Signs of Civilization: International Symposium on the Symbol System of Southeast Europe
Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro
May 25-29, 2004
Bios of Presenters:
Dusko Aleksovski, Ph.D. studied philology and later archaeology at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Macedonia, and completed his doctorate in philology at Franche Compte-Besancon-France University in 1981. He studied excavation methods in Martigny, Switzerland and became an archaeological researcher in 1986. After discovering rock art in the Republic of Macedonia in 1991, he created the Macedonian Rock Art Research Centre in 1992 and is the founder and director of the World Rock Art Academy in Skopje. Since 1991, Dr. Aleksovski has discovered 1126 Rock Art sites with more than one million rock art engravings and has written and lectured widely on this theme. His papers include: “Recherches de l’ Art Rupestre de la Republique Macedoine” (Bollettino del Centro Studi e Museo d’ Arte Preistorica di Pinerolo, Italy, Anni V-VI no. 7-8 (1991-1992); and “La signification des cupules a la lumiere de nouvelles decouvertes,” Bollettino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, vol. XXXI-XXXII (1999). Visit website.
Bogdan I. Brukner, Ph.D., is a full professor in the Philosophy Faculty of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Novi Sad and is a member of the Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts. Prof. Brukner’s principal works are: Neolithic in Vojvodina (1968); Prehistory of Vojvodina (with N. Tasić and B. Jovanović, 1974); Die Illustrierte Weltgeschichte der Archaelogie (co-authored, 1979); and Zum Problem der Auslong der Fhruneolitischen kulturen in Sudpanonnien (1983). He has studied in Israel (Claims Conference grant, 1955/66), Germany (Humbolt Foundation grant, 1971-72), Berkeley, New York and Los Angeles (Study Explorations 1985 and 1988), and has lectured at the Universities of Berlin, Frankfurt, and Heidelberg. Prof. Brukner has excavated numerous Neolithic sites in Vojvodina, in the Iron Gate and in other regions of the former Yugoslavia and is a recognized authority on the Neolithic Vinča culture. He is also a member of the Permanent Council of the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Science (UISPP).
Stefan Chohadziev, Ph.D. earned his Ph.D. in 1989 at the University of Velico Tyrnovo “St. Cyril and Methodius” on the “Periodisation and Synchronization of the Early Chalcholithic in the Strouma Valley.” He has worked as an archaeologist in the Regional Museum of Kjustendil and, since 1977, as an Associate Professor at the University of Veliko Tyrnovo. He has excavated numerous archaeological sites within Bulgaria and has published extensively on the archaeology of the Struma River Basin.
Tanya Dzhanfezova earned a Masters degree in archaeology (2002) from the
University of Veliko Tarnovo, “St. Cyril and St. Methodius,” Bulgaria. Her Masters thesis focused on Neolithic and Chalcolithic pintaderas in Bulgaria. She has received research grants from Consorzio per lo Sviluppo Internazionale dell’Università di Trieste and from the Center for Prehistoric Research, Salt Lake City. She is an Associated Member of the International Institute of Anthropology, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
Harald Haarmann, Ph.D. earned his doctorate at Bonn University in 1970, and held a professorship at Trier University where he gained his Habilitation in 1979. From 1982-85 he was a visiting scholar at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan, as a guest of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Since 1985 Dr. Haarmann has worked as an independent scholar living in Finland doing research in the fields of language and culture studies, archaeomythology, and archaeolinguistics. He is the author of some 40 books in German, English, Spanish and Japanese including Early Civilization and Literacy in Europe: An Inquiry into Cultural Continuity in the Mediterranean World (1996) and Die Madonna und ihre Töchter: Rekonstruktion einer kulturhistorischen Genealogie (1996), as well as a five volume series on the languages of the world. He is editor and co-editor of some 20 volumes; author and co-author of some 200 articles in scientific journals and essays in newspapers in several languages. In 1999 he was awarded two prestigious prizes: “Prix logos 1999” (France) and “Premio Jean Monnet 1999” (Italy), and is included in “The Lifetime of Achievement One Hundred, 2005” compiled by the Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England.
Borislav Jovanović, Ph.D. is a senior member of the Institute of Archaeology, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro. He has published extensively on the archaeology of the Danube region and has excavated numerous important archaeological sites throughout the former Yugoslavia including rescue excavations of the Lepenski Vir culture in the Iron Gate region of the Danube.
Ioannis Liritzis, Ph.D., is Director of the Laboratory of Archaeometry, Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece.
Cornelia-Magda Lazarovici, Ph.D., is an active archaeologist and prolific specialist on Neoithic Romania. She is a full Professor at the Institute of Archaeology in Iaşi, Romania. and has published widely on the signs and symbols of the Cucuteni culture.
Gheorge Lazarovici, Ph.D., is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Sibiu and Caranşebes and is Director of the Prehistory Department of the National Museum in Cluj, Romania. He has excavated more than one hundred twenty settlements in Transylvania and Banat. He has created a computer database of over seventeen hundred signs found on Neolithic artifacts in the Balkans.
Marco Merlini is General Director of the Prehistory Knowledge Project, Executive Director of the research institute InnovaNet and EURO INNOVANET, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Archaeomythology, member of the World Rock Art Academy, consultant of the City of Rome, and international co-ordinator of M.U.S.E.U.M.: the network of the historical and prehistorical museums of European capital cities. Under the auspices of the European Union, Marco Merlini produces and manages the “Virtual Museum of European Roots.” He cooperates with leading Italian archaeology magazines (Archeologia Viva, Hera) and is the author of several books including one on the Danube Script: Was Writing Born in Europe? Searching for a lost Script. Visit website.
Gareth Owens, Ph.D., who has lived and worked on Crete for the past 15 years, completed his doctoral thesis in the Linguistics Department of Athens University on “The Structure of the Minoan Language” (2004). He studied at University College London, where he taught courses in Linear B (1991-1992) and held a Post Doctoral Research Fellow (IKY) at the University of Crete in Heraklion Museum (1992-1994) for a study of Minoan Linear A. Gareth Owens has published two books and forty articles on the archaeology, epigraphy and philology of Minoan and Mycenaean Crete, and is conducting a linguistic study on the evidence of the Minoan language of Bronze Age Crete, c. 2000-1400 BC.
Iuliu Paul, Ph.D. is Director of the Pre- and Proto-historical Research Centre, “1 Decembre 1918” University in Alba Iulia, Romania.
Adrian Poruciuc, Ph.D., graduated in 1971 from Facultatea de Filologie, Universitatea “A. I. Cuza,” Iaşi, Romania where he holds a tenured position as Professor of Germanic studies. He also works as an Indo-European specialist for the Romanian Institute of Thracian Studies in Bucharest. As a Fulbright visiting scholar (1990-1992), Dr. Poruciuc taught and did research on Indo-European and Paleo-Balkan Studies in association with the Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of language, Indo-European and Thracian studies and folklore.
Lydia Ruyle M.A., is an artist/scholar on the visual arts faculty of the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a Master of Arts from UNC and has studied in Italy, France, Spain, and Indonesia. She works regularly at Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Center in Florence, Italy and Columbia College Center for Book and Paper in Chicago. Her research into sacred images of women has taken her around the globe. She exhibits her art and does workshops internationally. Her distinctive Goddess banners are hung at conferences and gatherings throughout the world. Visit website.
Adamantios Sampson, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in the Department of Archaeology at Athens University and completed post-doctoral work in environmental archaeology at Sheffield University, UK. His expertise includes work on the Mesolithic, Greek Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. He has participated in excavations and surveys in England and Ireland, and has been the director of archaeological surveys and excavations of both prehistoric and historic periods in open air sites and caves in Euboea, Thebes, Dodecanase, the Peloponnese, and Rhodes and its surrounding Islands. He has been a Professor in the Department of Mediterranean Studies in Rhodes, University of the Aegean since 1999 and has published 20 books and 130 papers on his work.
Andrej Starović, Ph.D., is Curator of the Early Neolithic Collection at the National Museum of Belgrade. He has excavated extensively throughout Serbia and has a special interest in the engraved artifacts of the Vinča culture. He is the creator of the special exhibition of engraved artifacts displayed at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Novi Sad Branch during “Signs of Civilization: International Symposium on the Symbol System of Southeast Europe,” May 25-29, 2004.
Taras Tkachuk, Ph.D., earned his doctorate in archaeology from Kiev National University with the dissertation, “The ornamentation of the Trypillya-Cucutenian painted pottery as a symbol system.” He did his post-graduate work at the Institute of Archaeology of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and is the Head of the Department of Archaeology of National Preserve of Monuments in Ancient Galich (Ukraine). He is a member of the European Association of Archaeologists and has been a Fulbright visiting scholar at Stanford university with a research program on “Ware ornamentation as a ‘language’of prehistoric cultures.” Dr. Tkachuk is the author of two books, “The semiotic analysis of Trypillya-Cucuteni symbols systems on painted pottery” (co-authored with J. Melnik), and “The Trypillya-Cucuteni symbol systems.” He is also the author of 45 articles, including: “The two types of development of ancient societes: Trypillya -Cucuteni culture and Sumer,” and “The changing mind and Trypillya-Cucuteni ornamentation.”
Vytautas Tumėnas, Ph.D. graduated from the Department of Art History, Vilnius Art Academy in 1988 and earned a doctorate at Vytautas Magnus University and Lithuanian Institute of History in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1998 with the dissertation “The Ornaments of Lithuanian Pick-up Woven Sashes: Typology and Semantics.” In 1988-1991 he worked as a scientific researcher at the Lithuanian Center of Folk Culture (LLKC), Department of National Costume, and from 1990 at the Lithuanian Institute of History, Department of Ethnology. In 1996 he received a grant from the Lithuanian State Foundation of Science and Studies. He is a member of the scientific organization SEAC (Société Européene pour l’Astronomie dans la Culture) since 2002.
Shan M.M. Winn, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Southern Mississippi (1975-1995). He is a pioneering researcher on the Old European (Balkan-Danube) Script and authored the authoritative Pre‑Writing in Southeastern Europe: The Sign System of the Vinča Culture (1981). Dr. Winn was Field Director of the Achilleion excavation in Thessaly, Greece (1973-1975) and took part in a joint excavation of Scaloria Cave, Apulia, Italy with M. Gimbutas, S. Tiné and students from their respective universities in 1978-1979. He has also excavated extensively in Iran, Anatolia and Israel and has led expeditions (cultural anthropology and prehistory) to Mesoamerica (frequently the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala) and trekking adventures to Andean countries and the Amazon.
Mikhailo Videiko, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor at the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” in Kiev teaching courses on the Trypillya culture of the Ukraine. He has worked at the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in various capacities since 1982 (as laboratory assistant 1982-1989, junior research fellow 1990-1993, and research assistant from 1993) and has taken part in archaeological excavations of Tripillya-Culture settlements at Maydanetz, 1984-1991; Talnoe-2, 1990; in Dnipro Region, 1992-1994, 2000–2003; and Vilkhovetz, 1993.He successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis in 1993 on “Economy and Social Organisation of Trypillya-Culture Population in South Bug Region, BII-CI Periods.” In 1982-1998 Dr. Videiko took part in research projects sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology: “Excavations of the Large Trypillya-Culture Settlements” (1982-1991); “The Archaeological Cultures of Copper and Bronze Ages of Ukraine in European Context” (1992-1995); and “The Absolute Chronology of Trypillya-Cucuteni Culture” (1995-1998). He is Chief Editor of the Encyclopedia of Trypillya Culture.