In the period July 7-August 17, 2023, the ArchaeoSciences platform within the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB), as part of the Sultana School of Archeology, announces the launch of the 2023 phase of the interdisciplinary research project The dynamics of the prehistoric communities located in Mostiștea and Danube valleys, coordinated by the University of Bucharest, in partnership with Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel – CAU (Germany), HoGent (Belgium), Bucharest City Museum, Lower Danube Museum Călărași, Gumelnița Oltenița Civilization Museum and “Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archeology of the Romanian Academy (Romania). The event will take place in Sultana, in Călărași county.
This year’s campaign will take place under the auspices of the Sultana#100 event, on the occasion of the centenary of the site on Mostiștea, an emblematic archaeological site for the prehistory of the Balkans, currently an essential landmark both for archaeological research or museography, as well as for related research projects, university courses or academic events, at national and international level.
The project is coordinated by Cătălin Lazăr, PhD, archaeologist, associate professor at the University of Bucharest and ICUB researcher, together with prof. Johannes Mueller, PhD, teaching staff at CAU (Germany) and prof. Cornelis Stal, PhD, teaching staff at HoGent (Belgium) and proposes a multidisciplinary approach on the prehistoric human populations in the south-east of Romania in 5500-3000 BCE, both in the wider context of the Neolithic and Eneolithic civilizations until the beginning of the Bronze Age in the area of the Balkan peninsula, but also from the perspective of paleoenvironmental conditions, paleo hydrography, paleoecology correlated with paleoclimatic changes, in order to understand the historical processes (natural and anthropogenic) that mark the addressed chronological interval.
A century ago, the National Museum of Antiquities – currently the “Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archeology of the Romanian Academy – and the University of Bucharest, through the person of prof. Ioan Andriesescu (1888-1944) from the Faculty of History and Vladimir Dumitrescu (1902-1991), a student at the time, at the urging of Vasile Pârvan (1882-1927), began on August 15, 19 23 the research in the Eneolithic tell from Sultana-Malu Roșu, the first settlement of this kind researched by the Romanian Archaeological School.
Currently, the University of Bucharest continues the tradition of supporting archaeological research in this emblematic site, and in the 2023 campaign the international research team includes over 25 interdisciplinary specialists from various fields (archaeology, paleoanthropology, zooarchaeology, malacology, archaeobotany, geoarchaeology, geography, geology, archaeometry and experimental archaeology), to which are added over 20 BA, MA and PhD students at the universities of Bucharest (Romania), Ghent (Belgium), Kiel (Germany), Leiden (Netherlands) and York (Great Britain). In addition to field activities, several scientific presentations and a series of applied or experimental workshops will be organized during the project.
The Dynamics of the Prehistoric Communities Located in Mostiștea and Danube Valleys project is being carried out over a period of five years, between 2021-2025, and is probably the largest international archaeological project in Romania at the moment.
More information on the project can be found here.
