Project description
A new way to determine the season of occupation at prehistoric sites
Cementochronology is a method used to estimate age at death and determine season at death, allowing to temporalise and better understand the annual scheduling of site occupation. Cementochronological methods are particularly applicable to prehistoric periods where seasonal scheduling of activities was of prime importance. The EU-funded CUSP project will apply innovative methodology in the study of tooth cementum annulation (TCA) to advance a robust protocol for the study of TCA in red deer often found at prehistoric sites, and to deduce seasonality of occupation at prehistoric sites by defining season-at-death in both red deer and humans. The study will be performed on the material from the Danube Gorges region, testing the hypothesis about sedentary occupation during the Mesolithic.
Objective
Archaeological sites are by and large palimpsests of coarse-grained chronological resolution, with many episodes of (re-)occupation where often undifferentiated blocks of time are used as units for temporal reckoning. The methodological advances provided by cementochronological approaches can provide powerful means of temporalising and refining our understanding of annual scheduling of site occupation. Cementochronology examines alternating incremental translucent and opaque bands that are laid down throughout life in tooth cementum as physiological responses to seasonal rhythms. Counting pairs of bands on thin sections under polarized transmitted light provides accurate age estimates. The outermost band represents the season-at-death, which is used to infer seasonality of site occupation. This method is particularly relevant for prehistoric periods when seasonal scheduling of lifeways was of paramount importance. The CUSP project uses the most recent methodological breakthroughs in the study of Tooth Cementum Annulation (TCA) to establish (1) a robust protocol for the study of TCA in red deer, which is often found at prehistoric sites as hunted game; and (2) infer seasonality of occupation of archaeological sites in the chosen case study by determining season-at-death in both red deer and humans. Age-at-death estimates will be made for the analyzed samples too, enabling the applicant to build mortality profiles important for estimates of past human population demography and red deer hunting strategies. The case study are Mesolithic sites in the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans where CUSP will test the hypothesis about possible sedentary occupation of this region in the Mesolithic. The applicant has worked extensively on the archaeological sequences in this region and is best placed to examine this question by receiving training-through-research during the outgoing phase at New York U. He will transfer the acquired knowledge to Sapienza U. of Rome.
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.
- humanities history and archaeology history prehistory
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- humanities history and archaeology archaeology ethnoarchaeology
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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)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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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.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2018
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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.
00185 Roma
Italy
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