Varna culture

[citation needed] The Varna culture is characterized by polychrome pottery and rich cemeteries, the most famous of which are Varna Necropolis, the eponymous site, and the Durankulak lake complex, which comprises the largest prehistoric cemetery in southeastern Europe, with an adjoining coeval Neolithic settlement (published) and an unpublished and incompletely excavated Chalcolithic settlement.

The copper ore used in Varna artifacts originated from the Sredna Gora mine near Stara Zagora, and Mediterranean spondylus shells found in the graves may have served as primitive currency.

… The weight and the number of gold finds in the Varna cemetery exceeds by several times the combined weight and number of all of the gold artifacts found in all excavated sites of the same millenium, 5000-4000 BC, from all over the world, including Mesopotamia and Egypt.

(Slavchev 2010)[10]The Varna culture had sophisticated religious beliefs about the afterlife and developed hierarchical status differences.

[11][12] The end of the fifth millennium BC is the time that Marija Gimbutas, founder of the Kurgan hypothesis claims the cultural advance to male dominance began in Europe.

The bull-shaped gold platelets perhaps also venerated virility, instinctive force, warfare and a proto-castle cult.