Papers by Mircea Anghelinu
Quaternary International, 2020
Vivax malaria is a significant military and civilian health threat in northern Republic of Korea ... more Vivax malaria is a significant military and civilian health threat in northern Republic of Korea (ROK). Mosquito collections were performed at two ROK army installations, Paju near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) using black light traps in 2011. The DMZ, a 4 km wide border, is the northernmost point of the ROK and separates the ROK from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Anopheles spp. were identified by polymerase chain reaction and screened for Plasmodium vivax sporozoites. Of 4,354 female Anopheles mosquitoes identified, Anopheles kleini (61.8%) was the most frequently collected, followed by Anopheles pullus (16.0%), Anopheles belenrae (9.0%), Anopheles sinensis (7.4%), Anopheles sineroides (4.2%), and Anopheles lesteri (1.6%). Anopheles kleini, An. pullus, and An. sineroides showed the highest population densities in June, whereas population densities were highest for An. belenrae, An. lesteri, and An. sinensis in August. The maximum likelihood estimation (estimated number of positive mosquitoes/1,000) for P. vivax was highest for An. lesteri (28.9), followed by An. sineroides (23.3), An. belenrae (15.8), An. sinensis (9.6), An. pullus (5.8) and An. kleini (4.2). The seasonal maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) values were variable among Anopheles species. Anopheles belenrae, An. Pullus, and An. sineroides showed the highest seasonal MLE's in July, whereas An. lesteri and An. sinensis exhibited the highest seasonal MLEs in September and An. kleini during August. This is the first report implicating An. sineroides as a vector of P. vivax in the ROK, and extends our knowledge of the distribution and potential role in malaria transmission.
M. Cârstea, S. Damian (eds.), Românii în istoria Europei, Cetatea de Scaun, Târgoviște, 2013
Problema inegalităţii sociale a incitat reflecții adânci cu mult înainte de apariția științelor s... more Problema inegalităţii sociale a incitat reflecții adânci cu mult înainte de apariția științelor socio-umane moderne. Biblia și scrierile patristice, gândirea politică a Antichității, filozofia medievală, sau cea a Luminilor abundă în considerații diverse privind natura, scopul sau funcțiile inegalității dintre oameni 1. Majoritatea acestor reflecții provin, evident, din universuri culturale deja foarte complexe, în care diferențele de statut, prestigiu și avere, uneori extrem de pregnante, reprezentau de milenii o realitate cotidiană. Multă vreme, originile inegalității au fost căutate, speculativ, în însăși natura umană, așa cum se deschidea ea observației directe. Diversele forme de inegalitate erau explicate fie pe seama necesității, mai mult sau mai puțin "naturale", a oamenilor de a coopera pe seama abilităților lor diferite, fie, mai frecvent, pe seama unui egoism nativ, antisocial , care făcea din ea rezultatul inerent al "războiului tuturor împotriva tuturor" 2. Aceste teorii mizau, de asemenea, pe ideea spontană a unui "om etern", esențial bun sau (cu precădere) rău, nesupus ca atare vreunei evoluții semnificative. Disciplinele socio-umane moderne, cristalizate, în marea lor majoritate, către finele secolului al XIX-lea, au preluat multe dintre aceste premise filozofice cu privire la natura și menirea inegalității dintre oameni 3. Popularitatea în creștere a gândirii evoluționiste a schimbat, însă, în mod radical parametrii dezbaterii. Deși divizați ca orientări teoretice, un număr tot mai mare de antropologi, filozofi sau economiști se îndepărtează gradual de ideea omului și a problemelor sociale "eterne" și încep să privească cristalizarea socialității umane în termeni istorici, diacronici. Pentru ei, descifrarea cauzelor inegalității sociale devine coextensivă explicării traseului istoric al umanității către formule sociale tot mai complexe. Din creuzetul agitat al ideii evoluționiste eclozează și arheologia preistorică, care devine rapid principala disciplină în măsură să documenteze empiric mersul spre complexitate al societăților umane 4. În ultimul secol, studierea consecventă a problematicii sociale s-a precipitat, însă, cu precădere în sânul anumitor tradiții de cercetare arheologică, din rațiuni lesne de descifrat. Cel puțin discursurile integrative cu privire la evoluția socială a umanității ca întreg, au fost preluate autoritar, sub forma tipologiilor stadiale, de către arheologiile "imperialiste", inițial britanică, apoi americană sau sovietică 5 , tradiții care dispuneau-și încă mai dispun-, printre altele, și de avantajul unei largi deschideri teoretice către etnografie 6. În contextul absenței unor
Materiale şi cercetãri arheologice (Serie nouã), 2021
The mismatch between the human paleoanthropological 'tree' and the paleo-cognitive 'l... more The mismatch between the human paleoanthropological 'tree' and the paleo-cognitive 'ladder' has been recently attributed to epistemological biases affecting the mainstream narratives on cognitive evolution. The present paper takes issue with such a perspective and argues for a rather continuous cognitive development along the human lineage, as documented archaeologically by the early emergence of a 'familiar' human mind and by the cumulative features of Pleistocene cultural evolution in general. These facts seriously question the paleo-cognitive relevance of the acknowledged branchy taxonomy and point strongly towards a more anagenetic view on human biological evolution. Moreover, as the prerequisites for complex behavior and a consistent ability for cultural transmission were already among the capacities of the Homo erectus grade, the scope of further major cognitive changes, as usually invoked in connection to the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens, appears ...
Annales d'Université "Valahia" Târgovişte. Section d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 2008
Annales d'Université "Valahia" Târgovişte. Section d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 2006
The paper deals with the Upper Palaeolithic in the BistriĠa Valley (northeastern Romania). In spi... more The paper deals with the Upper Palaeolithic in the BistriĠa Valley (northeastern Romania). In spite of the richness of the Palaeolithic sites from this Carpathian area, the Palaeolithic record has remained largely ignored by Western studies. Apart from the most obvious reason, the language barrier, another particularly important motive for this cautious attitude seems to have been the chrono-cultural framework proposed by Romanian archaeologists, which hardly fitted the accepted European evolutionary model for the Aurignacian and Gravettian technocomplexes. According to the first excavators, the Upper Palaeolithic industries in the BistriĠa Valley display some original features, such as atypical techno-typological structure and the late chronology for the so-called Aurignacian assemblages, and the apparent geological contemporaneity between the two technocomplexes. However, a closer and critical look at the most important feature of the Upper Palaeolithic from this Carpathian area reveals quite a different picture. The Gravettian layers always overly the so-called Aurignacian industries and therefore there are no in situ stratigraphic grounds to sustain an argument of contemporaneity between the two technocomplexes, despite similar radiocarbon chronology between sites. On the other hand, the description and the published references of the Aurignacian assemblages strongly suggest that the original attribution was wrong. Most if not all of these industries belong rather to the Gravettian, which may also explain their late radiocarbon chronology (25,000-21,000 uncal. BP). The authors stress the need for a systematic reevaluation of all the old collections, even more imperative given the recent results from Mitoc-Malul Galben and Poiana Cireúului, which challenge once again the acknowledged cultural framework for the Upper Palaeolithic in the BistriĠa Valley.
Annales d'Université "Valahia" Târgovişte. Section d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, 2000
Annales d'Université "Valahia" Târgovişte. Section d'Archéologie et d'Histoire
Quaternary International, 2012
ABSTRACT The key position held by Romania's territory for the available scenarios regardi... more ABSTRACT The key position held by Romania's territory for the available scenarios regarding the expansion of the Upper Paleolithic “cultural package” in Europe has been recently reinforced by the finds of the oldest European Homo sapiens sapiens remains in the Oase Cave (Southwestern Romania). However, in spite of its paradigmatic association to the first anatomically modern humans in Europe, the Aurignacian in Romania remained inadequately known and rarely referred to in the European literature. The poor descriptions of the Aurignacian-called lithic industries and their unusually young numerical chronology or geochronological estimations explain this caution. A brief evaluation of the available information regarding these issues is proposed. Based on a comparatively restricted definition of the Aurignacian variability as acknowledged in the recent European literature (e.g. numerical chronology, large retouched blades, bladelet production from carinated forms, bone industry), the present approach dismisses many postulates widely held in Romanian literature: the local origin, the wide occurrence and the late survival of the Aurignacian. However, given the lack of numerical dates and the fragmentary state of most archaeological collections, the precise timing of its emergence and the details of its regional evolution require further research.
Quaternary International
Abstract The role of environmental change in the evolution of cultural traits is a topic of long-... more Abstract The role of environmental change in the evolution of cultural traits is a topic of long-standing scientific debate with strongly contrasting views. Major obstacles for assessing environmental impacts on the evolution of material culture are the fragmentary nature of archaeological and – to a somewhat lesser extent – geoscientific archives and the insufficient chronological resolution of these archives and related proxy data. Together these aspects are causing difficulties in data synchronization. By no means does this paper attempt to solve these issues, but rather aims at shifting the focus from demonstrating strict chains of causes and events to describing roughly contemporaneous developments by compiling and comparing existing evidence from archaeology and geosciences for the period between 40 and 15 ka in Central Europe. Analysis of the archaeological record identifies five instances at around 33, 29, 23.5, 19, and 16 ka, for which evidence suggests an increased speed of cultural evolution. By comparing data from different geoscientific archives, we discuss whether or not these instances have common characteristics. We stress that common characteristics per se are no proof of causality; repeated co-occurrences of certain features over long periods of time, however, suggest that certain explanations may be more plausible than others. While all five cases roughly coincide with pronounced and rapid environmental changes, it is also observed that such conditions do not necessarily trigger major changes in the material culture. Increases and decreases in the diversity of cultural traits seem to be rather correlated with the overall demographic development. In compiling and comparing our data, we also identify periods with high need and potential for future research regarding the relation between environmental change and cultural evolution.
The mismatch between the human paleoanthropological 'tree' and the paleo-cognitive 'l... more The mismatch between the human paleoanthropological 'tree' and the paleo-cognitive 'ladder' has been recently attributed to epistemological biases affecting the mainstream narratives on cognitive evolution. The present paper takes issue with such a perspective and argues for a rather continuous cognitive development along the human lineage, as documented archaeologically by the early emergence of a 'familiar' human mind and by the cumulative features of Pleistocene cultural evolution in general. These facts seriously question the paleo-cognitive relevance of the acknowledged branchy taxonomy and point strongly towards a more anagenetic view on human biological evolution. Moreover, as the prerequisites for complex behavior and a consistent ability for cultural transmission were already among the capacities of the Homo erectus grade, the scope of further major cognitive changes, as usually invoked in connection to the emergence of Homo sapiens sapiens, appears ...
Upper Palaeolithic chronological and cultural sequences on the Bistriţa Valley (northeastern Roma... more Upper Palaeolithic chronological and cultural sequences on the Bistriţa Valley (northeastern Romania) have been in the focus of more than five decades of field work and debates. Despite substantial excavation surfaces and impressively large lithic assemblages, the results remained stubbornly confusing: when compared to the European cultural succession, the majority of conventional radiocarbon ages for the Aurignacian layers were much younger than expected. This was taken to indicate a regional continuity for the Aurignacian into the Last Glacial Maximum. In the course of new investigations undertaken from 2005 to 2008, it therefore appeared imperative to take a fresh view both of the old assemblages and of the previous radiocarbon ages. Far from substantiating the isolated position of the Bistriţa Valley Upper Palaeolithic, as previously deduced, our new results now place it within the limits of the acknowledged cultural variability of the Aurignacian, as attested for many other areas in central and eastern Europe. These results are supported by a set of new 14 C-radiocarbon dates, which also provide ages as expected for the Aurignacian. Zusammenfassung -Die jungpaläolithische Kulturabfolge im Bistriţa-Tal (Nordost-Rumänien) steht seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert im Fokus archäologischer Grabungen und Diskussionen. Trotz der großflächigen Grabungen und zahlreicher geborgener Inventare blieben die Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchungen rätselhaft, denn im Vergleich zur europäischen Kulturabfolge erwies sich ein Großteil der konventionellen 14 C-Daten für das vermeintliche Aurignacien als wesentlich jünger und legte den Schluss eines regionalen Kontinuums bis zum Maximum der letzten Eiszeit nahe. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird eine Revision der älteren und ein Vergleich mit neuen Daten dreier relevanter Fundstellen vollzogen, die im Zuge neuer Feldarbeiten von 2005-08 erhoben worden sind. Statt die Hypothese einer chronologischen Sonderstellung des Jungpaläolithikums im Bistriţa-Tal zu erhärten, führen die Ergebnisse zu einer neuen Bewertung der Kulturabfolge und ordnen sie damit in das übliche chronologische Spektrum des mittel-und osteuropäischen Umfelds ein.
From the initial researches in the 1950's, the geological and archeological sequences preserv... more From the initial researches in the 1950's, the geological and archeological sequences preserved on the Bistrița terraces have been constantly thought to provide a remarkably complete chronicle of the Upper Paleolithic in eastern Romania. The local Pleistocene geological archives hosted Aurignacian, Gravettian, Epigravettian and Swiderian layers. Various chronological data and cultural interpretations accumulated in the following decades granted the local Paleolithic some unusual features, such as the bizarrely young chronology of the Aurignacian technocomplex (27–21 ka uncal. BP), involving its partial contemporaneity with the local Gravettian (24–16 ka BP). Based on a previous critical reassessment of the original lithic toolkits the present paper attempts at assembling the most important results recently obtained through new archeological researches in several settlements in the area (Poiana Cireșului, Bistricioara-Lutărie I and III, Bistricioara 'La Mal'). A consisten...
Cave and Karst Systems of Romania
The archaeological research of the substantial and diverse Romanian karst has a long history goin... more The archaeological research of the substantial and diverse Romanian karst has a long history going back to nineteenth-century antiquarians. A more systematic interest emerged, however, in the interwar times and continues to the present day. The earliest proof for the human use of caves in the Romanian Carpathian area belongs to the Last Interglacial Neanderthals, but Last Glacial Mousterian presence was also reported. They all indicate short-lived and possibly recurrent excursions into generally low mountain environmental settings (<1000 m) in search of local game. Despite spectacular palaeoanthropological (including the earliest Anatomically Modern Humans in Europe) and parietal art finds, the intensity of cave use by Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers (Aurignacian and Gravettian) was surprisingly low, with most consistent occupations dated only to the final stages of the Pleistocene (Epigravettian/Epipalaeolithic). The small Upper Palaeolithic inventories in caves indicate very short, exploratory stops that correlate to the documented focus of these communities on open-air settings at lower altitudes. From Mesolithic to Medieval times, caves were used with varying intensity, serving as temporary/seasonally residence, as well as for ritual or economic purposes. Thick Early Neolithic cultural sequences, occasionally spectacular Bronze and Iron Age depositions, much like the Roman and Palaeo-Christian finds are particularly telling for the important residential and ritual/religious role some caves played. Through time, apart from their topography and degree of accessibility, the importance granted to these natural shelters by the various communities depended on the continuous change of the sociocultural and economic contexts.
Materiale şi cercetãri arheologice (Serie nouã)
Cireşului se află plasat la aproximativ 4 km de Piatra Neamţ, pe malul drept al Bistriţei şi în p... more Cireşului se află plasat la aproximativ 4 km de Piatra Neamţ, pe malul drept al Bistriţei şi în preajma confluenţei râului cu pârâul Doamna. Situl este amplasat pe un nivel de eroziune sculptat de Bistriţa în substratul de fliş, echivalent aproximativ cu terasa de 45 m a râului (coordonate GPS : 46 o 55'919'' lat. N, 26 o 19'644'' long. E). Altitudinea absolută variază între 395 şi 405 m, din cauza suprafeţei vălurite, rezultat al eroziunii, acumulării diferenţiate şi al modificărilor antropice survenite în timpuri istorice. Primele cercetări în acest sit s-au realizat în anul 1963, de către C. Scorpan 1. O a doua campanie de cercetări are loc în anul 1968, sub conducerea lui V. Căpitanu 2 , iar în anul 1989, M. Bitiri şi R. Dobrescu deschid o nouă secţiune, ale cărei rezultate, deşi nepublicate, au fost puse cu amabilitate la dispoziţia echipei noastre de către responsabilii cercetării, cărora dorim să le mulţumim şi pe această cale. Observaţiile stratigrafice, ca şi interpretările culturale realizate de predecesorii noştri variază. C. Scorpan, care realizează un sondaj cu suprafaţa de 15 mp şi adâncimea maximă de 1,40 m, identifică patru orizonturi geologice şi un singur nivel cultural, atribuit "Aurignacianului superior răsăritean" (Gravettian); V. Căpitanu raportează cinci unităţi geologice şi trei niveluri culturale, toate gravettiene, adâncimea sondajelor sale atingând 1,50 m. Toţi autorii menţionaţi sunt, însă, unanimi în a afirma caracterul gravettian al tuturor ansamblurilor litice din nivelurile culturale de la Poiana Cireşului. Începând cu anul 1998 şi până în prezent, situl este cercetat de către o echipă internaţională, care reuneşte astăzi specialişti în diverse domenii interdisciplinare din România (Universitatea Valahia din Târgovişte, CNM "Curtea Domnească" din Târgovişte, Muzeul Naţional de Istorie din Bucureşti), Germania (universităţile din Erlangen-Nürnberg, respectiv Bayreuth) şi Franţa (Universitatea din Aix-en-Provence). În viitorul apropiat este avută în vedere lărgirea colectivului de cercetare, prin cooptarea de noi specialişti. Situl face deja obiectul unui proiect internaţional de cercetare finanţat de Fundaţia Germană pentru Ştiinţă (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). Proiectul de cercetare configurat aici de colectivul nostru urmăreşte explicit şi elaborarea unui model cuprinzător şi elastic de cercetare arheologică, capabil să surprindă mai bine realităţile culturale paleolitice. În fapt, situl de aici este în permanenţă un şantier-şcoală pentru studenţii români şi străini, de la toate instituţiile universitare angajate în proiect. În raport cu proiectul de cercetare elaborat de colectivul nostru, rezultatele actuale se află încă într-un stadiu preliminar. Cu toate acestea, ele sunt deja suficiente pentru a evidenţia
Archaeometry
Long‐distance raw material transfers across Romania prior to the Last Glacial Maximum have previo... more Long‐distance raw material transfers across Romania prior to the Last Glacial Maximum have previously been inferred from either visual and/or petrographic observations of East Carpathian sites. We investigated the potential to ‘fingerprint’ flint from archaeological sites at Mitoc‐Malu Galben and Bistricioara–Lutărie III in Eastern Romania, using in situ high‐precision analyses of 28 major, minor and trace elements determined by laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) in combination with multivariate statistical analysis. Our results suggest that geochemical analyses have the ability to distinguish between different geographical sources but are unable to positively associate flint artefacts from archaeological contexts to these geochemical groups. The mismatches of signatures between artefacts and geological materials, however, raise new questions and open unforeseen perspectives.
LittLe tooLs or LittLe weapons? testing the use of aurignacian and epigravettian bLadeLets as pro... more LittLe tooLs or LittLe weapons? testing the use of aurignacian and epigravettian bLadeLets as projectiLe impLements A B S T R A C T L. Niţă, M. Anghelinu, V. Sitlivy, M. Mărgărit, F. Dumitru 2012. Little Tools Or Little Weapons? Testing The Use Of Aurignacian And Epigravettian Bladelets As Projectile Implements, AAC 47: 5–29. The morphology and use-wear of lithic implements used as projectile points have been a special topic of prehistoric research for many decades. The present study focuses on a particular category of artifacts from two chronologically distant cultural contexts — the Aurignacian and the Epigra-vettian. Retouched and unretouched bladelets recovered from three Romanian sites recently excavated are examined in order to asses the possibility of their past use as projectile implements. Two methodological lines of inquiry were followed: the recognition of macroscopic impact-related fractures and the designation of metrical attributes concerning tip cross-sectional area v...
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Papers by Mircea Anghelinu