BrainMap

Sandu-Gabriel Vasile

- INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN"

Researcher

Expertise & keywords

First North Pontic Steppe Populations in the Balkans. A bioarchaeological outlook of Cernavoda I communities in the Lower Danube Basin (Romania) Call name: P 5.1 - Proiecte de Cercetare Exploratorie - Competiția 2023
PN-IV-P1-PCE-2023-1899 2025 - 2028

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA BUCURESTI (RO)

Affiliation:

Project website: https://unibuc.ro/cercetare/promovarea-rezultatelor-cercetarii/proiecte-de-cercetare/proiecte-cu-finantare-nationala/bioarhsteppe/

Abstract:

In the Bărăgan Plain and Dobrogea regions, the evolution of the Gumelnița civilization was interrupted or at least drastically disrupted at the end of the 5th millennium BC. This period and the first half of the 4th millennium BC is known as one in which rapid climate changes took place (cool and drought) and which, for the SE area of Romania, led to essential challenges related to the resilience or vulnerability of certain societies in these extreme conditions. The first Eastern populations of Indo-European origin are the Cernavoda I, who settled in Dobrogea. They have adopted several elements of material and spiritual civilization from the Eneolithic communities, so archaeological research has captured at least an apparent continuity. The project proposes a complex analysis from a bioarchaeological point of view (animals and plants used for food or other purposes, animal paleoeconomy, anthropic pressure on landscapes, food, health and lifestyle, ritual practices etc.) of the period when the culture Cernavoda I is documented in SE Romania in the first half of the 4th millennium BC, a period known as transitory which marks the end of the Copper Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age. Aspects related to human adaptation strategies to rapid climate changes documented, their management, flexibility or vulnerability of these populations in crisis conditions will be researched for the first time in order to set up the lifestyle patterns of past humans.

Before and after death. A bioarchaeological perspective on the populations from medieval necropoles of Greater Wallachia Call name: P 1 - SP 1.1 - Proiecte de cercetare Postdoctorală
PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019-0351 2020 - 2022

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN"

Project partners: INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN" (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN" (RO)

Project website: https://iabvp.ro/bioarchmed_eng/

Abstract:

The proposed research topic is intended to be a bioarchaeological approach regarding populations in a series of medieval necropoles in Greater Wallachia (14th-18th Centuries), against the background of lack of studies aiming the interaction between biology and human behaviour and the role of the environment on the health of individuals and their lifestyle. In support of a better understanding of the funeral practices and of the phenomenon of death in the Middle Ages of Greater Wallachia, the project’s goal is to anthropologically characterize the individuals from 568 funeral complexes, from eight necropoles (urban or rural, located in lower or higher geographical regions). As elements of innovation and originality, the results of the anthropological analysis (establishing the demographic profile, calculating the life expectancy at birth and the probability of death, assessing the state of health and the standard of living etc) will be correlated with various events known from historical documents (wars, natural calamities, epidemics, famines) but also with a series of information obtained from the perspective of molecular analyses. Thus, we will analyse the ratio of stable oxygen isotopes (16O and 18O), the isotopic values being considered as true chemical signatures which provides information on the mobility of individuals from the medieval period (did they died in the localities or near the localities where they were born?). Also, in conjunction with the results of archaeozoology and archaeobotanical studies, we will explore the conjugate report of two stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes (13C and 15N), present in the collagen from the bones, which provide us with valuable dietary information (the primary source origin of protein was animal, vegetable, or it was a combination of the two?). In conclusion, the bioarchaeological techniques contribute to a better understanding of the funeral practices and the phenomenon of death in the Middle Ages of Greater Wallachia.

Multidisciplinary platform for integrative and systematic research of tangible and non-tangible cultural heritage and identities in Romania Call name: P 1 - SP 1.2 - Proiecte complexe realizate in consorții CDI
PN-III-P1-1.2-PCCDI-2017-0686 2018 - 2021

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA BUCURESTI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA BUCURESTI (RO); INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN" (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE - DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA SI INGINERIE NUCLEARA " HORIA HULUBEI " - IFIN - HH (RO); UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA DE VEST TIMISOARA (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE - DEZVOLTARE PENTRU FIZICA MATERIALELOR BUCURESTI RA (RO); INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE - DEZVOLTARE IN INFORMATICA - ICI BUCURESTI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS (RO); UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA (RO)

Affiliation: INSTITUTUL DE ARHEOLOGIE "VASILE PIRVAN" (RO)

Project website: http://patcultro.unibuc.ro

Abstract:

The present project represents an original approach, from an inter-, pluri-, multi- and transdisciplinary perspective of the 6th domains - Patrimony and cultural identity. Through the structure of the consortium, the management of the project, the objectives proposed by the component projects, through the synergies and complementarities obtained, undoubtedly presents a high degree of feasibility, being a sophisticated, integrative and exhaustive approach for Romania. Its results will have an impact both on the national and international scientific communities, but also on the broad public, contributing through the proposed activities to the consolidation, development, and improvement of the RDI system in our country, and indirectly to the training of the future specialists from the Romanian research.

The final goal of the project is to create a complex interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary platform for integrated and systematic research of tangible and non-tangible cultural identities and heritage in Romania.

The consortium that will implement this complex project is coordinated by the University of Bucharest (CO-UB), in partnership with the "Vasile Parvan" Institute of Archeology of the Romanian Academy (P1-IAB), the National Institute for Research and Development for Physics and Nuclear Engineering " Horia Hulubei "(P2-IFIN-HH)," Al. I. Cuza "University of Iasi (P3-UAIC), West University of Timisoara (P4-UVT), National Institute of Research and Development for Material Physics (P5-INCDFM), the "Ovidius" University of Constanta (P6-UOC) and the University of Oradea (P7-UO). The way of geographic distribution at the level of Romania ensures a good regional representation of the legal entities represented within the consortium in this project. The combination of five universities and three national research institutes is the ideal combination to support and implement such a complex project.

Human and environment co-evolution patterns in the wetland area of Balta Ialomitei Call name: Exploratory Research Projects - PCE-2011 call
PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0982 2011 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României

Project partners: Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României (RO)

Affiliation:

Project website: http://arheologie-bordusani.org

Abstract:

For a long time the archaeological research in Romania and in other countries of Central Europe remained confined within the limits of studies based strictly on stratigraphy and typology of the various artefacts disconnected from their contexts. Thus, general ideas have been spread about, often misconceptions and the lack or scarcity of complex multidisciplinary studies was significant, especially considering that the conceptual content of the research has not evolved.

In such conditions the project aims, for the first time in Romania, to define the characteristics of the relations between human communities and the natural environment, in the Danube area of “Balta Ialomitei”, on several chronological levels from Neo-eneolithic period, the La Tene epoch and the Middle Ages up to present, through a comprehensive interdisciplinary diagnostic, allowing to highlight the framework of the linked evolution of man and his environment. Therefore, we propose to identify all areas of human activities in the context of landscape elements to be reconstructed in detail performing complex multi proxies analysis and to understand their dynamics in the broader conceptual framework of the social space approach, very little addressed until present by the Romanian archaeological research.

The relevance is the use of innovative concepts and methodologies for archaeological research in Romania associated with complex studies on a specific natural environment.

Re-constructing the identities: facts, places, peoples, animals and objects of the invisible past Call name: Exploratory Research Projects - PCE-2011 call
PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-1015 2011 - 2016

Role in this project:

Coordinating institution: MUZEUL NATIONAL DE ISTORIE A ROMANIEI

Project partners: MUZEUL NATIONAL DE ISTORIE A ROMANIEI (RO)

Affiliation: MUZEUL NATIONAL DE ISTORIE A ROMANIEI (RO)

Project website: http://prehistoric-identities.ro/

Abstract:

The problem of `who we are’ was always central to the interest of the peoples.For archaeologists and historians this problem is often intimately related to questions of `who were the people of the past,our ancestors’ an inquiry which incited their imagination and knowledge of the past 200 years.Various scientific disciplines helped to discover an important part of the past but the degree of documentation is different from one historical period to another.Some of them,as it is the prehistory,are lacking in certain segments of information.In these circumstances,the archaeologists have built an often distorted picture of the prehistory.That is why in this project we propose a interdisciplinary approach for an important segment of prehistory(Eneolithic),in terms of identities.The subject is original and has not been addressed until now in Romania.The project aims to identify some socio-biological aspects of the Eneolithic communities,grouped into five levels of analysis:the identity of place (where they lived),macro-identity of communities (where they lived),the biological identity(who are they),the material dimension of identity-artifacts(what they built,used and produced) and the reflected identity by other elements (what they preferred to collect,eat and use,why and how).Combinatorial analysis of data obtained from these four levels of study will allow us to answer questions about `who are those people’ and to identify the multiple identities of these past human populations

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