Contact: ludmila.pirnau@gmail.com

Research Interests

• Medieval archaeology
• Everyday life in the Middle Ages
• Food and diet in medieval and premodern societies
• Rural archaeology and medieval settlements
• Economic and cultural interactions between East and West
• Interdisciplinary approaches (zooarchaeology, documentary sources)

Short Biography

Ludmila Pîrnău is a Researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy, Iași Branch, where she has been affiliated with the Department of Medieval Archaeology since 2017. Prior to this, she worked as a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Archaeology of the Institute of Cultural Heritage in Chișinău (Republic of Moldova), where she was actively involved in research between 2006 and 2019, contributing to the study and promotion of archaeological heritage in the eastern Carpathian region. She obtained her PhD in History from “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, with a dissertation focused on medieval settlement structures in the Orhei region (15th–16th centuries), under the supervision of Professor Victor Spinei. Her research focuses on medieval archaeology, with particular emphasis on everyday life, food practices, and economic organization in medieval and premodern Moldavia. Her work adopts an interdisciplinary perspective, combining archaeological, zooarchaeological, and documentary data to reconstruct subsistence strategies and social dynamics. She has participated in numerous national and international research projects and scientific events, contributing to the development of medieval archaeology in Eastern Europe.

Selected publications

Books

Pîrnău, L., 2006, Ţinutul Orheiului în secolele XV–XVI, Iași: “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University Press, 358 pp.

Edited volumes

Diaconu, V., Pîrnău, L. (eds.), 2019, One Century of Archaeology in the Eastern Carpathian Area: Concepts, Methods, Trends, Brăila / Piatra-Neamț: Istros / “Constantin Matasă”, 462 pp.

Pîrnău, L., Bilavschi, G., Bejenaru, L., Groza, V.-M. (eds.), 2021, Food and Demography in Moldavia from the Middle Ages to the Modern Period: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Cluj-Napoca: Mega Publishing House, 320 pp.

Articles

Bacumenco-Pîrnău, L., Bejenaru, L., 2015, Food in Moldavia (14th–18th centuries): bioarchaeological considerations, in Revista Arheologică, pp. 293–301.

Bacumenco-Pîrnău, L., Bejenaru, L., 2018, Daily life objects of bone and antler in the towns of Medieval Moldavia. Case study: Old Orhei, in Quaternary International 472, pp. 160–167.

Bacumenco-Pîrnău, L., 2016, Interdisciplinary research on food in European archaeology, in Revista Arheologică XII, pp. 344–346.

Bacumenco-Pîrnău, L., 2015, Documentary sources for the study of food resources and prices in 18th-century Moldavia, in Conspecte numismatice V, pp. 35–39.