#chalcolithic — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов @[email protected] · 2026-06-25 · 06:23 UTC

Here is a story (though "you had to be there", even though that is a trite phrase).

A sun-baked small hill rising about five metres (fifteen feet) above the surrounding cultivated field.
About ten people squatting or sitting on the ground and slowly and carefully clearing soil with small tools or their hands.
At first, there is just the ordinary surface of the soil.
Then the rim of a little pot emerges, seeing the light of day again after thousands of years.
As luck would have it, this one is even unbroken.

First the soil around it is completely cleared, eventually with brushes.
It is photographed in situ.
Its precise location is measured with a total station.
Then it is lifted (manually) and placed in a plastic bag with a piece of paper recording field data.
In the afternoon it is washed and only then it becomes quite clear whether it is decorated.
Some are, some aren't.
Some ornaments are just beautiful (think of modern abstract art).
Then the artefact is photographed again and measured.
The data is recorded in the field journal.
In the usual case when it is found broken, it is restored by gluing the pieces together, possibly filling in for missing ones.
A sketch is drawn by hand.
Eventually, it belongs in a local museum.

Such a hill is a settlement mound (also known as a tel or a tell).
It comes into existence when multiple settlements are built one after another in the same place in the course of centuries.
Rebuilding was necessary, because mud houses aren't very durable and, alas, fires happened as well.
The debris wasn't removed, just pressed into the ground and new houses were built on top of that.

This particular site is Kozareva Mogila, very near the west Black Sea coast (north of the city of Burgas, Bulgaria).
It was inhabited in the Fifth Millennium during the Eneolithic (also known as the Chalcolithic and the Copper Age).
This was the time of the earliest metallurgy (thermal extraction of metal from ore, at first copper).
Copper artefacts are rare, likely because they were valuable and rarely abandoned.
They vary from tools like axes, adzes, and awls to decorations like beads, rings, and bracelets.

(Troy is a famous settlement mound, from a much later time.)

#Archaeology
#BalkanArchaeology
#BalkanPeninsula
#BalkanPrehistory
#Balkans
#Chalcolithic
#CopperAge
#Eneolithic
#HamangiaCulture
#JoyOfDiscovery
#KozarevaMogila
#Prehistory
#SettlementMound
#VarnaCulture

@dougmerritt @AmenZwa @rl_dane @raven667

#archaeology #balkanarchaeology #balkanpeninsula #balkanprehistory #balkans #chalcolithic

Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов @[email protected] · 2026-06-17 · 16:01 UTC

Fresh from the printing press.

The figure of a cow and the stylized human figure on the front cover are one half of the decoration of a large ceramic vessel from the Eneolithic (the 5th millennium).
The other half (on the back cover) consists of a similar figure of a bull and another similar human figure.
The vessel was found during archaeological excavations led by Petya Georgieva at the Kozareva Mogila settlement mound near the west Black Sea coast (north of Burgas, Bulgaria).

This volume was compiled entirely by the good will efforts of Petya’s former and present doctoral students.
_________
Cover design by Raymonda Peychinova

#Archaeology
#BalkanArchaeology
#BalkanPeninsula
#BalkanPrehistory
#Balkans
#BlackSea
#Chalcolithic
#CopperAge
#Eneolithic
#FifthMillennium
#Prehistory
#Thrace

#archaeology #balkanarchaeology #balkanpeninsula #balkanprehistory #balkans #blacksea

grateful wolf @[email protected] · 2026-06-11 · 00:09 UTC

Mapping Portable Art in Late Iberian Prehistory [html, pdf 24pp] #portableArt #RockArt #neolithic #chalcolithic #iberia https://www.academia.edu/74363863/Mapping_Portable_Art_in_Late_Iberian_Prehistory

#portableart #rockart #neolithic #chalcolithic #iberia

Anthropology.net @[email protected] · 2026-02-15 · 21:01 UTC

New study reveals Chalcolithic cornets were likely beeswax lamps made by ritual participants themselves, challenging standard models of ancient ceramic production. #Archaeology #Chalcolithic #RitualObject https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-everyone-brought-their-own-light

#archaeology #chalcolithic #ritualobject

Vassil Nikolov | Васил Николов @[email protected] · 2026-02-12 · 20:02 UTC

From the Fifth Millennium in the Balkans, the time and place of the first metallurgy in the world.

Copper chisels, a copper needle, and a bone needle.
Grave goods.
Found in low parts of the eastern Balkan Mountain Range (near the village of Tranak, Ruen municipality, Bulgaria).
The picture was taken at tonight's opening of the exhibition Bulgarian Archaeology 2025, Museum of Archaeology, Sofia, Bulgaria.

#Archaeology
#BalkanArchaeology
#BalkanPrehistory
#BulgarianPrehistory
#Chalcolithic
#CopperAge
#Eneolithic
#Prehistory

#archaeology #balkanarchaeology #balkanprehistory #bulgarianprehistory #chalcolithic #copperage

Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋 @[email protected] · 2025-12-29 · 19:10 UTC

🇧🇬 **Mystery of the Varna Gold: What Caused These Ancient Societies to Disappear?**

"_Treasure found in prehistoric graves in Bulgaria is the first evidence of social hierarchy, but no one knows what caused the civilization’s decline_"

🔗 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/varna-bulgaria-gold-graves-social-hierarchy-prehistoric-archaelogy-smithsonian-journeys-travel-quarterly-180958733/.

#History #Histodons #Chalcolithic #Gold #Archaeology #Archaeodons #Bulgaria #Europe

#history #histodons #chalcolithic #gold #archaeology #archaeodons