The Vučedol culture () flourished between 3000 and 2200 BCE (the Eneolithic period of earliest copper-smithing), centered in Syrmia and eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Danube river, but possibly spreading throughout the Pannonian plain and western Balkans and southward. It was thus contemporary with the Sumer period in Mesopotamia, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt and the earliest settlements of Troy (Troy I and II). Archaeogenetics link the culture from Yamnaya migrations directly from the steppes that mixed with Neolithic people. The need for copper resulted in the expansion of the Vucedol Culture from its homeland of Slavonia into the broader region of central and southeastern Europe. Location Following the Baden culture, another wave of possible Indo-European speakers came to the banks of the Danube. One of the major places they occupied is present-day Vučedol, located six kilometers downstream from the town of Vukovar, Croatia. It is estimated that the site had once been home to about 3,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest and most important European centers of its time. According to Bogdan Brukner, proto-Illyrians descended from this wave of Indo-European settlers. The early stages of the culture occupied locations not far from mountain ranges, where copper deposits were located, because of their main invention: making tools from arsenical copper in series reusing double, two-part moulds. The Vučedol culture at its peak completely or partially covered 14 of today’s European countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and one settlement has even been registered in Eastern Greece. Cultural phases The Vučedol culture developed from two older eneolithic cultures: the Baden culture, mainly in the Pannonian plain, and the Kostolac culture in northern Serbia and western Romania, so the primary region of Vučedol development is eastern Croatia and the Syrmia region. The archaeological stratigraphy of the Vučedol culture can be divided into four phases: Preclassic period A Early classic period B1 Classic period B2 Period of expansion with regional types, C: East Croatian (Slavonian-Syrmian type) West Bosnian (Hrustovac type) South Bosnian (Debelo Brdo type) North Serbian (Đurđevačka Glavica type) West Croatian-Slovenian (Ljubljana Marsh type) Transdanubian (Pannonian Hungarian type) East Austrian-Czech type The Vučedol culture is the final eneolithic culture of the region, displaying characteristically common use of the war axe in its "Banniabik" form. Cult objects suggest the practice of new cults very