ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR THE VILLAGE OF VELIKAN (Stanimir Stoichev – s_stoichev@mail.bg) Early Neolithic sherds were found on the site. A house of the Early Neolithic period (Karanovo I Culture) was explored. It had an ellipsoid layout, 7.50 m by 5 m in size, with an oven. Fragmentary wattle-and-daub, charcoal, sherds, legs from a small terracotta cult table, flint scrapers, animal bones, river shells and snails were found. Twelve ritual pits of the 5th – 1st centuries BC were discovered, one of them containing a skeleton of a sacrificed horse, and a circular structure with a pit in its northern periphery was excavated. A Late Hellenistic circular dug out structure was explored, 9.50 m by 10.50 m in size. Four postholes from a house, 6 m by 4.50 m in size, with an oven and four storage pits, were discovered inside the circular structure. A house with an oven of the 8th century AD, a sunken-floored house of the 10th – 11th centuries, a house of the 11th – 12th century and a dugout of the 12th – 13th centuries were explored.