The sensational discoveries in Bulgaria in the past two decades have cast unique light on the elite culture of Classical and Hellenistic Thrace. The manner and methods of these excavations, however, left much to be desired, as did the interpretation of recovered finds, which often remained captive to the dominant ideology of an earlier era.

This colloquium brings together archaeologists who are working within the geographical space of Thrace, but focusing on more chronologically diverse phenomena, extending from the late Paleolithic to the early Byzantine period, and deploying a fuller range of sophisticated survey and excavation methodologies and techniques. Their research has profound implications for the history and archaeology not simply of the Balkans, but of the broader central European, Pontic, and eastern Mediterranean backdrop: for example,

• the Balkan Valley Project is helping to document early movements of animals and hominins from Anatolia to southeastern Europe, while the Strouma Valley Project is currently exploring prehistoric settlement patterns along a major corridor connecting the Balkans with the Aegean;

• similar questions are posed by the Tundzha Regional Archaeological Project, the findings from which are problematizing traditional conceptions about the structure of Thracian kingdoms in the pre-Roman period;

• while excavations at Apollonia Pontica are beginning to open up material perspectives on early Greek colonists in the region and their interactions with native populations, a long-term research program conducted at a series of sites in north-central Bulgaria is offering a fresh look at the dynamic character of urban and rural settlement from the late Roman to early medieval period.

Another thread links these papers: each reflects a tradition of international collaborative research which took root during the earliest archaeological expeditions in Bulgaria and is now again flourishing; such developments promise the possibility of a return to a Thrace that is at once more complex and relevant than previously recognized.

Introduction: Denver Graninger, American Research Center in Sofia

• David Strait, SUNY-Albany, ‘The Balkan Valley Project: Results of surveys for Paleolithic cave sites in the Tundzha Valley’

• Bogdan Athanassov, New Bulgarian University, ‘The Middle Strouma Valley Archaeological Survey: Settlement Patterns in the eastern Balkan Peninsula in late Prehistory (Neolithic - Late Bronze Age)’

• Adela Sobotkova, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Shawn Ross, University of New South Wales, ‘Tundzha Regional Archaeological Project 2009-2010: A diachronic survey campaign in Bulgaria’

• Margarit Damyanov, National Institute of Archaeology with Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, ‘Two Decades of Archaeological Research in Apollonia on the Black Sea (Sozopol, Bulgaria): The Classical necropolis and the temenos’

• Andrew Poulter, University of Nottingham, ‘From Roman city to late Roman fortress, and from the countryside to early Byzantine hill-top “settlements”: twenty-five years of research in north-central Bulgaria’

Discussant: Zosia Archibald, University of Liverpool

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