Corded Ware

The Corded Ware Culture

Origin

 The Corded Ware were a late Neolithic – Early Bronze Age people who lived in the land between the Rhine and Volga Rivers, from 3000-2300 BC. They were fairly genetically diverse compared to other people‘s of their time. Showing Yamnaya and possible pre-Yamnaya influence, as well as Neolithic European Farmer admixture. Their genetic record seems to indicate an integration of neolithic farmer and steppe herder DNA.

Culture

Lifestyle

The Corded Ware are so named for the impressions, resembling cords or rope, found on the pottery associated with them in the archaeological record. Evidence for settlements and permanent buildings is not well attested to, but is present in the record. This has led to some debate as to whether they were nomadic or sedentary.  They raised cattle and sheep, as well as planted Emmer wheat, Common wheat and Barley. They used wagons, probably pulled by oxen, and may have used the wool from the sheep they raised to make textiles of some kind. Because they were spread over such a large area and were the result of various peoples intermarrying there is some cultural variation, across time and the area they inhabited.  Scientists have categorized several sub groups of the Corded Ware, two of the better known are the Singl e Grave Culture, and the Battle Axe Culture.

          The Single Grave Culture, is so named because of the prevalence of individually buried people attributed to them. They lived in Scandinavia Northern Germany, and the Low Countries.

          The Battle Axe Culture, so named because of the prevalence of polished flint axes(as well as bronze) found in their graves, often these are both shaped. They lived mainly in Southern Scandinavia, Norway, and Finland.

 Diet

Meat (beef, mutton, and wild game) as well as grains(Common, and Emmer wheat, and Barley) were both consumed, though the prevalence of grains is debated, due to their scarcity in the archaeological record. Dairy products were also eaten, and alcohol is believed to have been a part of the diet, based on the prevalence of drinking vessels and linguistic studies.

Language

They spoke a dialect of the Proto into European language, and are most likely the fathers of Proto Germanic, as well as Proto Slavic – Baltic.

Burial Customs

The dead were generally buried singularly in low flat Graves, sometimes with a low mound raise over it sometimes without. Men were generally buried on their right side with their head facing West and their face to the South with their knees bent. Women were usually buried on their left side with their head facing East And their face to the South. Though in some Polish graves, the bodies were buried with their heads facing South, women on their right side, looking East, men on their left side, looking West. Men were usually buried with axes laid near their face and a knife at their hip, Occasionally they were buried with pottery behind their head (in which case an axe is usually not present). Wagons, animals, beakers, flint blades, amber beads, copper tools, and shell ornaments are also found as grave goods.

Migrations and Relations to Later People

The Corded Ware are ancestral to all Northern Europeans to a greater or lesser extent, in the East the Finns, Estonians, and North Russians carry the highest percentage of Corded Ware admixture. In the West it is the Poles, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Russians from Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, and Kursk. And in the North, it is the Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders, and Germans. The people of the British Isles also have a strong connection to the Corded Ware, with a large and relatively rapid migration taking place sometime around 2500 BC, which wiped out most of the pre-existing people of the Megalithic cCulture. The men of the Corded Ware were mostly R1B and R1A, and Corded Ware people also had some of the highest prevalence of the gene RS 4988235, ( the gene which allows the digestion of milk into adulthood), at the time.