[3] The Encrusted Pottery culture expanded eastwards and southwards along the Danube into parts of Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria in response to migrations from the northwest by the Tumulus culture, resulting in the emergence of groups such as Dubovác–Žuto Brdo in Serbia and Gârla Mare–Cârna in Romania, which are considered to be southern manifestations of the Encrusted Pottery culture.

[4][5][6][7] The culture was named after its distinctive pottery decorated with incised designs inlaid with white lime, and southern groups are notable for the production of figurines or idols decorated in the same style.

[8][9] Four Y-DNA testings from the Balatonkeresztúr mass grave burial dated to the Encrusted Pottery Culture can be assigned to I2a-M223>>L1229 which is I2a2a1b (group I2a-M223 was present in Megalithic cultures from the British Isles to today’s Czechia), while two males' Y-DNA could be assigned to the R1b-Z2103 clade, which appears in contemporaneous populations such as in Bell Beaker period samples from Hungary or a Vucedol culture associated individual from Croatia (in whichever case the most ancient samples come from the Pontic steppes).

The ancestry composition of the eight individuals buried was ~29% hunter-gatherer, ~46% European farmer, ~25% western steppe herder.

Some individuals had up to ~47% Mesolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry, despite this component being thought to be highly diluted by the time of the Early Bronze Age.