SOFIA, BULGARIA—Sixty houses have been unearthed at a Neolithic settlement by archaeologists working ahead of road construction in southwestern Bulgaria. The 8,000-year-old planned settlement had three parallel, wide streets set between two-story houses made of wooden frames and clay. The walls of the houses are thought to have been preserved by fires set within the structures. Pieces of the houses have also been found in small burial pits. “We can assume that there was a string of problems connected with the corresponding cycle of life and perhaps they wanted to break this cycle, to complete it and start a new cycle of life elsewhere, and therefore burnt the village,” lead archaeologist Vassil Nikolov told The Sofia Globe. To read more about archaeology in Bulgaria, see "Thracian Treasure Chest."