Nume: PALINCAS Nona Daniela

Tema: Structuri de putere reflectate în cultura materială şi în izvoarele aferente

Partener: Academia Română, Institutul de Arheologie Vasile Pârvan, Bucureşti

Proiect: Means that shaped societies. An archeological investigation on power and agency in the Romanian Bronze Age

Date de contact
palincas@gmail.com

Profil

Nona Palincaş was born in 1965, graduated the Faculty of History of the Bucharest University in 1987, and took her Ph D in 1999 from the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy. She is currently a senior researcher with this latter institution.

Her major research interests are:

  • gender archaeology of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages;
  • archaeology of the body especially in Romanian Bronze Age;
  • power relations in prehistory as well as in contemporary society with special concern to archaeology.

Means that shaped societies. An archeological investigation on power and agency in the Romanian Bronze Age

The project sets out from the idea that the potential of prehistoric archaeology to contribute to the understanding of power relations is generally underestimated. Almost all specialist literature on the European Bronze Age considers power as the province of middle-aged wealthy male warrior who obtained it by military prowess, long distance trade and/or inheritance, asserted it by mere display, defended it only against other men, and only by military force.

The aim of this project is to analyze:

  • Power in relation to gender, in order to answer questions such as: Was power in the Bronze Age the province of men or were women competing for power as well? Are there other genders involved in this competition? If yes, how do genders relate to each other in this context?
  • The means used in order to acquire and maintain power as well as the way they were used. Here the aim is to detail the analysis of the means traditionally related to power (war, prestige goods, valuables) as well as to see whether other means than these also came into play.

The project will be based on case studies taken from the Romanian Bronze Age (the Monteoru, Fundeni-Govora, Žuto Brdo-Gârla Mare area, and probably also the Otomani area).

Works

  • With John Chapman, “Gender archaeology in Eastern Europe”, in Diane Bolger (ed.), A Companion to Gender Prehistory. Wiley-Blackwell: Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Anthropology (in press, to appear in 2011).
  • “Living for the others. Gender relations in prehistoric and contemporary archaeology of Romania”, in L. H. Dommasnes, T. Hjørungdal, S. Montón-Sibías, M. Sánchez Romero, N. Wicker (eds), Situating Gender in European Archaeology. Budapest: Archaeolingua, Series Minor 2010, p. 93-116.
  • “Reconfiguring anatomy: ceramics, cremation and cosmology in the Late Bronze Age in the Lower Danube”, in K. Rebay-Salisbury, M. L. S. Sørensen, J. Hughes (eds), Body Parts and Bodies Whole: Changing relations and meanings. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow 2010: 72-89.
  • “On Power, Organisation and Paradigm in Romanian Archaeology before and after 1989”, in Dacia NS 50, 2006, p. 7-56.
  • “Social Status and Gender Relations in the Late Bronze Age Popeşti. A plea for the introduction of new approaches in Romanian archaeology”, in Dacia NS 48-49, 2004 – 2005, p. 39-53.