We can only identify ancient civilisations by what they leave behind. It sounds obvious to say this in the absence of written records. Archeologists also classify history using other means – including the broad culture ancient tribes had. I had no idea about this until I spotted repeated mentions of the Funnel Beaker culture.

This article explains the significance of this culture in north-central Europe.

The funnel beaker what?

Most people know the Bronze Age is when humans figured out how to use Bronze. The other well-known segments of history – the Stone Age, the Iron Age – are all self-explanatory. We categorise them by the predominant material used at the time. It’s an important point because handling these materials implies humans became sophisticated enough to understand mining, smelting, alloys and so on.

The oldest traces of civilisation in Prague are from the Funnel Beaker culture.

This culture is intriguing because it is identified by the style of funnels on its beakers. In other words historians group this culture together by the common style used for their containers. It’s interesting because a common style would spread – just like a meme over social media – between tribes who know and trust one another, who would share lessons with each other and who are in regular contact with one another.

It’s amazing how much we can learn about our ancestors from simple things. It’s harder with architecture, even if we have some clues.

Broadly, this culture spread between approximately 3 100 BC¹ and 2 800 BC² in north-central Europe². It developed within a couple of generations (no more than 75 years) from the older Neolithic culture¹.

Imagine, if you will, the area from the Elbe in Germany² and Czechia stretching west as far as the Netherlands, stretching north as far as Denmark and the southern tip of Sweden, and eastwards to Poland’s Vistula river². This is where the Funnel Beaker culture lived.

A large chunk of this area became overrun by Slavic tribes a few millennia later.

This mention of the rivers and of coastal areas is no coincidence. After all there are many advantages of living close to water. 

I’ve written about how mermaid legends connect Denmark and Poland. Prague has a merman legend, but this is from Slavic folklore and is after the funnel beaker culture lived there.

The Funnel Beaker people can be described in the following ways:

1. They lived in single-family houses. Houses meant they were not nomadic³ and preferred settling in one place.
2. Their houses were daubed³ which means they used a sticky composite of wet soil, clay, sand and dung on top of a frame to create a building. These dwellings are 12 x 5 metres¹. They had some basic architectural knowledge and preferred houses to caves.
3. They tended animals, mainly sheep, cattle, pigs and goats^{1 2 3}. They were also hunter-gatherers¹ which implies being self sufficient. It also means the seeds of a trading economy were there.
4. They had wagons. With transportation and technology to roam they could trade with each other over a greater area.
5. They buried their dead^{1 3}. They didn’t use single-person graves but had large chambered cairns³ instead. Up in the Baltic region the entrance to these cairns is marked with megalithic stones³. 
6. They sacrificed ceramics, jewellery, food and weapons^{1 3} with their dead. They valued their ancestors and believed in an after-life of sorts.
7. It’s likely they spoke the same language, or a few similar ones at any rate. Historians know that when a culture persists for centuries this tends to map to a common language too⁴.

Why are they important?

• The Funnel Beaker were not Indo-European. Almost all European languages stem from Indo-European which spread westwards from the modern-day Caucasus. This culture predates that spread of language. Whatever language they spoke would be incomprehensible to us. This language is completely lost since they did not have the means to record anything.
• There is enough evidence to suggest they were the first humans to develop the necessary genes to process lactose⁵. If they kept animals then being able to eat and process dairy is a huge benefit. Conversely, if they can process dairy it’s worth keeping animals instead of killing them immediately. Without them modern humans would not have the ability to consume dairy products.
• If large enough numbers collected in one place they would slowly form a town¹. Most modern cities are built on, or around, the remains of such ancient settlements. Knowing this means we can trace where they lived and how they traded.
• By following a specific cultural trait – the shape of the funnels on their beakers – means we can see how far culture spreads as a meme. It shows us how close certain tribes were – or not¹.
• According to archaeogeneticists, the majority of Czechs today are not Slavic, as you would expect, but are descendents of these people⁶.

There is a hypothesis that this culture was the start of modern-day sexism. Ancient cultures have often had a mother goddess-centric view of the universe but ploughing fields is associated with a more male-centric society. In Kenya, where farmers still use hoes rather than ploughs, female representation in society is still much higher than in Western society⁷.

I’ve also written about how we can tell what people looked like through genetic analysis of what they’ve left behind.

Prague

There is archaeological evidence of the Funnel Beaker culture underneath the old castle of Vyšehrad in Prague⁸. Occupying a dominant position along a river is a good idea which is probably why the Funnel Beaker people had a settlement here⁸.

There’s a mysterious menhir just north of Prague’s city centre. No one knows what it’s for.

As well as showing one of the southernmost outposts of their culture we can see that Prague has been continuously occupied since the fourth millennium BC.  There is no evidence of any earlier settlements here⁸, but historians are quick to point out that the absence of any evidence doesn’t mean there weren’t any. It just means we don’t have any evidence for such a theory. In other words, the Funnel Beaker culture is the oldest trace of civilisation in Prague⁸.

I’m fascinated by this ability to use culture and a pottery design as a pattern in human history. We often don’t realise how obvious some patterns are and how useful they can be to categorise information about our past. 

Sometimes the most obvious patterns are the ones which we don’t see.

1. The Introduction and Establishment of Agriculture; Mats Larsson and Lars Larsson IN Ecological Bulletins No. 41, The Cultural Landscape during 6000 Years in Southern Sweden: The Ystad Project (1991), pp. 315-325 (11 pages) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. Reviewed Work: TRB Culture: The First Farmers of the North European Plain. by Magdalena Midgley IN Man New Series, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 189-190 (2 pages); Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. The Establishment of Agrarian Communities on the North European Plain; Peter Bogucki, Graeme Barker, Stanton W. Green, Torsten Madsen, Evzen Neustupny, L. P. Louwe Kooijmans, T. Douglas Price, Peter Rowley-Conwy, Barry E. Thompson and Pieter van de Velde; Current Anthropology; Vol. 28, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 1-24 (24 pages); Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. Anthony, David A. (2007). The horse, the wheel, and language: how Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 67. ISBN 978-0691058870[↩]
5. Absence of the lactase-persistence-associated allele in early Neolithic Europeans; J. Burger, M. Kirchner, B. Bramanti, W. Haak, and M. G. Thomas; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; 2007-02-28[↩]
6. Czechs are predominantly descendants of pre-slavic populations, says archaeogenetics expert; Tom McEnchroe; Radio Praha; 2019-07-26[↩]
7. No such thing as a closed-minded tortoise (Episode 237); No such thing as a fish; 2019[↩]
8. Exhibit at Vyšehrad castle; Observed by author; 2019-06-16[↩][↩][↩][↩]