The Linear Pottery Culture, also called the Linear Ceramics Culture, was the first neolithic culture in the area of central and western Europe. Its beginnings are commonly dated back to the 6th millennium BC. The culture developed in the northern part of the Carpathian Basin (todays southern Slovakia, northern Hungary and north-western Austria) and subsequently spread to the west along the Danube and Elbe rivers, into the are currently occupied by the Czech Republic, Austria and part of Germany. During the culture's later stages it spread to the north, following the northern slopes of the Carpathian mountains, into modern Poland and parts of the Ukraine. The name derives from the engraved linear patterns used to decorate the ceramic wessels: see Linearbandkeramic.