Discriminating between flint outcrops in central north Bulgaria: archaeological implications

This paper focuses on newly identified raw material outcrops in central north Bulgaria, in an area only partially surveyed in our previous fieldwork. A new series of 10 raw material and 15 archaeological samples were collected and subjected to an analytical procedure combining macro- and micropetrography with geochemical analysis using LA-ICP-MS. Cognitive insights complete our general research agenda vis-à-vis the supply and use of flint raw materials in pre- and protohistory in Bulgaria. One is to try to distinguish between raw materials from two partially overlapping Late Cretaceous formations – Mezdra and Rumyantsevo – containing macroscopically similar flint concretions. Another lies in the drastic shift in raw material preferences (ergo, procurement system) between large-scale newly excavated BA/EIA assemblages and their ‘Chalcolithic predecessors’ and thus raises the question of what the key factors in such a transformation were; the third relates to the opportunity to reliably discriminate between the outcrops and the artefacts/assemblages affiliated to them. The results of our archaeometric study shed light on the formulated query and highlight the potential of using our large corpus of data in future regional and supraregional scientific collaborations.