It is named after the type site, a location in the small village of Ertebølle on Limfjorden in Danish Jutland.

In the 1960s and 1970s another closely related culture was found in the (now dry) Noordoostpolder in the Netherlands, near the village Swifterbant and the former island of Urk.

Named the Swifterbant culture (5,300 – 3,400 BCE) they show a transition from hunter-gatherer to both animal husbandry, primarily cows and pigs, and cultivation of barley and emmer wheat.

[1] During the formative stages contact with nearby Linear Pottery culture settlements in Limburg has been detected.

Like the Ertebølle culture, they lived near open water, in this case creeks, riverdunes, and bogs along post-glacial banks of the Overijsselse Vechte.

Recent excavations[2] show a local continuity going back to (at least) 5,600 BCE, when burial practices resembled the contemporary gravefields in Denmark and South Sweden "in all details", suggesting only part of a diverse ancestral "Ertebølle"-like heritage was locally continued into the later (Middle Neolithic) Swifterbant tradition (4,200 – 3,400 BCE).

The Ertebølle population settled on promontories, near or on beaches, on islands, and along rivers and estuaries away from the dense forests.

Due to chance fluctuations in the sea level during Ertebølle occupation of the coast and subsequently, many of the culture sites are currently under 3m-4m of water.

Their materials were mainly wood, with bone, antler and flint for functions requiring harder surfaces.

Genetic analysis by scientists from the University of Ferrara (Italy) indicates that the Cro-Magnons were ancestral to the current population of Europe.

Perhaps if all the submarine sites were known, a continuous coastal culture would appear from the Netherlands to the lakes of Russia, but this has yet to be demonstrated.

Three main methods of fishing are supported by the evidence, such as the boats and other equipment found in fragmentary form at Tybrind Vig and elsewhere: trapping, angling, and spearing.

Ertebølle fishermen angled with hooks made of red deer bone, of which at least one example has been found with line attached.

Boats were dugouts a few feet wide propelled by paddles constructed of shafts to which leaf-shaped or heart-shaped blades were attached.

At one end a layer of clay spread on the bottom supported hot coals, an indispensable source of heat if you were going to spend much time in the boat.

Some of the most common are pike, whitefish, cod, and ling at Østenkaer, anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus), three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and eel at Krabbesholm.

The oldest site, Yderhede, featured remains of flatfish and sharks: porbeagle, topeshark, smoothhound, and (at Lystrup Enge) spurdog.

The species found raise the question of whether a whaling or sealing industry existed as such or whether the bones came from opportunistic scavenging.

The boar were supplemented by swine with mixed European and Near Eastern ancestry, obtained through their Neolithic farming neighbors, as early as 4,600 BCE.

[5] The fur animals are fairly widespread: the beaver, squirrel, polecat, badger, fox, lynx.

Of the berries that have been found are raspberry (Rubus idaeus), dewberry (Rubus caesius), wild strawberry, dogwood (Cornus sanguinea), hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna and Crataegus oxyacantha), rowanberry (Sorbus aucuparia), crab apple, and rose hips.

Some seeds usually made into gruel in historical times are acorn and manna grass (Glyceria fluitans).

Finally, fragments of textiles from Tybrind Vig were woven in the needle-netting technique from spun plant fibers.

Fire pits located outside the huts indicate that most village functions were performed outdoors, with the dwellings used perhaps for storage and sleeping.

An external fireplace from Ronaes Skae was constructed as a perimeter of stones surrounding a mud and clay hearth on which charred wood was found in a spoke pattern.

Pottery was manufactured from native clays tempered with sand, crushed stone and organic material.

The bottom was typically formed into a point or bulb (the "funnel") of some sort that supported the pot when it was placed in clay or sand.

One can imagine a sort of mobile pantry consisting of rows of jars set now in the hut, now by the fire, now in the clay layer at the bottom of a dugout.

Late in the period technique and decoration became slightly more varied and sophisticated: the walls were thinner and different motifs were used in the impressions: chevrons, cord marks, and punctures made with animal bones.

There was some appreciation of sexual dimorphism: the women wore necklaces and belts of animal teeth and shells.