It is at this time that fortified hilltop settlements and sheet‐bronze metalworking also spread widely across Europe, leading some authorities to equate these changes with the expansion of the Celts.

[6][7][8] It is believed that in some areas, such as in southwestern Germany, the Urnfield culture was in existence around 1200 BC (beginning of Hallstatt A or Ha A), but the Bronze D Riegsee-phase already contains cremations.

The Urnfield culture is divided into the following sub-phases (based on Müller-Karpe sen.): The existence of the Ha B3-phase is contested, as the material consists of female burials only.

The central European Lusatian culture forms part of the Urnfield tradition, but continues into the Iron Age without a notable break.

[4] Placename evidence has also been used to point to an association of the Urnfield materials with the Proto-Celtic language group in central Europe, and it has been argued that it was the ancestral culture of the Celts.

[22][23] The influence of the Urnfield culture spread widely and found its way to the northeastern Iberian coast, where the nearby Celtiberians of the interior adapted it for use in their cemeteries.

[24] Evidence for east-to-west early Urnfield (Bronze D-Hallstatt A) elite contacts such as rilled-ware, swords and crested helmets has been found in the southwest of the Iberian peninsula.

[25] The appearance of such elite status markers provides the simplest explanation for the spread of Celtic languages in this area from prestigious, proto-Celtic, early-Urnfield metalworkers.

[25] The numerous hoards of the Urnfield culture and the existence of fortified settlements (hill forts) were taken as evidence for widespread warfare and upheaval by some scholars.

Written sources describe several collapses and upheavals in the Eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia and the Levant around the time of the Urnfield origins: Some scholars, among them Wolfgang Kimmig and P. Bosch-Gimpera have postulated a Europe-wide wave of migrations.

Marija Gimbutas connected the various Central European regional groups to as many proto-populations: proto-Celts, proto-Italics, proto-Veneti, proto-Illyrians and proto-Phrygians (as well as proto-Thracians and proto-Dorians), who would establish themselves later, through migrations, in their historic locations.

Communities of peasants and herders, led by a warrior aristocracy, introduced the new rite of cremation, new ceramic styles and the mass production of metal objects as well as a new religion and Indo-European languages in various regions of Western and Southern Europe.

Excavations of open settlements are rare, but they show that large 3-4 aisled houses built with wooden posts and wall of wattle and daub were common.

Depending on the locally available materials, dry-stone walls, gridded timbers filled with stones or soil or plank and palisade type pfostenschlitzmauer fortifications were used.

Examples of fortified settlements include Bullenheimer Berg, Ehrenbürg, Hünenburg bei Watenstedt, Heunischenburg, Hesselberg, Bürgstadter Berg, Farrenberg, Gelbe Burg and Ipf in Germany, Burgstallkogel, Thunau am Kamp and Oberleiserberg in Austria,[34][35] Corent and Gannat[36] in France, Hořovice and Plešivec in the Czech Republic, Biskupin in Poland, Ormož in Slovenia,[13] Corneşti-Iarcuri, Sântana and Teleac in Romania,[37][38][39] Gradište Idoš in Serbia,[40] and Velem and Csanádpalota–Földvár in Hungary.

They formed part of a general movement towards large fortified sites across Europe in the Late Bronze Age, possibly in response to new styles of warfare.

[47][48] The general uniformity in design, material culture, and the density of settlements in Romania and Serbia at this time is indicative of societies that were organized under a common political framework.

Complete bronze cuirasses have been found in Saint Germain du Plain, nine examples, one inside the other, in Marmesse, Haute Marne (France), fragments in Albstadt-Pfeffingen (Germany).

"[57] In Milavče near Domažlice, Bohemia, a four-wheeled miniature bronze wagon bearing a large cauldron (diameter 30 cm) contained a cremation.

In the river Trieux, Côtes du Nord, complete swords were found together with numerous antlers of red deer that may have had a religious significance as well.

[79] The archaeologist Mikkel Hansen (2019) has suggested that the Urnfield sickle-numeral system may be related to 'hand signs' found among petroglyphs from the Nordic Bronze Age, which may have a similar numerical and calendrical meaning.

[80][81][82] Four elaborate cone-shaped hats made from thin sheets of gold have been found in Germany and France dating from c. 1500-800 BC (the Tumulus culture to Urnfield period).

The symbols – mostly disks and concentric circles, sometimes wheels, crescents, pointed oval shapes and triangles – were punched using stamps, rolls or combs.

[84] An analysis of the Berlin Gold Hat found that the symbols numerically encode a lunisolar calendar based on the 19-year Metonic cycle.

[89][90] Astronomers Rahlf Hansen and Christine Rink have argued that the Berlin hat encodes knowledge of Saros lunar eclipse cycles.

[110][111][112] In his analysis of the Velem diadem, archaeologist Gabor Ilon writes: "high-ranking members of the elite in Bronze Age Europe were proud owners of gold foil-covered costume adornments and symbols of status and power as well as of golden vessels, objects of social display, decorated with an identical set of symbols ... embodying what was presumably an identical and coherent spiritual background.

"[113] According to the Musée d'Archaeologie Nationale, "these precious and remarkably executed objects evoke a complex society, undoubtedly strictly hierarchical, with advanced technical and astronomical knowledge, organized around work in the fields".

In the earliest phases of the Urnfield period, man-shaped graves were dug, sometimes provided with a stone lined floor, in which the cremated remains of the deceased were spread.

The graves contain especially finely made pottery, animal bones, usually of pigs, sometimes gold rings or sheets, and in exceptional cases miniature wagons.

A genetic study published in Nature in March 2015 examined the remains of an Urnfield male buried in Halberstadt, Germany ca 1100-1000 BC.