Georges KORDOPATIS
University of Cambridge, UK
Galactic archaeology aims to unravel the sequence of events that have taken place during the history of the Milky Way, in order to understand how our Galaxy evolved. The investigation is done by analysing fossil records (metallicity and orbits) of stellar populations old enough to probe the initial formation stages of the Milky Way. In this talk I will review the recent progress in our understanding of the formation of the old stellar disc and the galactic bulge. Based on the large spectroscopic surveys like RAVE (data-release 4: ~500,000 spectra) and Gaia-ESO (DR1:~10,000 stars) I will show how the observations manage to constrain the formation mechanisms of the galactic components, requiring both internal galactic evolution and external accretion of satellite galaxies.