From around 5500 BC, farming communities spread rapidly across Europe, at first choosing to settle on areas of easily cultivated loess (fine wind-deposited loam) soils. By 4900 BC they occupied France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine.
These pioneers are known as the Linearbandkeramik (Linear pottery), or LBK, culture, after the distinctive pottery that they made. They cultivated plants and kept domestic animals, mainly cattle, although they also ate some wild foods.
Rectangular wooden longhouses up to 150 ft (45 m) long, with gabled roofs to shed rain and snow, were grouped in small settlements sometimes enclosed by fences. The smaller longhouses probably housed individual families, while larger ones may have served some other purpose.
At one end of the house were stalls in which the animals were kept, as it was important to shelter them in the long cold winters. Above the stalls was a loft in which grain or other produce could be stored.
The dead were buried crouched on their side with grave goods that varied according to their gender.
