The nearest air terminals: Sofia (Bulgaria, 150 km) and Thessaloniki (Greece, 170 km) - don't forget checking the low cost  flight options! If participants arrive at the Sofia airport, a transfer to Ilindentsi may be arranged by request (Please, specify this in your application form!). Individual or group transfers’ price may vary depending on number of passengers from 45 to 130 EUR.

Description: In the seventh millenium BC the Balkan Peninsula was a gate through which farming, animal husbandry and generally Neolithisation spread to Europe from Anatolia and the Near East. Central parts of the Balkans were among the most important migration routes during that period. Six Early Neolithic settlements are mapped there, in the Middle Struma River Valley, on the natural road that connects the Eastern Mediterranean with the Central Europe. One of them is the prehistoric site near Ilindentsi. At this site the prehistoric cultural layer lies immediately (10 to 20 cm) under the topsoil humus, which has significantly facilitated the excavation process. During the previous seasons at the site (2004-2009, 2011) archaeologists unearthed mainly Early Neolithic settlement structures and features (remains of dwellings with specific floor construction and under-floor drainage systems and one burnt dwelling with well preserved in situ "kitchen-space" including an oven, grain-store and quern-stone). The culture layer (app. 0,70-1.00 m thick throughout the excavated surface) was rich with artifacts such as white on red painted pottery, anthropomorphic clay figurines, stone and bone tools and jewels all of which are dated to the first half of 6^th millenium BC. In 2010 a geomagnetic survey of the site was performed and a geomagnetic map of the site was created. In consequence the excavated area was extended in 2011 to search for the reasons for geomagnetic anomalies on the map. In one of these recent dig trenches beside the structures many Middle Neolithic (5600-5400 BC) artifacts were found which is the first evidence of horizontal stratigraphy at the site.

Scholars assume that the settlement near Ilindentsi was established by groups of people, coming from the earliest and the largest Early Neolithic settlement in the Valley, found near the village of Kovachevo. Thank to the results of a 20-year long Bulgarian-French Excavation Project in Kovachevo there is abundant evidence showing that the first inhabitants of that settlement were people of Anatolian origin. These migration patterns that traced the routes of European Neolithisation had various and complex reasons: increased population, limited environmental resources, climate change etc.

The excavation project at Ilindentsi aims to seek more detailed answers of the following questions, which are important for Balkan and European Prehistory:

• who were the first European farmers?
• what made them migrate to Europe?
• did they find indigenous populations in the Balkans?
  
• how did their societies function and develop?
• how did their everyday life look like?
• did they keep connections with their Anatolian homeland?
  

1. (at the weekends) Visits of the towns of Blagoevgrad and Sandanski (a popular Bulgarian SPA resort) or optional visit to the Aegean coast (Greece);
2. (in the afternoons) Extra lab work related to the finds processing and documentation and special workshops for:

• Archaeological Documentation and Illustration of Neolithic Pottery;
• Archaeological Documentation and Illustration of Flint Tools (optional);
• Ceramic studies - by famous French specialist Dr. Laure Salanova.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Instructors and trainers: Dr. Malgorzata Grebska-Kulova (archaeologist and curator at Blagoevgrad Regional Museum of History, Bulgaria); Petar Zidarov (archaeologist; deputy director of the Laboratory for Archaeometry and Experimental Archaeology, New Bulgarian University; PhD student at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany); Dr. Laure Salanova, Dr. Julien Viege (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Nanterre, France), Ivan Vasilev (Balkan Heritage archaeologist, MA in Archaeology)            

Lectures, workshops and field trainings:

Designing of archaeological research      

• Preliminary research (indoor stage);
• Fieldwalking and site recording;
  
• Techniques and methods of preliminary archaeological research;

• Use of tools and working techniques;
• Methodology and excavation practices;
• Stratigraphy and chronology. The Haris Matrix;

• Field journal, field finds' catalogue and context sheets;
• Record cards and bag labels (tags);
• Graphic documentation (drawn record): drawings of cross-section,  plan, architectural structure (optional), grave (optional);
• Photographic records;

• Artefact recording and illustration;
• Storage of artifacts;
• "First aid" and consolidation in situ (optional);

Environmental, historical and cultural context of the site