Dental morphology changes through time- The Fellow collected samples from Miskolc Museum (Hungary) of Neolithic to Iron Age human remains, additionally to the ones available in Prof. Ron Pinhasi’s lab (University College Dublin-UCD, Ireland). The teeth samples were scanned in Cambridge Biotomography Center (CBC) in collaboration with Prof. Jay Stock (University of Cambridge-UCAM, UK). The Fellow got trained in 3D scan processing and modelling (UCAM and University of Bologna-UB, Italy), as well as in 3D Geometric Morphometric (GM) software (UB) in Prof. Stefano Benazzi’s lab. She obtained the 3D model of the enamel-dentine-junction (EDJ) of the molars in the facilities of the Health Science Center (UCD) supervised by Dr. Robin Feeney, and analysed the dental morphology of some of the models obtained. Preliminary results suggest that differences exist between the EDJ of first upper molar of Copper Age and Bronze Age peoples, suggesting that EDJ can be used a genetic proxy to interpret migration movements in past populations.
Diet changes through time- Bone collagen was extracted from human and faunal remains from Neolithic to Iron Age in UCD, and stable isotope data was obtained. The results suggest that the people who lived in the GHP from Neolithic to Early Bronze Age were consuming C3 cultivated plants, such as wheat and barley, and different amounts of meat as a result of their farming practices. However, it is during the Late Bronze Age that people began to consume other types of C4 plant, including millet, in accordance with the rest of continental Europe. This new crop was most probably brought in from people from the east, as a result of a migration wave during the Bronze Age.
Molecular sex by ancient DNA (aDNA) methods- The Fellow extracted and sequenced aDNA from the petrous bone and teeth of human remains in UCD and University of Vienna (UV). The molecular sex was obtained by performing standard bioinformatics analysis. These results are expected to be published in combination of new isotope and morphometric data in order to analyse dietary and dental morphology differences between sexes.
Exploitation and dissemination of the results/project- The Fellow presented ANCIENT_TEETH project in UCD “School of Archaeology seminar day”, in December 2016. She also disseminated the first isotope results of the project at two venues: 1) in the EAA congress (September 2017), and 2) in the “Ancient Food seminar-series” (UCD, October 2017). There, she presented part of the isotope results along with a discussion about her project under the topics “What do teeth tell?” and “We are what we eat”. Some isotope data (48 individuals) were published in a high-impact factor journal in May 2018 (
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0197214(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)). The rest of the isotope samples are expected to be published along this year 2018. Some of them, combined with microwear patterns, and in collaboration with IPHES (Spain), will be disseminated in the next EAA meeting (September 2018) and published in a high-impact journal. Finally, it is expected to publish the results of the complete isotope data (142 individuals) obtained from the project in a final publication, combined with molecular sex data. Dental morphology results are expected to be published along first term 2019. Finally, the Fellow was able to create a personal website (
https://beatrizgamarrarubio.com/(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)) to increase the visibility of her research as well as to promote the current project and its achievements.
