In Memoriam Professor Gheroghe Corneliu Lazarovici (1941-2025)

Professor Gheorghe Lazarovici was one of the preeminent figures in the study of Romanian, but also European prehistory, whose work has left a remarkable impact on the understanding of the Neolithic and Eneolithic cultures.His rigorurous approach and remarkable capacity for synthesis transformed the way archaeologists "see" cultural sequences, technological traditions, and symbolic systems of the prehistoric societies.Born in 13.09.1941, in Milcoveni, Banat region, Gheorghe Lazarovici graduated History at the University of Cluj in 1968, where he later became one of the important names of the academic community, at the Museum of History of Transylvania in Cluj-Napoca, institution where he also held the position of General Director, between 1994 and 1997.In over more than five decades of research, he combined fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and theoretical interpretation by connecting the descriptive traditions of prehistoric archaeology with the modern, interdisciplinary frameworks of cultural anthropology, archaeometry, and environmental archaeology.Professor Lazarovici's scientific contributions are vast, encompassing excavations (among which we mention here just a few of them: Bucov, Para, Zorlenu Mare, Gornea, Iclod, aga, Balta Srat, Cheile Turzii), typological studies, and interpretive syntheses that shaped the chronological and cultural frameworks of early farming societies in the Carpathian Basin and the Balkans.His work on the Starevo-Cri culture established a model for understanding the spread of Neolithic communities into Banat and the Transylvanian Basin and the dynamic relationships between the South-Easten Europe and Anatolia, cultural spheres and a chronological system, adapted from the one used in former Iugoslavia.His research on the Vina and Turda cultures, where he combined detailed ceramic analysis with architectural and symbolic studies, was also of high importance for the academic community.His interdisciplinary approach, through