Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200–1800 BCE. The mechanism of its expansion is a topic of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and human migration. We present new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 170 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 100 Beaker-associated individuals. In contrast to the Corded Ware Complex, which has previously been identified as arriving in central Europe following migration from the east, we observe limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a significant mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, human migration did have an important role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, which we document most clearly in Britain using data from 80 newly reported individuals dating to 3900–1200 BCE. British Neolithic farmers were genetically similar to contemporary populations in continental Europe and in particular to Neolithic Iberians, suggesting that a portion of the farmer ancestry in Britain came from the Mediterranean rather than the Danubian route of farming expansion. Beginning with the Beaker period, and continuing through the Bronze Age, all British individuals harboured high proportions of Steppe ancestry and were genetically closely related to Beaker-associated individuals from the Lower Rhine area. We use these observations to show that the spread of the Beaker Complex to Britain was mediated by migration from the continent that replaced >90% of Britain’s Neolithic gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the process that brought Steppe ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier.

Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200–1800 BCE. The forces propelling its expansion are a matter of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and migration. We present new genome-wide data from 400 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 226 Beaker-associated individuals. We detected limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a significant mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, migration played a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, a phenomenon we document most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker Complex introduced high levels of Steppe-related ancestry and was associated with a replacement of ~90% of Britain’s gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought Steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier.

The cemetery is located in the south-west of Pottenbrunn, on plot "Steinfeld" (15°41´05"/48°13´55"). Discovered in 1930, it had already yielded objects dating to the early La Tène period. In 1981, road construction revealed further finds which initiated rescue excavations by the Bundesdenkmalamt (State Office for Protection of Historical Monuments) under the guidance of J.-W. Neugebauer (Ramsl 2002a(Ramsl , 13) in 1981(Ramsl and 1982. A total of 42 graves with 45 burials (single and double inhumations, and cremations) have been documented. Some burials were severely disturbed (by ancient activities such as grave robbing and/or contemporary construction work), and some were set within fenced enclosures ("Grabgärten"). Three (of 22) samples of charcoal and bone fragments taken by Peter Stadler (Department of Prehistory, Natural History Museum Vienna) in the course of the FWFproject "Absolute Chronology for Early Civilisations in Austria and Central Europe" returned AMS dates of 410-200 cal BCE (grave 520), 550-200 cal BCE (grave 565) and 380-350 cal BCE (grave 1005) (Ramsl 2002b, 359). The cremation burials were not included in the initial osteological analysis, but 31 inhumed individuals were studied (Gerold 2002). Petrous bones from three of these were successfully analyzed for aDNA. Sample I11699 (female) derived from an individual (inv. no. 26.238) aged c. 20 years in grave 89 which, despite disturbance in antiquity, was accompanied by fibulae and ceramic vessels. Sample I11701 (male) derived from an individual (inv. no. 26.249) aged c. 18 years in grave 570, which also included shears, fibulae, and ceramic vessels. Evidence for bone porosity in the mandible and maxilla suggest possible Vitamin C deficiency, while enamel hypoplasia points to malnutrition or illness during childhood. Sample I11708 (female) derived from an individual (inv.no. 26.250) aged c. 25-35 years in grave 574/2, who was richly adorned with fibulae, bronze, iron and silver-rings, an amber ring, a bracelet, a glass bead, and a worked bone artefact.

To explore kinship practices at chambered tombs in Early Neolithic Britain, we combined archaeological and genetic analyses of 35 individuals who lived about 5,700 years ago and were entombed at Hazleton North long cairn 1 . Twenty-seven are part of the first extended pedigree reconstructed from ancient DNA, a five-generation family whose many interrelationships provide statistical power to document kinship practices that were invisible without direct genetic data. Patrilineal descent was key in determining who was buried in the tomb, as all 15 inter-generational transmissions were through men. The presence of women who had reproduced with lineage men and the absence of adult lineage daughters suggests virilocal burial and female exogamy. We demonstrate that one male progenitor reproduced with four women: the descendants of two of those women were buried in the same half of the tomb over all generations. This suggests that maternal sub-lineages were grouped into branches whose distinctiveness was recognized during the tomb's construction. Four males descended from non-lineage fathers and mothers who also reproduced with lineage males, suggesting that some men adopted their reproductive partners' children by other males into their patriline. Eight individuals were not close biological relatives of the main lineage, raising the possibility that kinship also encompassed social bonds independent of biological relatedness.

In this paper we examine tensions between understandings of material things as either bundles of relations or as things-in-themselves. Rather than take either of these positions, we instead set out an argument for approaches that allow us to modulate between these understandings whilst treating both as relational. Taking such a position allows us to understand how things endure through time without returning to any notion of essence. We explore the theoretical arguments through an analysis of one particular enduring material phenomenon: the Neolithic chambered tomb of West Kennet.