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January - December 2025
Aurélien obtained a Master of Art in Applied Anthropology from the University of South Florida in 2016. He worked there as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Anthropology from 2014 to 2019. In 2021-2022, he was granted a Fulbright Bulgaria-Romania Joint Research Award and spent 5 months in Bulgaria and 8 months in Romania to study the collections and gather samples. In 2023, he got a grant from the Rust Family Foundation to perform strontium isotopic analyses on human tooth enamel from the Neolithic necropolis of Sultana, Romania. He earned his PhD in Applied Anthropology from the University of South Florida in 2023, under the supervision of Prof. Robert H. Tykot. His dissertation is entitled “Investigating Mobility in the Northern Balkans during the Fifth Millenium BC through Strontium Analysis of Human Tooth Enamel”.
Assessing the Potential of Lead Isotopic Analyses on Human Tooth Enamel to Explore Ancient Mobility in Southern Romania during the Chalcolithic period (5th millennium BCE)
My project seeks to assess the potential of lead isotopic analyses on human remains to investigate ancient mobility in the Lower Danube River Valley. These analyses will be performed using a Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (LA-ICP-MS) run by the Department of Geology of the University of Bucharest. Faunal remains from Neolithic sites in Muntenia and Moldova will allow for the establishment of an isotopic baseline, which will show whether it is possible to distinguish between animals having been kept in those two respective regions according to their lead isotopic signature. Lead elemental concentrations will be measured on faunal remains from the onset of the Neolithic to the end of the Eneolithic to monitor the impact of early metallurgy on lead isotopic ratios in living organisms. In the light of these results, lead isotopic analyses will be performed on Neolithic human tooth enamel samples to explore the potential mobility of these individuals during this crucial period of Romanian Prehistory.