This article investigates the production of textiles in Thrace during the first millennium BC. It presents a functional analysis of textile-production tools from three towns in Thrace: Koprivlen, Adzhiiska Vodenitsa near Vetren, and Seuthopolis, and from Kastanas in Macedonia. The analysis shows that over the course of the Iron Age, textile production became more diversified and intensive. This process unfolded parallel to the emergence of opulent elite burials and urban communities. By examining a wider range of archaeological, iconographic, and textual data, the article contributes to our understanding of how the demand for textiles, and their consumption in different socially meaningful ways, connects to changes in production.

Since the beginning of the 19th century the Balkans has been a synonym for aggressive nationalism and unbridled violence; the two phenomena traditionally understood to be the key obstacles for its social development. This paper contests such views by arguing that it was the absence of protracted warfare and coherent nationalist doctrines that distinguishes the history of South Eastern Europe from the rest of the continent. Drawing critically on bellicose historical sociology and modernist theories of nationalism - with a spotlight on the work of Charles Tilly and Ernest Gellner. Drawing critically on bellicose historical sociology and modernists theories of nationalism the paper makes a case that it was not the abundance of nationalism and organised violence but rather their historical scarcity that proved decisive for the slow pace of social development in the Balkans.