It developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and mesolithic techno-complexes between the lower Elbe and middle Vistula rivers.

The Funnelbeaker culture is named for its characteristic ceramics, beakers and amphorae with funnel-shaped tops, which were found in dolmen burials.

[5] After its establishment, the Funnelbeaker culture rapidly spread into southern Scandinavia and Poland, in what appears to have been a well-organized colonizing venture.

[1][6] In southern Scandinavia it replaced the Ertebølle culture, which had maintained a Mesolithic lifestyle for about 1500 years after farming arrived in Central Europe.

[7] The emergence of the Neolithic British Isles through maritime colonization by Michelsberg-related groups occurred almost at the same time as the expansion of the Funnelbeaker culture into Scandinavia, suggesting that these events may be connected.

During later phases of the Neolithic, the Funnelbeaker culture re-expanded out of Scandinavia southwards into Central Europe, establishing several regional varieties.

[9] The southward expansion of the Funnelbeaker culture was accompanied by a substantial increase in hunter-gatherer lineages in Central Europe.

[7] The Funnelbeaker communities in Central Europe which emerged were probably quite genetically and ethnically mixed, and archaeological evidence suggests that they were relatively violent.

[15] The TRB ranges from the Elbe catchment in Germany and Bohemia with a western extension into the Netherlands, to southern Scandinavia (Denmark up to Uppland in Sweden and the Oslofjord in Norway) in the north, and to the Vistula catchment in Poland and the area between Dnister and Western Bug headwaters in Ukraine in the east.

Variants of the Funnelbeaker culture in or near the Elbe catchment area include the Tiefstich pottery group in northern Germany as well as the cultures of the Baalberge group (TRB-MES II and III; MES = Mittelelbe-Saale), the Salzmünde and Walternienburg and Bernburg (all TRB-MES IV) whose centres were in Saxony-Anhalt.

Based on analysis from northern Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, the state of the art is that the crop analyses show assemblages that are dominated by Hordeum vulgare var.

[16][17] Wild fruit remains preserved as carbonised remains include e.g. Corylus avellana (hazelnut), Malus sylvestris (crab apple), Crataegus monogyna (common hawthorn) (also found in Wangels), Rubus fruticosus (blackberry), Rubus idaeus (raspberry), and Viscum album (mistletoe), while use of Prunus spinosa (sloe) is suggested by a single imprint.

[16][17] In a recent paper, scientists from Kiel University (Collaboarative Research Centre 1266) have found that although there are general similarities in used plants, differences in the production are evident.

At Flintbek in northern Germany cart tracks dating from c. 3400 BCE were discovered underneath a megalithic long barrow.

[31] The Funnelbeaker culture marks the appearance of megalithic tombs at the coasts of the Baltic and of the North sea, an example of which are the Sieben Steinhäuser in northern Germany.

Genetic analysis of several dozen individuals found in the Funnelbeaker passage grave Frälsegården in Sweden suggest that these burials were based on a patrilineal social organisation, with the vast majority of males being ultimately descended from a single male ancestor while the women were mostly unrelated who presumably married into the family.

[32] Flint-axes and vessels were also deposited in streams and lakes near the farmlands, and virtually all of Sweden's 10,000 flint axes that have been found from this culture were probably sacrificed in water.

[36] Ancient DNA analysis has found the people who produced the Funnelbeaker culture to be genetically different from earlier hunter-gather inhabitants of the region, and are instead closely related to other European Neolithic farmers, who ultimately traced most of their ancestry from early farmers in Anatolia, with some admixture from European hunter-gatherer groups.