On the Outskirts of the European Bell Beaker Phenomenon – the Danish Case September 15, 2007 Torben Sarauw, Aarhus* Abstract This article explores the Danish Bell Beaker phenomenon by focus- ing on the meaning of this distinctive pottery and seeking answers to the following questions: Does the pottery reflect social identities with respect to gender, rank, religion and so forth, and is the sym- bolic meaning of beakers the same all over their wide area of distri- bution? Furthermore, why are Bell Beakers adopted in some regions but rejected in others? The starting point for this article is a detailed analysis of a comprehensive selection of potsherds comprising not only Bell Beakers, but also different types of coarse ware found at Bejsebakken, a settlement site in northern Jutland. The intra-site dis- tribution of pottery may reflect learning patterns and, consequent- ly, matrimonial traditions. This has wider implications for our under- standing of the social organisation of Late Neolithic society. Finally, this article discusses the directions of influence, rejecting a single source of origin, but arguing that the material culture of the Danish * This article is part of a PhD disserta- Bell Beaker phenomenon was shaped by many-sided influences. tion in progress at the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology, Univer- sity of Aarhus. The dissertation anal- Zusammenfassung yses different aspects of the Danish Bell Beaker phenomenon. The author In dem Artikel wird das Glockenbecher-Phänomen in Dänemark is thankful to Helle Vandkilde, Helle untersucht. Bei der Frage nach Bedeutungsinhalten verschiedener Juel Jensen, and John Simonsen for providing useful comments on earli- Keramiken stehen folgende Aspekte im Vordergrund: Werden in un- er versions of this article. Thanks also terschiedlichen Keramiken soziale Identitäten (z. B. Geschlecht, Rang, go to Lone Sarauw and Stacey Coz- Religion) erkennbar? Sind die symbolischen Bedeutungsinhalte der art for correcting my English. Many Becher in ihrem gesamten Verbreitungsgebiet identisch? Werden thanks as well to the staff at a number Glockenbecher in manchen Regionen akzeptiert, in anderen nicht? of museums, especially Haderslev Ausgangspunkt der Studie ist eine repräsentative Stichprobe von Museum, Vesthimmerlands Muse- Keramik aus Bejsebakken, einer Glockenbecher-Siedlung in Nordjüt- um, Randers Museum, Skive Muse- www.jungsteinSITE.de land. Die räumliche Verteilung der Keramik innerhalb der Siedlung um, Viborg Museum, the museum at dürfte Lernmuster und, als Konsequenz, matrimoniale Traditionen Sønderskov and Grenå Museum, for providing information and kind as- widerspiegeln. Dies hat Konsequenzen für das Verständnis spätneo- sistance when I was looking through lithischer Gesellschaften. Am Ende des Artikels werden Einflussrich- their collections. Finally, I am indebt- tungen auf die dänischen Glockenbecher diskutiert: Der Autor sieht ed to Palle Siemen for letting me use die dänischen Glockenbecher nicht als Resultat einer einzigen, son- an unpublished drawing of the beak- dern zahlreicher Einflussrichtungen. er from Solbakkegård. 2 Contents 1. Introduction . 2 2. Bell Beaker Pottery. The display of social identities? . 4 3. The Danish Bell Beakers – a case study. 9 Torben Sarauw Torben 3.1 Bejsebakken – close to the northern border of Bell Beakers?. 9 September 15, 2007 3.2 Comments on contexts and source criticism . 11 3.3 Definitions and classification . 15 www.jungsteinSITE.de 3.4 The pottery from Bejesebakken . 17 3.4.1 General charcterisation . 17 3.4.2 Ornamentation techniques . 19 3.4.3 Decoration . 22 On the Outskirts Bell of the European 3.4.4 Spatial distribution . 25 Beaker Phenomenon – the Danish Phenomenon Case Beaker 4. Expanding the context of distribution: Beaker pottery at other Danish sites and in graves . 29 5. Notes on the Bell Beaker chronology in Jutland . 36 6. Bell Beaker culture in Europe – directions of influence. 38 7. Conclusion: Bell Beaker Culture in Denmark – shared identities or a remote outpost?. 43 8. Catalogues . 48 8.1 Catalogue A. Settlement sites with Bell Beaker pottery . 48 8.2 Catalogue B. Burials with straight-walled or curved beakers with Bell Beaker-like ornament. 50 9. References. 52 1. Introduction Following a general European development, new traditions in material culture emerge in the central and northern parts of Jut- land in the form of Bell Beaker-like pottery and bifacial flint dag- gers about 2350 BC (cf. Lomborg 1973; Vandkilde 2001; 2005). This change in material culture marks the end of the Single Grave Cul- ture (SGC) and the beginning of the Late Neolithic (LN). These chang- es coincide with a general prosperity and innovation in material cul- ture embedded within the Bell Beaker-phenomenon and the Early Bronze Age cultures of central Europe (cf. Shennan 1993, 154 ff.; Sher- ratt 1987, 84 ff.). In Jutland, besides the new and special pottery – the Bell Beakers – the influences from the continent resulted indirect- ly in new types of weapons in flint: bifacial flint daggers and pres- sure-flaked arrowheads (Sarauw 2007). Furthermore, both weaving and metallurgy gained a footing in domestic life and culture. The lat- ter led to the first Danish production of copper flat axes (Vandkilde 1996, 177 ff.), whereas weaving is documented through several finds of loom weights on settlement sites (cf. Jensen 1972, 90; Rindel 1993; Sarauw 2006, 39). Also the dispersal of new customs within mortu- ary practises such as tiered graves, archery graves, and sometimes cremations indicate that also religious practices in some measure followed the networks of exchange or interaction, and that at least some people in Denmark and elsewhere were aware of what was going on in other areas. However, new customs were not blindly ac- cepted and adopted. This is shown by the fact that most Bell Beaker equipment in central Europe and on the British Isles occurs in graves (cf. Clarke 1970, 4), whereas the Danish beakers are mostly found on settlement sites (cf. Boas 1993; Simonsen 1983; Møbjerg/Mikkelsen 2005; Nielsen 2004). Furthermore, the distribution of Bell Beakers is not to be seen as representing a homogenous coherent culture. On the contrary, Bell Beaker material culture appears with small dis- placements in time and usually as smaller bound beaker islands next to various types of local Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age groupings in material culture (cf. Vandkilde 2005, 30). 3 The high degree of resemblance between Bell Beakers all over Eu- rope, especially the curved profile and the ornamentation – wheth- er found in a cave in Spain, in connection with henges in Britain, or in a sunken house in Denmark – naturally gives rise to more ques- 1 Torben Sarauw Torben tions than answers. One might in particular ask what meanings were attached to the special ornamentation on Bell Beakers and if September 15, 2007 the patterns made sense to people from other areas within the to- www.jungsteinSITE.de tal distribution of the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Furthermore, did the beakers have the same symbolic value in the vast areas of dis- tribution reflecting perhaps some kind of social identity? Or was the meaning of the pottery totally changed when adapted in other areas On the Outskirts Bell of the European Beaker Phenomenon – the Danish Phenomenon Case Beaker and adjusted to various local contexts? As the majority of thin sec- tion analyses document the Danish Bell Beaker pottery might never have left the household and apparently did not travel far. This raises the question what messages the beakers conferred? And for whom these messages were intended? These questions and more will be further discussed in the next chapter of this paper, which discusses both ethnographic material and theory from social anthropology. Thus, without a theoretical ap- proach, archaeology might relapse to concerning only descriptions of objects and archaeological 'cultures', instead of revealing some fundamental aspects of social practice. This would be a pity since we know from several ethnoarchaeological studies that the symbolic meaning of material culture is multiple and seldom straightforward (cf. Hodder 1986, 109 ff.; Miller 1985). Criticism has been raised against the use of ethnographic parallels in archaeology because "… we can never use the present of one socie- ty simply to interpret the past of another" (Gosden 1999, 9 and oth- ers). However, ethnographic analogies provide us with indispensa- ble models for interpreting material culture and translating the past (Costin 2000, 399 f.; Weedman 2006, 248). Furthermore, the resem- blances in material culture, disposal, settlement pattern and so forth in societies regardless of temporal and spatial distances cannot sim- ply be ignored. On the contrary, they suggest that some processes regarding occupation, social organisation, exchange, technological choices, gender and so on might have been the same or similar (cf. David/Kramer 2001; Hegmon 2000; Hodder 1978; Kramer 1985). Bell Beaker material culture as connected to the display of social identity will provide the theoretical background of the subsequent contextual analysis of a selection of Danish Bell Beaker pottery. In- spiration is therefore sought in the work of scholars such as Barth, Jenkins, Hobsbawm and others. The pottery is the focus of the in- vestigation because it constitutes the core of the Bell Beaker 'pack- age'. Indeed, without this special kind of pottery and ornamentation it would be difficult to maintain a Bell Beaker concept. The point of departure, though, is a comprehensive selection of pottery from a recently excavated key site, Bejsebakken, compris- ing 23 Late Neolithic houses and 17,950 potsherds. This strategy is chosen due to the general lack of knowledge about the early Late Neolithic Bell Beaker-like pottery in Denmark and the Late Neolithic context in which it emerges. Furthermore, this approach provides a large body of comparative material, as well as some interesting de- tails concerning the internal distribution of ornaments within the site. This distribution might hypothetically be wholly or in part root- 1 In this article the term 'meaning' re- ed in chronological differences.