Project acronym BIRTH
Project Births, mothers and babies: prehistoric fertility in the Balkans between 10000 – 5000 BC
Researcher (PI) Sofija Stefanovic
Host Institution (HI) BIOSENSE INSTITUTE - RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN BIOSYSTEMS
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The BIRTH project will investigate the key biological and cultural mechanisms affecting fertility rates resulting the Neolithic Demogaphic Transition, the major demographic shift in human evolution. We integrate skeletal markers with micro-nutritional and macro-scaled cultural effects on fertility rates during the Early-Middle Holocene (10000-5000 BC) in the Central Balkans. Human, animal and plant remains, will be analysed using methods from bioarchaeological, forensic, chemical sciences in order to: 1) Investigate variability in the pattern of birth rates (number of pregnancies, interval(s) between them and the duration of the reproductive period) through histological analysis of irregularities in tooth cementum of women; 2) Determine paleoobstetric and neonatal body characteristics, health status and nutrition through analysis of skeletal remains; 3) Determine micronutritional changes during the Early-Middle Holocene through trace element (Zn, Ca and Fe) analysis; 4) Investigate the micro and macronutritional value of prehistoric foodstuffs, through an analysis of animal and plant remains and to compare the nutritional intake in relation to health and fertility; 5) Establish a chronology of the NDT in the Balkans by summed radiocarbon probability distributions; 6) Explore the possible role of culture in driving fertility increases, through analysis of community attitudes to birthing trough investigation of neonate graves and artifact connected to the birthing process. Given that the issues of health and fertility are of utmost importance in the present as they were in the past, the BIRTH project offers new understanding of biocultural mechanisms which led to fertility increase and novel approaches to ancient skeletal heritage, and emphasizes their great potential for modern humanity.
Summary
The BIRTH project will investigate the key biological and cultural mechanisms affecting fertility rates resulting the Neolithic Demogaphic Transition, the major demographic shift in human evolution. We integrate skeletal markers with micro-nutritional and macro-scaled cultural effects on fertility rates during the Early-Middle Holocene (10000-5000 BC) in the Central Balkans. Human, animal and plant remains, will be analysed using methods from bioarchaeological, forensic, chemical sciences in order to: 1) Investigate variability in the pattern of birth rates (number of pregnancies, interval(s) between them and the duration of the reproductive period) through histological analysis of irregularities in tooth cementum of women; 2) Determine paleoobstetric and neonatal body characteristics, health status and nutrition through analysis of skeletal remains; 3) Determine micronutritional changes during the Early-Middle Holocene through trace element (Zn, Ca and Fe) analysis; 4) Investigate the micro and macronutritional value of prehistoric foodstuffs, through an analysis of animal and plant remains and to compare the nutritional intake in relation to health and fertility; 5) Establish a chronology of the NDT in the Balkans by summed radiocarbon probability distributions; 6) Explore the possible role of culture in driving fertility increases, through analysis of community attitudes to birthing trough investigation of neonate graves and artifact connected to the birthing process. Given that the issues of health and fertility are of utmost importance in the present as they were in the past, the BIRTH project offers new understanding of biocultural mechanisms which led to fertility increase and novel approaches to ancient skeletal heritage, and emphasizes their great potential for modern humanity.
Max ERC Funding
1 714 880 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2020-09-30
Project acronym QGP tomography
Project A novel Quark-Gluon Plasma tomography tool: from jet quenching to exploring the extreme medium properties
Researcher (PI) Magdalena DJORDJEVIC
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUT ZA FIZIKU
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE2, ERC-2016-COG
Summary Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is a primordial state of matter, which consists of interacting free quarks and gluons. QGP likely existed immediately after the Big-Bang, and this extreme form of matter is today created in Little Bangs, which are ultra-relativistic collisions of heavy nuclei at the LHC and RHIC experiments. Based on the deconfinement ideas, a gas-like behaviour of QGP was anticipated. Unexpectedly, predictions of relativistic hydrodynamics - applicable to low momentum hadron data - indicated that QGP behaves as nearly perfect fluid, thus bringing exciting connections between the hottest (QGP) and the coldest (perfect Fermi gas) matter on Earth. However, predictions of hydrodynamical simulations are often weakly sensitive to changes of the bulk QGP parameters. In particular, even a large increase of viscosity not far from the phase transition does not notably change the low momentum predictions; in addition, the origin of the surprisingly low viscosity remains unclear. To understand the QGP properties, and to challenge the perfect fluid paradigm, we will develop a novel precision tomographic tool based on: i) state of the art, no free parameters, energy loss model of high momentum parton interactions with evolving QGP, ii) simulations of QGP evolution, in which the medium parameters will be systematically varied, and the resulting temperature profiles used as inputs for the energy loss model. In a substantially novel approach, this will allow using the data of rare high momentum particles to constrain the properties of the bulk medium. We will use this tool to: i) test our “soft-to-hard” medium hypothesis, i.e. if the bulk behaves as a nearly perfect fluid near critical temperature Tc, and as a weakly coupled system at higher temperatures, ii) map “soft-to-hard” boundary for QGP, iii) understand the origin of the low viscosity near Tc, and iv) test if QGP is formed in small (p+p or p(d)+A) systems.
Summary
Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) is a primordial state of matter, which consists of interacting free quarks and gluons. QGP likely existed immediately after the Big-Bang, and this extreme form of matter is today created in Little Bangs, which are ultra-relativistic collisions of heavy nuclei at the LHC and RHIC experiments. Based on the deconfinement ideas, a gas-like behaviour of QGP was anticipated. Unexpectedly, predictions of relativistic hydrodynamics - applicable to low momentum hadron data - indicated that QGP behaves as nearly perfect fluid, thus bringing exciting connections between the hottest (QGP) and the coldest (perfect Fermi gas) matter on Earth. However, predictions of hydrodynamical simulations are often weakly sensitive to changes of the bulk QGP parameters. In particular, even a large increase of viscosity not far from the phase transition does not notably change the low momentum predictions; in addition, the origin of the surprisingly low viscosity remains unclear. To understand the QGP properties, and to challenge the perfect fluid paradigm, we will develop a novel precision tomographic tool based on: i) state of the art, no free parameters, energy loss model of high momentum parton interactions with evolving QGP, ii) simulations of QGP evolution, in which the medium parameters will be systematically varied, and the resulting temperature profiles used as inputs for the energy loss model. In a substantially novel approach, this will allow using the data of rare high momentum particles to constrain the properties of the bulk medium. We will use this tool to: i) test our “soft-to-hard” medium hypothesis, i.e. if the bulk behaves as a nearly perfect fluid near critical temperature Tc, and as a weakly coupled system at higher temperatures, ii) map “soft-to-hard” boundary for QGP, iii) understand the origin of the low viscosity near Tc, and iv) test if QGP is formed in small (p+p or p(d)+A) systems.
Max ERC Funding
1 356 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-09-01, End date: 2022-08-31
