 Nearly 5,000 years ago in Iberia, present-day Spain and Portugal, a new bell-shaped pottery vessel appeared. Within less than 100 years, this culture that was named after these bell beakers spread across much of Western and Central Europe and into the British Isles, even reaching islands such as Sardinia and Sicily, and even impacting parts of Northern Africa. This bell beaker culture had a profound impact on the genetic makeup of the British Isles. Within just a few hundred years, this beaker culture had introduced high levels of step-related ancestry into Britain, and it was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain's gene pool, according to a study published in Nature in 2018. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. The bell beaker culture refers to an archaeological culture that is known or takes its name. From the shape of the distinctive bell beaker pottery, found all over Europe from thousands of years ago, which is in the shape of an inverted bell, they were often decorated in horizontal zones by finely toothed stamps. The bell beaker culture arose around 2800 BC, and it lasted in Britain until around 1800 BC. In Europe, however, the bell beaker culture seemed to last around 500 years, and disappear in around 2300 BC, when it was replaced by the unitised culture. The bell beaker culture replaced and interacted with numerous preceding cultures in Europe, including the cordyed ware culture and the funnel beaker culture. One stunning sight associated with the bell beakers is the Palmeilta Ring Sanctuary in Germany today. Built with wood and dated as far back as 2300 BC as the earliest phase of the ritual centre, it is thought to have had an astrological significance, and many parallels have been drawn with Stonehenge. The people associated with this culture are known as the beaker people, funnily enough. They were known as great bowmen from more like stock, but they were also known to carry daggers and spearheads. In general, beaker people are thought to have been tall, and the skeleton remains a heavy bone. They are searched for metals, copper, gold, and other such metals. It is thought to have been one of the main drivers for why the bell beaker culture expanded, and there was an increase in movement around this time as well. They are also heavily associated with the spread of bronze metallurgy in Europe. In fact, the earliest copper production in Ireland, identified at Ross Island in the period 2400 to 2200 BC, was associated with the early beaker pottery. Here, the local ores were smelted to produce the first copper axes used in Britain and Ireland. With the beaker culture spreading initially centred in Iberia, and then spreading east into Central Europe and different parts of Europe and the British Isles, the beaker culture came into contact with other cultures, including the battle axe or single grave culture. It is thought that these two cultures, the bell beaker culture and the single grave culture, intermingled and intermixed to a large degree. There was also cultural contact with other cultures, particularly the late end of the corded ware culture, a culture more associated to the east of Europe, and linked to the steep, the steep ancestry through different various cultures previously that I'm actually going to explore in future videos. Although the bell beaker culture spread across much of Europe, there did seem to be pockets of concentration of the culture where the culture particularly flourished. Here's a map from Barry Cunliffe's book, The Ancient Celts, a brilliant reading general that shows the extent of beaker culture and the main concentrations of this culture. If we return to the 2018 study from Nature, which analysed 400 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 226 individuals associated with beaker complex artefacts, we can gain more insights into how the culture was spread. This study found that there was limited genetic affinity between beaker complex associated individuals from Iberia and Central Europe, and thus excludes migration as an important mechanism of spread between these two areas. In other words, this essentially means that the spread of bell beaker culture from Iberia into Central Europe was probably the result of cultural transmission as opposed to migration. In Britain, however, the story is very much different. Migration was a key driver of the dissemination of the bell beaker culture into the ancient British Isles. The authors found that the spread of beaker culture into Britain introduced high levels of step-related ancestry and was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain's gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east to west expansion that had brought step-related ancestry into Central and Northern Europe over the previous centuries. Professor Ian Barnes, research leader in ancient DNA at the National History Museum, said that, we found that the skeleton remains of individuals from Britain who live shortly after this time have a very different DNA profile to those who came before. It seems that there was a large population turnover. From these findings, it's clear that the bell beaker culture had a profound impact on the genetic makeup of ancient Britain thousands of years ago. Speaking of step related ancestry, what was the origins in the genetic history of the Scythians, a great people of the Eurasian steppe that was a descendant of some of these ancient cultures and more to the east that I'm going to delve into in more detail. But for more detail on the origins in the genetic history of the Scythians, please click here. Thanks for watching. If you like support this work through Patreon, buymeacoffee.com and also PayPal, all the links are in the description below. Please subscribe and hit the bell and tell your friends and family about this channel. All your support is greatly appreciated. Thanks again for watching and I'll see you next time.