Originally founded in 1882, in 1910 the Regional Museum of Prehistory became Germany's first purpose-built museum for prehistorical archaeology. The museum's collection of finds from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Ages is one of the oldest, most comprehensive and most important of its kind in Europe.

The Nebra Sky Disk and the Bronze Age
The current museum building – a castle-like structure dating back to 1913 - is the first and thus the oldest purpose-built archaeological museum in Germany. The new permanent exhibition contains sections dedicated to the Palaeolithic and Neolithic Ages, the Bronze Age in central Germany, the pre-Roman Iron Age, the Roman Age, the age of Germanic migrations, the early to late Middle Ages and the modern day. In addition to the permanent exhibition the museum also has regularly changing special exhibitions. From 2008, the famous Nebra Sky Disk will be on permanent display in the Bronze Age section.

With more than 10 million objects, the museum has one of the largest and most important collections on the prehistory and early history of central Europe. The new permanent exhibition focuses on central Germany's Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Ages. Spectacular finds and reconstructions in impressively presented displays take visitors on a journey of discovery into the world of hunter-gatherer societies between 450,000 and 7,500 years ago. Learn all about Germany's oldest settlement, make friends with a gigantic forest elephant and a Neanderthal in thinker pose, admire a hanging glacier and filigree ice art and visit the tomb of a Shaman. The almost fully preserved 200,000 year old mammoth skeleton is a particular highlight of the collection. The oldest exhibits include tools and remnants of skulls and teeth of people who lived in Bilzingsleben almost 350,000 years ago.
» www.landesmuseum-fuer-vorgeschichte-halle.de

A selection of other museums of pre- and early history in Germany.