page_title: Bell Beaker culture
section_title: Bell Beaker artefacts
hierarchical_section_title: Bell Beaker culture / Bell Beaker artefacts
context_page_description: The Bell Beaker culture or short Beaker culture, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the
  European Bronze Age. Arising from around 2800 BC, and lasting in continental Europe until 2300 BC, succeeded by the Unetice culture, in Britain until as late as 1800 BC.
  The culture was widely scattered throughout Western Europe, from various regions in Iberia and spots facing northern Africa to the Danubian plains, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and also the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.
  The Bell Beaker culture follows the Corded Ware culture and for north-central Europe the Funnelbeaker culture.
  The name Glockenbecher was coined for its distinctive style of beakers by Paul Reinecke in 1900.
  The term's English translation Bell Beaker was introduced by John Abercromby in 1904.
  In its early phase, the Bell Beaker culture can be seen as the western contemporary of the Corded Ware culture of Central Europe. From about 2400 BC, however, the "Beaker folk" expanded eastwards, into the Corded Ware horizon.
context_section_description: The two main international bell beaker styles are: the All Over Ornamented (AOO), patterned all over with impressions, of which a subset is the All Over Corded (AOC), patterned with cord-impressions, and the Maritime type, decorated with bands filled with impressions made with a comb or cord. Later, other characteristic regional styles developed.
  The beakers are suggested to have been designed for the consumption of alcohol, and the introduction of the substance to Europe may have fuelled the beakers' spread. Beer and mead content have been identified from certain examples. However, not all Beakers were drinking cups. Some were used as reduction pots to smelt copper ores, others have some organic residues associated with food, and still others were employed as funerary urns. They were used as status display amongst disparate elites.
caption: The distinctive Bell Beaker pottery vessels shaped like a reversed bell, early examples from southwestern Germany (Stadtmuseum Bruchsal)
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