Winterly success: The last survey was quite challenging and presented us with some difficulties. Not only did we have to face sub-zero temperatures and strong winds, but there was also a light layer of snow in some areas. Fortunately, this was mostly in places where we had not expected to find many artefacts due to the topography. Did the Linear Pottery culture consider factors like snow cover and direct sunlight radiation when choosing their settlement sites? We think they did. But they certainly didn't anticipate that 7,000 years later, a group of citizen scientists and archaeologists would be trudging through the fields in winter, searching for evidence they left behind. Despite the conditions, we were again very successful in winter 2024 and made significant finds at all the sites we surveyed. During this last campaign, we covered a total of 120 hectares and walked over 250 kilometres in the service of science.

On the last day, filled with both sadness and joy, we gathered in an inn in the evening to celebrate our successes and, most importantly, to thank the citizen scientists for their tireless efforts over the past two years. The finds are now being washed, processed, and recorded in a database at the premises of the State Collections of Lower Austria in Asparn an der Zaya, together with the citizen scientists. But more on that in the next article.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our volunteer team. Without your cooperation, dedication, and enthusiasm for our work, this project would never have been possible.