Tumulus culture
Bronze items present in Poland around 2300 BC were brought through the Carpathian Basin. The native Early Bronze Age that followed was dominated by the innovative Unetice culture in western Poland, and by the conservative Mierzanowice culture in the east. Those were replaced in their respective territories, for the duration of the second, the Older Bronze Period, by the (pre-Lusatian) Tumulus culture and the Trzciniec culture. Characteristic of the remaining bronze periods were the Urnfield cultures; within their range skeletal burials had been replaced by cremation of bodies throughout much of Europe. In Poland the Lusatian culture settlements dominated the landscape for nearly a thousand years, continuing into and including the Early Iron Age. A series of Scythian invasions, beginning in the 6th century BC, precipitated the demise of the Lusatian culture. The Hallstatt Period D was the time of expansion of the Pomeranian culture, while the Western Baltic Kurgans culture occupied the Masuria-Warmia region of contemporary Poland.