A joint operation between Bulgarian and British archaeological teams received permission from the Bulgarian Government to start research along the lower Danube river, the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) said.

The project is part of a larger pan-European project and is called "The End of Antiquity".

Of particular interest will be an area called Nikopolis ad Istrum and the adjacent regions around it that date back to the end of 5th and the beginning of the 7th century CE.

The Bulgarian researchers will be scientists from the National Archaeological Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Their British colleagues are from the Department of Archaeology from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.

According to initial estimates, the project would require five years to complete. Research will concentrate on changes in lifestyle and social life in the transitional period from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The project will complete research under two earlier projects carried out by the same team.
 
Europe has its origins in the great migrations from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the fall of Ancient Hellenic empire and the subsequent fall of Rome. Before that, during Ancient Greece and at the height of the Roman Empire, about one-third of mankind identified themselves with the Mediterranean civilisation or the so called "Known World".

They differentiated themselves from the sub-civilized, aggressive and barbarian Sasanian Persians in the last pre-Islamic Iranian empire to the east, and the barbaric Germanic, Saxon and Celtic tribesmen from the north of the European continent. In the fifth century however, these tribal warriors settled within the former Roman Empire, with Goths and Visigoths crossing the Danube river and settling for a period of time in what is present day Bulgaria, where eventually, in the early 630s CE, the Bulgars settled after they had crossed the Danube on their long journey from the steppes of Asia.