About the Project
In the summer of 2018, an archaeological crew from the University of Michigan and the Archaeological Institute of Kosova (AIK) began to survey the Peja and Istog districts of western Kosova—the first time an intensive archaeological survey had been carried out there. They refer to the project as RAPID-K: Regional Archaeology in the Peja and Istog Districts of Kosova.
Michael Galaty, director of the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology (UMMAA), and archaeologist Sylvia Deskaj co-direct the survey project with Haxhi Mehmetaj, an archaeologist at the AIK. Students from Michigan and the University of Prishtina participated, as well as several students from the University of Tirana in Albania. Galaty and Deskaj had visited Kosova in 2016 and, based on extensive surveys done previously by local archaeologists, knew that there were dozens of archaeological sites in the area. The primary goal of RAPID-K is to investigate the region in more detail. The project marked the AIK’s first international collaboration with American archaeologists.