The most recent discoveries near Dubene, Karlovo, have confirmed the chiefdom hypothesis about Early Bronze II-III in Western Thrace. After the rich data about the pottery, settlement pattern, bronze metallurgy and external contacts from Dubene-Sarovka, abt 15,000 golden ornaments of social elite jewelry connects the Upper Stryama chiefdom with Early Bronze Troy. Despite similar single finds we know from different parts of the Balkans, the richness of the cemetery and the excavated village together with the local bronze metallurgy infer that there was a politically organized social elite within a society that can be compared with the ethnographic and historic data about chiefdom. Since the size of the chiefdoms vary in the different parts of the world, we can offer two models for Western Thrace:
A Western Thracian chiefdom covering the area of the Yunatsite culture with local centers and main political center – Plovdiv-Nebet Tepe.
A Western Thrace chiefdom district included Upper Stryama (Dubene-Sarovka), Yunatsite (Upper Maritsa valley) and Plovdiv region (Plovdiv-Nebet Tepe) as smaller chiefdoms which in close but external from political point of view relations (L.N.) |
![[History]](http://us.yimg.com/i/ligans/cb/smtdih.gif)
