The names "Hunsrück" and "Eifel" refer to a pair of low mountain ranges covering most of the region.
The expression “Hunsrück-Eifel culture” was coined in 1914 by Karl Schumacher, a specialist in the archaeology of the Roman provinces.
[1] This replaced the term "Mehren type", which had been in use in the late 19th century for the Middle Rhine Hallstatt cultures.
The Hunsrück-Eifel culture may be roughly divided into an "earlier" (HEK I) and a "later" Hunsrück-Eifel culture (HEK II), the earlier corresponding to the Late Hallstatt period, the later to the Early La Tène period.
A comparatively large number of burial-grounds and settlements of the Hunsrück-Eifel culture are known, so that it is assumed to have had a high population density vis-à-vis other regions and epochs.