The nearest air terminals: Sofia (Bulgaria, 90 km) and Plovdiv (Bulgaria, 40 km) - don't forget checking the low cost  flight options! If participants arrive at the one of these airports, a transfer to the project venue in Pazardzhik may be arranged by request (Please, specify this in your application form!). Individual or group transfers’ price may vary depending on both distance and number of passengers from 25 to 100 EUR.

Tell Yunatsite is located in the fields next to the Bulgarian village of Yunatsite, NW Thrace. Its diameter is app. 110 m and its maximal height of 12 m above the modern surface. The tell was excavated for the first time in 1939 by Bulgarian archaeologist Vasil Mikov. However, regular excavations of the site did not start before 1976, when the archaeological project was initiated by the National Institute of Archaeology and Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. In the course of time the project was joined by Soviet and Greek excavation teams. So far one third of the tell has been excavated in its eastern part, still without reaching the sterile layers. The tell is topped by a medieval cemetery, ruins of a Roman fort and two layers from the Early Iron Age followed in depth by a thick Early Bronze age layer (3100-2200 cal. BC) with 17 building levels and a sterile layer (hiatus) that separates the EBA layer and the Copper age layer. Under all these sequences is found the 4 m thick Chalcolithic layer.

In 2006 archaeologists discovered by excavating numerous test pits and trenches in the area around the tell that the actual size of the Copper age settlement was far larger (having a diameter of 400 m or surface of app. 100 000 sq.m) than the tell and comprised of two areas separated (around 4750 cal. BC) by a cob five meter wide wall and ditch (2 meter deep and 6 meter wide): the larger downtown and the uptown (acropolis) at the tell. The earliest artifacts from these pits and trenches date 4900 cal. BC and mark either the establishment or extension of the prehistoric settlement. Inside the fortified uptwon the buildings were placed close to each other because of the limited area. Thus the accumulation of the layer was faster than in the downtown and as a result the tell was rising gradually above the surrounding surface. The Copper age settlement was destroyed by invaders around 4200-4100 cal. BC. Among the ruins of the last Chalcolithic horizon are found the skeletons of its last inhabitants (mainly children and elderly men and women): a testimony of a cruel massacre. Those who survived returned and resettled for a while the devastated settlement but soon even they left it and Tell Yunatsite was abandoned for more than 1000 years. During this period a 0,45 meter-thick hiatus (sterile layer) covered most of the Chalcolithic layer.

Unlike the excavations in 1970 – 1990s (dealing with exploration of upper layers) recent excavations uncover mainly the Chalcolithic layers of the tell. They help archaeologist to study the Copper age fortification and the inner parts of the uptown. The recent finding of an wooden platform (probably a floor of a burnt building), that collapsed vertically along with numerous artifacts, that once stood on it, onto the walls of the large pit under it, seems to be a very rare occurrence in archaeological practice.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

BHFS lecturers, instructors and trainers:

Lectures, workshops and field trainings:

Archaeological Fieldwork      

• Basic field methods and practices for excavation and documentation (introduction);
• Use of tools and working techniques;
• Introduction to the Field journal; Contextual sheets, log book and other forms (“basket”/bag labels);
• Three dimensional positioning of finds, features, structures. Work with a dump level and measuring rod/GPS and total station, tape measures;
• Stratigraphy (horizontal and vertical) and chronology;
• Field graphic documentation: Scale drawing of vertical profiles (sections), horizontal situation (plans) and architectural structures.
  
• Field photography;
• Dating artifacts, materials, building techniques;
• Excavations preparation. Preliminary indoor research;
• Field reconnaissance survey. Geophysical (electrical and magnetic) methods in archaeological reconnaissance survey;
• Excavation completion. Post excavation work and analyses. Excavation and reconnaissance survey report;
  
• Standards In Archaeological Reports And Publications (Only for students in the extended project session).

• From the Field to the Store;
• Basic principles of finds processing;
  
• Artefact Recording and Illustration in Archaeology: Pottery;
• Artefact Recording and Illustration in Archaeology: Stone and Bone Artifacts (Only for students in the extended project session).

Environmental, historical and cultural context of the site