The Urnfield culture was a Late Bronze Age culture of central Europe, named after its custom of cremating the dead and burying the ashes in urns in flat cemeteries. It spread from the Danube region and Hungary to Germany, France and northern Italy, and was marked by fortified hilltop settlements and by advanced bronze working, producing swords, helmets, shields and sheet-metal vessels. It is generally seen as the ancestor of the later Hallstatt culture and is often linked with early Celtic or Italic speakers. Its expansion has been connected with the unrest of the period of the Bronze Age collapse, though this is debated.
Before and after
- c. 1,201 BCEThe Olmec civilisation emerges at San Lorenzo
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 1,150 BCEBronze Age collapse
- c. 1,200 BCEIron Age
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 450 BCEHallstatt culture
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 800 BCEUrnfield culture
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 150 BCEPhoenician script
- from c. 1,200 BCE to 546 BCELydia
- from c. 1,189 BCE to 1,077 BCETwentieth Dynasty of Egypt
- from 12th century BCE to 7th centuryOrigins of Utica
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- 16th century BCEVedas
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The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 12th century BCE.