RESCUE EXCAVATIONS OF A SETTLEMENT NEAR THE VILLAGE OF VRATITSA (Veselin Ignatov – ignatov_v@abv.bg, Daniela Stoyanova, Krasimir Velkov) The site is situated on an area of c. 32 400 sq. m. A building with stone foundations, measuring 20 m by 8 m and oriented northeast-southwest, with an entrance to the southeast, was explored. It consists of three premises and a peristyle to the southeast. The building was set on fire in the second half of the 3rd century AD, which is well attested by the bronze coins, ceramic vessels, etc. Four ramshackle lath-and-plaster dwellings were also explored. Fragments of lath-and-plaster, tiles, ceramic vessels, iron nails and cramps, bronze coins, stone millstones, etc. were found. The dwellings date from the second half of the 1st to the middle of the 4th centuries AD. Postholes and cuts within the bedrock were uncovered, testifying to some other constructions, presumably light shelters, from the Roman period. Foundations of a circular construction, 10 m in diameter, with an entrance to the south, were explored in the northwestern sector of the site. Most likely, this was a farm building (pen). Fourteen middens and fifteen postholes were uncovered within and around the construction. Early mediaeval materials of the 8th – 9th centuries were found as well. Another early mediaeval building of the 8th – 9th centuries with stone foundations, measuring 6 m by 5 m, was explored. The constructions and materials discovered (ceramic vessels, fragmentary terracotta strainers, stone millstones, weights of fishing-nets, spindle whorls, loom weights, coins) testify to a tiny settlement during the Roman period and farm buildings during the Middle Ages.