Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor

Nicolăescu-Plopșor was born in Sălcuța, Dolj County.[1] Of partial Romani Romanian ancestry,[2] he was the descendant of Dincă Schileru, an Oltenian peasant representative in the ad-hoc Divan which decided on the 1859 union between Wallachia and Moldavia.[3] He completed his secondary studies at the Carol I High School in Craiova,[4] and later graduated from the University of Bucharest Faculty of Letters and History. During that time, he became a disciple of Romanian historian Vasile Pârvan, noted for his work in researching and classifying the antiquities of Dacia,[3] and was colleagues with medievalist Constantin C. Giurescu.[5]

Shortly after being appointed a history teacher in Plenița,[6] Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor focused on the work of investigating, documenting and preserving evidence about the historical past of Oltenian villages. He set as his personal ambition an archeological scrutiny of the entire region, in order to uncover "the traces of the most ancient people to have inhabited Oltenia", a population he initially believed had originated in Asia.[7] In 1922, the researcher became honorary director of the Museum of Oltenia, a regional institution founded in 1915, and where he was also curator of the Archeology and Folklore Section.[8] The collection was largely based on objects he had gathered during his many field trips.[3] He was later involved in founding a Craiova branch of the National Archives, serving as its director.[3]

Around 1923, Nicolăescu-Plopșor began digging on elevated sites known locally as măguri, uncovering crouched skeletons with residues of ochre, before turning his attention to other locations, where he discovered the remains of prehistoric dwellings.[9] In the early 1930s, his discovery of microliths at Carpen (Cleanov village) and his native Sălcuța (Plopșor) led him to propose the existence of two Mesolithic archeological industries native to Oltenia, a theory first outlined at the 15th International Congress of Anthropology.[10]

In 1926, he traveled to Gorj County, where he documented the existence of a hunting-themed and charcoal-based cave painting in the proximity of cave bear bones and Copper Age pottery, but did not disclose its exact location (probably as a means to ensure its better protection).[11] Spurred on by the research of French scholar Henri Breuil, with whom he began corresponding, Nicolăescu-Plopșor visited other such sites in Oltenia's Southern Carpathian areas: Baia de Fier (Peștera Muierilor), Peștera Boierilor, Peștera Oilor, Romos, etc.[11] By the end of his career, he had explored some 120 individual caves.[3]

In tandem with his archeological research, Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor worked on collecting Romanian folklore from his native area, initially focusing on musical sources, the so-called cântece bătrânești ("old people songs"), and later following up with fairy tales and other prose works.[6] His interest in inventorying folkloric elements often merged with his archeological work: reportedly, his explorations were accompanied by through interviews with locals, and purchases of traditional objects.[3] In 1927, he also began his career in the local cultural press, by setting up the review Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Soul").[6] The following year, he published, as N. Plopșor, the volume Ceaur. Povești oltenești ("Woozy. Oltenian Stories").[12]

Shortly after 1930, Nicolăescu-Plopșor rallied with other intellectuals of Romani origin—Aurel Manolescu-Dolj, N. St. Ionescu, Marin I. Simion—in creating the first modern Romani (or "Gypsy") organization in Oltenia.[13] It initially collaborated with the traditional structure of bulibașas, or local community leaders, as well as with the national associations founded by Orthodox Archimandrite and Romani activist Calinic Șerboianu, until Manolescu-Dolj and Simion split the local group and proclaimed themselves each Great Voivode of the Gypsies in Oltenia.[13] Before these schisms, Nicolăescu-Plopșor was involved with the organization's two cultural venues, the newspapers Timpul and O Ròm, and published two bilingual Romani-Romanian collections of Romani song lyrics and mythology: Ghileà romanè - Cântece țigănești ("Gypsy Songs") and Paramiseà romanè - Povești țigănești ("Gypsy Stories").[14] In so doing, he became part of a cultural and political movement advocating the desegregation of Romani people into Romanian society, the replacement of Romanian word țigani (the equivalent of "Gypsies") with romi ("Romani people"), as well as the modernization of Romani society and culture.[15] He personally supported making Romani a language for the church service in certain communities, and was among the first to propose its introduction into the Romanian curriculum.[16] Commenting on this phenomenon, Romanian historian Viorel Achim notes: "These ideas indicate the emphasis placed on the preservation of the Gypsies' identity. However, some [members] promoted integrationist ideas, such as the sedentarisation of nomadic Gypsies at all cost, so the Gypsy movement in Romania in the 1930s cannot be considered a 'nationalist' movement."[15]

Eventually, Nicolăescu-Plopșor (like Manolescu-Dolj) joined the National Liberal Party-Brătianu, a split from the dominant right-wing National Liberal Party, and stood as a candidate in the 1934 elections for the Dolj County Council.[14] He was also active as a publisher: in 1934, he issued in Craiova a modern edition of Cronografia, from the early 19th-century manuscript of Dionise Eclesiarhul, the recluse Wallachian monk.[17] He was also putting out a regional-themed book collection, under the name of Pământ și Suflet Oltenesc ("Oltenian Land and Spirit"), noted for its publication of Ilariu Dobridor's verse.[18] By 1936, Nicolăescu-Plopșor was editing a new cultural magazine, Gând și Slovă Oltenească ("Oltenian Thinking and Writing"), listed by literary historian George Călinescu as one of the main interwar periodicals in the region (alongside Ramuri, Mihail Gușiță's Datina and Eugen Constant's Condeiul).[19]

Nicolăescu-Plopșor reached scholarly prominence after World War II, and especially during the communist regime inaugurated in 1947-1948. In 1946, he was appointed the Museum of Oltenia's full director, holding the office until 1952.[8] In 1951, communist authorities tasked him with reporting on the opportunity of establishing a new museum at Slatina, Regiunea Argeș, an institution later redesigned as the Olt County Museum.[20] He was made a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1963.[21]

Following the post-1950 discoveries of Paleolithic human remains and choppers at the Bugiulești and Valea lui Grăunceanu locations in Tetoiu, as well as in other areas of northern Oltenia and Muntenia, Nicolăescu-Plopșor became one of the main participants in uncovering and analyzing the newly opened sites.[3][22] Personally heading such excavations after 1960, and working together with his son Dardu Nicolăescu-Plopșor[23] he claimed to have discovered Australopithecus bones, and argued that these hominids engaged in conscious labor.[24] Another focus of his work was the presence of Neanderthals at Bordul Mare (Șureanu Mountains), where he personally uncovered traces of habitation after a 1954 expedition.[3]

During his final years, Nicolăescu-Plopșor worked at Ada Kaleh, an island on the Danube which housed an isolated Turkish-Romanian and Islamic community. The site was supposed to be flooded upon the completion of the Đerdap dam (a Romanian-Yugoslav joint venture), and Nicolăescu-Plopșor's team were mapping out a plan to transfer the historical buildings up on the Romanian shore.[25] In 1966, he completed his last work of literature, Tivisoc și Tivismoc ("Tivisoc and Tivismoc"), of which two chapters had been published in 1964.[6]

His final years were dedicated to the localization of sites referred to in historical sources, such as the Daco-Roman city of Malva. He maintained that its ruins were to be found in the Dolj area of Fălcoiu, contrary to both Vasile Pârvan's Brădești and later consensus about Malva and Romula being one and the same locality.[5]

The beginnings of Constantin S. Nicolăescu-Plopșor's archeological and paleoanthropological investigations were closely linked to his interest in uncovering the Oltenian manifestations of Balkan prehistory. He cited as his immediate predecessors a small group of amateur historians, among them Magnus Băileanu and a schoolteacher by the name of Calloianu.[11] In supporting his own theory that ancient Oltenians had an Asian origin, Nicolăescu-Plopșor speculated on the basis of biological anthropology and anthropometry, suggesting that both the original Asian population and 20th century inhabitants had the same cephalic index.[7] He also concluded that the region almost completely lacked human presence during the Paleolithic (a matter which he tentatively attributed to the harsh Pleistocene climate) and debated such assessments with fellow archeologist Márton Roska.[26] Nicolăescu-Plopșor also contested the conclusions of Ceslav Ambrojevici regarding a Middle Paleolithic (Micoquien) presence in the eastern areas of Bessarabia region, suggesting, like others after him, that Ambrojevici had produced a flawed stratigraphy.[27] He did however produce an isolated opinion in respect to the Peștera Oilor remains, proposing that the Oltenian site dated back to the Paleolithic.[11] Nicolăescu-Plopșor centered his review of the Middle Paleolithic, and in particular the Mousterian archaeological industry, on the discoveries made further north, in Transylvania, by Nicolae N. Moroșan. In relation to this subject, he theorized the existence of a particular Transylvanian trait: the supposed lack of flint, as an explanation for the proliferation of quartzite and bone Mousterian tools.[28] In his initial verdicts on the Upper Paleolithic, Nicolăescu-Plopșor followed a tendency common among scholars of his day, believing the Szeletian to be a manifestation of the Solutrean in Hungary and Transylvania, and saw both industries as related to the Aurignacian.[29]

The research into măguri prompted Nicolăescu-Plopșor to draw a comparison with the Mesolithic køkkenmødding sites of Northern Europe, which he linked with the practice of hunting and fishing, whereas the Oltenian locations evidenced a lifestyle related to agriculture and herding.[7] His investigation of the Mesolithic sites and his report on the Plopoșorian and Cleanovian as possibly distinct industries were criticized by Moroșan, who placed such discoveries in connection with Stone-Age sites in Poland and France's Tardenoisian sites.[30] Similarly, his definition of remains found at Peștera Hoților, near Băile Herculane, as Azilian was disputed by fellow archeologist Dumitru Berciu, who regarded them as early Neolithic.[30] Nicolăescu-Plopșor also focused on objects he identified as Neolithic (such as a statue and a stone hatchet), while commenting on the function of linear and other forms of pottery (postulating that, given the spread of mixed techniques, the potter's wheel was not perceived as an immediate technological advance) and the supposed attestation of Neolithic childhood games (including his theory that pierced and intact bone objects of uncertain use were an early version of knucklebones).[7] In his study of cave paintings, Nicolăescu-Plopșor listed images he believed were representations of men and a solar motif, and theorized the existence of a Sun cult.[11] Overall, he concluded, there was an autonomous "Oltenian cave art", which shared some traits with but was unrelated to that of Prehistoric Iberia, while being seemingly connected to representations in Magura Cave, Bulgaria.[11]

In time, the Romanian archeologist developed his own systems for subdividing prehistoric eras in an Oltenian context. Starting from the observation that Iron Age Dacian communities displayed a lifestyle similar to Neolithic patterns, and reducing protohistory to a sharp divide between archeological evidence and the first written records, he concluded that, in Oltenia's case, "prehistory" extended throughout the Roman administration and down to a period conventionally included in the Early Middle Ages.[31] His texts offered personalized and dialectical alternatives to the since standardized names, such as vârsta acioaiei instead of epoca bronzului ("Bronze Age", acioaie being an archaism), vârsta cavalerilor ("knight age") for epoca migrațiilor ("Age of Migrations") etc.[11] His division of the Paleolithic closely followed the principles of Joseph Déchelette, with references to archeological industries between the Chellean and the Magdalenian.[27]

By the early 1960s, the new discoveries of Paleolithic remains prompted Nicolăescu-Plopșor to review his general conclusions. At the time, he came to argue that the Romanian Paleolithic began with "pebble culture" (cultura de prund), or Eopaleolithic, which preceded Archeopaleolithic (between Chellean and Clactonian), Mesopaleolithic (Levalloisian and Upper Mousterian), Acropaleolithic (Aurignacian and Kostenkian), Epipaleolithic (Azilian and Swiderian) and Preneolithic.[27] In 1965, he had modified the scale to include the discoveries at Tetoiu (Bugiulești, Valea lui Grăunceanu), which he attributed to an initial, Prepaleolithic, age.[32] In tandem, Nicolăescu-Plopșor took personal part in reassessing the Pleistocene and Neanderthal presence in Romania. His Bordul Mare expedition uncovered fossilized Neanderthal and game remains, as well as a characteristic hearth.[3]

With his reassessment of earlier theories came the assessment that the supposed australopithecine in the Tetoiu area used stones collected from great distances in carving out the carcasses of large animals—leading Nicolăescu-Plopșor to postulate that Tetoiu was a link between the australopithecine sites on three continents, evidencing "the oldest stages in the process of conscious work."[33] The theory was viewed with reserve by his contemporaries, and accepted only as a hypothesis by the archeological mainstream of the 1970s.[33] Among Nicolăescu-Plopșor's critics in this respect is archeologist Adrian Doboș, who creates an analogy with flawed deductions made about an archeological industry existing at Makapansgat (conclusions which Nicolăescu-Plopșor himself cited as a precedent).[33] A collateral implication of this discovery, based on stratigraphy, was the claim that Oltenia had a contribution to anthropogenesis alongside the Oldowan complex uncovered in Tanzania by Louis Leakey.[3][23]

During the late 1950s, Nicolăescu-Plopșor was prompted by new discoveries made in the Pestișu Mic area to revisit his take on the Szeletian, which he came to view as a manifestation of the Mousterian and the inaugural industry of the Upper Paleolithic.[34] This claim was reviewed a final time in 1966, when he concluded that the Szeletian did not exist east of Hungary.[34] Other discoveries from the eastern region of Moldavia led him to designate Aurignacian, Kostenkian and Gravettian industries, primarily characterized by a type of flint deemed "of the Prut River".[35] By the 1950s, he had arrived to the conclusion that the Mesolithic age was not an independent phenomenon, but rather a late form of the Magdalenian leading into the Neolithic.[36] Doboș however notes that this was not an absolute conclusion, and that later texts show Nicolăescu-Plopșor contradicting himself in describing a Mesolithic "gradual transition" and the Epipaleolithic as "more or less: a delayed Paleolithic".[37] Also according to Doboș, the researcher synthesized his opinion only in 1965, when he defined the Mesolithic as applicable only to those microlithic sites that stood "for a natural transition" toward the Neolithic, while arguing that no such examples could be found in Romania.[37]

During the final two decades of Nicolăescu-Plopșor's activity, he adopted a controversial approach to naming and classifying local cultures, prioritizing Soviet and Eastern Bloc scholarship in accordance with the communist regime's ideological requirements. In 1954, he celebrated Soviet historiography for "thoroughly" investigating the Paleolithic from a global perspective, and ridiculed Western approaches as reductionist.[38] Focusing his attention on claims made by some Western researchers, who argued that Chellean industries were superior to Clactonian ones for supposedly racial reasons, Nicolăescu-Plopșor accused his colleagues of scientific racism, and indicated that Chellean and Clactonian industries occasionally developed in the same areas.[39] The Romanian scholar primarily designated local Gravettian sites as Kostenkian, after the Soviet model, and generally renounced mentioning industries under their Western names.[40] He also spoke in favor of replacing neologisms coined for specific items in prehistoric typology with adaptations from the Romanian lexis. For example, he recommended following 19th century researcher Cezar Bolliac in designating industrial nuclei as mătci ("sources" or "wombs").[40]