ORIGINS AND MIGRATIONS OF THE THRACIANS
ORIGINS AND MIGRATIONS OF THE THRACIANS

Summary/Abstract: Origins of people speaking Indo-European languages is one of the most discussed issues in archeology and linguistics. One theory suggests their spread from the Near East. The Balkans are a key region for solving the problem as it is located at the crossroads between Asia Minor, Central Europe and the Eurasian steppe. The Thracians were the largest ancient people of the region, and their origin was associated with different areas. The presence of Thracian place-names from Hungary to Greece and Asia Minor does not allow us to reliably localize their homeland. But analysis of cultural processes in the region demonstrates that after the appearance of the Near Eastern cultural complex in the Neolithic, further development in the Northern Balkans had local roots. The most significant event was the Early/Middle Bronze Age transition at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, when people with chariots came from the Near East, which lead to the appearance of a series of new cultures in the Carpathian Basin. Only at the end of the Late Bronze Age (last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC), did the culture of this area spread to Southern Thrace, which resulted in the occupation by the Thracians of the entire area known from written sources.

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