Dr Justyna Orłowska from the Team for Traceological Research and Residue Studies at the Faculty of Historical Sciences of Nicolaus Copernicus University has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship, one of the most competitive grant programmes in Europe, funded under Horizon Europe.
Dr Justyna Orłowska’s 24-month project, entitled VISION (Advanced Microscopic Techniques to Reveal Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers’ Macrolithic Tool Functions in the Central European Plain), will be carried out at the renowned DANTE – Diet and Ancient Technology Laboratory at Sapienza University of Rome under the supervision of Prof. Emanuela Cristiani, in close collaboration with Dr Grzegorz Osipowicz, Prof. UMK.
The aim of the project is to reconstruct the functions of macrolithic stone tools used by hunter-gatherer communities of the early Holocene in the Central European Plain. Thanks to the use of advanced microscopic analyses, residue studies and spatial analyses, it will be possible to reconstruct the daily practices of raw material processing and camp organisation from thousands of years ago.
The key research material will be unique Mesolithic sites from Paliwodzina 29 and Ludowice 6 – exceptional and unique camps in Poland used by hunter-gatherer communities for many millennia (both sites were studied as part of grants from the National Science Centre led by Dr Grzegorz Osipowicz, Professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University).
Preliminary analyses of macrolithic artefacts from these sites, carried out, among others, during research internships conducted by Dr Justyna Orłowska at the DANTE laboratory as part of the ‘Mobility for Staff’ programme (Initiative of Excellence – Research University), have already yielded promising results and confirmed the enormous research potential of these collections.
The implementation of the VISION project opens a new stage in the development of traceological research at UMK, introducing advanced microscopic techniques and integrated residue analyses to the study of macrolithic tools, which until now have rarely been subjected to such comprehensive research. The combination of traceology, archaeobotany, physicochemical analyses and spatial studies will create an innovative, interdisciplinary research framework, allowing for a multifaceted reconstruction of the functions of artefacts and economic practices of early Holocene communities.
Source: Nicolaus Copernicus University Information Portal