Corded Ware culture

The Corded Ware culture (German: Schnurkeramik; French: ceramique cordée; Dutch: touwbekercultuur; in Middle Europe c. 2900–2450/2350 cal. BC), alternatively characterized as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture; other terms are corded pottery and corded ceramic, the latter being a calque in translations. It comprises an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic (Stone Age), flourishes through the Copper Age and culminates in the early Bronze Age.

The Corded Ware culture is the major north and central European cultural grouping of the Copper Age, stretching from the Netherlands and Switzerland in the west, across southern Scandinavia and Central Europe as far east as the upper Volga (Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture) and middle Dnieper (Middle Dnieper culture). The culture is reflected primarily by its burials, which consisted of inhumation under tumulus with various artifacts (notably battle-axes).

Corded Ware is generally considered to have played a key role in disseminating a form of the Indo-European language ancestral to the Germanic languages, Baltic languages and Slavic languages. According to J. P. Mallory the origins and dispersal of Corded Ware culture is one of the pivotal unresolved issues of the Indo-European Urheimat problem.