ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS NEAR THE VILLAGE OF MALENOVO (Anelia Bozhkova – aneliabozkova@yahoo.com) Thirteen ritual pits of the Late Neolithic period (end of Karanovo IV Culture), dated to the end of the 6th – beginning of the 5th millennia BC, were explored. They contained sherds, animal bones, flint flakes, stone axes and adzes. Four inhumation burials of the Transition period between the Chalcolithic period and the Early Bronze Age, dated to the first half of the 4th millennium BC, were explored. The bodies in Graves Nos. 2, 4 and 5 were laid supine, oriented to the west, while the body in Grave No. 3 was laid in a Hocker position on his back and was oriented to the Southeast. A two-year old child was buried in Grave No. 4 and adult men were buried in the other three graves. Ceramic vessels were placed close to the feet of the bodies. Seven ritual piles and three ritual pits of the Early Bronze Age 3 and the Middle Bronze Age, dated to 22nd – 18th centuries BC, were explored. They contained sherds and animal bones. The ritual structures of the Late Neolithic period, the Early Bronze Age 3 and the Middle Bronze Age were related to the settlement mound situated at 1 km from the site and occupied during the same periods. Fifty Thracian ritual pits of the end of the 5th – first half of the 4th centuries BC were explored, containing sherds and ceramic vessels, including imported Greek black-gloss (mostly skyphoi) and red-figure pottery, amphorae from Thasos, Heraclea Pontica, Mende and Chios, animal bones, fragmentary wattle-and-daub, charcoal, terracotta dice, bronze fibulae and small iron knives.