page_title: Prehistory of Southeastern Europe
section_title: Neolithic
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Southeastern Europe / Neolithic
caption_attribution_description: English: Varna necropolis, Grave offerings on exposition in Varna Museum
context_page_description: The prehistory of Southeastern Europe, defined roughly as the territory of the wider Balkan Peninsula covers the period from the Upper Paleolithic, beginning with the presence of Homo sapiens in the area some 44,000 years ago, until the appearance of the first written records in Classical Antiquity, in Greece as early as the 8th century BC.
  Human prehistory in Southeastern Europe is conventionally divided into smaller periods, such as Upper Paleolithic, Holocene Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic, Neolithic Revolution, expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans, and Protohistory. The changes between these are gradual. For example, depending on interpretation, protohistory might or might not include Bronze Age Greece, Minoan, Mycenaean, Thracian and Venetic cultures. By one interpretation of the historiography criterion, Southeastern Europe enters protohistory only with Homer. At any rate, the period ends before Herodotus in the 5th century BC.
context_section_description: The Balkans were the site of major Neolithic cultures, including Butmir, Vinča, Varna, Karanovo, and Hamangia.
  The Vinča culture was an early culture of the Balkans (between the 6th and the 3rd millennium BC), stretching around the course of the Danube in Serbia, Croatia, northern parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Republic of North Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans, parts of Central Europe and in Asia Minor.
  The Varna Necropolis, Bulgaria, is a burial site in the western industrial zone of Varna (approximately 4 km from the city centre), internationally considered one of the key archaeological sites in world prehistory. The oldest gold treasure in the world, dating from 4,600 BC to 4,200 BC, was discovered at the site. The gold piece dating from 4,500 BC, recently founded in Durankulak, near Varna is another important example.
  "Kurganization" of the eastern Balkans (and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture adjacent to the north) during the Eneolithic is associated with an early expansion of Indo-Europeans.
  Butmir culture
  Starčevo-Criş culture
  Dudeşti culture
  Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
  Hamangia culture
  Vinča culture
  Varna culture
  Tărtăria tablets
  Kurgan hypothesis
caption: Artefacts from the Varna necropolis, Bulgaria
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