SOFIA, BULGARIA—The Sofia Globe reports that three graves dating back some 8,000 years were unearthed at the Neolithic-period village of Slatina in western Bulgaria, which was inhabited by a society of pastoralists and farmers for only 500 years between the late seventh and mid-sixth millennia B.C. Archaeologist Vassil Nikolov of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences said that the skeletons of four individuals—three adults and one child, all dated to the early sixth millennium—were the first to have been discovered in Slatina's ritual complex. The child was buried in a shared grave with an adult man, while the other two adults were placed in unusual positions within single burials. A woman was interred lying on her stomach, and another man was buried with one hand placed behind his back. Artifacts uncovered at the site include loom weights, ceramic vessels, an anthropomorphic furnace plug, and a spindle fragment. To read about a box of gold artifacts recovered from a 2,400-year-old tomb northeast of Sofia, go to "Thracian Treasure Chest."
