  The YMCA (Yes, Magellanic Clouds Again) and STEP ({The SMC in Time: Evolution
of a Prototype interacting late-type dwarf galaxy) projects are deep g,i
photometric surveys carried out with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and devoted
to study the outskirts of the Magellanic System. A main goal of YMCA and STEP
is to identify candidate stellar clusters and complete their census out to the
outermost regions of the Magellanic Clouds. We adopted a specific over-density
search technique coupled with a visual inspection of the color magnitude
diagrams (CMDs) to select the best candidates and estimate their ages. To date,
we analysed a region of 23 sq. deg. in the outskirts of the Large Magellanic
Cloud, detecting 85 candidate cluster candidates, 16 of which have estimated
ages falling in the so called "age gap". We use these objects together with
literature data to gain insight into the formation and interaction history of
the Magellanic Clouds.
