Capacity-Building Grants for Faculty Mentors
Capacity-Building Grant: Alexey Nikitin
Life History Analysis of a Late Stone Age Individual from Southeast Europe
As academic activities disrupted by COVID-19 are gradually returning to their normal course, the investment of funds becomes critical to re-engage undergraduate students in research as well as enabling faculty to continue their scholarship. This student-centered project is dedicated to the investigation of the life history of an individual from southeast Europe who lived during the transition from the Stone Age (Neolithic) to the Bronze Age. The funds are sought to obtain a radiocarbon date as well as stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen, indicative of a person’s diet, from osteological remains. With this data, the student scholar will recreate the history of life of the individual, incorporating already available genetic, paleoenvironmental, cultural and physical anthropology data into a comprehensive picture of the person’s life. In the course of the study, the student will learn and practice the methods of forensic analysis. The mentor will gain additional expertise in the area he is expanding his research. As a result of research activity in connection with the proposed project, the student, under mentor’s guidance, will generate data that will become part of a larger study of individual life histories of the people who witnessed and, possibly, precipitated, the genetic and cultural transformation of “old” Europe at the dawn of the Metal Ages.
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