There was two waves of inter-related cultures which spread deeper in Balkans, the second one is the Gava/Channeled Ware Culture.
They did reach the Aegean and Troy though, ultimately, because we have the regional Knobbed Ware, which was just part of the same movement and people. And in the end, the Thiny, Bithyny and probably even Phrygians, as Thracian-related people, might be explained in part by it.
I came across another interesting fact, namely that there was a very big shift in the early Gava military tactics and equipment, from the Carpathians, down to the Balkans where they moved. During the Late Bronze Age transition, the frequency of spearheads among metal goods and weaponry drastically increased, as did swords, which is less suprising. Both the spearheads and swords took new shapes, like the Naue II examples, but even more advanced swordtypes than those. The swords changed in the Carpathian area from thrusting to cutting weapons. This in combination with the spearheads suggests to me that a new military tactic was introduced as well, coming closer to fighting in close quarters, in formation, even approaching a phalanx style military order.
Interestingly, some old experts on the matter recognised spearheads of the new type from Transcarpathia, over the Balkan, to Greece. In Greece it seems to be new and intrusive, and appears in the transitional and Dorian period.
In the earlier phase, axes were much more common the cultures which preceded Gava. The rise in typical spearheads is very steep and points to a drastic shift.
The later Gava success seems therefore also due to the adoption of a completely new tactic and military equipment than they had before and this shift being recognisable in the archaeological record from Poland-Ukraine to Greece and beyond (Sea Peoples) with related artefacts of spearheads and swords. This change would have most certainly also affected the whole society and we see even in Eastern Hallstatt still some kind of units of a leading sword-bearer with a squad of spear and axe bearers.
By the way, if you use Google translate for this interesting paper, you can find something about the burial customs of Lăpuș II, which was at the core of Gava.
https://www.austriaca.at/0xc1aa5576 0x002debec.pdf
Going by the settlement of Rotbav, the Gava people also build more pit houses instead of on the ground, like the earlier Noua and Wietenberg people:
Die Siedlung der G?va-Kultur zeigt Unterschiede zu den Hausstrukturen der Siedlungsphasen
der Wietenberg- und der Noua-Kultur, die durch Oberfl?chenbauten charakterisiert sind.
The authors assume it was also because of a colder climate, with pit houses giving more protection. But in any case its a completely different architecture and settlement structure.
They also bred more ovicaprids, also for the secondary products, especially wool and milk:
Schon in den Noua-Phasen, vor allem aber in der Siedlungsphase
der G?va-Kultur werden vor allem Schweine fr?her geschlachtet, sie k?nnen offenbar nicht mehr
?ber den Winter gehalten und gef?ttert werden, w?hrend Ovicaprinen in gr??erer Zahl vorkommen als
fr?her und vermutlich auch f?r ihre sekund?ren Produkte, wie Wolle, gehalten wurden.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...tbav_Sudostsiebenburgen_Ein_kurzer_Vorbericht
About the end of Gava in the North:
The beginning of the Early Iron Age in the northeastern
part of the Carpathian basin is characterized
by strong historical-cultural changes connected with
the appearance of new ethnic groups of eastern Iranian
origin - the representatives of the Mezőcs?t Culture
(PATEK 1967.101-105,PATEK 1974.339, PATEK 1980.
162, KEMENCZEI 1984.228, CHOCHOROWSKI 1989/A.
527-534, CHOCHOROWSKI 1993.231-218). The questions
of the genesis of this culture are still discussed.
Certain researchers connect the appearance of
Mezőcs?t finds at the Great Hungarian Plain with
Caucasian-Pontic milieu (GAZDAPUSZTAI 1966.307,
MOZSOLICS 1984.48.), others with the steppe zone of
the North Pontic region (BONA 1984.170-171,
KEMENCZEI 1986/B. 15, HARMATT? 1946/48.131).
G?va Culture which occupied significant territories
of the Middle and Upper Tisza region and that of the
neighbouring Kyjatice Culture ceased to exist already
in the middle of the 9th century B.C.
Territories lying closer to the Carpathian range were
influenced by the mentioned processes only indirectly.
In East Slovakia, Carpathian Ukraine and partly in
Transylvania, G?va Culture continued to exist almost
until the appearance of the Thraco-Scythian sites
(DUSEK 1978., P?RDUCZ 1973., VASILIEV 1980.,
CHOCHOROWSKI 1985., POPOVICH 1993.).
In recent works the following terms have been used
for the finds mentioned above: G?va III, Szomotor/
Somotor type, pre-Kushtanovica/Kust?nfalva horizon
(PASTOR 1958.314, PLEINEROV?-OLMEROV? 1958.109,
BUDINSKY-KRICKA 1976., MIROSSAJOV? 1987.,
SMIRNOVA 1966., BALAHURI 1972., POPOVICH 1989.,
CHOCHOROWSKI 1989/A.540).
In the Southern zone there was a fluent transition into Psenichevo-Basarabi in particular, while in the North Gava persisted as long or longer, but was more drastically transformed by Cimmerians and Scythians. How the Cimmerian and Scythian intrusions affected their paternal genetics is of course largely unknown. So far the E-V13 connection being only proven for Psenichevo and Basarabi, and made likley for some Thraco-Scythians/Geto-Scythians with the single find in the North Carpathians.
It seems they formed a huge defensive line against the steppe incursions:
A specific moving factor of this process
was the situation formed as a result of the appearance
of the militant "Cimmerians" at the territory of Alf?ld.
At the turn of HB2-HB3 probably a part of the
G?va and Kyjatice population under the pressure of
the Mezőcs?t population appeared here, moved into
the regions of the Eastern Carpathians together with
relative tribes. Here they formed a defensive line in
the mountainous regions of East Slovakia, Transylvania
and Transcarpathia. One of these sites was
the Irshava fortified settlement.
So, in the regions situated closer to the Carpathian
range we can observe the process of accumulation of
the G?va Culture. The absence of finds of the so-called
"Thraco-Cimmerian type" make us think that the
population of the Transcarpathian region had not
changed.
https://www.academia.edu/15002240/Study_of_the_Early_Iron_Age_sites_in_the_Transcarpathian_region
It is absolutely evident that this was one united network, most likely one cultural sphere, one language (Proto-Daco-Thracian) and religion. The climate change and new innovations in technology, military tactics and economy, all added up to a mass movement led by powerful elites, close to the princes of the Unetice provinces, probably even related to their tradition.
Gava was to the south intrusive and replaced on a big scale:
In terms of relative chronology, the early G?va
phase in Central and Southern Transylvania is later
than the Lăpuş II-G?va I horizon in North-West Romania
(K a c s ? 1990, 49; M a r t a 2009, 102) and
it is partially contemporary to the Susani group from
Banat (S t r a t a n, Vu l p e 1977, 56?58; G umă
1993, 169?170; Vu l p e 1995, 83?86). The finds
from Hunedoara (L u c a 1999, pl. 4:5?6,16, 5:6,9?10;
S ? r b u et al. 2005, fig. 4:5) and Simeria (B a s a 1970,
fig. 4?6; A n d r i ţ o i u 1996) point to an expansion of
the Susani group towards South-West Transylvania (the
Haţeg-Deva area), where no early G?va sites are known
so far, a situation similar to the one of the Banat region
(G umă 1993, 190?194).
https://www.researchgate.net/public...hronology_of_the_Gava_culture_in_Transylvania
I also read up on why many archaeologists don't interpret it that way and one comment is particularly noteworthy: The majority of archaeologists refused the idea of a migration being the main factor, because the sheer size of the change and the settlements of Gava/Channelled Ware would imply a true tribal mass movement of people! They only backed off from the demic model, for the most part, because it would suggest such a massive, grande scale intrusion of people. Its so massive that people refused to accept it, while many earlier authors and some more courageous observers said it right away, that this was a people on the move. And that's what it is. The spread of E-V13 will prove it.
And the explanation for the chaotic distribution of the main clades is that they decided to split up not along the main clan-tribal formations, but sending with every colonist group members of all tribes. That's something we know from history and ethnology, that people do if they want to keep cohesion intact, even with far away colonists, which conquer and settle new lands. Every clan had to choose some warriors for the war party or colonist group. That's the only reasonable explanation, because as soon as the Channelled Ware loses its cohesion, the regional subclades become apparent.
The second spread is already more specific, related to Iron Age subgroups, like Thraco-Cimmerian, but especially Basarabi/Thraco-Scythian/Eastern Hallstatt as one of the main connections.