The Dual Character of the Beaker Invasion

In his classic work on the Bronze Age pottery of Britain the late Lord Abercromby adopted the old division of the class of beaker pottery into three types originally proposed by Dr Thurnam as far back as 1871. In order that Abercromby may not be misrepresented I propose to quote the essential portions of his definitions. In type A, the ' high-brimmed globose beaker ', ' the body is more or less globular ; the upper part, separated from the body by a constriction, frequently very defined, spreads out like the calyx of a flower and forms a brim or neck that almost equals the body in height. The sides of the neck or rim . . . are straight and not recurved at the lip '. In type B, the ' ovoid beaker with recurved rim ', ' there is no distinct demarca- tion between the body and the rim, but the one glides into the other by a gradual curve '. Finally type C, the ' low-brimmed beaker ', ' may be regarded ', in Abercromby's own words, ' as a debased variety of our first type '.It should be clear already I think that in labelling his types A, B, and C Abercromby has given the false impression that we have three types of beákers, whereas what we really have are two types, of which one has a 'debased variety'. We therefore suggest that a less misleading classification would be, for instance, A(x), A(Y), and B. This may seem a trifling point but we believe it has helped to obscure the proper recognition of the true dual character of the Beaker invasion of this country. We propose to substantiate the validity of our suggestion in the course of this short paper

Archaeology · Beaker · Biology · Calyx · Character (mathematics) · Geometry · Pottery · Anatomy · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Australian Indigenous Culture and History · History · Mathematics

• Beakers

  Open Access•Humphrey Case•Proceedings of the Prehistoric…•1993

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