ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR SIMEONOVGRAD (Anelia Bozhkova – aneliabozkova@yahoo.com, Petar Delev) The tumuli are situated to the southeast of the site in the Asara locality, which played a central role in the settlement pattern of the region from the Bronze Age till the Middle Ages. The areas below and around the tumuli were explored in 2006. A layer, 15 – 20 cm in thickness, was registered at 40 – 60 cm in depth, in sondages Nos. 1, 3, 7, 8, under the embankment of tumulus No. 2 that was built later. The layer contained sherds of hand-made vessels with decoration typical of the second phase of the Early Iron Age (8th – 6th centuries BC). Three pits, 0.60 – 1.20 m in diameter and 0.20 – 1.10 m in depth, were explored under tumulus No. 1 and in its periphery, near to the piles of sherds discovered in 2005. Pit No. 1 has a cylindrical shape, pit No. 2 has a hemispherical shape and pit No. 3 has a shape of truncated cone. The pits contained sherds, animal bones, fragmentary lath-and-plaster and fragments of spindle whorls. Sherds of hand-made decorated vessels, two pyramidal loom weights and sherds of wheel-made vessels with painted geometric decoration were found in pit No. 3. Some ornaments of the wheel-made vessels are similar to the decorative motifs on the Late Geometric pottery known from Troy (strata 8 and 9) and the Aeolian cultural circle. This pottery dates from the end of the 9th to the beginning of the 7th centuries BC and is provisionally called G 2 – 3. A complex of pits existed on that area during the second phase of the Early Iron Age.