Following a joint session at the EAA in Rome, we received a last-minute invitation to Slovakia. A part of the UBC team immediately took time off and headed there the very next day: Around 165 km from Asparn/Schletz, which is approximately a 40-hour walk or about a 3-hour drive according to Google Maps, lies the archaeological site of Vráble-Veľké Lehemby. Even in the early Neolithic, this distance could have allowed for direct contact.

Vráble-Veľké Lehemby was discovered in 2009 and has since been excavated by a team from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the University of Kiel, under the direction of Ivan Cheben and Martin Furholt. Parallels to Asparn/Schletz are undeniable: large settlement areas, late Linear Pottery culture—and ditch systems with numerous human skeletons! However, a closer look also reveals clear differences between the two sites, making direct discussions of the researchers involved all the more important. We won’t go into detail here, just take a look at last years press release: https://www.uni-kiel.de/de/detailansicht/news/003-kopflose-skelette.

For this year's excavation campaign, the colleagues expected to find only a few more individuals. What they actually uncovered was shown to us in detail on site, and they will publish the findings in due course: We were impressed not only by the meticulous documentation, including a comprehensive sampling strategy for scientific analyses.

Many thanks for the invitation, and best of luck with further research in Vráble-Veľké Lehemby!'