The fallow deer (Dama dama Linnaeus, 1758) has a long history of interaction with prehistoric humans. Beginning in the Neolithic, humans introduced fallow deer to several areas of the eastern Mediterranean and mainland Europe, with later additional importing happening in the Bronze and Iron Ages. However, in some parts of southeastern Europe, autochthonous populations of extant fallow deer may have survived through the end of the Pleistocene and into the early Holocene, making them available for exploitation by Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities. Climatic and vegetational regimes favourable to fallow deer covered nearly all of Bulgaria during this period; yet, the heavy use of the species by human communities was restricted to a very small area around southeastern Bulgaria. Eventually, climate deterioration, habitat change and overhunting led to the decline of fallow deer in later prehistory in Bulgaria. This paper offers a discussion of the environmental and cultural background of human-fallow deer interactions from the sixth to fourth millennium BCE in Bulgaria. Using bivariate scatterplots and log ratio techniques, we demonstrate that Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities exploited a large extant fallow-deer population, appearing to target both males and females equally. Our results are the first step in a larger archaeological investigation of human-fallow deer relations that unfolded over several millennia, touching upon issues of settlement, migration and perhaps even taming or domestication.

Animal remains from archeological sites give a rather good sample of data, showing habitats and biodiversity during the early Holocene . In multiple settlements in the Eastern Balkans, there are numerous remains of wild mammals that were hunted by humans through the prehistory (7200-5800 BP). This gives a general idea of the habitats around and near the settlements. Such deposits of animal remains are the main source of data on fauna during this period and give us information on the processes leading to the extinction of some species. This paper analyzes more than 26000 animal remains (bones, horns, antlers and teeth) from large mammals from orders: Аrtiodactyla, Perissodactyla and Carnivora from 4 still unpublished deposits from Bulgaria. I summarize data from already published remains from 33 sites in East Balkans. These analyses provide a general picture of both habitats and biodiversity and some of the major factors that caused extinction of some large mammals in Bulgaria during the early Holocene.

The faunal remains recovered from the Gluhite Kamani site offer the unique opportunity to explore the consumption patterns of the Early Iron Age communities inhabiting the Rhodope Mountains. While a lot high-altitude and rock-cut sanctuaries have been registered within the Rhodope Mountains, this is the only site yielding a larger assemblage (n = 3160) from a stratigraphic sequence dating to the Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age transition and the Early Iron Age. Domestic animals dominate, with sheep/goat being the main exploited species through all stratigraphic layers. The results show that the percentage of represented domestic animals is relatively continuous, while the number of wild animals seems to vary throughout the different periods., As the site is regarded as a sanctuary during the Iron age, the extent to which we can identify any ritual activity from the osteological assemblage is commented on in the discussion regarding the cull patterns observed, and taphonomy.