Campaniform Culture

Dubious origins

Certain authors have advanced that the campaniform culture has Iberian origins, others rather lean for a continuation of the Culture of twisted ceramics, with like origin of the diffusion the area of the Rhine.

A third assumption due to Marija Gimbutas establishes a bond between the campaniform culture and of the cultures of Central Europe as a whole which would have been " kourganisées" after the incursion of tribes of the steppes come from the Black Sea (culture of the kourganes).

Geographical surface

The surface of distribution of the campaniform culture vast but is dispersed, covering mainly Western Europe (see the chart). One will note probable axes of penetration following of the rivers like the the Rhine, the the Rhone, the the Danube (until Basin of Vienna, with also of the traces on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily. Varying during time, the surface of geographical distribution of the campaniform culture develops initially starting from a hearth probably located in Ibérie or Germany, then is maintained at the end longer in British Isles.

Interpretations

The first interpretation: massive migration

The regrouping of populations under the common noun of campaniform culture is defined in the beginning compared to the common use of a particular style of pottery, in the shape of reversed bell (see photo). Their utility could have a bond with the consumption of Hydromel or Bière. Because of the unusual and practically unchanged shape of the potteries on all the geographical surface of distribution of the campaniform culture, the latter was thus allotted to the beginning with a single group of settlement, which would have diffused in Europe. Diffusion by migration thus, and not by Acculturation. At the beginning of the XXe century, the campaniform potteries were thus perceived like the element of only one population, which through repeated waves of invasion, brought with it the work of the metal, the burials in fetal position and the Tumulus, replacing the preceding populations Neolithic S which lived there. Vere Gordon Childe described the campaniform ones like " warlike invaders impregnated with dominant practices and an appreciation of the weapons and metal ornaments which inspired them in order to impose a political unit sufficient on their new field for some economic unification on suivre".

The second interpretation: cultural diffusion

The first kind of interpretation (of the Childe type) is abandoned today, so much it reduces a certain number of cultural changes to only one and even causes, and this over one period of several hundred years. Indeed, there is no necessarily correlation between an archaeological culture and a precise ethnicity, as there is no either inevitably bijective relation between typical objects resulting from archaeological excavations and an only group of population. In fact, any cultural material or any technological innovation can be very well spread independently of a population of origin, by cultural diffusion followed by a phenomenon of acculturation. It can be a question of a diffusion gradually, close populations in close populations, but also of a diffusion with more or less long distance according to the networks of exchanges already in place at the time of the Neolithic era, for example with the Ambre, the Obsidienne or the salt. An good example could be that of the exchanges related on the production and the consumption of beer, as those shown by lucky finds made along the roads of Atlantic Europe. analyzes of pollens, associated with the movements of campaniform, indicate a greater growth of the Orge, which can be associated with mixing with beer.

Some Archéologue S note that the scattered geographical distribution of campaniform follows mainly axes of transport, including passages to ford, river valleys, mountainous passages… The whole suggesting that the Pan-European style of campaniform could be originally due to merchants of Bronze, who would have been established among local populations of the Neolithic era or Chalcolithique, thus creating a new local style. A fine analysis of the bronze tools of use to campaniform suggests a first Iberian source of the Cuivre, followed thereafter use of ores of Central Europe and from Bohemia; this supposes an extension in two times of the campaniform culture, initially come from the south-west of Europe, then extending then starting from the Central Europe. Lanting suggested in connection with the second wave of diffusion, that the Campaniform one emerged from the delta of the Rhine starting from the culture of ceramic cord.

A unit phenomenon?

A recent analysis with the Strontium, realized on 86 people in campaniform tombs in Bavaria, suggests that 18 to 25% of the tombs were occupied by people who came from very distant zones of the point of burial. This is as well true for the adults as for the children, which seems to indicate a considerable migration, with mixing of population (noninvasive migration). According to similarities with populations living in the Loess, the head office of the movement according to Price and its collaborators, would be the North-East towards the western south.

At all events, in spite of divergent interpretations, the archeologists think as a whole that the campaniform population did not exist as a homogeneous group, but that it is a culture or knowledge which was transmitted slow manners and complexes between various groups, by exchanges, acculturation, mixing of population… more than share a massive migration of a group which would replace others of them. This not-invasive theory was proposed in first by Colin Burgess and Steve Shennan in the middle of the years 1970, and it is now allowed to see the campaniform culture like the reflection of a whole of knowledge (including religious beliefs, the work of copper, bronze and gold) and artefacts (including copper scraping-knives, buttons perforated out of V and stone protect-wrists for Archer S) adopted by the indigenous populations with variable degrees. The campaniform culture remains an extremely complex phenomenon because largely widespread in space and time.

Evolution

Starting from the XXIIIe front century J. - C., it diffuses during approximately three centuries Iberian peninsula with the the Vistula (Cracow) and in British Isles (Beakers). Its populations are integrated quickly into the local groups (twisted) bringing a new ideology centered on the individualism and the recognition of the social capacity.

The tombs containing of the campaniform goblets would have belonged to archers equipped with arrows, protect-wrists, sometimes of copper daggers with flat handle and gold ornaments (earrings…). It seems that they used bit and that they introduced the horse in occident.

Succession

With the XIXe front century J. - C.:

the culture of the Polada in Italy of the north of unetician influence succeeds of -1900 -1200 the brilliant culture of Remedello and the campaniform culture which succeeded to him. It controls the trade of the Adriatique towards the alpine collars.
Civilization of Wessex in the United Kingdom. It results from the fusion of important campaniform groups and of new arrivals which dominate them or colonize them, attracted by the layers of Cuivre and tin of the Cornwall.

References

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