Adrian Balasescu

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at Romanian Academy

Present-day domestic cattle are reproductively active throughout the year, which is a major asset for dairy production. Large wild ungulates, in contrast, are seasonal breeders, as were the last historic representatives of the aurochs, the wild ancestors of cattle. Aseasonal reproduction in cattle is a consequence of domestication and herding, but...

Past human population dynamics play a key role in integrated models of understanding socio-ecological change over time. However, little analysis on this issue has been carried out for the prehistoric societies in the Lower Danube and Eastern Balkans area. Here, we use summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates to investigate potential re...

The Gumelnița site belongs to the Kodjadermen‐Gumelnița‐Karanovo VI (KGK VI) communities (c. 4700–3900 cal BC) and comprises the tell‐type settlement and its corresponding cemetery. This paper reconstructs the diet and lifeways of the Chalcolithic people in the northeastern Balkans using archaeological remains found at the Gumelnița site (Romania)....

Dogs have cohabited with humans since the Upper Paleolithic and their lifestyle and diet during late prehistory probably already depended on the role they played in past societies. Here, we used a combination of stable isotope analyses and three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to test for differences in, and associations between, diet and mandi...

Southeastern Europe is home to remnants of highly diverse open ecosystems, including grasslands and forest-steppe. To understand the impacts of climate changes, fire disturbance, and herbivory on forest-grassland coexistence in this region, we integrated new and published paleoecological data from two sedimentary records in southeastern Romania wit...

In the last three decades, DNA sequencing of ancient animal osteological assemblages has become an important tool complementing standard archaeozoological approaches to reconstruct the history of animal domestication. However, osteological assemblages of key archaeological contexts are not always available or do not necessarily preserve enough anci...

Despite the domestic cat's (Felis catus) close association with humans, the timing and circumstances of its domestication and subsequent introduction to Europe are unresolved. Domestication of its wild progenitor, the African wildcat (F. lybica), is widely attributed to the emergence of farming. Wildcats are said to have been attracted to settled c...

The Chitila tell was investigated in 1982-1985 and 2002-2004 but little is known still of the results of these investigations. The present article aims to gather all the information related to the osseous industry as collected from the excavation logs, field plans and photos, the V. Boroneanț archive and the existing publications. These, we supplem...

The Kodjadermen-Gumelnița-Karonovo VI human group (KGK VI) reached its maximal extension around 4500 BC, covering a large area comprised between southern Ukraine and northern Greece. Afterward, its distribution gradually receded, before vanishing altogether at the end of the fifth – early fourth millenniums BC. This study seeks to investigate the r...

Climatic oscillations are considered primary factors influencing the distribution of various life forms on Earth. Large species adapted to cold climates are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to climate changes. In our study, we investigated whether temperature increase since the Late Pleistocene and the contraction of environmental niche du...

Cuvinte cheie: A doua epocă a fierului, Snagov, lacul Tâncăbești, gropi, locuințe, cuptoare. Rezumat: Zona cercetată este situată pe terasa de sud a Lacului Tâncăbești, Comuna Snagov, la nord de București în județul Ilfov.Complexele arheologice identificate sunt reprezentate de gropi aparținând celei de-a doua epoci a fierului (La Tène) și un singu...

The osseous assemblage from the Vinča settlement at Rast (Dolj County) consists of 39 artefacts (25 from mammal bones, 13 from deer antler and one from Spondylus shell). In terms of raw material, Ovis aries/Capra hircus bones predominate followed by Cervus elaphus antler, these two types illustrating different acquisition strategies. Typologically,...

Rezumat: Articolul prezintă un lot arheologic format din 21 de artefacte confecționate din os și corn, provenind din vechile cercetări de la Larga-Jijia (comuna Movileni, jud. Iași). Cele mai multe piese au fost atribuite culturii Precucuteni, iar trei piese culturii Noua (bronz târziu). Au fost analizate schemele tehnologice de transformare ale ma...

The preventive archaeological researche undertaken recently on the promontory of Malul Alb (2021), located at the northeastern edge of the Palazu Mare neighborhood (the city of Constanța), on the shore of Lake Siutghiol, led to the discovery of 146 archaeological features, framed culturally in three distinct periods: Neo-Eneolithic (6-5 th millenni...

This study focuses on the pointed bone tools from the Hamangia culture (Chalcolithic period, late 6th millennium BC - early 5th millennium BC), obtained from the long bones of caprines by quadri-partition with double grooving. The pointed bone tool assemblage from the Hamangia settlement at Cheia-Vatra Satului (Romania) was selected as a case study...

This paper discusses the technological exploitation of bone at the tell settlement of Vitanesti (southern Romania). A total of 307 artefacts from the Gumelnita B1 level were analysed for this study, which can be assigned to four product and sub-product categories (waste, blanks, preforms, finished pieces). At the level of determined bones, the most...

Ansamblul arheologic analizat în acest studiu provine din situl preistoric pluristratificat de la Șoimești – Merez (jud. Prahova). Piesele au fost descoperite în nivelurile de locuire atribuite perioadei timpurii a epocii bronzului și într-un mormânt de inhumație. Din os au fost confecționate mai ales vârfuri, urmate de falange perforate, dăltițe ș...

Activitatea de creștere a animalelor domestice este foarte bine evidențiată în cadrul sitului de la Aldeni dacă avem în vedere numărul mare de resturi (76,58%), greutatea (80,80%) și numărul minim de indivizi determinați (65,67% NMI) atribuite mamiferelor domestice. Astfel, bovinele domină ca resturi și greutate, fiind urmate de către ovicaprine și...

The Southern Caucasus is traditionally an important area of livestock production and a key region in the spread of herding from southwestern Asia to Eurasia's western steppe. Neolithic settlements appeared across the Southern Caucasus in the early 6th millennium BCE. How these communities used the landscape and managed livestock in the context of m...

Dogs have cohabited with humans since the Upper Paleolithic and their lifestyle and diet during late prehistory probably already depended on the role they played in past societies. Here, we used a combination of stable isotope analyses and three-dimensional geometric morphometrics to test for differences in, and associations between, diet and mandi...

The Mesolithic settlements on the left bank of the Danube in the Iron Gates have yielded numerous artefacts made of osseous materials. Products and sub-products of the chaîne opératoire are present, suggesting in situ manufacturing of the finished items. Among a restricted range of artefact types, the most characteristic ones are bevelled tools mad...

This paper presents the results of recent rescue excavations conducted in Tulcea county, Dobrudja, Romania, with a focus on the Late Bronze Age finds from the Jijila-La grădini site. The contexts (mainly pits) and the archaeological material (pottery; objects made of clay, stone, and bone; animal remains) are discussed in detail and placed in a chr...

Résumé: L'objet de cet article est de présenter des restes fauniques de chameaux, datés de l'époque ottomane, récemment mis au jour dans la Citadelle de Timișoara. Ces découvertes ont été réalisées dans le cadre des recherches archéologiques préventives entreprises en 2014, sur la Piața Unirii (Place de l’Union). Seuls 8 restes de chameaux ont été...

Abstract: The fauna analysed from Turnu Fortress discovered during archaeological research carried out between 2006 and 2009 belong to the XVII-XVIII centuries. Archaeological contexts have been attributed to the Ottoman habitation and the fauna analysed is part of the diet of the community who lived in this fortress. Most of the faunal remains bel...

The present study analyzes an archaeological assemblage consisting of 86 objects, of which 64 were made of bone, 12 of shell, eight of antler, and two of tortoise carapace found in the settlement of Techirghiol Dealul Minerva - Paloda, within the archaeological campaign of 2020. The archeological assemblage is quite fragmented, generally lacking th...

The present study analyzes an archaeological assemblage consisting of 86 objects, of which 64 were made of bone, 12 of shell, eight of antler, and two of tortoise carapace found in the settlement of Techirghiol Dealul Minerva - Paloda, within the archaeological campaign of 2020. The archeological assemblage is quite fragmented, generally lacking th...

From the archaeological site from Gura Vitioarei (2nd century BC – 1st century AD) we studied faunal material from 12 archaeological features (pits). The fauna counts 1035 remains, most of them coming from mammals. The animal husbandry is clearly highlighted at Gura Vitioarei if we consider the high number of remains (94.7% NR), weight (89%) and th...

The faunal assemblage from the Brăilița necropolises

A B S T R A C T We report here on the 2019 discovery of an Upper Palaeolithic female figurine at the open-air site of Piatra Neamt; in the Bistrit;a valley, Romania. This figurine, the first ever to be discovered in Romania, was found in an area in which Palaeolithic figurative art is extremely poorly represented and such figurines are absent. We s...

L’étude archéozoologique de la zone 2 de Taraschina montre que l’élevage – principalement bovin et caprin – aurait joué un rôle primordial. Au fil de la séquence chrono-stratigraphique, on observe que l’importance de bovins augmente alors que celle des caprinés décroit. Le cochon – animal domestique élevé plus spécifiquement pour la consommation –...

The archaeozoological material discussed in this article came from one feature (Cpl. 2) located in the southern outer courtyard of the fortress investigated in the summer of 2020. The collected artefacts date mainly to the 18th and 19th centuries, therefore to the Austrian era, although some of them had been in use even earlier during the 17th cent...

Rédaction en chef, maquette, PAO - DAO et couverture : Albane BURENS (CNRS)

La néolithisation de la zone située à l’est des Carpates s’opère durant la première moitié du 6e millénaire avant notre ère. Si la documentation archéologique s’y rapportant se concentre pour l’essentiel au nord-est de la Roumanie (départements de Iaşi et de Vaslui), on observe cependant la présence de nombreux habitats appartenant à la culture Sta...

In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years1. Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configu...

Dogs are among the most variable species today, but little is known about the morphological variability in the early phases of their history. The Neolithic transition to farming may have resulted in an early morphological diversification as a result of changes in the anthropic environment or intentional selection on specific morphologies. Here, we...

Romanian territory represents a key point in the dispersal of domestic pigs into Europe, due to its geographical position. Our study gathers a high number of samples from different archaeological sites on Romanian territory in order to establish a more accurate chronological view of the spread of domestic pig into Europe and to investigate the poss...

Scopul prezentei lucrări este de a rediscuta ansamblul arheologic din materii dure animale provenit din cercetările arheologice efectuate de S. Marinescu-Bîlcu și Al. Bolomey între anii 1970-1974 și 1979-1985, în așezarea de la Drăgușeni-Ostrov, aparținând culturii Cucuteni. Ansamblul analizat cuprinde doar piesele păstrate în colecția Institutului...

We investigated the controversial origin of domestic sheep (Ovis aries) using large samples of contemporary and ancient domestic individuals and their closest wild relatives: the Asiatic mouflon (Ovis gmelini), the urial (Ovis vignei) and the argali (Ovis ammon). A phylogeny based on mitochondrial DNA, including 213 new cytochrome‐b sequences of wi...

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, Icoana was among the sites submerged foiiowing the building of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Eight trenches were excavated with a total area of 91m2 and a maximum depth ofca. 3 m between 1967 and 1969. According to the AMS 14C dates, Icoana saw two occupations, one between ca...

Located in southwestern Romania in the Iron Gates Gorges, Icoana was among the sites submerged following the building of the Iron Gates I dam and hydro-power station. Eight trenches were excavated with a total area of 91m2 and a maximum depth of ca. 3 m between 1967 and 1969. According to the AMS 14C dates, Icoana saw two occupations, one between c...

The 2001-2004 archaeological excavations at Chitila-Fermă (Bucharest, Romania) uncovered features and archaeological materials attributed to 4th century BC-1st century AD and the 2nd-5th centuries AD. To the 2nd-5th centuries AD were assigned a few osseous items interpreted by V. Boroneanţ as bearing the remains of an ancient form of writing. This...

In this study we have identified 33 taxa belonging to various classes of animal: mollusks, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. The mammals dominate with 97.6% of the total remains, evidence of their importance for the Neolithic community at Aknashen. Among the mammals, the domestic animals are preponderant, which is evidence that animal husbandry wa...

The present phylogeographic pattern of red deer in Eurasia is not only a result of the contraction of their distribution range into glacial refugia and postglacial expansion, but probably also an effect of replacement of some red deer s.l. mtDNA lineages by others during the last 50 000 years. To better recognize this process, we analysed 501 seque...

Zusammenfassung In Desa sind in den Bereichen Castravița und Lunculița zwei Latène-Nekropolen gefunden worden. Die Nekropole in Desa-Castravița ist die erste Nekropole der Mittel- und Spätlatène-Zeit in der Region des Eisernen Tores, für die menschliche und tierische Überreste paläoanthropologisch und archäozoologisch analysiert worden sind. Mensch...

Rédaction en chef, maquette, PAO - DAO et couverture : Albane BURENS (CNRS)

The fauna from Milcovu din Deal associated with the Dudești and Vădastra levels is another sample that allows us to observe the characteristics of the animal palaeoeconomy of the Neo-Eneolithic in Oltenia. The increased fragmentation caused by human interventions (defleshing and disarticulation), as well as some complex taphonomic processes, led to...

Rezumat: În urma cercetărilor arheologice de salvare de la Techirghiol Dealul Minerva - Paloda din cursul anului 2020, realizate de o echipă de arheologi de la Muzeul de Istorie Națională și Arheologie Constanța, au fost descoperite și numeroase resturi faunistice. În acest studiu prezentăm analiza preliminară a resturilor faunistice de mamifere, p...

The tell settlement from Gumelnița is the eponymous site of the Eneolithic civilization with the same name. It is probably the largest tells settlement north of the Danube, and it belongs to the Kodjadermen - Gumelnița - Karanovo VI civilisation that occupied the Balkan area in the second half of the fifth millennium BC. During the 2021 fieldwork s...

Rescue archaeological excavations at Sisești Street, nos. 147–175 led to the identification and investigation of 29 archaeological features dated to the Bronze Age, the 9th and the 18th centuries. The paper discusses in detail the results of the research (archaeological materials and features) from an interdisciplinary perspective. It also raises t...

The 2001– 2004 archaeological excavations at Chitila-Fermă (Bucharest, Romania) uncovered features and archaeological materials attributed to 4th century BC– 1st century AD and the 2nd– 5th centuries AD. To the 2nd– 5th centuries AD were assigned a few osseous items interpreted by V. Boroneanț as bearing the remains of an ancient form of writing. T...

Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare¹. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling2–4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc³. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestic...

Lucrările de implementare a proiectului BRUA au impus și realizarea evaluării arheologice a traseului magistralei pentru gaze naturale și, apoi, implicit, în funcție de situații, a cercetărilor arheologice preventive. În cele ce urmează, ne vom opri asupra unor rezultate punctuale din zona de traseu BRUA din centrul județului Giurgiu – Mirău (com....

Dragomir-Nicolae Popovici. Rămas bun de la Popina Bordușani!

Abstract: The faunal material studied in this paper comes from the systematic archaeological researches carried out between 2001-2007 by the archaeologists from the Ialomița County Museum in La Movile point near Săveni village, Ialomița County. A number of 2368 faunal remains from the two archaeological levels of the Cernavodă I culture were analyz...

Aim: The Expansion-Contraction model has been used to explain the responses of species to climatic changes. During periods of unfavourable climatic conditions, species retreat to refugia from where they may later expand. This paper focuses on the palaeoecology of red deer over the past 54 ka across Europe and the Urals, to reveal patterns of change...

The settlement of Godedzor is located at 1,800 m asl in the region of Syunik (south-eastern Armenia). Previous studies have highlighted the strategic position of the site in connection to both east to west and north to south routes of communication and in relation to the proximity to the main obsidian outcrops of the region. Excavations at Godedzor...

La faune étudiée, peu nombreuse, puisqu'elle ne comprend que 493 vestiges, provient de deux complexes archéologiques (C8 et C9) où ont été mélangés avec des restes humains. La faune n’est représentée que par des mammifères qui sont extrêmement brûlés et qui sont d’une couleur blanche. L'étude archéozoologique révèle l'existence uniquement d’animaux...

The tell settlement from “Măgura Gumelnița” is the eponymous site of the Eneolithic civilization with the same name. It is probably the most significant tell settlement north of the Danube, and it belonged to the Kodjadermen ‐ Gumelnița ‐ Karanovo VI cultural complex that occupied the Balkan area in the second half of 5th millennium BC. During 2018...

The archaeozoological study carried out in Satu Nou-Valea lui Voicu (Oltina, Constanța County) provides new information on the relationship between humans and dogs in the early period of the Iron Age. Thus, numerous bones from several dogs (Canis familiaris) were identified in the feature called "ditch or gully" and in a pit (Pit 41). The authors o...

Entre 1952 et 1961, Dumitru Berciu réalise de nombreuses recherches de terrain dans la zone littorale du lac Golovița, sur la zone des communes actuelles de Baia et de Ceamurlia de Jos (département de Tulcea). Il publiera en 1966 une partie des fouilles conduites sur les habitats de Baia-Golovița et Ceamurlia de Jos. Dans le même intervalle de temp...

Rezumat: Cercetările arheologice sistematice efectuate în situl pluristratificat de la Săveni-La Movile (județul Ialomița) au permis evidențierea, printre altele, a două niveluri de locuire eneolitice aparținând culturii Cernavodă I. În cuprinsul acestora, pe lângă inventarul obișnuit, au fost descoperite și șase fragmente ceramice cucuteniene, dat...

Rezumat: Studiul arheozoologic al faunei de mamifere din nivelul Boian Spanțov descoperit în secțiunea C a tell-ului de la Hârșova ne relevă că această populație preistorică se ocupa cu creșterea animalelor, în special a bovinelor și a ovicaprinelor. Vârstele de sacrificare în cazul bovinelor ilustrează o exploatare mixtă (atât pentru carne, cât și...

Entre 1952 et 1961, Dumitru Berciu réalise de nombreuses recherches de terrain dans la zone littorale du lac Golovița, sur la zone des communes actuelles de Baia et de Ceamurlia de Jos (département de Tulcea). Il publiera en 1966 une partie des fouilles conduites sur les habitats de Baia-Golovița et Ceamurlia de Jos. Dans le même intervalle de temp...

The territory situated to the north of the Lower Danube represents the ideal space for observing the interaction between local communities, local environment and newcomers who arrived here at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Thousands of burial mounds and relatively few flat graves present an array of common or exceptional inventories, indic...

The house mouse (Mus musculus) represents the extreme of globalization of invasive mammals. However, the timing and basis of its origin and early phases of dispersal remain poorly documented. to track its synanthropisation and subsequent invasive spread during the develoment of complex human societies, we analyzed 829 Mus specimens from 43 archaeol...

The faunal materials preserved from the Eneolithic tell-settlement of Căscioarele Ostrovel were an important source of information that contributed to the characterization of the animal paleo-economy of this site, as well as of the animal bone industry. In this presentation we analyse from a techno-functional point of view a series of dog mandibles...

Human skeletal remains of at least three individuals were unearthed during excavations at the Early Neolithic site of Grumăzeşti-Deleni in northeast Romania (Moldova region) between 1968 and 1978. They comprise the articulated skeleton of an adult buried in a crouched position (M1), and the disarticulated remains of another adult and a juvenile fou...

Two horses were uncovered at Negrileşti, laid in a pit (feature 22) within the Noua settlement, towards its eastern limit. The archaeological investigations uncovered the burial of two horses, whose skeletons were relatively complete. The animals were placed facing one another, lying on their left side (Horse 1), respectively on their right side (H...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disapp...

Schela Cladovei is one of the most important Mesolithic–Neolithic sites in Southeast Europe. The range of archaeological materials recovered from this site in over five decades of archaeological investigation is considerable, yet very few details have been published. In this paper we review the osseous assemblage from the first three seasons of exc...

The present study presents the investigations of some osteological assemblages from the deposits of the Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilisation, Deva, and the National Museum of Transylvanian History. Chronologically, the materials belong to contexts from the final stage of the Early Iron Age (EIA) and, possibly, to the period of the early La Tène...

This paper focuses on the identification of changes in the processing of osseous materials in the southeast European Neolithic, beginning with three types of production by manufacture wear technique typical for the region: bipartition by abrasion, segmentation with fibre and perforation by wear technique. The processing of osseous materials is stro...

Near Eastern Neolithic farmers introduced several species of domestic plants and animals as they dispersed into Europe. Dogs were the only domestic species present in both Europe and the Near East prior to the Neolithic. Here, we assessed whether early Near Eastern dogs possessed a unique mitochondrial lineage that differentiated them from Mesolith...

The goal of the present paper is to make known an extremely interesting archaeological assemblage of the Vădastra culture, discovered during archaeological research carried out at Măgura ‘Buduiasca’ settlement. The methodology used aimed to identify the operational schemes used for the manufacture of different typological categories, and to find in...