The Neolithic Revolution came from the east, and then was ended from the east.

There is a flurry of research at the moment which is suggesting that the "Neolithic Revolution" came with  immigration from the east, across the English Channel and from the near continent.  Since time immemorial, of course, this has been speculated about by archaeologists and historians, with some thinking that waves of immigrants came in around the coasts via the Celtic Sea or southern Ireland,  and others thinking that the natural routeway was via the shortest sea crossing, on the reasonable assumption that travellers would have preferred to walk rather than row or sail, with all the extra attendant risks involved in using flimsy vessels in stormy waters.

This is one paper, behind a paywall, but featured on the BBC web site:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47938188?fbclid=IwAR1VpewPwSxH2mm0KZPRbhLuUMoNOZBnXVbPS6H2Qb14I5r2EO_aCRrQ4J8

This is an extract from the BBC report:

When the researchers analysed the DNA of early British farmers, they found they most closely resembled Neolithic people from Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal). These Iberian farmers were descended from people who had journeyed across the Mediterranean.

From Iberia, or somewhere close, the Mediterranean farmers travelled north through France. They might have entered Britain from the west, through Wales or south-west England. Indeed, radiocarbon dates suggest that Neolithic people arrived marginally earlier in the west, but this remains a topic for future work.

In addition to farming, the Neolithic migrants to Britain appear to have introduced the tradition of building monuments using large stones known as megaliths. Stonehenge in Wiltshire was part of this tradition.

Although Britain was inhabited by groups of "western hunter-gatherers" when the farmers arrived in about 4,000BC, DNA shows that the two groups did not mix very much at all.

The British hunter-gatherers were almost completely replaced by the Neolithic farmers, apart from one group in western Scotland, where the Neolithic inhabitants had elevated local ancestry. This could have come down to the farmer groups simply having greater numbers.

"We don't find any detectable evidence at all for the local British western hunter-gatherer ancestry in the Neolithic farmers after they arrive," said co-author Dr Tom Booth, a specialist in ancient DNA from the Natural History Museum in London.

"That doesn't mean they don't mix at all, it just means that maybe their population sizes were too small to have left any kind of genetic legacy."

Note this piece of speculation in the press release: "They might have entered Britain from the west, through Wales or south-west England. Indeed, radiocarbon dates suggest that Neolithic people arrived marginally earlier in the west, but this remains a topic for future work.  In addition to farming, the Neolithic migrants to Britain appear to have introduced the tradition of building monuments using large stones known as megaliths. Stonehenge in Wiltshire was part of this tradition."  I wouldn't mind betting that that particular piece of speculation was put in by Prof MPP (he was one of the authors), but there does not appear to be any evidence in support of it, so I think it can be ignored.  Indeed, the evidence in the paper seems to suggest that in the far west the communities were rather small, scattered and somewhat backward in adopting the new farming practices.  Of course, the MPP theories demand that the people of West Wales were powerful and sophisticated, capable of building a "proto-Stonehenge"somewhere well before 5,000 years ago, and capable of carrying up to 80 quarried monoliths all the way to Stonehenge for some ritual or political reason round about the time that Stonehenge was being built.  Even if some of the cromlechs in Pembrokeshire were built relatively early, there is nothing in the evidence of Neolithic Pembrokeshire to suggest the development of a culture that involved elaborate stone settings using non-local stones. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that the Neolithic tribes of West Wales treated any stones as sacred or special, no evidence that they were capable of moving monoliths from a place of origin to a distant place of use,  and  no evidence that they made any grand gestures (let alone a spectacular gesture related to "political unification") towards other tribal groups further to the east.

Reference:
"Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain"
Selina Brace, Yoan Diekmann, Ian Barnes et al
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2019)

Published: 15 April 2019

Abstract

The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Aegean ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain circa 4000 BC, a millennium after they appeared in adjacent areas of continental Europe. The pattern and process of this delayed British Neolithic transition remain unclear. We assembled genome-wide data from 6 Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating 8500–2500 BC. Our analyses reveal persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced to Britain by incoming continental farmers, with small, geographically structured levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry. Unlike other European Neolithic populations, we detect no resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry at any time during the Neolithic in Britain. Genetic affinities with Iberian Neolithic individuals indicate that British Neolithic people were mostly descended from Aegean farmers who followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal. We also infer considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe by circa 6000 BC.

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Then comes another article, kindly drawn to my attention by Alex.    It's in New Scientist,  dated 30 March 2019, pp 29-33.  It's called "The Tribe that re-wrote history" and it's written by Colin Barras.  As we see above, the page heading is "History of Violence."

The basic thesis, proposed by Kristian Kristiansen and others, is that the prosperous, community-minded world of the Neolithic in western Europe was ended rather abruptly around 4500 BP by the arrival of Yamnaya people who originated in the Eurasian steppes.  They reached Britain, bringing with them their Yamnaya beaker-making tradition, around 4,400 BP.  The immigration was rapid, dominated by young males, and it was violent.  The word "genocide" is even used.  (We have mentioned other related articles on this warlike late Neolithic invasion written by David Reich and others, and also by Martin Richards.  The work is based largely on the analyses of DNA samples from human bones found in Neolithic and later burials.)

Quote:  "Teams led by David Reich at Harvard Medical School and Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark announced, independently, that occupants of Corded Ware graves in Germany could trace about three-quarters of their genetic ancestry to the Yamnaya. It seemed that Corded Ware people weren't simply copying the Yamnaya; to a large degree they actually were Yamnayan in origin."

The "bell beaker" people came slightly later, adding yet more confusion.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/05/stonehenge-and-arrival-of-beaker-hordes.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/02/arrival-of-beaker-hordes.html

Quote:


"The first thing to appreciate, says Kristiansen, is that Neolithic Europe was in crisis just before the Yamnaya's arrival. Using the poilen record from archaeological sites as a proxy for levels of agricultural activity, archaeologists have concluded that populations in northern and central Europe began shrinking about 5300 years ago. In December 2018, Kristiansen and his geneticist colleagues suggested an explanation. Examining the teeth of Neolithic people who lived in what is now Sweden about 5000 years ago, they found plague-causing bacteria - the earliest known relative of the Black Death. Further analysis suggested the disease began spreading across Europe perhaps as early as 5700 years ago."

One interesting idea is that the spread of disease was facilitated by improving "roads" and trackways, and the use of wheeled vehicles.  (We note that the discussions about bluestone transport have been underpinned by the assumption that there were no wheeled vehicles available for use in Neolithic Britain, or that the terrain was too rough for them to be used.)  But there is a growing consensus that the "Britons" who built Stonehenge were in decline -- and the population of Britain was actually falling -- before the Yamnaya and bell beaker people arrived.  The genetic analysis now seems to show that the Stonehenge builders virtually disappeared within a few generations of the Yamnaya's arrival.  How do we square that with the idea promoted by MPP and others that there was a highly-developed and even sophisticated lifestyle involving long-distance trading, a knowledge of far-distant megalith provenances,  and gigantic feasts at places like Durrington Walls?

Conclusion

It appears that there is a serious and complex discussion right now about what happened in Britain (and the rest of Europe) round about the time that Stonehenge was being built.  This is happening because of the increasing involvement of geneticists working on DNA samples -- and it looks as if some of them, at least, are questioning the assumptions about Stonehenge being the "pinnacle" of a vibrant Neolithic culture centred on Salisbury Plain.  What they seem to be suggesting is that the Neolithic was a time of scattered tribes with rather variable cultural traits, and that they were in a long-term decline partly because of the spread of the plague.   There appears to be no good evidence of any cultural diffusion eastwards from West Wales towards the chalklands of southern England, or indeed of any strong trading links.  On the contrary, most of the immigration and most of the new cultural trends were coming from the east, both in the "Neolithic Revolution" and in the influx of the Yamnaya and bell beaker tribes who replaced the "Ancient Britons" as they died out over not much more than a century or so.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-hunt-for-proto-stonehenge-and.html

In a recent post I explained why Prof MPP and the rest of the quarry hunters may now have ended their project in West Wales -- based partly on the lack of worthwhile results over eight seasons of digging.  I wonder if the archaeologists have also come to the conclusion -- on the basis of this new DNA research -- that their assumptions about the cultural relations between Stonehenge and west Wales have all been wrong?  There appears to have been no appropriate cultural context. There is no reason whatsoever why Neolithic tribesmen would have wanted to carry 80 big lumps of rock from Preseli to Stonehenge --  even if they had the technical skills that made it possible.  I sense that MPP's fantastical narratives have finally come up against the buffers.  The diggers haven't found any quarries simply because there weren't any.......

Now then, what were we saying about glaciers?