IMC 2022: Sessions
Session 501: Integrating Genetic, Archaeological, and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Central Europe, 400-900 (HistoGenes), I: Families, Peoples, and Mobility
Tuesday 5 July 2022, 09.00-10.30
Sponsor: | ERC Synergy Grant Project 'HistoGenes' |
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Organiser: | Walter Pohl, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien |
Moderator/Chair: | Bonnie Effros, Department of History, University of Liverpool |
Paper 501-a | Early Medieval History and the Genetic Challenge: The Aims of the HistoGenes Project (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - General, Archaeology - Sites, Geography and Settlement Studies |
Paper 501-b | Inferring Large Pedigrees and Mobility Patterns from the Analysis of Early Medieval Genomes (Language: English) Index terms: Anthropology, Archaeology - Sites, Geography and Settlement Studies, Science |
Paper 501-c | The Role of Kinship in the Formation of Early Medieval Communities (Language: English) Index terms: Archaeology - General, Archaeology - Sites, Social History |
Abstract | The use of genetic methods in the historical disciplines is controversial, not least because of the rather unreflective way in which geneticists often interpret their results. The HistoGenes Project, funded by an ERC Synergy Grant and uniting scholars from all disciplines involved, seeks to establish new methods across disciplinary boundaries. To get new clues about mobility, family relations, ethnic groupings and life conditions, we analyse biological, material and written evidence from separate vantage points but in a common matrix. Large-scale ancient DNA analysis of complete cemeteries can yield new evidence, but it cannot in itself detect families or ethnic groups. Confronting it with the archaeological and written record will help to discuss to what extent biological and cultural groupings overlap, both at micro-level (families, kin-groups) and macro-level (cultural communities, ethnic groups). |