Systems of Raw Material Procurement and Supply in Upper and Eastern Thrace and South Marmara Region

Abstract

In this paper an attempt to reveal the different systems of raw material procurement and supply in the territory of Northern and Eastern Thrace and South Marmara region have been done and the results are presented further down. (Map 1) Northern Thrace - systems of raw material procurement and supply ‐ VII mill BC In the territory of Northern Thrace a well defined system based on acquiring with high quality flint raw material had functioning. The former was connected with white - painted and dark-polished pottery phases in this area during the first half of VII mill BC. In Northern Thrace the appearance of very high quality flint in all Early Neolithic assemblages could be established. The flint is yellow, yellow-reddish to brown and grayish in colour, opaque, with patterns of stripes or spots of varying density. (Hiller S., Nikolov V., 2000) This type of raw material is registries in shape of relatively big blades in all sites chronologically relating to the first half of VII mill in Northern Thrace. Up to now flint cores from the above-mentioned high quality yellow, yellow-reddish raw material have not been found in all Early Neolithic settlements of Bulgarian Thrace. This fact suggested that the core preparation and exploitation was done off the settlements and very likely somewhere more or less close to the places of flint provenance. This way could be explained the fact that in all Early Neolithic flint chipped stone