Identity

The research program "TEFRA":

The Technology and the bio-anthropology of the use of FiRe on human remains in the Aegean

Funded by: H.F.R.I. (Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation) in the framework of the 2nd Call for H.F.R.I.’s Research Projects to Support Faculty Members & Researchers (A.U.Th. Research Committee Project No: 73268).

Scientific Area: Humanities & Art, Archaeology

Host Institution: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Principal Investigator: Sevasti Triantaphyllou, Associate Professor in Prehistoric Archaeology and Osteoarchaeology

Overview

The research program of TEFRA is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary study on the effect of fire on human remains from the prehistoric and protohistoric Aegean applied on a broad geographical and time scale.

The scientific results that will emerge from the collaboration of different scientific fields will fill essential gaps in the research of pyrotechnology and will form new interpretative approaches to the practice of combustion in antiquity.

The originality of the project will be accomplished through the systematic and methodological collaboration of several scholars from archaeology, osteoarchaeology, biochemistry, and forensic sciences. Innovative analytical methods will be applied for the first time in archaeological remains of the prehistoric and protohistoric Aegean. The holistic approach and the interdisciplinary character of the research will bring together a great range of information and data and shed new light on the use and the technology of fire on human remains in the Aegean as well as the bio- anthropology of the people which were subjected to this process.