Determining when the nuclear family began to play a significant role in human social development has been difficult for scientists to prove. However, an international team of scientists led by Wolfgang Haak, of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, discovered what is believed to be the first evidence of the nuclear family.1 In 2005, Wolfgang and his team discovered several burial sites in Eulau , in Saxony-Anhalt. , Germany, which contained the remains of thirteen individuals.1 The Eulau site is located in the low mountain forest region of southern Germany. Using radiocarbon dating, the team determined that the tombs were 4,600 years old, making them an integral part of the wireware culture that existed in the late Neolithic.2 Wireware covered most of the Northern Europe and took their name from the decoration associated with their pottery. They have also been called the Battle Ax culture, associated with the artifacts left behind for deceased men, or the Single Grave culture in relation to their style of burial. The Corded Ware culture used single tombs for the burial of their dead. They would place the individual in the grave on its side, in a bent position.3 If it was a male, they would be placed on their right side and the females on their left side, both facing south. 3 The significance of the Eulau discovery lies in the manner in which they were buried, collectively in a small group of graves. One particular grave, 6-0099, contained the skeletons of four individuals, a man, a woman and two children.2 Through DNA testing, they were able to determine that the grave was that of a father, mother and two young boys . The father is believed to be between forty and sixty years old, the mother between thirty-five and fifty years old, a boy between four and five years old... middle of paper ... ...an overview of the Neolithic period. It provided "the most direct evidence of interpersonal violence in the archaeological record" and "we now have for the first time definitive evidence for the presence of nuclear families in wireware."2Works Cited1 University of Bristol. “The world’s first nuclear family discovered”. ScienceDaily. Accessed April 15, 2014. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117192915.htm2 Meyer, Christian et al. “Eulau's Eulogy: Bioarchaeological Interpretation of Lethal Violence in the Multiple Corded Ware Burials of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.” Journal of Anthropological Archeology 28, no. 4 (December 2009): 412-423. Accessed April 15, 2014. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416509000348.3 Schulting Rick and Fibiger, Linda. Stick, Stone, and Broken Bone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 92,153-154.