The third millennium BCE constituted a moment of great upheaval during European Prehistory. The first of these shifts was related to the emergence of cultural phenomena that spread across the continent, one of the most prominent being the Bell Beaker phenomenon (2700-2000 cal. BC), which was discovered in extremely diverse contexts spanning from northern Africa all the way to Poland. Then, during the final centuries of the millennium, these phenomena slowly faded, giving way to the earliest phases of the Bronze Age and the radical shifts that followed within the social, economic, and symbolic spheres. Even though, since the 19th century numerous studies have been published on these decisive chronological periods — many of them taking into account a continental scale of study –, several aspects of these upheavals remain enigmatic. In particular, the nature of the elements triggering these changes, as well as the diffusion and integration mechanisms underlying them, are still strongly debated, and no 'one size fits all' answer seems to correspond to these issues.