celebrity.estateAn EGRET.LAW propertyWorld map3D timeline
Home / Prehistory / Bronze Age farmsteads in Germany's Lech valley kept a rich core family and poor unrelated…
Case file s838 · Prehistory · 2000 BCE
See 2000 BCE on the timelineSee it in 3D
2000 BCE
Map of Germany, marked on the globe
Map of Germany. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
Late Neolithic to Middle Bronze Age; placed at 2000 BC
Place
Lech valley, south of Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
Field
farmstead households and grave goods
Legal tradition
Bronze Age household inheritance (as inferred from DNA and isotopes)
Historical event
Spread of Bronze Age metal wealth in central Europe
PrehistoryAncient worldEuropeGermany

Bronze Age farmsteads in Germany's Lech valley kept a rich core family and poor unrelated dependants side by side for 700 years

In 2019 Alissa Mittnik, Philipp Stockhammer, Johannes Krause and colleagues published genome-wide data from 104 people buried in cemeteries attached to farmsteads in southern Germany, from the Late Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age. They combined DNA with isotope evidence of where each person grew up and with the goods in each grave. Each household lasted several generations. It consisted of a high-status core family and unrelated low-status individuals buried alongside them. Men stayed on the farmstead where they were born. Women came from outside and married in, and the daughters of the farmstead left. The arrangement held for 700 years. The paper, "Kinship-based social inequality in Bronze Age Europe," appeared in Science in 2019; its authors describe the system as patrilocal, with female exogamy, and say it reveals inheritance rules as well as status. The study is cited as evidence that status and property passed down biological family lines in Bronze Age Europe, while the unrelated members of the same household stayed poor across the same generations.

What the law took from it

Who inherited was settled by birth into the core family; living in the household gave the others nothing to pass on.

Sources
  1. Journal article (DOI)Scholarship
  2. ebi.ac.ukScholarship

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Bronze Age farmsteads in Germany's Lech valley kept a rich core family and poor unrelated dependants side by side for 700 years,” story s838, https://www.celebrity.estate/lech-valley-farmsteads-2000-bc, updated 30 October 2026.

Related cases

Each one shares a person, a kind of fight, a subject, a period or a place with this case. The line under each headline says which.

Himmelsscheibe von Nebra - Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle - HD: Nebra Sky Disc - State Museum of Prehistory in Halle1600 BCE · Mittelberg near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, GermanyTreasure hunters sold the Nebra sky disc for 32,000 marks, and the museum director who posed as a buyer had the dealers arrested in a Basel hotelShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeOn 4 July 1999 Henry W. and Mario R., searching with metal detectors on the Mittelberg hill, dug up a bronze disc with gold inlays, two swords, two axes, a chisel and bracelet fragments. Henry W.archive.archaeology.org and 2 moreEgtved Girl: Egtvedpigen1370 BCE · Egtved, Vejle Municipality, Jutland, DenmarkThe Egtved girl was buried at 16 to 18 with a child's cremated bones, and scientists still disagree on whether she came from Germany or from EgtvedShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeOn 24 February 1921 an oak coffin was found in a Bronze Age mound near Egtved. The tree was felled in summer, and a yarrow flower on the coffin dates the burial to summer 1370 BC.europepmc.org and 4 moreFace and funeral golden jewelry, 4600-4200 BC, AM Varna, Varm21: Imprint of the face and funeral golden jewelry. Predecessor of gold funerary mask? Burial place near Varna. Chalcol4340 BCE · Varna, BulgariaAt Varna on the Black Sea, one old man was buried with a third of all the gold in a 6,000-year-old cemetery, and the richest graves held no bodiesShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeIn October 1972 an excavator operator, Raycho Marinov, found the Varna cemetery by accident. Ivan Ivanov excavated it from 1972 to 1991.journals.uni-lj.si and 2 moreMap of United Kingdom, marked on the globe3700 BCE · Hazleton North long cairn, Hazleton, Gloucestershire, EnglanAncient DNA from a Cotswold tomb shows five generations of one man's family, buried by father's line, with his sons by four women in separate halvesShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeHazleton North is a stone-built long cairn on the Cotswold Hills, excavated in 1979 to 1982 by a team led by Alan Saville; the finds went to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.ebi.ac.uk and 1 moreVix krater: Châtillon-sur-Seine480 BCE · Vix, at the foot of Mont Lassois, Côte-d'Or, FranceThe Vix grave held the largest metal vessel of the ancient world, buried with a woman, and some scholars questioned whether the body was a woman'sShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeIn January 1953 Maurice Moisson and René Joffroy uncovered a burial chamber at the foot of Mont Lassois, a fortified hilltop near Vix. It had not been robbed.musee-vix.fr and 2 moreTwin burial model - Sungir - Vladimir Palaty: Twin burial model. Sungir 2, 3.The building of the formet provincial administration – Palaty. Vladimir.32000 BCE · Sungir, near Vladimir, RussiaTwo disabled boys at Sungir were buried head to head with 10,000 ivory beads, and DNA showed they were not brothersShared: also Prehistory; same era, ancient world; also EuropeSungir was found in 1955 in a clay pit near Vladimir and excavated over 16 seasons to 1977. It holds a man of about 40 and, in a second grave, two boys of about 10 and 12 laid head to head.cam.ac.uk and 3 more

Where this case sits

PrehistoryAncient worldEuropeGermany