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Carried out in the framework of the Franco-Bulgarian archaeological mission at Apollonia Pontica, the study of the settlement of Malkoto Kale aimed at a better understanding of the impact of the foundation of the Greek city on the Thracian settlement pattern. In 2020, reopening a trench excavated in 1973, excavations uncovered archaeological contexts rich in faunal remains. The archaeozoological study provides the first publication on fish bones in an Early Iron Age context of the South-Western Black seashore. It brings to light the fishery practices of the local population before the arrival of Greek settlers in the area. As such, it constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of Early Iron Age diet in the Balkan Peninsula.
Although the role of the koinon of the Macedonians in the celebration of imperial power is well known, its territorial boundaries and its relationship to the province of Macedonia remain much debated. While the geographical distribution of inscriptions relating to the koinon leaves no doubt as to its regional influence, the discourse they convey reflects the political and identity claims of this ancestral institution. The deliberate confusion of the terms ethnos and eparcheia enabled the koinon – through its representatives – to assert its provincial vocation and defend the primacy of the Macedonian ethnos within a composite province.
Illicit excavations of archaeological sites constitute a major threat to cultural heritage, causing irreversible damage and information loss, an issue persisted for several years. However, at the beginning of the 21st century, advances in satellite Earth Observation (EO) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are transforming how such activities can be detected, monitored, and understood. High-revisit optical constellations (e.g., PlanetScope, Sentinel-2) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) missions (e.g., Sentinel-1) now provide dense, multi-temporal data for near-continuous surveillance. In parallel, AI-based methods - including deep change detection, temporal modeling, and multimodal fusion enhance sensitivity to small, transient signals and enable scalable, reproducible monitoring. This paper synthesizes emerging approaches that integrate EO driven by AI for identifying and analyzing archaeological looting, discusses their technical implications, and highlights future directions for operational, transparent, and globally accessible heritage monitoring systems.
