The Prehistoric Society Book Reviews THE BELL BEAKER TRANSITION IN EUROPE. MOBILITY AND LOCAL EVOLUTION DURING THE 3RD MILLENNIUM BC BY MARIA PILAR PRIETO MARTÍNEZ AND LAURE SALANOVA (EDS (original) (raw)

In light of recent political developments in Britain, the pan-European issues at the heart of debates over the Bell Beaker phenomenon (BBP) have rarely been more topical. Scholars pursuing a cultural phenomenon with such a large-scale geographical distribution are justified in needing to contrast and compare findings and theories with colleagues across Europe on a regular basis (eg, Nicolis 2001; Fokkens & Nicolis 2012; Czebreszuk 2014). The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe represents the most comprehensive attempt to do so since Nicolis's two-volume Bell Beakers Today (2001). Those volumes contain 37 papers and 30 poster presentations drawn from across Europe but readers must navigate different languages and methodological and theoretical approaches, without a sense of conclusion or synthesis to the body of information. In the book under review, Prieto Martínez & Salanova have assembled 17 papers (based on a conference held in Poio, Spain in 2011) to produce an impressive (and reasonably priced) cross-section of the European BBP evidence. An earlier volume (Prieto Martínez & Salanova 2013) covered new excavations and analysis of artefacts associated with the BBP, with this latest volume serving as a series of regional syntheses. In contrast to Bell Beakers Today, the contributors pursue a set of fairly well defined themes (straying only occasionally from their brief): covering issues of mobility, migration and social factors such as the integration of Bell Beaker and indigenous groups, hierarchy and the expression and construction of identities, all of which serve to explore the process of transition and adoption associated with the origins of the BBP. Furthermore, this book is topped and tailed by prefacing and concluding chapters penned by Martínez and Salanova, both (especially the conclusion) serve to pull together patterns in the approaches adopted by the contributing authors. This is essential in pursuing the loftiest goal of any pan-European Bell Beaker study: a sense of what is similar and different through both space and time. The overall geographical coverage of this volume is a strength, with papers covering Poland (2), Central Europe (1), Germany (1), France (2), Britain (1), Scandinavia (2), Atlantic Europe (1) and Iberia (5). It is ironic (but perhaps fitting) that, given the pan-European nature of this volume, one of its strengths is that it is written entirely in English, allowing access to sites, behaviours and datasets that may otherwise have been inaccessible to (often) stubbornly monolingual, English speaking scholars (your reviewer sadly included). Unfortunately, some clarity, meaning and nuance to the language has been lost in the translation and composition process of some contributions, a feature that is especially regrettable in chapters where complex methodological and theoretical approaches are deployed, causing one or two of the finer points of some contributor's discussion to be difficult to fully grasp. In the opening chapter, Falileyev provides an overview of complex debates surrounding the possible connection between the BBP and the spread of new language(s). This is particularly useful for those unfamiliar with the thorny issues of relationships between BBP, the Celts (and the Celts from the West theory) and the plausible importance of multi-or bilingualism in the transmission of the new ideas and technologies. Ultimately Falileyev is downbeat about the potential of linguistics and BBP to come together in meaningful and productive fashion, at least in their current guises.