift towards increased regional diversification and fragmentation is also well-explored in Vázquez Liz and colleagues' discussion of the complex local trajectory of funerary practices in northwest Iberia (Ch. 18, ‘Dynamism and Complexity of the Funerary Models: The North-West Iberian Peninsula during the Third–Second Millennia bc’).
Parallel to long-standing themes of Bell Beaker historiography, it is also encouraging to note several papers shifting the attention to a long-overlooked issue for the late third millennium bc, namely climatic change and human-environment interactions. Contributions by Manuela Costa-Casais et al. (Ch. 14, ‘Environmental Changes in North-Western Iberia around the Bell Beaker Period (2800–1400 cal bc)’) and by Sebastián Pérez Díaz and José Antonio López Sáez (Ch. 15, ‘Evidence of Agriculture and Livestock: The Palynological Record from the Middle Ebro Valley (Iberian Peninsula) during the Third and Second Millennia cal bc’) review some of the corresponding evidence for the northern Iberian Peninsula. Both papers point out that the Bell Beaker phenomenon is linked in this area to an increased anthropic pressure on the local landscapes, set against a long-term history of growing population in Iberia across the fourth and third millennia bc. These results are echoed, for instance, by the presence of storage pits at the open-air site of La Vital, discussed by Oreto García Puchol and colleagues in Chapter 17 (‘Exploring Social Networks through Bell Beaker Contexts in the Central Valencia Region from Recent Discoveries at La Vital (Gandía, Valencia, Spain)’).
Whilst this volume was probably edited in 2015 and is being presently reviewed in late 2016, it somehow feels outdated in its lack of discussion of the most exciting and controversial data, namely, aDNA. Part of the problem most probably lies in well-known issues regarding the duration of the editorial process, so that books are and will always lag behind papers, a trend reinforced by the increasing ‘online first’ publication of papers. Yet, several relevant aDNA papers have been around for years now (e.g. Brandt et al., Reference Brandt, Haak, Adler, Roth, Szécsényi-Nagy, Karimnia, Möller-Rieker, Meller, Ganslmeier, Friederich, Dresely, Nicklisch, Pickrell, Sirocko, Reich, Cooper and Alt2013; Lee et al., Reference Lee, Makarewicz, Renneberg, Harder, Krause-Kyora, Müller, Ostritz, Fehren-Schmitz, Schreiber, Müller, von Wurmb-Schwark and Nebel2012), and their omission is surprising given the strong focus of this volume on issues such as unity and mobility.
In conclusion, as with most edited books, one is left with a collection of some very strong contributions and some less so, arguably sharing some common themes and concerns―and yet, there is an unnerving feeling that very little has been gained by bringing them together between two hardback covers.
