Vassil Nikolov

Abstract This report presents pilot research of archaeological pottery excavated in the Early-Neolithic settlement of Chavdar located in the Pirdop-Zlatitsa field, Bulgaria (first half of VI mill BC). The object of investigation is a red-slipped ceramic fragment decorated on both sides with white paint. A multi-analytical approach including optical microscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was undertaken to obtain comprehensive information contributing to the archaeological interpretation. The observations identified the qualitative chemical composition of the ceramic body and the pigment used for the decoration and gave implications on the temperature and the atmospheric conditions at which the vessel has been fired.

Evidence for both basket weaving and salt production is often elusive in the prehistoric archaeological record. An assemblage of Middle–Late Chalcolithic pottery from Provadia-Solnitsata in Bulgaria provides insight into these two different technologies and the relationship between them. The authors analyse sherds from vessels used in large-scale salt production, the bases of which bear the impression of woven mats. This analysis reveals the possible raw materials used in mat weaving at Provadia-Solnitsata and allows interpretation of the role of these mats in salt production at the site. The results illustrate how it is possible to see the ‘invisible’ material culture of prehistoric south-eastern Europe and its importance for production and consumption.

The prehistoric complex of Provadia-Solnitsata is located close to the modern-day town of Provadia in Northeastern Bulgaria. The remains represent the oldest salt-production site in Europe (5600 – 4350 BC) from which emerged the earliest prehistoric urban settlement on the continent (4700 – 4350 BC). The complex occupies an area of approximately 30 hectares. The emergence and development of the site were closely related to the largest and in fact the only rocksalt deposit in the Eastern Balkans, the so-called Mirovo salt deposit on which the settlement sits. Salt production on the site was based on the brine (thick saline water) that flowed out of this salt deposit. Brine boiling in ceramic pots at Provadia-Solnitsata is the earliest example on record in Europe for the use of this technology in salt production. It was practiced on this site for longer than one millennium. The heat needed for the process was generated in advance in a special installation or alternatively, was directly provided by an open fire, in both cases by burning firewood. At the end of the Chalcolithic, a change of technology had to be introduced – the water from the brine was then evaporated in a large ‘basin’ by using heat from solar radiation. The development of the five parts of the complex is presented: the tell with deposits from the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic, a cemetery from the Early Bronze Age, a Thracian ‘ruler’s residence’ from the 2nd – 1st centuries BC and a very large tumulus on top; a salt-production center from the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic together with ritual facilities from that time; a Late Neolithic pit sanctuary and a cemetery from the Middle Chalcolithic over it; a pit sanctuary from the Late Chalcolithic; a cemetery from the Late Chalcolithic.

This contribution summarizes the main results of 10 years of archaeological research in Solnitsata, located in Northeastern Bulgaria close to the modern city of Provadia. It constitutes the first prehistoric urban center in Europe (4700‑4200 BC). Its development is closely connected with the exploitation of the so-called Mirovsko salt deposit which underlies the ancient settlement. This latter is articulated around a salt-production center, a fortified stonewall settlement (citadel), a sacrificial pit and a necropolis covering a total area of approximately 13 ha.

Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, people in the central area of the Urartian Kingdom around Lake Van lacked the steppe ancestry characteristic of the kingdom’s northern provinces. Anatolia exhibited extraordinary continuity down to the Roman and Byzantine periods, with its people serving as the demographic core of much of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself. During medieval times, migrations associated with Slavic and Turkic speakers profoundly affected the region.

By sequencing 727 ancient individuals from the Southern Arc (Anatolia and its neighbors in Southeastern Europe and West Asia) over 10,000 years, we contextualize its Chalcolithic period and Bronze Age (about 5000 to 1000 BCE), when extensive gene flow entangled it with the Eurasian steppe. Two streams of migration transmitted Caucasus and Anatolian/Levantine ancestry northward, and the Yamnaya pastoralists, formed on the steppe, then spread southward into the Balkans and across the Caucasus into Armenia, where they left numerous patrilineal descendants. Anatolia was transformed by intra–West Asian gene flow, with negligible impact of the later Yamnaya migrations. This contrasts with all other regions where Indo-European languages were spoken, suggesting that the homeland of the Indo-Anatolian language family was in West Asia, with only secondary dispersals of non-Anatolian Indo-Europeans from the steppe.

We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers, forming a Neolithic continuum of ancestry mirroring the geography of West Asia. By analyzing Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic populations of Anatolia, we show that the former were derived from admixture between Mesopotamian-related and local Epipaleolithic-related sources, but the latter experienced additional Levantine-related gene flow, thus documenting at least two pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland to the early farmers of Anatolia.

Etudes de l'architecture et de l'organisation interne de la maison du niveau IV de S.-S. (Neolithique ancien a ceramique peinte, debut du 6e millenaire). Sol de rondins revetus de terre battue et cuite. Murs et cloisons internes, ouvertures. Toiture (poteaux de soutenement et charpente). Les chainages de bois. Les materiaux de construction : bois (chene, noisetier), argile, paille. Plan (trapezoidal) et reconstitution des phases de la construction : abattage des arbres, sechage et brulage des extremites des poteaux, assainissement du sol par le feu (experimentation). Refections et duree de vie. Structuration interne de l'espace : four, stockage, mouture, atelier de tissage, fosse a offrandes (?), atelier de fabrication d'outils en os et en pierre, etc. Presence d'un modele de maison et d'un possible soc

Abstract Bekannt gemacht werden die seltenen Reste eines ehemals zweigeschossigen Hauses, das 1999 im Tell Karanovo, in der spätneolithischen Schicht Karanovo III, ausgegraben wurde. Obwohl nur ein Teil des Hauses freigelegt werden konnte, ergeben sich genügend Anhaltspunkte, es vollständig zu rekonstruieren. Ein großer, von oben herabgestürzter Ofen und die unten tief verankerten Pfosten geben die Sicherheit für die Rekonstruktion eines doppelgeschossigen Hauses. Die 1999 gemachten Beobachtungen gaben Anlaß, zwei 1954 komplett ergrabene Hausgrundrisse der gleichen Zeitstellung (Karanovo III) genauer auf ihre Rekonstruktionsmöglichkeiten hin zu untersuchen. Sie werden als eingeschossig betrachtet und zur Ergänzung des nur unvollständig ausgegrabenen erstgenannten Hauses herangezogen. Abschließend wird noch kurz auf den zweigeschossig zu rekonstruierenden Hausbefund aus der frühneolithischen Schicht Karanovo I von Tell Kapitan Dimitrievo eingegangen.

5400 BC, the Neolithic people started to produce salt to meet their needs, at a place called now Provadia. A large salt body rediscovered recently in 1917 served as a source of this prehistoric factory that produced the most valuable item in prehistory - the salt, the most important and vital product of the early farmers. This unique site in

This report presents pilot research of archaeological pottery excavated in the Early-Neolithic settlement of Chavdar located in the Pirdop-Zlatitsa field, Bulgaria (first half of VI mill BC). The object of investigation is a red-slipped ceramic fragment decorated on both sides with white paint. A multi-analytical approach including optical microscopy, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy was undertaken to obtain comprehensive information contributing to the archaeological interpretation. The observations identified the qualitative chemical composition of the ceramic body and the pigment used for the decoration and gave implications on the temperature and the atmospheric conditions at which the vessel has been fired.

The paper discusses possible evidence for cereal food from seven Bulgarian archaeological sites spanning the Early Neolithic to the Early Iron Age (6th millennium BC – 1st millennium BC). It aims to increase the awareness of excavators towards such finds and to present the methods for collecting and extracting such remains from archaeological layers and their laboratory analysis. The studied remains are mainly cereal fragments, agglomerations of fragments or amorphous/ porous masses with or without visible plant tissues. They were directly collected from vessel contents or derived by means of flotation from bulk samples taken from floor layers close to fireplaces/ cooking installations. The microscopic structure of the food remains is observed and described at plant tissue level under low magnification binocular, microscope with reflected light and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). These optical examinations were applied in order to detect alterations of the microstructure of the ...

Die knappe Analyse einiger Gruppen von Gegenstanden unter den Grabbeigaben in der chalkolithischen Nekropole von Varna am Ufer des Varnasees (Nordostbulgarien) nahe der westlichen Schwarzmeerkuste zeugt vom fremden Ursprung des Rohstoffs, aus dem sie angefertigt worden sind. Ein Teil der Artefakte wurde allem Anschein nach anderswo erzeugt. Ein Grosteil der kupfernen Werkzeuge und »Schmuckstucke« sowie der goldenen Gegenstande wurde zwar vor Ort, aber aus eingefuhrtem Rohstoff hergestellt. Es steht auser Zweifel, dass man den in der Nekropole von Varna gefundenen Reichtum durch regularen Handel erworben hat. Der einzige Rohstoff, der fur Menschen und Tiere lebenswichtig und in der Region um den Varnasee vorhanden war, in Thrakien und den Nachbarregionen jedoch nicht vorkam, war Salz. Salz war daher nicht nur eine Voraussetzung fur den aktiven und erfolgreichen Handel, sondern es spielte wahrend der spaten Vorgeschichte die Rolle eines allgemeinen Gegenwerts. Die einzigen Steinsalzla...

The prehistoric complex of Provadia-Solnitsata is located close to the modern-day town of Provadia in Northeastern Bulgaria. The remains represent the oldest salt-production site in Europe (5600 – 4350 BC) from which emerged the earliest prehistoric urban settlement on the continent (4700 – 4350 BC). The complex occupies an area of approximately 30 hectares. The emergence and development of the site were closely related to the largest and in fact the only rocksalt deposit in the Eastern Balkans, the so-called Mirovo salt deposit on which the settlement sits. Salt production on the site was based on the brine (thick saline water) that flowed out of this salt deposit. Brine boiling in ceramic pots at Provadia-Solnitsata is the earliest example on record in Europe for the use of this technology in salt production. It was practiced on this site for longer than one millennium. The heat needed for the process was generated in advance in a special installation or alternatively, was directl...

Evidence for both basket weaving and salt production is often elusive in the prehistoric archaeological record. An assemblage of Middle–Late Chalcolithic pottery from Provadia-Solnitsata in Bulgaria provides insight into these two different technologies and the relationship between them. The authors analyse sherds from vessels used in large-scale salt production, the bases of which bear the impression of woven mats. This analysis reveals the possible raw materials used in mat weaving at Provadia-Solnitsata and allows interpretation of the role of these mats in salt production at the site. The results illustrate how it is possible to see the ‘invisible’ material culture of prehistoric south-eastern Europe and its importance for production and consumption.

This contribution summarizes the main results of 10 years of archaeological research in Solnitsata, located in Northeastern Bulgaria close to the modern city of Provadia. It constitutes the first prehistoric urban center in Europe (4700‑4200 BC). Its development is closely connected with the exploitation of the so-called Mirovsko salt deposit which underlies the ancient settlement. This latter is articulated around a salt-production center, a fortified stonewall settlement (citadel), a sacrificial pit and a necropolis covering a total area of approximately 13 ha.

The reconstruction of the prehistoric past requires methodologically correct field research that provides opportunities for systemic interpretations. Three methodological issues are raised here. The first one addresses the ‘building horizon’ as it is labelled in the specialized literature as a stratigraphic unit. This is the concept of the simultaneous creation, destruction, and reconstruction at the same place of each settlement in the late prehistory. A new model is proposed, according to which the ‘regeneration’ of the settlement occurred gradually and continuously, and not in discontinuous stages. The second issue is related to the character and provability of archaeological field observations done during the excavation of a prehistoric house that allow the excavator to define it as a two-storey structure. The third issue concerns a paradigm change in the archaeological concepts of the way in which the life of a Neolithic house came to an end. I propose a model of deliberate ‘cr...

Recent archeological excavations and findings helped a lot to reconstruct data and information about ancient earthquakes and their effects to the historical societies. Two cases are under investigations: 4550 years BC Solnitsata-Provadia archaeological site and Cybele temple (6th century BC) site. The first case is related to the destruction of the defensive bastions of the ancient society of the salt

The reconstruction of the prehistoric past requires methodologically correct field research that provides opportunities for systemic interpretations. Three meth-odological issues are raised here. The first one addresses the 'building horizon'-as it is labelled in the specialized literature-as a stratigraphic unit. This is the concept of the simultaneous creation, destruction, and reconstruction at the same place of each settlement in the late prehistory. A new model is proposed, according to which the 'regenera-tion' of the settlement occurred gradually and continuously, and not in discontinuous stages. The second issue is related to the character and provability of archaeological field observations done during the excavation of a prehistoric house that allow the excavator to define it as a two-storey structure. The third issue concerns a paradigm change in the archaeological concepts of the way in which the life of a Neolithic house came to an end. I propose a model of deliberate 'cremation' of the house and the 'burial' of its remains in a ritual pit.

Издателство на БАН "Проф. Марин Дринов" Гл. ас. д-р Виктория Петрова Родена е в София. Завършва Нов български университет през 1997 г. През 2004 г. защитава докторска дисертация на тема "Керамичен комплекс на култура Караново VI в Тракия". От 2010 г. е главен асистент в Секция за праистория в Националния археологически институт и музей на БАН. Научните ѝ интереси са свързани с изследването на праисторическите ямни комплекси, а през последните години и с кръговите ровове в Югоизточна Европа и в частност в Тракия. Ръководила е проучванията на праисторическите обекти Казлача, Сливенско; Хаджидимитрово, Ямболско; Градище, Шуменско; Вълчи дол и Белоградец, Варненско. Автор е на многобройни статии в български и чуждестранни научни издания.

149
Vassil Nikolov
Desislava Takorova
Slatina:
an Early Neolithic village in the Sofia Valley
(late 7th - first half of 6th millennium BC)
Summary
The requisite preface
More than 8000 years ago, some of the earliest farmers in Europe migrated from oversee Anatolia (Asia Minor) to the valley of modern-day Sofia, bringing with them a new lifestyle. Near the banks of what is today the Slatinska River, one of the largest settlements of the first European civilization emerged and quickly expanded. Today the settlement’s remains are called Slatina-Sofia1.
The life of early farmers who settled near the banks of the Slatinska River continued for longer than half a millennium. Due to its geography the Slatina settlement, shrinking and expanding in size up to about 300 daa over the centuries, was a cultural mediator of the Central Balkans.
In the middle of the 6th millennium BC, due to climate changes, the inhabitants of Neolithic Slatina migrated elsewhere, most probably to the periphery of the valley. What has survived is the so-called cultural deposit - a layer formed from the remains of human habitation. It is 4 meters thick and is the subject of prehistoric archaeological research.
Rescue archaeological excavations at the Neolithic settlement of Slatina began back in 1985 in a large sector (1400 sq. m) and continued until 1997. Years later, in 2013, excavations in an area of over 500 sq. m resumed in the northwestern part of the sector, and reached completion in 2018 when the natural layer was reached. From 2018 to 2020, rescue excavations were carried out within the bounds of several plots with a total area of about 2500 sq. m on the eastern periphery of the village.
From the resulting 22 field seasons over a period of 36 years, an abundance of data has been gathered from the cultural remains in the limited area exposed at Early Neolithic Slatina. Nevertheless, as archaeological experience suggests, this data can provide a great extent of information about the entire habitation occupying a huge area at the end of the 7th and the first half of the 6th millennium BC.
The long development of life at Slatina has made the Early Neolithic settlement a chronological benchmark for other partly or not yet excavated sites. The main chronological milestone is painted pottery. In the early phases of the settlement’s existence the thin-walled ceramic vessels were painted exclusively with white earth paint. Later, along with white paint, wine-red paint was introduced - initially on red-slipped vessels, and consequently, on ones with an orange surface; in the later phases brown painted decoration became dominant.
The Early Neolithic village
Human habitats of the earliest farmers migrating to the Balkans across the sea from Anatolia in the late 7th and early 6th millennium BC are a phenomenon of great importance for the prehistory of Europe. The structures of the settled type grew into the most important element, into a focus of life of the radically new stage of human society - in economic, social, demographic, psychological and semantic terms. The Early Neolithic villages in the Central Balkans emerged and grew into ecological niches (including in the Sofia Valley) as a new phenomenon in Europe. While the context was economic and social egalitarianism, the transformation of migratory groups into a settled system of village structures is still a multifaceted process that requires special attention.
The type (standalone), shape (square, rectangular and trapezoidal) and according to the roof (gable roof), as well as by the construction material and the technology of construction, the houses of early farmers were a completely new phenomenon in Europe. Perceived as a symbolic microcosm inhabited by one family as a rule, the house was the “shell” of an innovative nucleus which incessantly regenerated life in its entire diversity. On the other hand, early Neolithic architecture acquired a specific and quite essential role in the construction and structuring of the social space. The house generated identity for its inhabitants and for the household as a social structure which handed down a certain (detached) part of the information about the antecedent, kept the memory of ancestors, and became the mediator of the transgenerational (re)transfer of property, respectively wealth - the house became the keeper of social memory.
The co-habitation of early food producers in physically and symbolically restricted areas - the village, formed a new cultural environment. The village became an arena of natural social and economic competition, as well as of social-economic interaction that resulted in elaborate horizontal socio-economic complexity. This socio-economic complexity should be understood as a needed and therefore mandatory intra-village model that characterized the interaction in all aspects of life as means of the reproduction of the village as a social structure. This being said, the village was not a place where an individual could make decisions and actions uncommitted to the rest of the residents, especially regarding basic economic activities (livelihoods), and architecture in its technological and social aspects. Most probably, the residents who belonged to a given family or respectively a clan, inhabited a previously agreed upon section of the village which developed with its own rules accepted by all. Despite the individual characteristics of the people and differences in their personal prestige and status which was undoubtedly visible, the village of early farmers was a social structure of shared ideas, communities and responsibilities that were expressed in phenomena of various scopes - from the communal use of the spring for drinking water, to the creation of complex of enclosing concentric ditches which united both physically and symbolically all houses and households into a single social-territorial structure. Besides, the village as a social unit could exist only based on a single strategy and a single system of the farming and stockbreeding activities that comprised the economic foundation of the producing society. Many of the activities in the village and outside it, either production or ritual, for sure had genuine collective character.
The Early Neolithic village in the Central and Eastern Balkans was a radically new social organism for Europe and thus laid the foundations of the European civilization.
The settlements of the Neolithic farmers were established in places that suited their agricultural needs. The preferred locations were the ones in regions of transition from valleys with fertile fields to neighboring hilly land or low mountains with pastures for domestic animals and forests for hunting wild animals. Another type of Neolithic settlements originated and developed on alluvial riverbanks, where their remains constantly filled up, erasing any indication that these settlements once existed, even with cultural layer often reaching a thickness of 3 or 4 meters. This is precisely the case with the Early Neolithic settlement Slatina-Sofia.

Nowadays many of us associate the concept of
civilisation with European territories that exclude
the territory of Bulgaria. But very few know that European
civilisation arose and developed in a comparatively small
region of Europe where the Bulgarian lands had a leading
role. This happened from the end of the 7th to the last
centuries of the 5th millennium BC. The first civilization
on our continent is related to agriculture and stock
breeding as basic means of livelihood but also with a range
of specialized productions – salt, flint tools, ore extraction,
and metal production. Architecture takes a special place
in the life of this ancient civilisation – building of houses
and other constructions, defense and ritual facilities. Its
religious and mythological system was exceptionally
complex due to various cause and effect relationships
of the annual cycle of life and numerous dependencies
between the realities, which we now determine as society
and nature. Moreover, at the beginning, these people did
not know the metals, and the copper “tools” produced
during the later stages of the given period did not have a
real production function – together with the gold objects
they formed part of the sphere of prestige, i.e. they marked
social status and place in the hierarchical structure. There
was no need of a state for the time being – its functions
were performed by the structures of the traditional society.
No scripture was needed either – all kinds of information
went down as individual and collective memory. The first
European civilisation has left visible and not that visible
but significant material and mental traces around the
lands of Bulgaria.