Project description
Unearthing ancient urban resilience
Urbanisation has long been a double-edged sword in human history, offering opportunities for cultural exchange and economic growth, but also posing challenges to health and well-being. Ancient cities like Thessaloniki exemplify this dichotomy, serving as crucibles of innovation while confronting issues such as disease and resource scarcity. The ERC-funded CityLife project aims to unravel these complexities through a bioarchaeological study. By analysing skeletal remains spanning 1 800 years, CityLife investigates how urban populations adapted physiologically and socially to thrive amidst adversity. This research promises new insights into the resilience of pre-industrial urban societies and the evolutionary paths that shaped modern cities.
Objective
CityLife explores, from a bioarchaeological perspective, how historical populations adapted to an urban environment and developed resilience to the disadvantages of urban life. By exploiting the vast amount of information contained in human skeletal remains, the project will clarify the roles of biological factors in the durability and sustainability of pre-industrial urban societies. Newly developed osteological, chemical isotope, and genomic methods will be used in this project, together with cutting-edge tools for statistical evaluation. CityLife will evaluate the living conditions, economy, population structure, pathogen load, and immune defenses in a sample of more than 4,500 skeletons from a hotspot of European urban culture: Thessaloniki. This city in northern Greece still exists today, and in historic times it formed a bridge between the Roman West and the Byzantine East. Thessaloniki offers the unique constellation to study urban life from 300 BC to AD 1,500 and thus to draw inference about an urban population in a single place continuously over 1,800 years. The main objectives of the project are to a) infer urban living standards by studying secular changes in anthropometric indexes, infant diet, childhood stress, and trauma in a combined manner; b) investigate the resilience and sustainability of urban food systems by reconstructing individual diets and local supply networks; d) investigate social structures, religious cohabitation, and migration by genetically reconstructing the degree of kin and non-kin relationships; and e) explore the effects of pathogen exposure on human evolution and health by studying genes associated with increased immunological response and the oral microbiome. CityLife will examine empirically tangible aspects of biocultural development to answer the simple question of how humans became urban species.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences nutrition
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
691 00 KOMOTINI
Greece
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.