Editorial

In the late 19th century, German researchers Friedrich Klopfleisch and, later, Alfred Götze identified a set of archaeological sources they called “schnurkeramische Kultur” (Corded Ware culture). By the turn of the 20th century, this concept had become widespread in many European countries, effectively defining the phenomenon of cultural unification across a vast area in the 3rd millennium BC. In the first decades of the 20th century, Corded Ware finds inspired the development of studies on European prehistory, transcending local geographical and cultural boundaries. They played a key role in the ethnicising concepts of Gustaf Kossinna’s “Siedlugsarchäologie”, as well as in the formulation of the first ideas of interregional scope, presented by Vere Gordon Childe, concerning the key role of steppe migrations in the cultural and demographic changes in European prehistory. It was probably the methods of “Siedlugsarchäologie” that decisively influenced Corded Ware researchers’ commitment to in-depth typological studies characterising individual regions.