The Peopling of British Isles II: The Bell Beaker Invasion: The Beaker Phenomenon And The Genomic Transformation Of Northwest Europe.

An seminal paper by Olalde et al. (2017) will be available today at The Beaker Phenomenon And The Genomic Transformation Of Northwest Europe

He's the abstract:

"Bell Beaker pottery spread across western and central Europe beginning around 2750 BCE before disappearing between 2200-1800 BCE. The mechanism of its expansion is a topic of long-standing debate, with support for both cultural diffusion and human migration. We present new genome-wide ancient DNA data from 170 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 100 Beaker-associated individuals. In contrast to the Corded Ware Complex, which has previously been identified as arriving in central Europe following migration from the east, we observe limited genetic affinity between Iberian and central European Beaker Complex-associated individuals, and thus exclude migration as a significant mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, human migration did have an important role in the further dissemination of the Beaker Complex, which we document most clearly in Britain using data from 80 newly reported individuals dating to 3900-1200 BCE. British Neolithic farmers were genetically similar to contemporary populations in continental Europe and in particular to Neolithic Iberians, suggesting that a portion of the farmer ancestry in Britain came from the Mediterranean rather than the Danubian route of farming expansion. Beginning with the Beaker period, and continuing through the Bronze Age, all British individuals harboured high proportions of Steppe ancestry and were genetically closely related to Beaker-associated individuals from the Lower Rhine area. We use these observations to show that the spread of the Beaker Complex to Britain was mediated by migration from the continent that replaced >90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the process that brought Steppe ancestry into central and northern Europe 400 years earlier."

A greater than 90% replacement of the original neolithic British inhabitants? That sounds similar to situations where the indigenous population were completely or almost completely exterminated. Tasmania and the British springs to mind.

But what did these people look like?

Although the 'races of man' idea is somewhat unpalatable, most features of the human body have a genetic cause, hence characterizing people by their physical attributes has some scientific basis.

Hence I quote what I could find on the net regarding their physical appearance:

"British Bronze Age (Beaker type)

Distinguishing Characters:

A. Head form: more massive and globular, less pointed than Dinaric

B. Face form: broader in malar region, squarer, gonial angles more marked

C. Nose form: fleshier than the ordinary Dinaric nose, shorter

D. Skin color: usually florid or ruddy

E. Hair color: oftener reddish

F. Body build: heavier and broader than average Dinaric(?)

In the Bronze Age, or just before the introduction of bronze, Britain was invaded by tall, massive roundheads who seem to have come from about the same area near the mouth of the Rhine and northwestern Germany from which the later Anglo-Saxons sailed. Probably other brachycephals came to England later during this period, but the custom of cremation obscures their racial affinities. British anthropologists have long recognized a contemporary English and Scottish type as

probably surviving from these Bronze Age invaders or as an effect of recombination of the same subracial elements.

It is tall, heavy-boned, weighty and, in middle and advanced years, obese. The skin is usually florid or beefy, the eyes blue or light mixed. Sometimes, however, and especially in Shetland, and in parts of North England, and Scotland, and Ireland, the hair and skin are dark.

The head is massive, brachycephalic and sometimes rather flattened behind. If the high, pointed Armenoid-Dinaric brachycephaly exist in this type, it is uncommon. Brow-ridges are heavy, malars prominent, and the face rather broad, but not short. The nose is usually long, wide, and convex-decidely beaky. Beard and body hair are strongly developed."

From the Forum Biodiversity website (2010).

Here's as good a photographic representation as I could find from Coon (1939):

References

Coon, C S, 1939. The Races of Europe. 1st ed. London: Macmillam Press.

Olalde et al. bioRxiv. 2017. The Beaker Phenomenon And The Genomic Transformation Of Northwest Europe. [ONLINE] Available at: http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/09/135962. [Accessed 10 May 2017].

Forum Biodiversity/Yahooland. 2010. Bell-beaker, How did they looked like?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php/39298-Bell-beaker-How-did-they-looked-like. [Accessed 10 May 2017].