00:00.00 archpodnet Just Checking. It's working. Yeah good. So We know a little bit more about bellbekers and the belllbeker culture. But perhaps we can discuss some things in a bit more detail so we were just talking about this indeed that it seems that if we would look at just the. Material culture shall we say so the Bell Beaker It's very homogenous. It's spread over a large area but actually you see a lot of diversity. Do you see that in the beakers themselves as well or are the beakers quite homogenous. Ah, according to sort of cultural spread. Shall we say. 00:32.17 sarah Well yeah here I mean certainly here in Britain in the very early bronze age or as say the the chalka lithic as it's now started to be termed the copper copper age that we have briefly. Um, um, um, ah, we're talking ah around about so 504400 Bc um, what you see initially is beakers which are all what what they term all over cored or all over combed and literally. They are a bell beaker which usually from top to bottom has had a line of chord impressed into it repeatedly repeatedly all the way down. It's a really laborious long-winded process. The actual. Decorating of the damn thing takes an awful lot longer than than it does to actually make the vessel. So. It's sort of it's sort of this commitment in time. Um later on. Um, once we're into the the bronze age proper as it were proper brons arranged. 01:23.87 archpodnet Okay. 01:36.27 sarah Then you start to see much more variety developing and sort of more ah local trends and decorations I think there've been various attempts to sort of put them into a chronological order as it were that. But again, ah I'm always slightly dubious and I I do feel that what you are seeing as I said before is this slight this this sort of blossoming of of creativity that people are allowing themselves or their communities are allowing them to um, experiment a little bit more get a but but the. The basic form of a drinking vessel with a flared rim and a sort of bulbous base. It tends to remain they just extend in length. They bread Breadth and slight variations in the ah sort of layout of the whole thing. 02:27.37 archpodnet Okay, and how do they then because I'm just trying to remember frantically remember my material culture course back at Uni and looking at different beers and so for example, things like the the funnel beaker the courted wear culture and that kind of thing because they were also with a flared top. But they not like how what's what's the difference kind of between bell beakers and other kinds of beakers. 02:55.28 sarah What the bellbikers tend to be the the larger that I mean is nothing generally I have to be honest and say funnel be because are not my area of expertise although I have gauged a couple of them I'm um, done very many um but but the. 02:57.23 archpodnet Okay. 03:11.54 sarah But there does tend to be this absolute standardization within within the belt Wealth standardization a real level of standardization with it within I was I Always think you know the memo didn't go out that this year we're having this many rings of chord around the beaker or whatever. 03:19.50 archpodnet Ah, yes, yeah. 03:30.48 sarah Which some sort of researchers seem to have tried to impose on them. But ah, ah, but there are yeah yes I mean there are differences. It's It's sort of the I suppose difficult to verbalize you but you you might say what? Um ah ah I do think that. Ah, there are. 03:32.40 archpodnet I get. 03:49.99 sarah Strong connections between the cored culture which which again comes across from central europe ah before the belllbeer before bellbeakerss and formalmel beakers. There are links and whether it's that the. Sort of whole idea is being disseminated bit by bit by connections 1 person to the next or whether it's actually people moving on is very difficult to think of course we we always talked in Britain about ah beaker people. Beer people come to Britain and then. 04:14.35 archpodnet Um. 04:22.30 sarah And then it all changed and it wasn't beaker people coming to Britain. It was just their ideas. It was their ideas that were not the people themselves and then we have the beakers and bodies research project a few years ago which did Dna sampling from ah bones from burials and suddenly was discovered. 04:24.72 archpodnet Oh. 04:39.40 sarah Oh yeah, actually it was Beaker people who came here and in fact, they seemed to pretty much replace most of the native population at that point. So it's yeah I think what it is is it's people moving around and possibly taking ideas with them. 04:46.28 archpodnet Interesting. 04:54.63 archpodnet Yeah, which then Also as you say seems to continue a little bit more in within the belbeca period as Well. If you see this kind of a bit more diversity and decoration and things like that I Also always find it really interesting. Um, So my my own research I was looking at um I do microware analysis of ah the last big project I did was was needles. For example, bone needles and even though they may look typologically identical I mean it's a needle you know there's only so many ways you can make a needle but if you look at how they were made and how they were used then actually you can see. 05:19.50 sarah Um, ah. 05:29.82 archpodnet Regional differences. Um, between all these areas. So what might on first glance look very homogenous as as like a large region is actually like you say a bit more detailed if you look at how the sort of microscopic traces. Can you see I mean we've talked a bit about the the decoration for example and you did mention that the form does remain the same but are there different. Kind of techniques visible as well to create the final form like can you say see different techniques or or styles of manufacture or I'm not sure how how you would describe it. 05:57.88 sarah No you there are indeed ah and and actually your your your little sort of description before with was was pretty close. Ah, really, um yeah I. 06:06.11 archpodnet I Okay good I've watched one of your videos beforehand. So then I could try. Yeah. 06:13.81 sarah But but well you you might you might have heard me utter then that the one of the terms I don't like is coil building and and and and so often when you go back to sort of ah descriptions of how these pots were made what you find is people talking about coil building. 06:20.78 archpodnet And. 06:31.90 sarah And often you'll get a little illustration of this thing that you did at primary school of of putting little sausages of clay on top of 1 row and scraping them all together again and and actually when you go to the beakers out that I haven't seen any evidence ever ever for that technique being used yes coils of Claire added. 06:36.20 archpodnet I Remember yeah. 06:49.74 archpodnet Okay. 06:51.53 sarah Um, but they tend to be a much more robust technique in in that they're using a larger volume of clay and as you described the pots are then pinched out and what that does is it then produces what appear to be sort of quite wide bands of joined clay within the wall of the pot. Um. Which sometimes come apart and it's often been suggested that they would make a little part of the pot. Let put it to dry for a while. Add more clay and because they've dried it a little bit too much. It doesn't join very well whereas I don't think that's the case I think. People who made these were skilled enough to make the pot in one go so they're they're making a pot they're and adding a little bit more clay but when your nearest bathroom is several millennia away. You're likely to have slightly greasy hands and if you have slightly greasy hands. It. Obstructs the joining of the clay a little bit. Um the pot will look fine. It'll fire fine. It'll function fine. But when it's broken. It will tend to come apart of these joins. So what we see is we see beakers which are the base bottom end of the beaker is is made as a pinched out pinch pot. It's then had. 2 or 3 coils of Clay added to it to build it up and you end up with these quite wide bands and that's generally the technique that you see fairly widely. It does wear vary a little bit and I think you know so. 08:15.17 sarah Sometimes if I'm making a relatively small beaker I can do it in 1 but from ball a clay I simply take the ball a clay and I can pinch the whole beaker out from that ball of clay. Um, if I um want to go a little bit larger or I want it a little bit finer then I'll I'll use adding techniques. Um. 08:22.28 archpodnet Okay. 08:31.41 sarah But of course what we definitely are is we are before the potters wheel arrives in this part of the world. Um, if you'd popped down to Southern Iraq at around about this time, you'd found people knocking out pots on Potter's wheels but um, not in this area. 08:35.77 archpodnet This. 08:46.80 archpodnet Ok, interesting and you mentioned sort of the that I'm just thinking I mean I'm definitely not a potter and I ah as anyone who's seen my various attempts at making pots and I even tried to make the. 08:59.24 sarah Um. 09:01.58 archpodnet Ventus of Donny Vedd say just failed completely. But anyway, um so it's ah I'm I'm definitely not a a not a potter. My father is he would be appalled at my attempts. but anyway um but I tried to make a little a cup for myself because I am. 09:04.58 sarah Um, ah yes. 09:10.27 sarah Are. 09:17.22 archpodnet The Archaeologist's teacup is my sort of thing and I thought oh I'll make myself a little teacup. How hard can it be I thought um and I didn't have a wheel I thought oh I'll do a I tried the coil method I tried the pinching method I tried the coil method eventually I think I stuck with the coil method and it sort of turned out. Okay, but um, the pinching method when I was trying to do it. 09:29.17 sarah Um, yeah. 09:35.38 archpodnet I Just kept getting it just kept getting wider and wider and wider and wider I couldn't get that little you know, um, neck shall we say that the beakers have have such that little thing I mean is it just a thing. What why do you think they. 09:41.76 sarah Yeah, yep. 09:50.34 archpodnet Created that shape is it is it something that actually if you're quite good at potting that is quite easy to make that shape or is it more difficult to make that shape than a general bowl. Um, like yeah how does that work. 10:00.50 sarah Well I mean strangely enough it's one of the things that I encounter when I do workshops with people is ah I always say that clay wants to be a plate That's what it wants to be. It's going. It's going to get wide and wide it't become a plate. 10:09.37 archpodnet Yes, a broken plate in my case of. 10:15.34 sarah Um, and and your job is to stop it becoming a plate That's that thing. Um, but but yes there are there are various techniques in the way you hold the pot while you're working it and and sometimes I'll I'll if I'm working on a bigger pot I'll I'll pinch with 2 hands and you sort of. Pinching the clay and pushing together at the same time to encourage it in in an upward motion to get it make it get taller and taller. Um and the sort of exercise I Often get people to do is to try and make and a tall straight cylinder. Um and in actual fact, when making these beakers. 10:34.89 archpodnet I. 10:51.96 sarah What I what I largely do is I don't try and form that shape straight from the start I actually make what is basically a cylindrical form and then um, using my fingers inside the pot push the form outwards. The interesting thing about that is. 10:55.72 archpodnet Is it. 11:07.14 archpodnet Ah, how. 11:08.84 sarah That when you start to do that. You realize that the reach of your thumb over the rim of the pot If you've got your fingers inside the pot your thumb on the outside of the pot and you start to to shape the pot in that way. Um basically gives you that outward curving flare of the rim. 11:26.41 archpodnet Um. 11:26.52 sarah The reach of your fingers inside the pot with your thumb over the over the top will be almost exactly where the belly of the pot comes and I I Do think that That's how it was made and I do refer to these as reaches and I think they are sort of ergonomic um fossils within the within the pots. Um, and I suspect if we were to you know there's a Ph D somewhere in that for somebody's to trot off and get as many be as they can and try and work out the size of the hands of the people who made these down things and maybe we think we can then start to answer the question which is often asked is it men or is it women making these pots. 12:02.70 archpodnet Which relates indeed to my next question which I was going to ask coaches. You know, do we know who is making these parts. 12:05.70 sarah Like there. We go all right? Ah well we don't um I mean ah so I said earlier that I spent ah time in Southern Africa yeah I was in Lus Sutu for 20 years 12:20.35 archpodnet Is is. 12:23.25 sarah Wonderful thing in La Sutu was that people were still pursuing the ancient craft of potmaking as it had been with them for a couple of thousand years and it was a hundred percent women who made the pots. Um. 12:36.82 archpodnet Consciousness. 12:39.58 sarah Men men were not allowed anywhere near the firings, the potmakings etc. Um I was allowed there as an honorary woman. Um, and and the reason I The reason I got to be an honorary woman was because I already knew about potmaking. So I Obviously you know. 12:48.63 archpodnet Interesting. Yeah. 12:57.62 archpodnet Ah. 12:58.71 sarah Um, was obviously an honorary woman. Um, but ah it was it was women's work making pots men didn't make pots now. The interesting thing is we're here that we ran a potty workshop in la sutu in which we had about 50% men and women working in the workshop and the thing was. 13:18.43 archpodnet Um. 13:18.48 sarah That we use Potters wheels a machine and as soon as there was a machine involved. Apparently it was fine for men to you to to to come and hate arts and it's it's it's it's boys at boys. You know that's ah yeah, whatever. Um, but. 13:25.72 archpodnet I Be Yeah yeah. 13:33.86 sarah Certainly there is a tendency in sub-saharan Africa for it to be mostly women that make the pots as soon as you get north of the sahari. It starts to blur and and you you find more men getting involved and in some places it's ah, almost exclusively men who make pots. Um, but it's a question which which. 13:39.70 archpodnet Here. 13:53.14 sarah Persist. We don't know we don't really know who's making the pots. Um, and I think I think attempts have been made to sort of assess fingerprint size and things like that the reverse a find from the Nessa brodgar of an orkney. Yeah Neolithic grooveware a little while ago. 14:05.59 archpodnet B. 14:11.90 sarah That had fingerprints in it and basically they reckon. It's a male of between about 13 and 17 and I I've no idea how on earth you come up with that conclusion from a fingerprint. But yeah. 14:11.46 archpodnet Very cool. 14:25.30 archpodnet Yeah, that does sound like this is what I wanted to be. It's going to be this, but especially if you say indeed that the bellbe because are generally quite big that you know then you would sort of yeah but then. 14:28.98 sarah Ah, yeah, well, that's not of you know you're going. Yeah, okay maybe. 14:41.12 sarah They they they sort of fit my hand when I'm making them I have to say and of course because Clay shrinks as it dries by by round about 10% ish 14:44.40 archpodnet Ah, okay. 14:54.17 sarah Um, as it dries and is fired it shrinks so you you have to take that into consideration as well. In terms of ah how big were the hands of the people who made these pots. Um, but yeah, yeah, yeah, you do get some small ones you get to and and you do get although again in Britain it's. Tended to be said that beaker burials were male burials. There are exceptions that we are now seeing and I also think that maybe some of the archaeology of the more distant past ah earlier twentieth century and certainly nineteenth century. 15:30.16 archpodnet E. 15:32.35 sarah Um, sort of dismissed the idea that any of them might be female burials so you know we we we've got wonderful things like like burials where you know it's a female warrior but um, earlier sort of descriptions suggested that she was the wife of the warrior and that his bone. 15:35.40 archpodnet Of course, yes. 15:48.65 archpodnet Right? Yeah, it's like those ones with with 2 people of the same gender or something I you know say biological sex in a thing and they go yes, they were really good friends. They were just brothers or something to get ok, but. 15:52.00 sarah You disappeared you know and you go. Ah yeah. 16:03.41 sarah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think you know, but but what 1 of the one of the ah burials that we've replicated the pot from is the ava burial up in Ka Ne far North far North of Scotland and that is a very definite female beaker burial. So. 16:07.10 archpodnet Yes, it. 16:20.91 archpodnet Yeah, so the the antiquarians just needed to go to La Sutu apparently and be told by the people that no, it's obviously women's workless. Um but and sort of related to that a little bit I mean in terms of the way they're made you mentioned before something about kind of if something's if if. 16:21.21 sarah You know there we go. That's yeah, absolutely. 16:39.82 archpodnet They're very finely made or if they're a bit more crudely made um does it seem that the majority of them I don't know how what I'm trying to say here and I think I'm basically trying to say do you think there would have been people who would have been kind of specialized in making these beakers or do you think it was just something that everyone. Dabbled in at some point I know this is by the way a very big question. Um, but yes I thought why why not ask it. 17:04.43 sarah No it it. It is a big question but I do think that there are specialists at this stage. Um, and I do think that as say in ah, ah, places of power and I sort of use that term. 17:20.19 sarah Simply because you've got obvious places like Stonehenge um like the boin valley in in Ireland although although bekers don't really make it to Ireland in any great way. Um, and and ah akney in Scotland you've got these places that are obviously centers of power and what you. 17:24.67 archpodnet Um. 17:39.71 sarah Tend to see there is that the grave goods that we do have from those places tend to be of a higher standard. Ah, it's not universal and and and you do find very finely made stuff in quite remote areas. But what you also see here in the northeast of England for instance is is a lot of the beakers that have been found are quite crudely made. Um, and I think what's happening is is you've got the the professional but profession professionals the um, the experts the the specialists who are creating stuff. For ah places where I suppose they can be retained as it were um and then on the outside that you've got people who as a say are sort of signing on topeka culture by creating the pots themselves. Um, again, you know going back to my experience in the sutu. Yeah. Every woman at marriage age was expected to be able to make a decent pot for the house. Basically that that was the tradition in the Sutu Um, but in each village you would have usually a matriarch who was noted for being the person you went to if you wanted. 18:38.22 archpodnet Okay. 18:50.77 archpodnet This is. 18:51.38 sarah The perfect pot. You know you wanted ah a one for a wedding gift or something like that and I think that's what you're seeing. You're seeing people who are specialists um, not necessarily full time hundred percent all I do is make pots but certainly um, they appear to have made far more pots than you could possibly need for you. But your own use as it were. 19:10.37 archpodnet Which I suppose you have similar things now maybe not in terms of making objects. But I mean I'm just trying to think like you know, professional chefs. But then most people know how to cook a decent meal or you know, professional drivers but most people know how to drive a car like it's sort of that. 19:28.45 sarah Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely and I think ah ah ah, the interesting thing I suppose for me but being in the north of England is. 19:28.86 archpodnet That idea I guess Ah, but in terms of pots. 19:41.96 sarah Um, you see this blossoming of the bronze age and actually in later bronze age here and North ofumberland you get wonderful food vessels and things which are heavily influenced as I say by what was going on in Ireland and what was going on in Scotland and then we move forward into the iron age. All just falls apart. It's like you know suddenly um, something else has taken our attention and I think I think it sort of boils down to the sort of things that tacitus and people wrote about the about the iron age brits when they got here that. 20:06.23 archpodnet So. 20:17.16 sarah Basically they were showoffs so you know it was outward display it was it was clothing. It was weaponry. It was jewelry. It was painting yourself in patterns and running into battle naked. Um, these are all things of you know you're showing off and the pots were something that are just that you use them in the house who cares really you know, let's let's just let's just. 20:33.70 archpodnet This. 20:36.82 sarah That's just bash out apart. So it's It's this, you know, but sometimes we sort of imagine that these things are sort of linear progression of things developing and improving and getting better as the it doesn't all it isn't always the Case. So um, yeah, and the interesting trits and turns in the development. But. 20:57.35 archpodnet Yeah, no fascinating and I always I think I spoke a little bit about this in the very first episode back with Sarah um, about indeed how kind of pottery started and everything but I suppose yeah, that's also an interesting idea is how it I mean not ended because obviously we still have it but how it became less of a. Prestigious thing to do I suppose it did it at some point then become that or do you think it always that was still always an underlying ah kind of importance associated with with pottery or yeah. 21:28.41 sarah Well I think yeah I mean I mean I'm I'm tended to talk a bit about the iron age here. But but ah what what you do see in iron age burials in Britain is that maybe there's not a lot going on in terms of high quality native pottery but they are importing. 21:41.23 archpodnet So. 21:44.78 sarah Fancy goods from the continent and you know, um, ah but is it the I'm trying to think if it's the milton miltonkeans burial I think it is ah um, where where the grave is full of um ah Roman amfare which presumably were full of wine when they went in there. Um, lots of nice continental pottery. And and other weaponly but nothing much that you would say oh yeah, oh that was made locally. so um so I think it remains important. Yeah yeah, it remains important. But maybe the ah the skills are not as valued locally or whatever. 22:07.42 archpodnet Okay, it's it again more souvenirs. 22:19.55 archpodnet Yeah, okay, no no, very, that's really interesting. Okay I'm gonna step the recording.