Bronze Age DF27

Above, Bell Beaker burial from Shrewton, England, 2470–2210 BC. TobyEditor - Own work.  Late Neolithic, 2470–2210 BC.  Photographed at the Salisbury Museum., link

All-Over-Ornamented (AOO) beakers, first found in Corded Ware graves, possibly came from Single Grave Culture in the Netherlands, northeast France, Belgium and northwest Germany and were emulated up and down the Atlantic network.  The Boscombe Bowmen's grave near Stonehenge in Wiltshire c. 2290 CB included seven Corded Ware-like All-Over-Ornamented beakers and one CZM (Cord-Zoned-Maritime) vessel. 

The Boscombe Bowman

Many Bell Beaker remains return a P310/L151 result through lack of coverage from the ancient samples.  On 19th February 2018 it was reported, through analysis of the Olalde et al. 2018 raw data, that I2416: 2460–2200 calBCE 'belonged to Y haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a~L151, and possibly to R1b1a1a2a1a2a6~Y8397'.  Y8397 is YFull's lead SNP name for Rox2.  FGC11381 (the Rox2 SNP present in I2416's .bam file) is not on ISOGG's tree, so did not show up in the original paper.  I2416 is one of the 'Boscombe Bowmen'.  He was the main in situ articulated adult burial (burial 25004) buried lying on his left side, facing east, with his head to the north.  I2416 was aged 30-45 when he died and had a well-healed, probable multiple major fracture to his upper left femur near the hip.  Nowadays similar injuries are sustained by victims of high speed car or plane crashes.  The Boscombe Bowman would have been incapacitated for several months and probably later walked with a limp. 

Gilles Otten was kind enough to look at the .bam file and confirmed I2416 is indeed positive for P310 and FGC11381, a SNP in Rox2's large phylogenetically equivalent SNP block.  Based on online estimates accessed in 2023, the Rox2 block formed 4100 ybp, margin of error 5200-3200 ybp (YFull) or 2100 BCE, margin of error 2749-1502 BCE (FTDNA Discover).  Rox2's large block of equivalent SNPs, bearing in mind the large margin of error inherent in all age estimates, may therefore have been founded around the time of the Boscombe Bowman (2460–2200 calBCE).  However, all SNPs lying between P310 and FGC11381 are missing from I2416's .bam file (also later confirmed by R. Rocca and A. Williamson).  Those SNPs are not negative or positive, they are simply missing from the .bam file.  The confirmation that SNPs in the chain between L151 and FGC11381 are present is crucial for a confident identification.  The FGC11381+ call is real.  Deamination can occur in ancient yDNA resulting in false C>T or G>A calls and FGC11381 is a C>T call.  However, the possibility that I2416 is DF27+ can't be ruled out based on current evidence but, equally, it can't be ruled in either.  A number of degraded ancient samples have further SNP calls that help to clearly highlight a 'false positive' result.  That is not the case for I2416, the Boscombe Bowman.  

If FGC11381 turns out to be too young, i.e. if future modern NGS tests split the phylogenetically equivalent block and FGC11381 is in the more recent of section of the two new blocks, we can easily rule out the possibility that Rox2 might be very distantly related to the Boscombe Bowman - the FGC11381+ call for the c. 4300 year-old Boscombe Bowman would be proven to be a false positive result.  Coincidentally, the nearby burial of the 'Amesbury Archer' and a c. 2500 BC Corded Ware burial (Tauber_CWC:ALT_4) from the Tauber valley in Germany got the same R1b-P310* result - their SNPs downstream of P310 were also missing.  Regardless of I2416's uncertain haplogroup designation it is interesting to look in detail at these early widely-travelled Bell Beaker burials from an important period in the history of the British Isles.

There were at least six other males in the grave, including three under-tens, two young adults and a teenager.  There could have been nine or ten individuals altogether.  It is thought that some of these individuals might be Boscombe Bowman I2416's children because of similar skull bones but a familial relationship is not certain.  Disarticulated bone sample I2417/25005 is R1b-P312>L21 and is listed as a 3rd degree relation to I2416 (great-grandparents, great grandchildren, great uncles, and first cousins).  See Table 1 in Olalde et al. Supplementary Data.  This might seem odd when I2416 and I2417 appear to have different paternal ancestry, different maternal ancestry (K1b1a1 and J1c respectively) and significantly differing amounts of steppe autosomal ancestry.  Cousins can occasionally have very different ancestry profiles - especially after a few intervening generations.  L21 I2417's disarticulated bone fragments are above I2416's intact skeleton, indicating that they could have been deposited later.  The age assigned to I2417's bone comes from the dating of the Bowman's tomb, situated below it.  There was no radiocarbon testing on the I2417 bone itself.  The modern roadworks caused damage to the site and remains might have been disturbed.  

The Boscombe Bowmen's tomb (25000) looks like a Neolithic collective grave, perhaps in use over some time.  It was originally a flat grave with a wooden chamber that could be reopened for access - with no mound above.  The report states that I2417 was possibly originally buried above the wooden lid of the collective grave - falling through into the chamber when the lid decayed.  I2417 is related to people with far more steppe DNA than average, I2416 has less steppe DNA than average (59% continental Beaker, 41% Neolithic farmer).  Unlike I2416, probable DF27+ burial I0806 from Quedlinburg, Germany had high steppe autosomal DNA.  A large burial mound was built over the existing Boscombe Bowman's grave later in the Bronze Age.  Olalde et al. Supplementary Info:

The ‘Boscombe Bowmen’ grave was later marked by a Bronze Age barrow, which in turn became the focus for a small cemetery.

Above, Stonehenge, Diego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, link

An argument could be made that this Neolithic chamber is I2416's family tomb.  I2416/25004 is the main in situ burial and had been placed centrally in the grave among older collections of disarticulated bones.  There are (possibly curated) bundles of bones, incomplete disarticulated bits and pieces of bodies, some possibly added at different times and some being brought from other graves.  It appears that the far-travelled I2416 Boscombe Bowman had some northern European ancestry (Corded ware/Dutch Bell Beaker/Battle Axe?) but with a strong autosomal link to the southern/western Neolithic non-steppe Bell Beaker folk.  Local I2417 (L21+) had no southern admixture and was northern Corded Ware/Dutch Bell Beaker-like, on the opposite end of the scale.

The wide-ranging connections reflected in the material culture may be the result of wide-ranging and rapid journeys, some of which were along the coasts of the Atlantic, the Channel, and the North Sea.  At this time Ireland seems to have faced the Atlantic, and this may have been the route by which the Boscombe Bowmen travelled to Britain.  Theirs is the earliest Bell Beaker grave yet found in Britain, and despite the Amesbury Archer’s different childhood residence, he may have made, at least in part, a similar journey.  Early finds in western Scotland may also look to the Irish Sea and the south rather than the east.  At the very least, the proposed Rhineland links that have for so long been a mainstay of interpretations of how the Bell Beaker Set arrived in Britain may now be questioned.  A. Fitzpatrick, THE ARRIVAL OF THE BELL BEAKER SET IN BRITAIN AND IRELAND

All of the eight pots in the Boscombe Bowmen's grave (the largest number of Bell Beakers found in one grave in Britain) are early types of direct continental European influence and share similarities with the five vessels in the grave of the Amesbury Archer (1289).  Grave goods included seven Corded Ware-like AOO (All-Over-Ornamented) beakers and one CZM (Cord-Zoned-Maritime) vessel. 

The pots were all made locally and although there are similarities between them and All-Over-Cord beakers from the Lower Rhineland and also northern and western France (Barclay 2011), the Lower Rhine biosphere is excluded as one of the childhood residences of the Boscombe Bowmen.  A. Fitzpatrick. 

Some think CZM are classic Bell Beaker pots and AOO more of a hybrid between Single Grave Culture/Corded Ware and Bell Beaker Culture vessels that came about in the lower Rhine area.  There appears to be room for debate on the subject. 

While the pots have similarities with those found the Lower Rhine, a region where single burial was practiced, there are also ceramic parallels with northern and western France. A. Fitzpatrick. 

The grave has been much-disturbed, not only by a water pipe and electricity cable being recently driven through it, but also from careless interference (breaking of the pots etc.) in antiquity.  It is likely the original grave assemblage is incomplete.

Because of the nature of the grave it is difficult to directly associate any of the grave goods with a particular individual with complete confidence.  Olalde et al Supplementary Information.

Illustration above from The Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen, A. P. Fitzpatrick, 2013

The 'Boscombe Bowmen' are buried 700 metres north of the similar-in-age 'Amesbury Archer' (1289) and 'The Companion' (1238).  The Archer's grave was also a flat grave with a wooden chamber.  Flat graves were reused by early Beaker Folk.  The Amesbury Archer probably came from central Europe, near the Alps.  Like the Boscombe Bowman, the Amesbury Archer also had a leg injury.  He lost his left kneecap in an accident and had to walk by swinging his straight left leg.

Although this place of residence could, in very broad geographical terms, have been not far from those of the Boscombe Bowmen, it was in a different region.  A. Fitzpatrick. 

The Boscombe Bowmen's grave is older than the Amesbury Archer's grave but the Archer was alive at the time of the last burial in the Bowman's grave (2380-2290 BC at 68% probability).  The first of the Boscombe Bowmen to die did so around 2500–2340 cal BC.  The Amesbury Archer's remains are the same age as the child's remains (25007) in the Boscombe Bowman's grave.  I2416, the Boscombe Bowman's remains (2470–2200 calBCE), might be a little younger than the Amesbury Archer's.  The Companion is also potentially slightly older than I2416.  Both the I2416 Bowman and 1289 Archer were around the same age when they died and were buried on their left hand sides with the same kind of western European-style beakers.  They were both travellers through distant lands but the L21+ Companion, buried three meters away from the Amesbury Archer, had local origins in southern Britain - although he travelled later in life.  Initial analysis of the Amesbury Archer's bones produced no readable yDNA and the Archer did not appear in the Olalde et al. results in 2018.

A few metres away from the grave of the Amesbury Archer was the burial of a 20–25 year-old man who had died a generation, possibly two, after him (2350–2260 cal BC ).  The presence of a rare trait in the bones of their feet demonstrates that the two were biologically related though whether as, for example, father/son or uncle/nephew cannot be determined.  The oxygen isotopes also suggest that the younger man may also have travelled to continental Europe.  A. Fitzpatrick.   

Foot anomalies can be inherited from any relations, not just the paternal line.  It is unlikely they were father and son because the transfer of the non-metric trait in the feet of the Archer and Companion skips a generation.  Indeed, new analysis in Large-scale migration into Britain during the Middle to Late Bronze Age, Nick Patterson et al., 2021, Nature, completely ruled out a 1st degree or 2nd degree relationship between the Archer (I14200) and the L21 Companion (I2565).  

When their different ages at death are taken into account, the radiocarbon determinations appear compatible with a great-grandfather and great-grandson relationship, with a measured probability using the OxCal programme that that the Archer died up to 80 years before the Companion. The caveats must be added that there is considerable potential overlap in the dates, though, and other biological relationships cannot be excluded., link

Above, the Amesbury Archer, Wiltshire Archaeology Gallery at Salisbury Museum, Richard Avery, link

There was caution about the R1b1a1b1a1a2b, or R1b-U152>L2, yDNA result from the Archer's very low quality sample.  The downstream SNP detected,  i.e. SK2111, is too young to belong to the Early Bronze Age Amesbury Archer ('formed 850 ybp, TMRCA 850 ybp', YFull).  

R-SK2111 : Is actually Y142494 (1T) at the SK2111 level, but this subclade has an approximate TMRCA of 850 YBP, so entirely too young. Very low quality sample.  R. Rocca.  

FTDNA Discovery analysis was only able to find R1b-L151 (equivalent to P310) from the Amesbury Archer.  As mentioned, the Boscombe Bowman, buried nearby at Amesbury, was also found to be P310* but he did have a read for a downstream SNP that potentially could be old enough, i.e. FGC11381 from Rox2's large ancient phylogenetically equivalent block.  Like the Boscombe Bowman, it seems that the Amesbury Archer was non-local, had high EEF ancestry and difficult-to-read or nonexistent yDNA downstream of R1b-P310.  It is unfortunate that possibly two of the most important intact skeletons yet found in Beaker Britain produced such poor quality yDNA samples.

The Archer and Bowman's skulls were both intact and analysis of the internal petrous bone usually gives high yields of useful DNA for NGS testing.  Bee Low man, buried in Derbyshire in a round barrow in 2200–2030 cal BC, appears similarly well-preserved but seems to have presented no yDNA information either.  From the Olalde et al. 2018 Supplementary Information p. 106,: 

Some of the discoveries are of international importance and include the Beaker burials known as the ‘Amesbury Archer’ and the ‘Boscombe Bowmen’.  The site forms part of the wider Stonehenge monumental and funerary landscape.

The site has some of the best evidence from Britain for early Beaker non-local connections indicated by isotopic (strontium/oxygen) analysis and material culture providing direct links with mainland Europe – in particular the ‘Amesbury Archer’.'  'Burials 25004 and 25005 are two individuals from the collective burial known as the ‘Boscombe Bowmen’, a type of burial that is unique to the site and generally difficult to parallel in Wessex and Britain as a whole.

The Boscombe Bowman's much-disturbed tomb is the oldest at the site.  The Amesbury Archer's grave is the richest early Bell Beaker burial yet discovered in Britain, containing the oldest gold objects ever found there.  The local-origin P312-L21 'companions' in the respective graves seem to be the only ones in the vicinity with clear yDNA subclade definition below P312.  Hopefully better yDNA results can be gained from I2416 and 1289 one day. 

Models show that the burials of the Boscombe Bowmen, the Amesbury Archer and The Companion belong to an early phase of Beaker activity that starts between 2480 and 2340 cal BC (at 68% probability) for the Amesbury Archer in a single grave and between 2510 and 2300 cal BC (at 68% probability) for the Boscombe Bowmen in a 'collective'/single grave.  Tooth isotopes indicate the Archer might have grown up in the Alps and the Bowman might have grown up in a place far from Stonehenge in a location surrounded by ancient radioactive rocks.  Rocky parts of Wales are the nearest geographical match but parts of Scotland, the Lake District or continental Europe (Brittany, Portugal, the Massif Central and the Black Forest) have very similar isotopic signatures.  Therefore it is not known for certain where the Boscombe Bowman and the Amesbury Archer came from, several locations further south in continental Europe are possible. The Boscombe Bowman (I2416)'s high southern/western Neolithic ancestry suggests that an origin in southwestern Europe is quite possible.

Early P312 Bell Beaker groups living near the middle of the Rhine's course might have followed the Grand Pressigny trade route where intermarriage led to more western and southern auDNA in the population than their Corded Ware relations further north.  The Rhône culture, the Swiss and east French counterpart of the Early Bronze Age cultures of central Europe, may have contained early DF27 males.  DF27-heavy tribes might have moved west and entered north and western France (Amorica) and Iberia from the earlier northern and eastern European homeland of steppe-origin R1b-P312 Corded Ware/Single Grave/Bell Beaker peoples - becoming involved in the Neolithic Atlantic Bell Beaker trade routes.  Those DF27 clans probably became the seafarers of the northern and southern trade routes in the wide Atlantic Bronze Age maritime network that stretched from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia.  Later, during the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the centuries either side of 1000 BC, hillforts began to appear along the whole Atlantic maritime region and in central and northern Europe.  After a lapse, the Atlantic Bronze Age springs to life.  The Castro culture (culture of the hillforts) appeared in the early first millennia BC in northwest Iberia.  Atlantic metalwork and metalworking influence suddenly show up in the late first millennium BC in great abundance and numerous hoards were deposited in hillforts.  Material coming from the central Mediterranean and beyond mixed with Atlantic elements and travelled north.

Above left, Guadalajara sword (Spain), National Archaeological Museum, link.  Above right, Mold gold cape (Wales), Mark Ramsey

Amorica, the part of Gaul between the Seine and the Loire that includes the Brittany Peninsula, was the central point on that Atlantic network had links with the Middle Bronze Age Wessex culture of southern England and the Hilversum culture of the Netherlands and northern Belgium.  A sword with gold hilt, pictured above, from Guadalajara in central Spain dating to c. 1800 - 1500 BC shows some stylistic similarities with the Mold gold cape (c. 1900–1600 BC).

Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, claims that Armorica was the older name for Aquitania and states Armorica's southern boundary extended to the Pyrenees. Taking into account the Gaulish origin of the name, that is perfectly correct and logical, as Aremorica is not a country name but a word that describes a type of geographical region, one that is by the sea. Pliny lists the following Celtic tribes as living in the area: the Aedui and Carnuteni as having treaties with Rome; the Meldi and Secusiani as having some measure of independence; and the Boii, Senones, Aulerci (both the Eburovices and Cenomani), the Parisii, Tricasses, Andicavi, Viducasses, Bodiocasses, Veneti, Coriosvelites, Diablinti, Rhedones, Turones, and the Atseui., Wikipedia, link

The Parisii tribe, mentioned above, may have links with East Yorkshire where several DF27 burials were found in Iron Age Arras culture cemeteries.  See Iron Age DF27 page.

Unlike the women of the British Isles and Ireland after the arrival of R1b-P312, Neolithic women of the Iberian peninsular appear to have had children with the new arrivals.  Perhaps the steppe-origin Bell Beakers in Britain were accompanied by wives from the same Corded Ware/Single Grave Culture territory - those of Atlantic Europe might have consisted of more transient bands of seafaring warriors/traders on the Atlantic coast who married into the local populations.  I2416, the Boscombe Bowman, was not local to England, had low steppe/high Neolithic 'EEF' or 'southern' European auDNA admixture and was buried in a part of the world that had high steppe admixture and largely R1b-P312>L21 yDNA.  He was buried in a collective grave similar to those used by Neolithic Europeans of the southwest of Europe and his grave goods were Atlantic Maritime Beaker in origin.  I2416 might be an outsider in southern England but he is the central in situ articulated burial surrounded by bundles of disarticulated, curated bones from many individuals.  Single burials are a feature of the incoming Rhenish Corded Ware/SGC (high steppe L21?) culture from the Low Countries/Rhineland and some pots in the Bowman's grave had stylistic influence from this region too.

Isotopic analysis of teeth is best for determining where an individual didn't come from, it is not as good for showing where they did come from - there are many areas that share similar isotopic signatures.  It is not currently possible to identify precise 'homelands' for either of the Boscombe Down migrants but it does look like they probably travelled between interaction networks of Bell Beaker 'hubs' dotted around Europe.  In general the objects in the Amesbury Archer's grave, like those in the nearby Boscombe Bowman's tomb, are western European (Atlantic) in origin, not central European.  Two knives in the Archer's grave might originate in northern Spain, one in western France - they were cast with purified copper that came from France and Spain.  Steppe ancestry was probably higher in Corded Ware derived cultures in northern Europe (Dutch Bell Beaker, SGC) and lower in France and Iberian Bell Beaker at this time.  Of I2416's grave goods, the continental plaited cord design on beakers and the bow pendant of a 'rare but widely distributed European type', suggest a continental origin in the south.

The Archer and Bowman arrived at Stonehenge in around 2300 BC (mid-range of dates) and that coincides with Phase 3 III (2400 BC to 2280 BC) - a time when the first bluestones were being altered and re-erected within the sarsen circle - a later phase in the monument's long history.  The large iconic sarsen stones at Stonehenge had been erected in Phase 3 II of its life (c. 2600 BC to 2400 BC).  The mtDNA of both I2416 and relation I2417 (K1b1a1 and J1c respecitively) was probably already present in both Britain and Iberia/France before 2400 BC.  Non-steppe Neolithic European farmer ancestry reduced dramatically after the arrival of Rhenish/Dutch Bell Beaker folk with high steppe ancestry.  Both the I2416 and I2417 distant relations were found in the same grave but disarticulated L21+ I2417, with different yDNA and mtDNA to I2416 and with very high steppe/Corded Ware ancestry, is higher in the archaeological layers and could be from a later burial - the bone wasn't carbon dated and its age was inferred from the contents of the collective grave below where the main in situ articulated burial had low steppe auDNA.

The Bowmen's burial site overlooks the massive Durrington Walls henge and Stonehenge is 4 km away across the River Avon.  They were some of the most well-known temples in prehistoric Europe and were places of pilgrimage from across the whole of the northwestern Isles and continental Europe.  There seems to have been great importance placed in the act of long-distance pilgrimage and exploration in Europe of the mid-2000s BC.  At one point in prehistory (a few centuries before the Archer and Bowman were born), R1b-P312>DF27 subclades, i.e. dozens of 'sons' of Mr. DF27, appear to have branched off immediately in a large star burst pattern of parallel male lineages.  From about 2700-2500 BC the dozens of closely-related parallel DF27 branches could have moved across all of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware Europe in any direction.  Distant cousin L21, a descendant of R1b-P312, at the same time appears to have gone through an early bottleneck (no branching) that went on for a few hundred years before experiencing a later star burst of parallel DF13 branches in the vicinity of the British Isles and Ireland.  The earliest DF27 descendant found so far is Z195+ GBVPK from c. 2380 BC in southeastern France.  One of the earliest L21 descendants to be dated so far is The Companion in Wiltshire from c. 2300 BC.  The R1b-P310* Archer and Bowman lived at a time of change in northwest Europe. 

Image of Boscombe Bowman grave goods, above, from Wessex Archaeology's webpage, link

I2416's journey north may have been by that same Maritime Beaker route that the Amesbury Archer took - both far-travelled men probably came from the European mainland but from different regions.  The so-called Atlantic façade along which the megalithic influence and Maritime Beaker travelled was much bigger than the Atlantic coast itself, and included the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Denmark, North Germany,  Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, northwest France, northern Spain, and Portugal.  Influence also reached east from Iberia into the Mediterranean region, including southern and southeastern Spain, southern France, the Islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and the Balearics, Apulia, northern Italy, and Switzerland.  Tin, copper and gold mines in Britain and Ireland drew the Atlantic Bronze Age traders and warriors from Iberia to the northwest of Europe, around the North Sea and on to Scandinavia.  Tin was the primary commodity in the Bronze Age and there were vast amounts of it in the west (Iberia, Brittany and Cornwall). 

In North America pioneers went west on a difficult and dangerous journey relatively recently.  The exploration of Britain, Scandinavia and eastern Europe by Bell Beaker people in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age was possibly a similarly difficult pioneering undertaking.  The Amesbury Archer and Boscombe Bowman were injured foreigners in the heart of Bell Beaker England and their injuries suggest they may have had contact with horses, although evidence of horse riding has not been found in Britain at that time.  Other Bell Beaker burials have been found with evidence in their bones of their having ridden horses.  DF27>Z195+ ALM039, the male burial from a high status 3rd phase Argaric Bronze Age grave at La Almoloya, Murcia, Spain (1740 - 1533 cal BC, lab code MAMS-22231):

exhibits a traumatic injury to the left squamous portion of the frontal bone, which had fully healed long before death. The individual also exhibits activity-related skeletal markers, defined by roughed surfaces of muscle attachment sites, upper limb asymmetry and robusticity, and extensive lower limb remodelling associated with bilateral flexion of the hip and knee joints, abduction of the legs and the need to stabilise the pelvis. All of these indicators point to intensive, long-term physical activity, and are possibly consistent with horse riding.  Molleson and Blondiaux 1994; Capasso, Kennedy and Wilczak 1999, link.  

U152 Burial I6581, R-L2+ 2455–2145 calBCE (3825±35 BP, Poz-66185) Kornice, Poland, from Olalde et al 2018: 'Poirier’s facet, often observed in horse riders, is evident.'

The study,  Bell Beaker cultural package in the East European periphery of the phenomenon a case of ritual features in north-eastern Poland, Dariusz Manasterski et al., 2020, unearthed evidence of pioneering Bell Beaker travellers as far away as northeastern Poland: link.  This is the furthest east that the Bell Beaker package has been found.  The belongings of an archer in 'feature 6', i.e. 17 arrow heads, were similar to numbers, but different in design (SW Norway or Czech), to those belonging to the Amesbury Archer in England.  There were fragmentary artifacts buried in 'bags' with origins all across the Maritime Bell Beaker world in western Europe - from the southwest up to the English Channel, across to Jutland and then along the southern shores of the Baltic Sea.  There was an Iberian decorated slate pendant among the finds as well as pottery with local Corded Ware influences.  The features contained eight artifacts made of succinite (Baltic amber).  Six were cylindrical beads.

Cylindrical amber beads are known from BB contexts, but their territorial range is basically limited to  the  British  Isles.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to get a firm date from the burned bones.  Dates obtained from radiocarbon dating of carbon on a bowl fragment gave a very early date (3976–3799 cal BC).  This date was rejected as it is 1000 years before Bell Beaker emerged.

Above: Gold cup from Wachberg-Fritzdorf, c.1800–1600 BC, Wikimedia, link

The Únětice culture from c. 2200 BC - c. 1600 BC, probably a mix of Bell Beaker and Corded Ware people, had trade links (metals) with British Wessex culture.  Bell Beaker groups had gone to Britain, including at Ross Island in Ireland, mining for copper in 2400 BC.  From 2000 BC - 1400 BC Britain was an important source for copper.  Prehistoric mining at the Great Orme mine in Wales produced enough malachite to make 11 million bronze axe heads.  In northern England, at Middleton Tyas in North Yorkshire, a naturally-occurring source of copper was probably mined in the Bronze Age.  The area had ancient trans-Pennine links with the west of the British Isles and across to Ireland.  Maritime connections may have brought tin from Cornwall to the north of England to be combined with the Yorkshire copper to produce bronze.  

The Nebra sky disk, above, found in Germany, is said to be associated with Únětice culture.  The gold and tin used in the first phase of its construction came from Cornwall, not far from Amesbury/Stonehenge.  A later addition to the decoration on the object (c. 1600 BC) is a 'feathered sky ship' on the disc's rim - this is said to possibly represent a new religion that arose in the Scandinavian Bronze Age with the disc being transformed into an emblem of that mythology.  The ship carries the sun.  In 2021 a 1850-1700 BC woman's burial from the Tübingen district of southwest Germany was found to contain a gold artifact, the oldest known gold object to be found in Germany, that had origins in Cornwall. 

In many regions burials connected with Corded Ware look very similar to the textbook Bell Beaker burials, with a dominant north–south instead of west–east orientation, or with a reversed gender-specific body placement. In addition, many Early Bronze Age ‘cultures’ directly following Corded Ware and Bell Beakers, such as the Únětice, Mierzanowice, or Nitra in Central Europe, the Nordic ‘Late Neolithic’ and Early Bronze Age in southern Scandinavia, or Wessex have also very similar burial rituals. Martin Furholt, 2019, link.

Recently, the Únětice culture has been cited as a pan-European cultural phenomenon whose influence covered large areas due to intensive exchange, with Únětice pottery and bronze artefacts found from Ireland to Scandinavia, the Italian Peninsula, and the Balkans.  As such, it is candidate for a late community connecting a continuum of already scattered North-West Indo-European languages ancestral to Italic, Celtic, and Germanic, and perhaps Balto-Slavic, where words were frequently exchanged and a common lexicon and certain regional isoglosses were shared., Wikipedia, link. 

Late Neolithic period burials (2300/2250-1700 BC) discussed in the Mapping human mobility during the third and second millennia BC in present-day Denmark, Karin Margarita FreiI et al., 2019 paper, from Hellested on Zealand (page 12), suggest a link to Únětice culture.  One burial, RISE 57, has a ring-headed pin.  

Furthermore, three of them have radiocarbon dates that overlap (RISE 55, 56 and 57).

Map, above, showing possible flows and routes of metal from the mining districts in Europe to Scandinavia in the Bronze Age.  Adapted by me to show approximate locations of highest frequency of the 'big three' R1b-P312 subclades.  From The ‘Stranger King’ (bull) and rock art, Johan Ling and Michael Rowlands (pdf)

R1b-P312 appears to have arrived in Scandinavia in the Late Neolithic and it is also there later in the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 1700–500 BC).  Data from Population Genomics of Stone Age Eurasia, Morten E. Allentoft et al., 2022, link, suggests that R1b genomes that cluster with Únětice and La Tene appear in Scandinavia after around 2000 BC.  Únětice from Central Europe had exerted influence and traded in the North in the centuries before the Nordic Bronze Age.  The mainland Únětice commercial network collapsed in around 1600 BC and Scandinavia then gained access to, and became very influenced by, Mediterranean cultures arriving with metals, animals, art and other innovative things from the south along the Bronze Age Atlantic maritime network.  The construction of the sturdy ocean-going ships may have gained great technical improvements through the sharing of ship building techniques between people on the north/south maritories.  Amber was taken south in exchange for metal - in the form of oxhide-shaped ingots.  From The ‘Stranger King’ (bull) and rock art, Johan Ling and Michael Rowland:

The bull image itself (content) may have been an inflow from southern Europe since the South Scandinavian Rock Art Tradition (ST) starts to flourish at the same time that Scandinavia became deeply involved and interlinked with the European metal networks, 1700–1500 BC. It is now proven that Scandinavia obtained copper from the Aegean World 1700–1500 BC (Ling et al. 2013), where the bull image was an established feature of ritual. In western Sweden the bull image became incorporated into the new custom of making rock art where it ensured the durability of the War canoes. In a sense the introduction of the bull image in rock art is an introduction of the ‘Stranger King’.

Image, above, from The ‘Stranger King’ (bull) and rock art, Johan Ling and Michael Rowlands (pdf).  Also see Anthropomorphised warlike beings with horned helmets: Bronze Age Scandinavia, Sardinia, and Iberia compared, Helle Vandkilde et al., 2021, link

Analysis reveals intriguing patterns of similarity and difference between the three zones [a southern zone in Sardinia and adjoining parts of Corsica, a middle zone in southwestern Iberia, and a northern zone in southern Scandinavia] of horned-helmet imagery 1000–750  BC. The results point to actors and processes at the local level while also pinpointing interconnections. Across all three contexts, horns signify the potency of the helmet wearer, the quintessential warrior. Horns visualise a defined group of bellicose beings whose significance stems from commemorative and mortuary rites, sites, and beliefs – in conjunction with political processes. We suggest that the eye-catching imagery of very particular males wearing horned insignia relates on the one hand to local control of metals and on the other to the transfer of novel beliefs and cults involving embodied gigantisation. It is characteristic that the horned figure is adapted into some settings, but only sparingly or not at all in others. This imagery has a complex  history, with Levantine roots in the LBA Mediterranean. The Scandinavian addendum to the network coincides with the metal-led Phoenician expansion and consolidation in the west from c. 1000 BC. A Mediterranean–Atlantic sea route is suggested, independent of the otherwise flourishing transalpine trading route., link.

The timing of the appearance of ships and horned figures in the North in around 1000 BC appears to coincide with the construction  of hillfort settlements and the expansion of yDNA lineages and potentially may have led to the formation of new social systems.  Their arrival, vividly illustrated at Scandinavian rock art sites, could have affected early beliefs, political systems and 'proto' languages.  From A sea beyond Europe to the north and west, Johan Ling & John Koch, 2018:  

By the Early Bronze Age this advanced technology is reflected by finds of plank-built boats in Britain, as early as c. 2000 BC (Van de Noort 2011). Based on the distribution of settlements, Beaker groups were probably the first Europeans to use boats for major trade.

Between 2000-1300 BC there is continued evidence of interaction along the Atlantic Façade (Brandherm 2007), but also of a partial lull or hiatus in some parts and ‘post-Beaker’ regional fragmentation; the connections are less pronounced than in the preceding phase. From 2000–1700 BC, copper then bronze halberds are widely distributed (Horn 2014), and depictions of halberds on rock occur from south Portugal to southern Scandinavia. Moreover, the fact that Scandinavia is the area outside the British Isles with the most numerous finds of typical British and Irish Early Bronze Age copper-alloy axes indicates that well established maritime trade routes were maintained between these remote regions.

The picture changes about 1600 BC, at which point Scandinavia is getting copper from Wales: several swords from Denmark were made with copper consistent with the Great Orme mine (Melheim et al.,in press). Towards the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, a renewed cycle of economic activity starts in Atlantic Europe, visible in the increased exchange of metals, coinciding with a renewed ideological commitment in rock art (Almagro Basch 1966; Koch 2013a; Vandkilde 2013; Ling et. al 2014; Ling & Uhnér 2015). The rise of advanced seafaring and long-distance exchange along the Atlantic Façade are essential components of this post-Beaker re-integration of western Europe (Earle et al. 2015).

The recent discovery of Iberian copper in British and Scandinavian bronze artifacts dating from 1400–900 BC (Ling et al. 2013; 2014; Melheim et al. 2018) is a startlingly unexpected result, challenging earlier thinking about Bronze Age networks. The discovery leads to new questions or hypotheses about the social basis of production, transport technology, exchange, consumption, and interrelationships of the regional economies and social systems. In this context it should be stressed that two early scholars argued for a connection between Iberia and Scandinavia, Arthur Nordén on basis of rock art and metal (1925) and later one of most prominent scholar in archaeology Gordon Childe, based on metalwork typology (1939)., link.

Above, FIGURE 1. COMPILATION OF IBERIAN AND SCANDINAVIAN ROCK ART IMAGES FROM THE BRONZE AGE. (AFTER KOCH & LING 2018), link

The Nordic Bronze Age shares striking similarities with Mycenaean Greece and there would have been close contact between Scandinavians and seafaring southern Bronze Age peoples along the Atlantic trade routes.  Some cast doubt on a connection between the similar iconography found in the Mediterranean and Scandinavia, pointing out that no horned artifacts or similar rock art have been found between Iberia and Scandinavia.  However, surviving examples might simply be scarce along the lengthy sea route between the two destinations.  The specific geology required and the odds against the carvings surviving for over 3000 years might be factors in their absence along the Atlantic façade.  In any case, the seafarers' stopping off points between the two end destinations (with valuable cargoes on board) may not have been frequented for lengthy periods of time.  Genomic transformation and social organization during the Copper Age–Bronze Age transition in southern Iberia, Vanessa Villalba-Mouco et al., 2021 found R1b-Z195 and R1b-P312 (possibly DF27>ZZ12) El Argar culture burials in southeastern Spain that show some Minoan and Mycenaean-like autosomal ancestry and their fortified, planned towns have architectural features in common with those Mediterranean cultures.  Figurative rock art in Scandinavia, like carvings from the c. 1300-1100 BC burial mound at  Mjeltehaugen, Møre og Romsdal, western Norway, resembles that found in Iberia.  Evidence is coming to light of an eclectic seafaring people arriving in the North in the Nordic Bronze Age.  They potentially integrated into the more remote northern reaches of the Atlantic trading routes after the collapse of the land-based Únětice culture (1600 BC), imparting their cultural influence in the North.

It was not until about 1600 b.c. that social structure and the material world shifted manifestly toward patterns that came to characterize the Nordic Bronze Age. Precisely at this time large earthen mounds began to be built, and identities of wealth, rank, age, and gender began to be presented overtly.  Bronze Age Scandinavia. Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000: Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World. Encyclopedia.com. 2022, link

Large bulls are depicted next to the ships on Scandinavian rock art and include scenes of bull-leaping – a common motif of Middle Bronze Age figurative art, notably of Minoan Crete and also found in Hittite designs from Anatolia.  In both Scandinavia and Iberia there is great emphasis on large boats, bulls/'bullboats' and groups of armed warriors, some with bi-horned headgear.

The ancient Scandinavian art also features horned figures also found in southern Turkey, usually attributes of the Hittite weather god Tarhun.

The appearance of rock art depicting ships and oxhide ingots around 1600 BCE in Scandinavia is accompanied by Aegenized depictions of warriors, weapons, chariots, omega symbols and also, symbolic representations of Mesopotamian sun disks and ornaments on jewelry and sword hilts.  Link

Bengt A Lundberg / Riksantikvarieämbetet, via Wikimedia Commons

The c. 3000-year-old tomb, above, The King's Grave at Kivik (Kungagraven), southeastern Sweden, contains images and religious symbolism that is also found in the Mycenaean world.

It is thought that there might have been a mix of elites from different backgrounds competing for power along the Atlantic Bronze Age maritime network.  Towards the end of the Nordic Bronze Age the regions of Scandinavia were connected by their own trade networks that probably spoke the same trading language.  Scandinavian rock art depicts some of the Bronze Age boats rigged with sails, see Sailing Rock Art Boats, Boel Bengtsson, 2011, link.  The distances travelled were significant and newcomers probably entered preexisting populations along that network - indicated by the marked similarities at that time in visual culture, technology and spoken vocabulary between the two widely distant regions of the Mediterranean and Scandinavia.

According to recent results from lead isotope analyses of Nordic bronzes from Period II and III (1500–1150 bc) most copper came from Sardinia and/or the Iberian Peninsula during this period (Ling et al. 2014).',  link.  'Recent advances in Mediterranean and Iberian archaeology show substantial contacts between Atlantic Iberia and the Mycenaeans, Cypriots, and Phoenicians (Mederos 1996; Blázquez 2011), long before the full-blown Phoenician colonies and ‘Orientalization’ of the Iberian Early Iron Age. This leaves a totally unexplored question to be confronted in our research: did two linear sea routes overlap in Late Bronze Age Iberia or did these become an integrated triangular network — Scandinavia–Iberia–Aegean/Levant?, A sea beyond Europe to the north and west, Johan Lin & John Koch, 2018, link.  

See the slides from a seminar Before the Branches: towards a new understanding of (Late) Proto-Indo-European and Copper-to-Bronze Age Europe, John Koch, 2015,  showing similarities in the designs, link.  

Viksø helmet, eastern Denmark c. 900 BC.  Image Roberto Fortuna and Kira Ursem/National Museum of Denmark, link

The DF27 haplogroup, with its highest modern frequency in southern and western continental Europe but with a distinct Bronze Age South-North (Iberia-Scandinavia) geographical distribution for some of its yDNA subclades, is well placed to have been directly involved in the Mediterranean Bronze Age, Atlantic Bronze Age and Nordic Bronze Age maritime networks.  Those sea networks were independent of inland transalpine trading routes.

DNA discoveries at an ancient burial site (dated between Late Bronze Age - Middle Iron Age) at Cliffs End Farm on the Isle of Thanet off the southeast coast of England highlighted a group of 22 individuals with widespread origins.  Barrows were built on the highest point on the island's coastline and would have been visible out to sea.  Isotope analysis revealed that five of them (four Bronze Age, one Iron Age) came from Iberia/Western Mediterranean and eight (two Bronze Age, six Iron Age) came from Scandinavia, born probably in southern Norway or Sweden.  Nine were local.  The earlier burials appear to be the ones from Iberia/Western Mediterranean and the Iron Age ones from Scandinavia but it is a low sample size with some overlap.  Thanet appears to be a hub on the Atlantic maritime route frequented by the above mentioned Atlantic Bronze Age seafarers from Iberia and Scandinavia.  In about 900 BC Patterson et al. and Armit et al. suggest that a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age migration event into southern Britain produced a 50% population replacement - indicated by an accompanying increase in southern farmer autosomal DNA admixture.  The burial site at the Isle of Thanet landing point was in use in that broad time period and results from Cliffs End Farm are included in the new papers.  The rich Nordic Bronze Age faded and came to an end by around 500 BC when bronze became scarce and the earlier long distance 'international' elite network ceased to exist.  See the Iron Age DF27 page.