The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe

Full Title: The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe – Mobility and Local Evolution During the 3rd Millennium BC.

Editors: Maria Pilar Prieto Martínez and Laure Salanova

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2015

ISBN: 978-1-78297-927-2

Pages: 214, with each essay having its notes and bibliography at the end of the essay.

Synopsis:

Review: This text brings together 17 articles that were initially presented in the 15th International Bell Beaker Conference “From Atlantic to Ural”. It was organized in May 2011 in Spain. The theme for the conference was “Could the circulation of objects or ideas and the mobility of artisans explain the unprecedented uniformity of the material culture observed throughout the whole of Europe?”

This is the second volume to come out of this conference; the first was in 2013 and was concerned with new excavations or item analyses. The papers in this volume were selected for their interest in the Bell Beaker phenomenon in Europe and for the differing perspectives they offer. The chapters are organized mainly geographically and they start with Eastern Europe then move to the Mediterranean and end in the Iberian Peninsula.

While I enjoyed reading all the essays, the ones that interested me the most besides the final essay that summed up the book, were essays 5 and 12. Essay 5 talks about the migrations to Britain and Ireland. The part about Ireland was short but interesting. The Bell Beakers introduced copper mining to Ireland in the 24th century BC directly from continental Europe. In essay 12 the authors investigated the traces of exchange and circulation processes in the archaeological record on gold working craftsmanship. All in all, it was a really informative read.