ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS ON ADA TEPE HILL (Hristo Popov – popovhristo@yahoo.co.uk, Krasimir Nikov) Remains from a settlement of miners dated to the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Ages were explored on the top of the hill. The settlement covered an area of over 1 ha and had a planning. The highest part of the hill was surrounded with a fortification wall, 2.60 m wide, constructed of stones bonded with clay and dated to the 14th – 13th century BC. The fortified area was c. 0.25 ha and houses and workshops were built there. Buildings with one and two rooms with small yards and passages-streets were situated outside the fortified area. The buildings had plinths built of stones and walls constructed of sun-dried bricks and/or clay. A second fortification wall probably existed. The finds from the settlement dated from 15th – 14th to 10th – 9th centuries BC. Open mines were documented on the eastern slopes of the hill and the rock was cut out in step-like platforms with the aim of discovering the auriferous quartz reefs. The mining stope was up to 80 m wide. Postholes from huts and/or shelters were discovered. Traces from burning on some stones and the single pieces of charcoal testified to the use of fire in the mining process. The ore extraction lasted for several centuries. Enormous dumps were documented and some of them were over 10 m thick. Traces from mining activities were documented on the highest parts of the western and the northern slopes of the hill. The dumps were small and dated to the Late Bronze Age, while the earliest finds dated to the second half of the 15th – 14th century BC. Ada Tepe was the oldest gold mine known in Europe so far and it functioned from the second half of the 15th to the second half of the 8th centuries BC.