archaeologies in neighboring countries was epigraphy. So in the 1950s and 1960s, Brodar, Kastelic, J. Korošec, P. Korošec, Klemenc, Gabrovec, and F. Osole, together with archaeologists from the first generations of postwar students (e.g., jaroslav šašel, P. Petru, T. Bregant, F. Stare, I. Curk, M. Plesničar, and S. Pahič), invested a great deal of effort in developing regional studies, typologies, chronologies, and other tools needed for archaeological analysis and cultural interpretation.

This work arose from intensive fieldwork and analyses of artifacts from all the major archaeological sites in Slovenia: the Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites of Betalov Spodmol, Mokriška Jama, Ovčja Jama, and Špehovka; the Neolithic and Eneolithic sites at Ljubljansko Barje, Drulovka, Ajdovska Jama, and Ptuj; the Bronze Age sites of Brinjeva Gora, Bled, Pobrežje, Dobova, Ptuj, Ljubljana, and Ormož; the Iron Age sites of Stična, Tolmin, Saint Lucija, novo mesto, and Križna Gora; the Roman sites of Emona, Celeia, Poetovio, Neviodunum, Šempeter, Hrušica, and claustra alpium iuliarum; and the early Medieval and Slavonic sites of Dravlje, Ajdovski Gradec, Rifnik, Kranj, Bled, Ptuj, and Turnišče. In addition, there were intensive analyses of artifacts and data from sites excavated before 1918 that had been kept in Italian or Austrian museums. The results were discussed and evaluated, and further conceptual issues were addressed in several national conferences in Slovenia and Yugoslavia and published in Arheološki Vestnik (in 1962 and 1977 for the late–Iron Age archaeology, in 1965 for the late Roman, early Medieval, and Slavonic period, in 1970 for the Slavonic period, in 1970 for the Neolithic and Eneolithic, in 1972 for the early Iron Age, and in 1986 for the Bronze Age). Further evidence of conceptual growth can be seen in the large-scale settlement excavations that appeared from the mid-1960s onward. Among the most influential were Gabrovec’s excavation of the EIA hill-fort at Stična (1967–1974), V. Šribar’s excavation of the deserted medieval town of Gutenwert (1969–1979), and Bregant’s excavation of the Eneolithic pile-dwelling at Maharski Prekop in Ljubljansko Barje (1970– 1974). The latter involved the first application of a series of scientific aids in order to reconstruct the paleoenvironment.

By the mid-1970s Slovenian archaeology was on a par with that in neighboring countries. Considering the circumstances and the amount and quality of the work they invested, the archaeologists of the first postwar generations in Slovenia and Yugoslavia were crucial to the establishment of the modern science of archaeology in these lands. Their ultimate triumph was the publication of a synthesis on prehistory in Yugoslav lands that filled more than 2,500 pages (Praistorija jugoslavenskih zemalja, 5 vols. [Sarajevo 1978–1987]).

Since 1980 other new concepts and tools have been introduced, particularly in the field of methodology: stratigraphic excavation techniques and Harris matrix recording systems, an intensive application of scientific aids in dating and reconstructing paleoenvironments, the application of systematic survey techniques and sampling procedures, geographic information systems (gis) and other computer-aided techniques of description and quantitative analyses, aerial photography, and geophysics. Parallel to the developments in methodology, new archaeological fields have evolved—landscape archaeology, archaeology of the post-Medieval period, and environmental archaeology and archaeological theory. Most of these concepts and techniques resulted from the initiatives of a new generation of archaeologists from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Ljubljana, who cooperated closely with colleagues in U.S. and British archaeological schools.

Particularly active in this field was Božidar Slapšak of the University of Ljubljana, who contributed pioneering texts in the fields of landscape and settlement archaeology; he also conducted several joint projects with British and U.S. archaeologists in which new methods and techniques were introduced into archaeological practice and theory in Slovenia. In addition, the archaeological discipline at Ljubljana University has been considerably transformed since 1985 by, among other things, translations of important theoretical and methodological texts, guest lecturers from universities in the United States and the United Kingdom, grants for specialization