This phase, starting 7000 years ago was marked by the consolidation of the Neolithic expansion towards western and northern Europe but also by the rise of a new culture that probably violently occupied most of the Balkans, substituting or subjugating the first Neolithic settlers. That is the culture of Dimini (Thessalia) and the related ones of Vinca-Turdas (Serbia and Romania) and Karanovo III-Veselinovo (Bulgaria and nearby areas), the last one more hybrid than the other two. Meanwhile, the tiny Proto-Linear Pottery culture gavr birth to two very dynamic branches: the Western and Eastern Linear Pottery Cultures. The latter one is basically an extension of the Balkan Neolithic, but the more original western branch expanded quickly, assimilating Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and even large parts of western Ukraine, historical Moldavia, the lowlands of Romania, and regions of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, all in less than 1000 years. With expansion comes diversification and a number of local Danubian cultures start forming at the end of the 5th millennium. In the Mediterranean, the Cardium pottery fishermen showed no less dynamism and colonised or assimilated all of Italy and the Mediterranean regions of France and Spain. Even in the Atlantic, some groups among the native hunter-gatherers started the slow incorporation of the new technologies. Among them, the most noticeable regions seem to be southwestern Iberia, which was influenced by the Mediterranean but especially by the Andalusian Neolithic, which soon developed the first Megalithic burials (dolmens) and the area around Denmark (Ertebölle culture), influenced by the Danubian complex.