Hannah Devlin looks at a genome study that may explain the spread of bell-shaped pottery beakers across Europe 4,500 years ago

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Around 4,500 years ago, a craze for bell-shaped pottery beakers appears to have swept across what is now modern-day Europe. Archaeologists have unearthed the distinctive pots at sites from the Iberian peninsula to Ireland in the west and Poland in the east. They appear in Britain at around the same time as Stonehenge was built.

The artefacts are linked to what is known as the Bell-Beaker culture. Archaeologists have been in disagreement about whether the spread of the beakers signified a Bronze Age fashion that was passed from one settlement to another, like prehistoric fidget spinners, or whether there was a mass migration – or even invasion – of beaker folk?

This question has been impossible to answer by studying artefacts alone, but now a major ancient-genome study has begun to shed some light on the mystery.

To discuss ancient Europe, genetics and the beaker folk, Hannah Devlin is joined by Ben Roberts, an archaeologist at the University of Durham.