page_title: History of Germany
section_title: Early cultures
hierarchical_section_title: History of Germany / Prehistory / Early cultures
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gefäße, gefunden im keltischen Grabhügel "Hohmichele" der Hallstattzeit in de:Altheim (bei Riedlingen). Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart.
context_page_description: The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul, which he had conquered. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest prevented annexation by the Roman Empire, although the Roman provinces of Germania Superior and Germania Inferior were established along the Rhine. Following the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Franks conquered the other West Germanic tribes. When the Frankish Empire was divided among Charles the Great's heirs in 843, the eastern part became East Francia. In 962, Otto I became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the medieval German state.
  In the Late Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes, and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformation within the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic.
context_section_description: The first groups of early farmers different from the indigenous hunter-gatherers to migrate into Europe came from a population in western Anatolia at the beginning of the Neolithic period between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.
  The settlers of the Corded Ware culture, that had spread all over the fertile plains of Central Europe during the Late Neolithic are of Indo-European ancestry. The Indo-Europeans had, via mass-migration, arrived into the heartland of Europe around 4,500 years ago.
  By the late Bronze Age, the Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC to 750 BC) had replaced the Bell Beaker, the Unetice and Tumulus cultures in central Europe. The Hallstatt culture, which had developed from the Urnfield culture was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). The people, who had adopted these cultural characteristics are regarded as Celts. How and if the Celts are related to the Urnfield culture remains disputed. However, Celtic cultural centers developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age (circa 1200 BC until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg at the Danube, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean. In the 5th century BC the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube - Pyrene, that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC, Germanic peoples from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe.
caption: Celtic pottery vessels from a burial site near the Heuneburg
exif: {}