Die Hinkelstein culture is a Neolithic

Neolithic Europe

Neolithic Europe refers to a prehistoric period in which Neolithic technology was present in Europe. This corresponds roughly to a time between 7000 BC and c. 1700 BC...

 archaeological culture

Archaeological culture

An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...

 situated in Rhine-Main and Rhenish Hesse, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

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It is a Megalithic culture, part of the wider Linear Pottery horizon, dating to approximately the 50th to 49th century BC.

The culture's name is due to a suggestion of Karl Koehl of Worms (1900). Hinkelstein is the term for menhir

Menhir

A menhir is a large upright standing stone. Menhirs may be found singly as monoliths, or as part of a group of similar stones. Their size can vary considerably; but their shape is generally uneven and squared, often tapering towards the top...

 in the local Hessian dialect

Hessian dialects

Hessian is a West Central German group of dialects of the German language in the central German state of Hesse. The dialect most similar to Hessian is Palatinate German of the Rhine Franconian sub-family...

, after a menhir discovered in 1866 in Monsheim

Monsheim

Monsheim is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.- Location :...

. Hinkel is a Hessian term for "chicken"; the Standard German name for menhirs, Hünenstein "giants' stone", having sometimes been jokingly mutated into Hühnerstein "chicken-stone".