Vessels

The transition to agriculture brought changes to social structures. People now lived according to the rhythm of the seasons in permanent settlements, which were isolated patches of cleared ground in Europe’s primeval forests. A storage economy gave rise to inventions such as fired clay pots, wheeled vehicles, and stone tools used to work the soil and to build shelters. The earliest central European agricultural culture is known as the Linear Pottery Culture after pottery artefacts decorated with spiral lines. Its members were descended from Neolithic groups in southeast Europe who had pushed northwest along the Danube. They settled only in areas with fertile loess soil.