How it all began

Today I want to show you several aspects of my recent research history which led to this PhD project. 

I want to start in 2007, when I finished by BA thesis on "Late Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes in the Western Netherlands between Oer-IJ & Old Rhine estuaries". In September of that year I started as a Research Master (MPhil) student in Leiden, which allowed me for two years of studying and research instead of the normal one year. For instance, I helped on the production of both the Festschrift and "Scientific Farewell Party" for Prof. Dr. L.P. Louwe Kooijmans in 2008 (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 40; http://www.sidestone.com/bookshop/between-foraging-and-farming), with contributions on various aspects of Neolithisation in Europe. In this book is also a much discussed paper by Alison Sheridan on Bell Beaker mobility and diffusion from the Netherlands to Scotland.


Me in 2007, nearly eight years ago, at the excavation of two Iron Age barrows at Apeldoorn-Echoput (photo by Maarten Wispelwey, then municipal archaeologist of Apeldoorn)

Also, in August 2007 (together with Anneminke Bakker) and August 2008 (together with Simone Lemmers) I contributed to the excavations at Stonehenge, as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, led by Prof. Dr. Mike Parker Pearson (then University of Sheffield, now UCL, London).


Excavation of Amesbury 42 ditch in 2008 (me, Simone, and someone dressed up for an art-project and several other students; photo by Sandra Thomas).

As MPhil students in 2007/2008, Cristel Metsch, Hedwig Ponjee, Yvonne Achterkamp and me did a research seminar on Late Neolithic grave goods. 

As our professor Harry Fokkens had already shown in his oratory speech (Fokkens 2005), Bell Beaker graves consisted of various specific sets of objects, which, when approached from an anthropological perspective focusing on identity and personhood, related more to the creation of an 'ideal ancestor' by the living community, than to the ideas of elites and warriors representing themselves through the grave, as previous researchers had come up with. 

We set out to study similar patterns in earlier Corded Ware burials across Europe. My research paper thus focused on Eastern European (Baltic and Polish) graves, and I found that many graves contained ceramic vessels (mostly beakers), flint axes, stone hammer axe heads and pendants of amber or boar tusks. Additionally, these graves were individual inhumation burials, with a distinct choice in ritual of bodily positioning. This pattern occurred in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kaliningrad and across Poland. For me it was an adventure, which took me on several train trips across the Netherlands to the depths of several university and regional libraries (who has ever heard of the late 19th century journal Sitzungsberichte der Altertumsgesellschaft Prussia? I found it in a library in Leeuwarden!). The data didn't get published unfortunately, but a report is still found on my academia page (https://uni-kiel.academia.edu/JosKleijne).

What it did do was lighten the flame for studying Late Neolithic societies and the changes taking place from pre-Bell Beaker towards Bell Beaker!

Later, I went on to do other things (Erasmus study exchange to Sheffield, MPhil thesis on Bronze Age pottery and maritime exchange, work at DANS on the persistence and availability of grey literature and archaeological documentation), but thanks to the RCE (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands) I could again work on Corded Ware societies very soon.

As a project leader for (unfortunately) only a part of the Odyssee-project "Unlocking Noord-Holland's Late Neolithic Treasure Chest", I worked on the editing of the monographs of Keinsmerbrug (as assistant editor) and Mienakker (as final editor), wrote several chapters for the Mienakker volume (Introduction with Liesbeth Theunissen; Landscape and Chronology with Henk Weerts) and I coordinated the writing of the Mienakker monograph synthesis in which all specialists and editors contributed. For the third monograph (on Zeewijk) I led the scientific debate and wrote the first draft of the synthesis, until my job at the RCE ended in September 2013. 
We (PhDs Sandra Beckerman, Gary Nobles, Virginia García-Díaz and me) also visited Kiel, Germany, for the third workshop on "Human Development in Landscapes". Here we contributed to a session on Corded Ware and Bell Beaker landscapes. The published paper we wrote is hopefully coming out later this year!! (Oh and a side-note here: some advertisement for the fourth "Human Development in Landscapes" workshop in Kiel, this March).

So there I was, in September 2013, without a job but inspired to do research on Late Neolithic societies in Europe. I contacted Prof. Fokkens and after some long conversations we worked on a research application to study exactly this: the ways in which local communities, such as on the Dutch Corded Ware settlements studied earlier, adopted and interpreted the Bell Beaker across Europe. Prof. Fokkens had by then discussed this problem in an edited book of the The Hague EAA conference, focusing on the Dutch Vlaardingen, Corded Ware and Bell Beaker relationships. I tried to get funding in the Netherlands, but after this had failed I turned to Kiel (with Prof. Fokkens' consent) and got accepted here!¹
Now I'm being supervised by three distinguished scholars who have contributed much to this particular topic: Prof. Dr. J. Müller (1st supervisor), PD Dr. M. Furholt (2nd) and Prof. Dr. H. Fokkens (3rd). The project, called "Beginning of Beaker" started on November 1st 2014 and will end November 1st 2017.

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1 In the mean time I founded my own private company (MAK Onderzoek & Advies) and got two assignments. Helping Drs. M. Wansleeben (Leiden University) for the Ariadne-project and writing a synthesis on Bronze Age Kennemerland for the Province of North-Holland. Both projects are finished now.^↩

Research

Sorry for all the delays. I'm still working on getting used to Kiel and everything that goes with it. My present blog post will focus on my Bell Beaker research in general terms. 

As I don't want to write the same words twice, I just copied and pasted the summary of my primary research proposal which I sent to Kiel. After this summary, I will try to get down to more practical business of what I'm planning to do here. As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing a research grant proposal in which I precisely have to argue this to get research funds for the coming months. So if you have ideas and comments, please feel free to suggest/add/ask/contribute!

Summary

The second half of the 3rd millennium BC is characterised by important changes in prehistoric Europe. Before this time, a patchwork of regional cultures existed. But between 2750 and 2000 BC, an apparent uniformity emerged in all of Europe. This uniformity, described as the Bell Beaker phenomenon, is most evident in the recurring combination of specific artefacts. In graves varied combinations of a specific pottery vessel (the Beaker vessel), archery equipment, metal objects and specific ornaments, accompany a single inhumation burial. According to most scholars these are the burials of high-status individuals, who were highly mobile and whose wealth and connectivity was ultimately displayed through their graves. Even though these burials represent only a minority of the people who lived and died in this period, they are used all over Europe to ‘reconstruct’ and ‘characterise’ Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age society in general.

This study chooses a different point of departure: I think we need to incorporate settlement data in the discussion about the Beaker phenomenon. My hypothesis is that settlement data will show how the Beaker package becomes adopted in contexts of regionally different culture groups. This will provide us with a different view on Bell Beaker societies in Europe, and will help us to better understand the variability and regionality within this Bell Beaker phenomenon.

What different perspective can we get?

By studying settlement data in different regions, and their long-term trajectories of change, I will investigate how the Bell Beaker phenomenon was introduced in these regions. Settlements are the main source of evidence for prehistoric everyday life. Here, both the continuity of local traditions and the adoption of new ideas can be studied. If the spread of Bell Beaker ideas meant a complete transformation of social values and institutions it should be foremost visible here. How come then, many settlements from this period only feature relatively small numbers of Bell Beaker pottery? Several examples of studied settlements show that, rather than sudden change, there is an important element of continuity and tradition in this period. What does this tell us about the importance of the Bell Beaker phenomenon to these communities?

In addition, whereas most studies have focused on similarities in Bell Beaker material culture across Europe, I will look at differences. Differences in the ways in which specific Bell Beaker aspects were adopted by local communities, will give a better indication as to what specific elements were shared by communities and what really constituted the Bell Beaker ‘idea’ across Europe. Thus the social, material and natural environments surrounding the Bell Beaker adoption by these local communities will be focus of this study.

By studying these two research problems, regarding the local trajectories of change and the embedding of the Bell Beaker idea in local communities and their environment, we will approach the Bell Beaker phenomenon from a completely different perspective.

How have local communities, between 2750 BC and 2000 BC, interpreted this Bell Beaker idea? Can we distinguish differences between communities’ attitudes towards Bell Beakers? What, considering its material variability, constituted the innovative and new Bell Beaker idea, shared locally across Europe?

And now down to business

What do I want to know from settlements in order to answer these research questions? Before I can start gathering settlement data from the third millennium BC in different case studies across Europe, I must answer this question. Several aspects readily come to mind:

- Chronology

- Material culture

- Environment

- Networks/quantitative analysis

Chronology

In order to study changing traditions, one needs to control chronology. Furholt (2003, 13-20) has already shown that 3rd millennium BC chronological control is difficult, due to plateaus in the C14 calibration curve. All Corded Ware and Bell Beaker settlements will fall within certain phases between 2800 and 2000 cal BC. In order to create a more precise chronology, one needs either dendrochronology or the possibility of Bayesian statistics. While the former can't be achieved for many sites, the latter is only possible when enough C14 dates are taken and site stratigraphy is well documented and equally understood. While it is not my aim to try and find 'the earliest Bell Beaker', as past scholars have tried that with different degrees of success, it would be interesting to look at the pace of change, timing and temporalities of cultural changes, and the different ways in which local communities experience the Bell Beaker introduction. Was it a rapid shift or a gradual transition? Therefore I'll gather settlement data from all case studies where such a study might be feasible. Whether a settlement has stratigraphy or a robust internal chronology, and the possibility of taking more C14 samples from good contexts, will be variables in my sites database. Whether I'll use Bayesian statistics in the end will be based on the amount of sites and the possibilities of improving the resolution of my dataset...

Material culture and ecofacts

It is important not only to focus on change, but similarly to see what actually changes in the ways local communities do things during the third millennium BC; how traditions evolve and changes come about. As material culture is the sole remainder of prehistoric social action, it is necessary to bring data concerning various material categories together. 

From the material culture we can distill several acts related to the production, use, potential re-use, and deposition of these artefacts. Similarly, ecofacts (a silly term for the total of zoological and botanical evidence, but I use it nonetheless) provide information on the ways in which the acts of subsistence were organised. 

Bringing the published and unpublished sources of previous studies concerning these aspects together will provide us with the building blocks for our analyses of what actually changes when.

Specifically, scholars studying Bell Beaker material culture have highlighted the special nature of some items found in graves all over Europe, 'the Beaker package' (Burgess/Shennan 1976). This set of recurring objects (the Bell Beaker pottery vessel, metal dagger, archery equipment, gold ornaments) forms the basis of what scholars have denoted as the 'Bell Beaker phenomenon'. How these objects relate to similar artefacts from settlements across Europe is unknown at present, but rumours are singing around.. 

It has been said that on North-Italian 3rd millennium BC settlements specific Bell Beaker pottery only comprises a vast minority of the total amount of pottery and still we call them "Bell Beaker settlements"!

Environment

As communities do not live in isolation from their environment, and past changes in their actions might be related to changes taking place in their environment, it is necessary to simultaneously study changes taking place within this environment. While GS-colleague Oflaz focuses on finding the 4.2 ka event in archaeology, I will take local environmental changes (paleogeography, vegetation, soils, etc.) into further consideration.

I always liked D.L. Clarke's scheme of a 'Sociocultural System'. Perhaps it can come of use in the future (or I'll make my own)..

Networks and quantitative analyses

What then to do with all this data on changes in material culture, ecofacts and environment? How do we gather meaningful patterns and answer the questions asked at the start of this project? At the moment I'm thinking about using network analysis (cf. Brughmans 2013) to visualise and interpret the various strands of data (although I have yet to delve deep into this matter). 

I need to visualise changes through time in material culture traditions, subsistence and environment on settlements within a single region and between regions, in order to answer the main question: How have local communities adopted and interpreted the Bell Beaker idea?

Please feel free to comment! :)

Getting started in Kiel

Some time ago I promised two new blog posts, first something about the first few weeks here in Kiel. That is also a resaon why I haven´t been able to post something earlier.

When I accepted the position here, my first task was to sign the contract, before the 1st of November. So, as I didn´t want to spend too much time ´wasted´ on this, I asked my father for yet another adventure :) we went to Kiel and back again on the same day, 11 hours of driving, and I signed the contract at the University (on the way there, I found this ring, while in Kiel we beat the dragon, found lots of gold, oh no that´s a different story altogether..).
What I noticed immeadiately was:
° German motorways are dangerous as people drive incredibly faster than you can possibly get (even when you think your driving fast yourself)
° The Graduate School building, however light, nice and new, was also very empty on that particular day (and that was no incident, as I found out later)
° Kiel is actually not that bad as a city. Nice green areas, tall old buildings.. And the occasional concrete abomination, but well, hey, we are in Germany, what do you expect!?
° Bureaucracy is a German word. When signing the contract I received 9 pages of forms to fill in. And not just that, but also the need to gather more forms first, fill those in, get numbers back, and fill those numbers on the contractual forms.. All while not even yet having found a place to live!

As my father was not only brought along for half of the driving, but he was also curious about where I was going to end up for the coming three years, we visited both the Graduate School building and the Institute of Pre- and Protohistory (Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte).

Back home in Amersfoort, I started searching on the internet for houses; Two or three rooms? Close to uni? How are the different areas of Kiel actually? Is Kiel a city for bikes, just walking, or will I be using my car a lot? In the end I contacted a lot of potential houses in a week, but heard near to nothing from those e-mails.. I did find out that I had to go there for some time and ask locally about housing. But it was already near November, and the starting date was solidly marked, so I decided to book an AirBnB place for the first week in November.

Photo of AirBnB:

From there I attended the first meetings with my fellow PhD students, welcomes from new colleagues and (importantly!) social events, such as meeting up with fellow Dutchie and Leiden alumna Welmoed. Welmoed is doing a Post-Doc here on the analysis and characterisation of phytholiths (which are silicate based plant remains).
Oh, and I have a shared office with a nice German guy who´s working on Tripolye megasites (http://tripolye-megasites.blogspot.de/) and a nice Spanish/Catalan girl who studies coprolites (search that up if you really want to know what they are..) from Neanderthal caves.
During that week I also searched houses, talked to a lot of housing agents, visited more than 10 houses in 5 days. On the final day of my stay in the AirBnB, I finally found a nice place! As I could only enter the house a week later, I stayed at a colleague´s place (thanks Gustav!) for my second week.

But well, I needed the address to write on all those forms I told you about! So now I can get health insurance, enroll myself as a student (eeh.., I don´t really see myself as a student anymore, but well, free bus tickets and cheaper meals are fine! And I need a Student ID to get a Library card), get first emigration and then immigration done (after waiting for an hour or making an appointment), get a German bank account (mainly so I can actually get my income and pay my insurance) and fill in the final papers for my contract. The contract holds some nice questions like ´have you ever been in contact with justice?

What the GS building and my office look like:

I only just received a letter of the Student Enrollment, which I thought I already enrolled for. But no, they need lots of copies, original diplomas, signatures and numbers (among which my health insurance number, which I still do not have), so that's up next!

Oh and I own a private company, MAK Onderzoek & Advies, which also needs to be relocated after I left the Netherlands. More forms, signatures and paperwork...

Having filled in all the above forms, I can now start with my actual work: the PhD research on Bell Beakers. You´ll hear more about that next time!

Welcome!

Welcome on my PhD blog, entitled 'Beginning of Beaker'. Here I will post updates on my research into the European Bell Beaker phenomenon.


(Bell Beaker distribution, from Czebreszuk 2008, if I recall correctly)

Last week I received notice from Kiel University that my application for a PhD position has been granted! From November 1st 2014 onward I will study the adoption and interpretation of Bell Beaker ideas by local Late Neolithic communities. I will be doing this at the Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel. My project fits well within their Graduate School "Human Development in Landscapes" and the research which is being carried out at the moment by scholars such as Prof. Dr. Johannes Müller and PD Dr. Martin Furholt into the social transformations of the third millennium BC.

Now I just wait for more details and confirmation from the Kiel University administration, before I can start planning, arranging practicalities (finding a new house, the future of my private company (MAK Onderzoek & Advies), looking for cheap moving boxes, selling unnecessary items on Marktplaats) and moving from Amersfoort, the Netherlands to Kiel, Germany.

In the meantime, I also need to finish my work on a synthesis of Bronze Age Kennemerland (funded by the Province of North Holland), re-arrange my Bell Beaker bibliography and personal library and help organising the Dutch Metal Ages-day (www.metaaltijden.nl), and finally, say everyone sweet goodbyes...