Eva Fernandez-Dominguez – Project PI. Durham University
Eva Fernandez Dominguez is Associate Professor in ancient DNA in the Department of Archaeology at Durham University since 2015, having worked previously as Lecturer in Forensic Anthropology (genetics) at Liverpool John Moores University between 2012-2015. She holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Barcelona (UB) and an MSc in Health Expertise (Forensics) from Complutense University of Madrid. Her PhD (UB), dealt on the genetic impact associated to the spread of farming communities in the Mediterranean basin and she was the first to report genetic information from early farmers from Syria. In subsequent years, she continued working on human population archaeogenetics, focusing on the transition to farming in the Levant and Anatolia and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Western Europe. Eva´s research interests mainly lie on the contextualisation of genetic information from Near Eastern and European prehistoric human populations with other sources of evidence to investigate mobility, admixture, gene-flow and social practices.
Jessica Pearson – Project Co-I, University of Liverpool
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Jessica Pearson is a Professor of Bioarchaeology at the University of Liverpool where she has been based since 2004. She previously obtained her BA and MSc at Manchester University, before completing her D. Phil. in stable isotope analysis at Oxford University in the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art under the supervision of Professor Robert Hedges. Since the mid 1990s she has worked in Turkey at a range of archaeological sites, most notably the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Catalhoyuk directed by Professor Ian Hodder. She is currently a member of the editorial board of Anatolian Studies. Her particular research interests lie in using biochemical and biomolecular markers in tandem with archaeological evidence to recover information about social behaviours involving food, kinship and mobility with particular focus on early villages and complex societies of southwest Asia.
Jo-Hannah Plug – PDRA in Bioarchaeology, University of Liverpool
Jo-Hannah Plug is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the University of Liverpool where she recently completed her PhD in Archaeology. Previously she obtained her BA and MA in Near Eastern Archaeology at Leiden University and since 2008 she has been involved in archaeological fieldwork at a number of sites in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, Oman, and Egypt. Jo-Hannah’s research focuses on the Neolithic of Southwest Asia and she is particularly interested in transdisciplinary approaches to the past in which evidence of mortuary behaviour and human biographies is used in an integrated manner. Most recently, her Doctoral research project at the University of Liverpool combined evidence relating to chronology, ritual behaviour, taphonomy, demographics, diet, and mobility to achieve a better understanding of cultural change and community structure at the Late Neolithic site of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria.
Kelly Blevins – PDRA in Ancient Human Genomics, Durham University
Kelly Blevins is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Durham University, UK. She recently completed her PhD in Anthropology at Arizona State University, AZ, USA. She holds a BS in Biological Anthropology from Appalachian State University, NC, USA and a MSc in Paleopathology from Durham University, UK. Kelly specializes in human osteology and paleopathology and bioarchaeological applications of ancient DNA; she has analyzed human skeletal remains from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco in Mexico, 12th century Romania, and 19th century Portugal. Her most recent work shows how Mycobacterium tuberculosis thrived in ancient human populations. Specifically, she found that tuberculosis infections were common only among specialized mortuary deposits of sacrificial victims in the Mexica (Aztec) ceremonial center, Tlatelolco. As part of this project, Kelly will expand her interests in mortuary treatment and burial organization as reflections of societal organization through the recovery of ancient human genomes.
Banner image credit: Jeff Veitch