I have just read a book called Scotland: History of a Nation. It goes right back to the ice ages and through to the present century. In the first pages it mentions the Urnfield Culture of about 1200 BCC. "Its label derived from large-scale burial sites with the burnt remains of cremated bodies placed in urns. From archaeological finds it is known to have been a warrior society, with the strong emphasis on personal display that is almost invariably found with such a system." It then talked about its influence extending over a vast range, and its prestige being great. 

But I have never heard of it. What do you know about it? It says it was very prestigious and its courts very flamboyant.

I don’t know much about Bronze Age archaeology and although I had heard of the term ‘Urnfield culture’ I had imagined that it was a sub-set of the Bell Beaker people. But apparently they’re quite separate in time with the Urnfield culture arising about half a millennium after the demise of the Bell Beaker culture. Your mention of reading about the Urnfield culture in a book on Scotland threw me a little because, as far as I’m aware, the Urnfield culture was to be found on the European mainland rather than in Britain. 

P.S. A topic involving the archaeology of Bronze Age Scotland is certainly something which ferval would have been able to throw some light on.

I'm afraid I don't know anything much about the Urnfield culture although I had encountered the term when I briefly stopped off at the village of Rennes-les-Bains in southern France, while on route to the dinosaur museum at Espéraza. The village information board mentioned that a large number of urns containing cremated bones had been found there. At the time I thought the word was perhaps a typically French dodgey translation from another language and as I was just passing through I gave it little more thought, although I now see that the correct French term is indeed la culture des champs d'urnes.

It came under a passage talking of a Celtic culture in south-central Europe in 1200 BCC or earlier. "There was a people or sets of peoples who lived in south-central Europe and who were later identified both by Greeks and Romans as 'Celts'. The language, or languages, that they spoke belonged to the Indo-European family, as did Greek, Latin and the later Germanic tongues. By around 1000 BC early forms of the Celtic speech had evolved, and by 600 BC these were being spoken in the Iberian peninsula, in Ireland, and in North Italy. 
Around the year 1200 BC the east Mediterranean civilisation...began to collapse. Many channels of trade and international contact were disrupted, and the dynamic centre of power moved northwards to central Europe. Here arose the Urnfiel
d Culture. its label derived from large-scale burial sites with the burnt remains of cremated bodies placed in urns...it is known to have been a warrior society...The Urnfield civilisation's demand for imported raw materials grew greater and its influence radiated across a vast extent of northern and north-western Europe...In the words of Professor Barry Cunliffe 'if the socio-religious package of Urnfield practice, with its attendant infrastructure of language, was thought to be desirable as a mode of elite expression, then it would have been quickly assimilated into the culture of the Atlantic communities.' Scotland formed part of this Atlantic zone. 
Then it goes on to mention the Urnfield culture arising around Halstatt in the Austrian mountains and the wealth it made from salt deposits and later iron.

Caro, I found something on the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland website about urns and cremation burials at Brackmont Mill, near Leuchars, Fife. Unfortunately although there are three online pages they only contain an abstract of the article (I think one has to be logged into the site to read the full article, which is by V Childe and David Waterson).  This article was dated 1942 so it seems the urnfield culture such as it was in Scotland has been known for some while.  http://journals.socantscot.org/index.php/psas/article/view/8172