Arrival of Beaker folk changed Britain for ever, ancient DNA study shows

The largest ever study on ancient DNA has shown that Britain was changed forever by the arrival of the Beaker folk, a wave of migrants about 4,500 years ago who brought with them new customs, new burial practices, and beautiful, distinctive bell-shaped pottery.

The very existence of the Beaker folk – whose ancestry lay in central Europe and further east to the Steppes – and Beaker culture has been questioned in the past. The actual beakers, striking clay drinking vessels with an elegant flared lip, were clearly among the most treasured possessions of the people who were buried with them, and have been excavated from graves across Europe for centuries. However, archaeologists could not agree whether they represented a fashion spread by trade and imitation, or a culture diffused by migration.

Now a massive international project, involving hundreds of scientists and archaeologists and almost all the major laboratories in the field, has provided some of the answers. Using samples of more than 400 prehistoric skeletons from across Europe, researchers have uncovered new information about a period when a wave of migration rolled westward across Europe, almost totally displacing the earlier population in many places – including Britain.

Source: theguardian