The findings, which shed light on the importance of female mobility for cultural exchange in the Bronze Age, showed that the practice persisted over a period of 800 years during the transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age.
This played a significant role in the exchange of cultural objects and ideas, which increased considerably in the Bronze Age, in turn promoting the development of new technologies, the researchers said.
For the study, published in the journal PNAS, the team examined the remains of 84 individuals buried between 2500 and 1650 BC, and found that at the end of the Stone Age and in the early Bronze Age, families were established in a surprising manner in the Lech, south of Augsburg, in present-day Germany.
The majority of women came from outside the area, probably from Bohemia or Central Germany, while men usually remained in the region of their birth.
"We see a great diversity of different female lineages, which would occur if over time many women relocated to the Lech Valley from somewhere else," said Alissa Mittnik from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.
This so-called patrilocal pattern combined with individual female mobility was not a temporary phenomenon, but persisted over a period of 800 years, they said.
The study allowed researchers to view the immense extent of early human mobility in a new light.
"Individual mobility was a major feature characterising the lives of people in Central Europe even in the third and early second millennium," said Philipp Stockhammer, from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen.
A fresh graduate named David found the antique by chance during a grill party near the Vah river, which runs through the town in Trnava Region, Xinhua news agency reported.
"It's a bronze blade that was a symbol of power or requirement to some status. Not everyone could afford it," archaeologist Matus Sladok said.
The dagger, still in good condition, is 24.5 cm in length and 320 grams in weight.
The upper part is engraved with branches and the bottom has three openings for the blade to attach to a stick.
Daggers on a stick are linked with the Unetice culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age roughly 4,000 years ago. This culture today is mainly known from sites in Slovakia and Czech Republic.
The riverbank where the dagger was found was probably not the original spot to place it, according to Sladok. "It probably moved with time."
Four such daggers have been known of in Slovakia until now.