ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR THE VILLAGE OF IVANOVO (Svetlana Venelinova – lihnida_sv@abv.bg) The settlement mound is 70 m by 90 m in diameter. An excavation, 25 m by 10 m in size, was dug in the eastern periphery of the mound and this was the reason for carrying on rescue excavations. A stratigraphic profile was done in the destroyed part of the mound. Seven occupation layers were specified (from top to bottom). Layer A1 is 12 – 62 cm in thickness. Debris over a burned plaster of floor level was discovered in layer A2. An anthropomorphic figurine, a bone spoon and two ceramic models (one of a house and another of a “chair”) were found in layer B1. Sticks, 0.5 cm in diameter, and wooden boards, 6 – 10 cm in width, were discovered in layer B2. Layer C contained burned clay plaster, charcoal, a ceramic vessel with carbonized grain, a clay plaster of a wall, a pit, 25 cm in diameter, plastered with clay and surrounded with a curb. Layer D contained a stratum of burned debris over a floor level covered with scattered grain, a foundation of a wall, 64 cm in width and preserved at 36 – 50 cm in height, with an adjacent posthole. Twenty-four postholes, 16 – 32 cm in diameter, were discovered at 6.82 – 7.53 m in depth, in layer E. Some of the postholes were arranged in lines and probably were related to the palisade of the earliest settlement. Parallel wooden boards were discovered, too. The prevailing pottery shapes are biconical and cylindrical-conical vessels, mostly decorated with incised lines with incisions or small triangles. The fineware is decorated with graphite, red and/or white paste, while the dolia are decorated with Kerbschnitt. The archaeological material dates to the Early Chalcolithic period (first half of the 5th millennium BC) and is typical of Polyanitsa III – IV Culture.