TRAP Digital Archive

The TRAP Digital Archive presents the datasets resulting from diachronic archaeological and palaeoecological research conducted in two study areas: the intermontane Kazanlak Valley along the Upper Tundzha River of central Bulgaria, and the Thracian Plain along the Middle Tundzha River south of the city of Yambol in southeastern Bulgaria. The Tundzha Regional Archaeology Project (TRAP), a cooperative effort including Australian, Bulgarian, and Czech investigators, undertook archaeological survey and environmental sampling between 2009-2011. Major field activities of the project included over 100 sq km of systematic pedestrian survey, legacy data verification and mapping, trial excavations, artefact processing, and environmental sampling in and around the study areas. Through this research, TRAP inventoried over 100 surface artefact concentrations and 800 burial mounds. TRAP has produced a granular digital dataset of surface artefacts and features unparalleled in Bulgaria to promote reinterpretation of our results, encourage secondary studies, and foster comparative research. We also present a range of datasets produced by associated studies conducted between 2009-2015: soil properties data that underlies the analysis of soil erosion and productivity in the Kazanlak Valley, data from isotope analysis of human remains from Bronze Age burials in the Yambol study area, paleobotanical evidence recovered from one of the Yambol area trial excavations, ceramic catalogue of transport amphorae fragments recovered during Yambol-area survey, and two epigraphic datasets cataloguing Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman inscriptions from the two study areas.