ABSTRACT
Central European archaeology has never been a coherent entity with clearly defined boundaries and this remains the case to this day. It is composed of a number of distinct national schools but interestingly the overall way in which research is conducted and the explanatory devices employed seem astonishingly similar (Sommer and Gramsch forthcoming). It is often defined in terms of shared research traditions, objectives pursued and methods applied (Bertemes 2002, forthcoming). It is dominated by German archaeology but should certainly not be equated with it. Labelling the Central European tradition as German is based on the fact that the German language has dominated discourse in this intellectual milieu.
