Ion Niculiță (27 May 1939 – 2 January 2022) was a Moldovan professor of
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
, known for his contributions to the field of
thracology
Thracology ( bg, Тракология, Trakologiya; ro, Tracologie) is the scientific study of Ancient Thrace and Thracian antiquities and is a regional and thematic branch of the larger disciplines of ancient history and archaeology. A practition ...
. He was a relative of the Romanian archaeologist Vasile Pârvan.
Academic career
Returning to
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
he was appointed lecturer in the Ancient and Medieval History Department. Advancing through the ranks, he became Chair of Archaeology and Ancient History in 1984, and between 1993 and 2002 he was Dean of the Faculty of History. In 1991 he obtained his
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...
in history for the work "Northern Thracians in the 6th through 1st Centuries BC".
Niculiță's scientific interests are focused on the cultural interactions in Southeast Europe between the end of the 2nd Millennium BC and the beginning of the 1st Millennium, in particular:
ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis (; ) is "the formation and development of an ethnic group".
This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.
The term ''ethnogenesis'' was originally a mid-19th century neologism that was later introdu ...
aspects of early
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
Dacia
Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus r ...
n history and civilization,
Daco-Romanian
Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in t ...
continuity and processes of
Romanization
Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
, etc.
In order to focus their research, Niculiță organized the Scientific Research Laboratory on Thracology in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History in 1990. Under his leadership a number of archeological sites have been studied, such as
Dănceni
Dănceni is a village in Ialoveni District, Moldova.Suruceni
Suruceni is a village in Ialoveni District, Moldova, 22 km from Chișinău.Butuceni, Hansca, Sobari,
Trebujeni
Trebujeni is a commune in Orhei District, Moldova. It is composed of three villages: Butuceni, Morovaia and Trebujeni.Mașcăuți, Saharna and those on the Lower Danube as well as Novosel'skoye and
Orlivka
Orlivka ( uk, Орлівка; Romanian: Cartal) is a selo (village) in Reni raion in the southern Ukrainian oblast of Odesa.
Location
Orlivka is located at between Lakes Kartal, Kahul and the river Danube.
History
Around 2nd century BC, a ...
(Kartal) in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
.
In 1992 Niculiță was elected member of the International Council of Indo-European and Thracian Studies. He was a member of the editorial boards for scientific journals like SCIVA (
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
), Istros (
Brăila
Brăila (, also , ) is a city in Muntenia, eastern Romania, a port on the Danube and the capital of Brăila County. The ''Sud-Est'' Regional Development Agency is located in Brăila.
According to the 2011 Romanian census there were 180,302 pe ...
), Cumidava ( Brașov) and Tyrageția (Chișinău).
His efforts through 40 years have resulted in five monographs and more than 120 papers published in national and international journals.
Personal life and death
Niculiță was born in Zărnești,
Cahul District
Cahul () is a district ( ro, raion) in the south of Moldova, with the administrative center at Cahul. As of January 2014 estimates, Cahul District had a population of 124,700.
History
The district has been inhabited since the Stone Age (50-45,00 ...
. Having attended school in his native village, he studied at the Faculty of History, University of Chișinău, from 1958 to 1963. Among his teachers were E. Rikman and R. Enghelgardt. As a first-year student, together with G. Samson, N. Grigoriev and V. Botnariuc he founded the Archeology Student Scientific Seminar (SȘSAIV), which continues to this day.
Between 1963 and 1968 he worked as assistant to the
chair
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...
of
universal history
A universal history is a work aiming at the presentation of a history of all of mankind as a whole, coherent unit. A universal chronicle or world chronicle typically traces history from the beginning of written information about the past up to t ...
at the Faculty of History, and 1968–1971 he was a PhD student of archeology at the
Lomonosov Moscow State University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
, studying under such teachers as B. Rybakov, B. Grakov, A. Arcyhovskii, V. Janin, F. Kyzlasov, A. Meliukova and I. Jacenko. His thesis, submitted in 1972, was about the
Getae
The Getae ( ) or Gets ( ; grc, Γέται, singular ) were a Thracian-related tribe that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Both the singular form ''Get'' an ...
east of the
Carpathians
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The ...
in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.
He died on 2 January 2022, at the age of 82.