A group of scholars analyse and interpret data and artifacts from the most important museum collections in central Europe and the Balkans, illustrating the evolution, beginning in the Copper Age, of political hierarchy in this region.

Scholars analyze and interpret data and artifacts from the most important museum collections in central Europe and the Balkans that illustrate the evolution of political hierarchy in this region beginning in the Copper Age. Over a span of four millennia, early agricultural villages gave rise to Europe's first kingdoms and monarchies, the first complex state organizations.