What is "nordwestblock"

The Nordwestblock (English: "Northwest Block") is a hypothetical Northwestern European cultural region that several scholars propose as a prehistoric culture in the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, northern France, and northwest Germany in an area approximately bounded by the rivers Somme, Oise, Meuse, and Elbe, and possibly extending to the eastern part of what is now England, during the Bronze and Iron Ages from the 3rd to 1st millennia BCE up to the onset of historical sources in the 1st century BCE.

The theory was first proposed by two authors working independently, Hans Kuhn and Maurits Gysseling, whose proposal included research indicating that another language may have existed somewhere in between Germanic and Celtic in the Belgian region.

The term Nordwestblock itself was coined by Hans Kuhn, who considered the inhabitants of this area neither Germanic nor Celtic, thus attributing to the people a distinct ethnicity or culture up to the Iron Age.