Scientific visit of Laëtitia Demay (France) to the Institute of Zoology

During the period January 3 to 28, 2022, the Institute of Zoology was visited by Laëtitia Demay, a Doctor of Prehistoric Archeology and scientific researcher of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France.

This is the fourth Laëtitia Demay's scientific visit to the Institute of Zoology. The collaboration between Dr. Laëtitia Demay and our specialists in the domain of paleozoological research – the Senior Scientific Researcher Roman Croitor, Doctor of Biological Sciences, the Scientific Researchers Teodor Obadă and Viorica Pascari – began in 2016, when the first visit of our French colleague in Moldova took place. In December 2016, Dr. Laëtitia Demay presented the communication “The behavior of hominids in the Late Pleistocene of Eastern Europe” at the scientific meeting in the Institute of Zoology in an international project frames. This communication was prepared in co-authorship with Dr. Marylène Patou-Mathis (Institute of Human Paleontology, National Museum of Natural History), the director of project. Dr. Laëtitia Demay made a presentation entitled “People and animals in the Upper Paleolithic in of the Dniester Valley” based on the materials from Climăuți II on the conference organized by the Society of Friends of the Musée de l’Homme in the National Museum of Natural History (September, 2018). 
The presentation can be accessed HERE.  

The total number of nine scientific works on the zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from the Upper Paleolithic of Eastern Europe have been published in collaboration with the colleagues of the Laboratory of Terrestrial Vertebrates, the Institute of Zoology:

1. Demay L., Julien M.A., Anghelinu M., Shydlovskyi P.S., Koulakovska L.V., Péan S., Stupak D.V., Vasyliev P.M., Obăda T., Wojtal P., Belyaeva V.I. Study of human behaviors during the late pleniglacial in the East European Plain through their relation to the animal world. Quaternary International, Volumes 581–582, 2021, p. 258-289. IF: 2,190.
2. Demay L., Péan S., Germonpré M., Obadă T., Haynes G., Khlopachev G.A., Patou-Mathis M. Upper Pleistocene Hominins and Woolly Mammoths in the East European Plain. In: George E. Konidaris, Ran Barkai, Vangelis Tourloukis and Katerina Harvati (eds.), Human-elephant interactions: From past to present, Mammoths and humans in east Europe, Tuebingen Paleoantropology book, Series – Contributions in Paleoanthropology 1, Tübingen University Press, Tübingen 2021, p. 201-233.
3. Demay L., Obadă T., Covalenco S., Noiret P., Péan S., Patou-Mathis M. “Zooarchaeological analyzes of the faunal remains of the upper level of Climăuţi II (Republic of Moldova)”. In: G. Lengyel, J. Wilczyński (Eds.), Proceedings of the session no. XVII-4: The Upper Palaeolithic research in Central and Eastern Europe of the XVIII UISPP congress, Paris, June 2018, 2021, p. 102-133.
4. Demay L., Covalenco S., Croitor R., Obadă T., Zooarchaeological analysis of the Raşcov 8 Upper Palaeolithic site (Republic of Moldova), L'anthropologie, Volume 125, Issue 4, September–October 2021, p. 1-45. IF: 0, 465.
5. Demay L., V.I. Belyaeva V.I., Covalenco S., Koulakovska L., Noiret P., Obadă T., Otte M., Patou-Mathis M., Péan S., Stupak D.V., Vasil’ev P.M. Human subsistence behaviors in the East European Plain during the Last Glacial Maximum from zooarchaeological studies. Workshop: The Last Glacial Maximum in Europe, State of knowledge in Geosciences and Archaeology, 20th to 22nd March 2019, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2019, p. 12.
6. Demay L., Obadă T., Péan S., Prepeliţa A. Utilization of mammoth resources and occupation of the Dniester-Prut basin territory: the Upper Paleolithic site of Valea Morilor (Republic of Moldova), Quaternary Science Reviews 222, 2019, 105898, 15 p. IF: 4,5
7. Demay L., Péan S., Noiret P., Obadă T., Koulakovska L. Le statut du mammouth au sein des groupes humains du Pléniglaciaire supérieur autour des bassins du Dniestr et du Prout. Le Paléolitique supérieur de Roumanie en contexte du Paléolithique supérieur européen: actes du Colloque International de Iași, 2019, Bibliotheca Archaeologica Iassiensis, XXXIII, Iași 2019, p. 59-95. 
8. Demay L., Obadă T., Covalenco S., Noiret P. The wooly mammoth in valley: Zooarcheological analyzes of the faunal remains of the upper level of Climăuți II (Republic of Moldova). Book of Abstract, XVIII CONGRES UISPP, Session XVII-4, Paris, 4-9 June, 2018, p. 95.
9. Demay L., Obada T., Péan P., Covalenco S. Zooarchaeological analyses to highlight woolly mammoth exploitation in the Dniester valley by Upper Paleolithic societies: case of Valea Morilor (Republic of Moldova). VII International Conference of Mammoths and Their Relatives, 17-23 September 2017, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan, p. 32.

During her visit to the Institute of Zoology in January 2022, Laëtitia Demay worked on the analysis of the archaeozoological material from Rascov 7. The future projects include the study of archaeozoological remains from the Palaeolithic sites of Cosăuti, Brânzeni and Duruitoarea Veche.

Photo gallery: recent images and images from the archive.                          

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Alina Larion

Translaton: Roman Croitor