I will tell you now about the lands of Yambol during the pre-historic era. But for that purpose we need to go very far back in time. More than forty thousand years ago, in the era which scientists called Paleolithic epoch. In those times Europe had been inhabited by Cro-Magnons. They lived in caves and rock shelters, subsisted by hunting mammoths and reindeers, fishing and picking wild plants.

Later on, during the eleventh millennium B.C. warming occurred throughout Europe. Hunters retreated to the north as they were chasing the big animals, such as mammoths, tours and reindeers. Only small groups of hunters and herb collectors remained on the Balkan Peninsula.

During the tenth millennium B.C. the regions of today’s Israel, Syria, Palestine, Turkey and Iraq experienced the so called Neolithic revolution.  From hunting and plant gathering people switched to land cultivation and animal breeding. New instruments of production emerged, such as axes, adzes, chisels and hoes. The first man-made thing emerged – ceramics.

These tribes came to Europe with their new knowledge in the middle of the seventh millennium B.C.  They traveled using the big rivers and gradually settled down on the whole Balkan Peninsula.
Several thousand years later, during the Chalcolithic era, the first copper items emerged – axes, needles, chisels, jewelry. Once they settled down, people began building their settlements following a plan. They made their homes of wattle walls, coated with clay and with straw roofs. That required that they shall be mended occasionally. All structures in such cases had been demolished, the land was leveled and houses were erected again in their previous locations.  This way many layers gradually were accumulated and small hills were formed below the villages.

In the territory of today’s Yambol and surrounding areas there are three village hills even now – Marcheva, Rasheva and Charla Turla. During excavation works, stone, flint, bone and horn instruments of production were found and also ceramic articles and cult objects. Marcheva Hillock was explored at the end of the nineteenth century and it was found to be from the late Chalcolithic era. Rasheva Hillock however turned out to be from the early and middle Chalcolithic epoch. As to Charla Turla, which was considered to be from the late Chalcolithic era, it is yet to be explored.

Ancient potters made their dishes by hand from highly purified clay. The most frequent articles were bowls and deep dishes, small and big utensils shaped as vases, rounded pots. The decoration of pottery contained embossed ribs, punching, cuttings and graphite drawings. Drawing was done with brushes, made of animal hairs and had the form of various geometrical ornaments, such as circles, spirals, triangles and diamonds. Various cult images were also made of bone and clay.

In the times when the wheel had not been discovered yet, the main roads were the rivers and their tributaries. Throughout the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras Tundzha valley had been something like a main corridor for mutual exchange between the Balkan Peninsula, Anatolia and the Aegean islands.

The Chalcolithic era was followed by the Bronze Age. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin that is rather stronger than copper.  People started manufacturing various bronze instruments of production, such as chisels, punches and different weapons. Emerging of bronze items in the territory of Bulgaria happened as the result of a new migration of tribes to the Balkan Peninsula. At the beginning of the fourth millennium B.C. draught occurred. That made stock-breeding population from the North Pontic steppes in today’s Ukraine and South Russia, to move southward towards the Balkan Peninsula. The newcomers brought to these lands domesticated horses as well.

In the middle and the Late Bronze Age the grass roots of Thracian culture emerged in the Upper parts of Thracian valley.  The first silver ornaments appeared as well as the first pottery made on a potter’s wheel. In those times people still were making their homes of wattle and clay, with clay floors and straw roofs.
During archeological exploration bores done at Rasheva and Marcheva Hills, scholars discovered single ceramic pots that related exactly to that stage of development of the local population.

Later, when the military barracks were constructed on Cherven Bair location, graves were discovered, belonging to the Late Bronze Age. Pottery and other personal belongings were found in the graves as burial gifts.

So, from most ancient times even to the end of the Bronze Age the valley of Tundzha had preserved its important role as a corridor for exchange of ideas and cultures between Asia Minor, Mediterranean and the Lower Basin of the Danube.