Turkey Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, and is known to have been in the
Diocese of Thrace Diocese of Thrace The Diocese of Thrace (, ) was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of the eastern Balkan Peninsula (comprising territories in modern south-eastern Romania, central and eastern Bulgaria, and Greek and Turkish Thrace). Philippopolis (modern Plovdiv, in Bulgaria) was the capital. The diocese was established as part of the reforms of Diocletian and Constantine the Great, and was headed by a "vicarius" subordinate to the praetorian prefecture of the East. As outlined in the "Notitia Dignitatum" of ca. 400, the diocese included the provinces of Europa, Thracia, Haemimontus, Rhodope, Moesia II and Scythia