The
Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC – 750 BC) was a late
Bronze Age culture of central
Europe. The name comes from the custom of
cremating the dead and placing their ashes in
urns which were then buried in fields. The Urnfield culture followed the
Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the
Hallstatt culture. Linguistic evidence and continuity with the following Hallstatt culture suggests that the people of this area spoke an early form of
Celtic, perhaps originally
proto-Celtic.