It can be argued that elements of European heritage can be identified not only as a national strategy of the present but also as a process in prehistory - the cultural and political transformations of the third millennium BC in European prehistory sparking off this process. These transformations initiated the processes and mechanisms that led up to the complex political, social and cultural institutions of the first half of the second millennium BC. From this time on, an authentic historical continuum leading towards present-day society can be identified. The papers in this anthology provide an up-to-date survey of trends in Bell Beaker research, with a focus on western and northern Europe, as well as developments in the northern and eastern Scandinavian and Baltic regions. The geographical focus, along with the interpretative perspective, hopefully demonstrates some of the progress in understanding the histories of third millennium Europe.