ABSTRACT
The territory of modern Bulgaria is situated on one of the routes of distribution of early Neolithic agriculture from the Near East to Europe. One of the sources of information about the dispersal processes is the archaeobotanical studies carried out on Neolithic sites in the area. This chapter presents some recent archaeobotanical results for the early Neolithic layers of three sites, Kovaevo, Slatina and Kapitan Dimitrievo, situated in the modern territory of Bulgaria. The archaeobotanical information presented here uses the former chronological framework for the early Neolithic of Bulgaria, which divides this period into two halves. The chapter discusses only the finds of weeds and potential weeds in the three sites. The predominant components of the archaeobotanical material at the Bulgarian sites are the cultivated plants, which provide evidence of connections with the Near East and the Mediterranean area. The cultivated plants correspond to the so called Near Eastern crop assemblage.
