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
Country Serbia
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: 2021-01-31
Project acronym TRANSLATING MEMORIES
Project Translating Memories: The Eastern European Past in the Global Arena
Researcher (PI) Eneken Laanes
Host Institution (HI) TALLINN UNIVERSITY
Country Estonia
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2019-STG
Summary The proposed project offers a new understanding of transnational memory as a process of translation by focusing on post-Soviet Eastern European attempts to make their local histories of the Second World War and the Socialist regime known globally. It examines these efforts through aesthetic media of memory – literature, film and art – that circulate globally and bring local experiences to global audiences and through the heated public debates that these works of art have provoked in different national and transnational contexts. It argues that the recently reinforced comparative and competitive political discourses about twentieth-century totalitarianisms in Eastern Europe can only be understood by exploring the arts that have developed more productive comparative and translational approaches and can therefore help to untangle the most recalcitrant nodes of confrontational political discourses and addressing the ethical and political complexity of remembering war and state terror. The project innovates methodologically by bringing together transcultural memory studies, translation theory and world literature studies to offer translation as a new model for conceptualising the transnational travel of memories that operates through transcultural memorial forms. What memorial forms have been used to make Eastern European memories intelligible in the global arena? What is gained and what is lost in this translation? What can the different ways that aesthetic acts of memory are received nationally and transnationally tell us about the frictions between these scales of memory and within the national itself? How has the globalisation of memory practices reinforced national memory in Eastern Europe? In providing the answers to these questions the project offers a transnational view of Eastern European attempts to negotiate their entangled histories of twentieth-century totalitarianisms within the global framework.
Summary
The proposed project offers a new understanding of transnational memory as a process of translation by focusing on post-Soviet Eastern European attempts to make their local histories of the Second World War and the Socialist regime known globally. It examines these efforts through aesthetic media of memory – literature, film and art – that circulate globally and bring local experiences to global audiences and through the heated public debates that these works of art have provoked in different national and transnational contexts. It argues that the recently reinforced comparative and competitive political discourses about twentieth-century totalitarianisms in Eastern Europe can only be understood by exploring the arts that have developed more productive comparative and translational approaches and can therefore help to untangle the most recalcitrant nodes of confrontational political discourses and addressing the ethical and political complexity of remembering war and state terror. The project innovates methodologically by bringing together transcultural memory studies, translation theory and world literature studies to offer translation as a new model for conceptualising the transnational travel of memories that operates through transcultural memorial forms. What memorial forms have been used to make Eastern European memories intelligible in the global arena? What is gained and what is lost in this translation? What can the different ways that aesthetic acts of memory are received nationally and transnationally tell us about the frictions between these scales of memory and within the national itself? How has the globalisation of memory practices reinforced national memory in Eastern Europe? In providing the answers to these questions the project offers a transnational view of Eastern European attempts to negotiate their entangled histories of twentieth-century totalitarianisms within the global framework.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2020-01-01, End date: 2024-12-31
