CHALCOLITHIC SETTLEMENT AT ORLITSA (Yavor Boyadziev – yavordb@abv.bg) Settlement from the Late Chalcolithic period (end of the 5th millennium BC) with one occupation layer, which was destroyed by fire. It is situated in the East Rhodope Mountains, close to Makaza pass. The explored area is 3600 sq. m. The buildings are located on a strip 20 – 25 m in width, between the Orlishka river and a hill. Six houses were discovered – four of them two-storey. Burnt posts from the walls and clay-plastered boards from the second floor are preserved. Some of the two-storey buildings had balconies. In one house, the first floor was inhabited; in rest of the buildings, it was used for farming and/or as a cattle-shed. One of the single-storey houses had two premises: one for dwelling and another for production activities. The buildings display specific features and the walls were constructed in different ways, even in one and the same house: posts and lath-and-plaster; posts and lath-and-plaster with stones; walls partly built of stones and partly of clay; posts 20 – 25 cm in diameter vertically arranged close to each other. The distance between the buildings varies between 4 m and 25 m. The houses had yards with domestic and farm facilities: fireplaces; various storage pits, some of them clay plastered, with several phases of use, with pottery and some with millstones inside; half-buried pithoi; light buildings (shelters). The ceramic vessels display shapes and decorations typical of the Late Chalcolithic but have some local features. Most interesting is the appearance of the earliest tunnel-like handles known so far, which became typical in a later period – during the Early Bronze Age. Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, flint artefacts, various stone adzes etc. were found.