It can be argued that elements of European heritage can be identified not only as a national strategy of the present but also as a process in prehistory - the cultural and political transformations of the third millennium BC in European prehistory sparking off this process. These transformations initiated the processes and mechanisms that led up to the complex political, social and cultural institutions of the first half of the second millennium BC. From this time on, an authentic historical continuum leading towards present-day society can be identified.
The papers in this anthology provide an up-to-date survey of trends in Bell Beaker research, with a focus on western and northern Europe, as well as developments in the northern and eastern Scandinavian and Baltic regions. The geographical focus, along with the interpretative perspective, hopefully demonstrates some of the progress in understanding the histories of third millennium Europe.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
  • Christopher Prescott and Håkon Glørstad
• Contributors and Abstracts
• 1. Introduction: Becoming European Christopher Prescott and Håkon Glørstad
• 2. Personhoods for Europe: the Archaeological Construction and Deconstruction of European-ness Herdis Hølleland
• 3. Demography and Mobility in North-Western Europe During the Third Millennium Cal. BC Marc Vander Linden
• 4. Perceiving Changes in the Third Millennium BC in Europe Through Pottery: Galicia, Brittany and Denmark as Examples M. Pilar Prieto-Martínez
• 5. Body use Transformations: Socio-Political Changes in the Bell Beaker Context Lucía Moragón
• 6. Late Neolithic Expansion to Norway. The Beginning of a 4000 Year-Old Shipbuilding Tradition Einar Østmo
• 7. Towards a New Nnderstanding of Late Neolithic Norway – the Role of Metal and Metal Working Lene Melheim
• 8. Historical Ideal Types and the Transition to the Late Neolithic in South Norway Håkon Glørstad
• 9. The Last Hunter-Fishers of Western Norway Knut Andreas Bergsvik
• 10. Third Millennium Transformations in Norway: Modeling an Interpretative Platform Christopher Prescott
• 11. Technology Talks: Material Diversity and Change in Northern Norway 3000–1000 BC Marianne Skandfer
• 12. Cultural Reproduction from Late Stone Age to Early Metal Age – a Short Discussion of the Cultures in Finland, the Northern part of Fennoscandia and Karelia, 3200 cal. BC to 1500 cal. BC Mika Lavento
• 13. Tracing Pressure-Flaked Arrowheads in Europe Jan Apel
• 14. The Bronze Age Expansion of Indo-European Languages: an Archaeological Model Kristian Kristiansen