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NERC Bioarcheology


Contacts: Dr Fiona Leigh
                   DR Huw Jones

The ‘domestication of Europe’ is a large NERC funded consortium investigating the spread of agriculture through Europe. The partnership consists of the Universities of Manchester (co-ordinator) Cambridge (the McDonald Institute) and Sheffield, and NIAB. The project is an assessment of an assessment of the extent to which phylogeographical analysis of modern landraces of barley and emmer wheat, combined with genotypic analysis of preserved specimens can reveal genetic information pertaining to the spread and establishment of cereal agriculture through Europe.

 

At NIAB we are genotyping a large sample of barley and emmer wheat landraces that have the precise locations of their collection recorded. This is complemented by the genotyping of old material from herbariums and other plant collections by the McDonald Institute, and with the analysis of ancient DNA by Manchester University from plant material obtained from archaeological sites. Sheffield university provides the archaeobotanical expertise necessary for identification of ancient plant material and suitable sources. We are using several molecular marker systems including sequence analysis of genes of interest, microsatellites (SSRs) and retrotransposon derived markers.