The Beaker People: migration, mobility and diet in prehistoric Britain

Our next talk is by Mike Parker Pearson, Professor of Later British Prehistory at UCL.  Mike is well-known from his TV appearances and for his work on Stonehenge.  This time, however, he is going to speak to us about “the Beaker Folk”.  The Beaker period in the very earliest Bronze Age has bean a controversial topic for many years.  Were they itinerant bronze smiths, or was the spread of beakers a case of cultural transmission rather than movement of people?  One theory was that the “beaker phenomenon” was related to a drinking cult.  Modern scientific analysis of the bones from these burials has, however, thrown much light on these questions which are addressed in Mike’s forthcoming book due out next year.  Come and get the scoop in advance!