Descrizione del progetto
Conoscere la preistoria europea partendo dal DNA antico
Il settore interdisciplinare dell’archeogenetica, lo studio del DNA antico, farà chiarezza sulla preistoria europea. Utilizzando gli attuali metodi di analisi è stato difficile risalire all’omogeneizzazione delle popolazioni europee fin dal tardo Neolitico. Per affrontare questo problema, il progetto MICROSCOPE, finanziato dall’UE, svilupperà un nuovo kit di strumenti, una serie di metodi analitici su scala dettagliata, basato sulla variazione genetica rara. Questo «microscopio» genetico consentirà l’analisi dei dati genomici antichi per estrapolare la struttura della popolazione in modo più approfondito che mai. L’attenzione, rivolta finora all’età del ferro pre-romanica in Europa, sarà ora diretta al mondo celtico precedente, con una regione centrale che si estende dalla Francia alla Slovacchia. Inoltre, la ricostruzione degli alberi genealogici mostrerà in che modo la migrazione e la commistione della popolazione siano riflesse a livello comunitario e familiare.
Obiettivo
In recent years, archaeogenetic studies have yielded striking insights into European prehistory from ancient DNA. However, these studies focus on times prior and up to the Bronze Age, whereas more recent periods are still poorly covered. A key challenge with studying more recent time periods is the homogenisation of European populations since the late Neolithic, which exposes the limits of many existing analytical methods that try to detect population movements. To overcome these limits, in this proposal I will develop a genetic 'microscope', a new set of fine-scaled analytical methods based on rare genetic variation, which will allow us to analyse ancient genomic data to infer population structure with unprecedented detail. With this new toolbox, I will undertake the largest archaeogenetic investigation of the pre-Roman European Iron Age to date. A specific focus will be the ‘Celtic’ world, encompassing a core region spanning from parts of France into Slovakia, and which reached its maximum extent in the third century BC, spanning from the Iberian Peninsula to Anatolia. I will collaborate with a large number of partners from archaeology and anthropology, as well as genetic laboratories, to sample and analyse 600 skeletal remains from this region and time period. Using the new methods, I aim to investigate i) population structure during the early Iron Age in the 'Celtic' core region of Western and Central Europe; ii) the genetic evidence for the so-called 'Celtic migrations' from the third century BC, specifically by analysing samples from the Iberian Peninsula, Northern Italy, Hungary/Romania and the British isles; iii) how migration and population admixture are reflected at the community- and family level by ‘zooming in’ into selected archaeological sites to reconstruct family pedigrees. With new methodology, new reference data, and hundreds of ancient genomes from the pre-Roman Iron Age, this project will set new standards for archaeogenetic studies in Europe.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
80539 Munchen
Germania