Corded Ware culture
The Corded Ware culture, CWC comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between c. 2900 BCE – circa 2350 BCE, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a vast area, from the Rhine on the west to the Volga in the east, occupying parts of Northern Europe, Central Europe and Eastern Europe.
Bell Beaker culture
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.
Ertebølle culture
The Ertebølle culture is the name of a hunter-gatherer and fisher, pottery-making culture dating to the end of the Mesolithic period. The culture was concentrated in Southern Scandinavia, but genetically linked to strongly related cultures in Northern Germany and the Northern Netherlands. It is named after the type site, a location in the small village of Ertebølle on Limfjorden in Danish Jutland. In the 1890s, the National Museum of Denmark excavated heaps of oyster shells there, mixed with mussels, snails, bones and bone, antler and flint artifacts, which were evaluated as kitchen middens, or refuse dumps. Accordingly, the culture is less commonly named the Kitchen Midden. As it is approximately identical to the Ellerbek culture of Schleswig-Holstein, the combined name, Ertebølle-Ellerbek is often used. The Ellerbek culture is named after a type site in Ellerbek, a community on the edge of Kiel, Germany.
Lengyel culture
The Lengyel culture, is an archaeological culture of the European Neolithic, centered on the Middle Danube in Central Europe. It flourished during 5000-3400 BC. The eponymous type site is at Lengyel in Tolna county, Hungary. It was preceded by the Linear Pottery culture and succeeded by the Corded Ware culture. In its northern extent, overlapped the somewhat later but otherwise approximately contemporaneous Funnelbeaker culture. Also closely related are the Stroke-ornamented ware and Rössen cultures, adjacent to the north and west, respectively.
Scandinavian prehistory
The Scandinavian Peninsula became ice-free around the end of the last ice age. The Nordic Stone Age begins at that time, with the Upper Paleolithic Ahrensburg culture, giving way to the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers by the 7th millennium BC. The Neolithic stage is marked by the Funnelbeaker culture, followed by the Pitted Ware culture.
Globular Amphora culture
The Globular Amphora Culture (GAC), c. 3400–2800 BC, is an archaeological culture in Central Europe. Marija Gimbutas assumed an Indo-European origin, though this is contradicted by newer genetic studies which clearly show a connection to the earlier wave of Neolithic farmers rather than to invaders from the southern Russian steppes.
Nordic Stone Age
The Nordic Stone Age refers to the Stone Age of Scandinavia. During the Weichselian glaciation, almost all of Scandinavia was buried beneath a thick permanent ice cover and the Stone Age came rather late to this region. As the climate slowly warmed up at the end of the ice age, nomadic hunters from central Europe sporadically visited the region, but it was not until around 12,000 BCE before permanent, but nomadic, habitation took root.
Bronocice pot
The Bronocice pot, discovered in a village in Gmina Dzialoszyce, Swietokrzyskie Voivodeship, near Nidzica River, Poland, is a ceramic vase incised with one of the earliest known depictions of what may be a wheeled vehicle. It was dated by the radiocarbon method to the mid-fourth millennium BC, and is attributed to the Funnelbeaker archaeological culture. Today it is housed in the Archaeological Museum of Kraków, Poland.
Jersey dolmens
The dolmens of Jersey are neolithic sites, including dolmens, in Jersey. They range over a wide period, from around 4800 BC to 2250 BC, these dates covering the periods roughly designated as Neolithic, or “new stone age”, to Chalcolithic, or “copper age”.
Bronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from c. 2500 until c. 800 BC. Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture.
Early history of Pomerania
After the glaciers of the Ice Age in the Early Stone Age withdrew from the area, which since about 1000 AD is called Pomerania, in what are now northern Germany and Poland, they left a tundra. First humans appeared, hunting reindeer in the summer. A climate change in 8000 BC allowed hunters and foragers of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture to continuously inhabit the area. These people became influenced by farmers of the Linear Pottery culture who settled in southern Pomerania. The hunters of the Ertebølle-Ellerbek culture became farmers of the Funnelbeaker culture in 3000 BC. The Havelland culture dominated in the Uckermark from 2500 to 2000 BC. In 2400 BC, the Corded Ware culture reached Pomerania and introduced the domestic horse. Both Linear Pottery and Corded Ware culture have been associated with Indo-Europeans. Except for Western Pomerania, the Funnelbeaker culture was replaced by the Globular Amphora culture a thousand years later.
Lancken-Granitz dolmens
The Lancken-Granitz dolmens are a group of seven megalith tombs in the Lancken-Granitz municipality on Rügen, northern Germany. Erected during the middle Neolithic, when they were used by the Funnelbeaker culture, at least some were in use until the early Bronze Age. Three of them are encircled by solitary rocks forming either rectangles or a stone circle, one has a solitary "guardian stone" on its eastern side.
North European hypothesis
The North European hypothesis was a linguistic and archaeological theory that tried to explain the spread of the Indo-European languages in Eurasia from an original homeland (Urheimat) located in southern Scandinavia or in the North German Plain. This hypothesis, advanced by Karl Penka, Hermann Hirt, Gustaf Kossinna and others, had some success in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, being endorsed by National Socialism, but is today considered outdated by the majority of the academics, who tend to favor the Kurgan hypothesis.