ASIAPAST Team
ASIAPAST gathers together an international team of archaeologists and biomolecular scientists to understand how ancient pastoralists transformed their diets, movements, and socio-political organization.
Cheryl Makarewicz
Cheryl Makarewicz is principle investigator of ASIAPAST and Professor of Zooarchaeology and Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry at Kiel University. Cheryl’s inspiration for ASIAPAST comes from her extensive research and travels throughout the Near East and Inner Asia where she has carried out archaeological fieldwork, biomolecular proof-of-concept research, and worked closely with contemporary pastoralists. Cheryl has conducted extensive ethnoarchaeological research in Mongolia and Jordan where she has worked with nomadic herders documenting the diverse ways in which they manage their livestock, process meat and dairy for their daily meals, and move across the landscape throughout the year. As part of this, Cheryl has undertaken work drawing out how these pastoralist behaviors are expressed in the faunal and biomolecular records, rich and durable archives that store information on the dietary intake and mobility of both humans and animals.
Iain Kendall
Dr. Iain Kendall is an ASIAPAST post-doctoral researcher seated in the Organic Chemistry Unit at the University of Bristol. Iain is examining trophic level shifts in human diets associated with the spread domesticated plants and animals across the steppe, through compound-specific stable isotope analyses (CSIA) of amino acids, enabling determination of the contributions of different dietary sources, such as livestock and fish, to pastoralist diets. Iain has also developed, as part of the NeoMilk project, new proxies for evaluating plant types contributing to herbivore diets based on the stable nitrogen isotope signatures of individual amino acids of plant tissues and the tissues of herbivores consuming them. His novel approach has provided key new insights into animal management strategies and landscape use by Europe’s earliest farmers.
Mélanie Roffet Salque
Dr. Melanie Roffet-Salque is a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on the study of lipids preserved in archaeological artefacts, using the molecular composition of extracts and compound-specific C isotope composition of fatty acids in order to reconstruct past exploitation of natural resources by ancient populations. Melanie’s Royal Society Fellowship draws from the untapped potential of archaeological pottery vessels to serve as a novel proxy for palaeoprecipitation and explores the relationship between climate change and human responses in the past. As part of ASIAPAST, Melanie is establishing the relative importance of dairy, animal body fat, fishes and cereals in ancient pastoralist communities in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Karren Palmer
Karren Palmer is an ASIAPAST post-doctoral researcher seated in the Ancient Biomolecules Laboratory at the University of Manchester. Karren is tracing dairy consumption by the earliest pastoralists in Central and Inner Asia through proteomic analyses of human dental calculus recovered from various mortuary contexts in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Karren is also working with ZooMS order to trace how ancient herd demography evolved with the spread and intensification of pastoralism across the Eurasian steppe. As part of these efforts, Karren is also experimenting with development new methods that seek to enhance the recovery and identification of ancient proteins.
Christine Winter-Schuh
Dr. Christine Winter-Schuh is a post-doctoral researcher investigating pastoralist mobility across the Eurasian steppe through strontium and oxygen isotope analyses of human dental remains. She is currently investigating Afanasievo and Early Bronze Age mobility dynamics in the Russian Altai and how the movement of Xiongnu intermediate elites knitted together a ‘state on horseback’. Christine also leads research exploring the seasonality of leaf water oxygen isotopes and establishing the relationship between canopy cover density and carbon isotope values in cattle enamel bioapatite. Christine manages the Archaeological Stable Isotope Laboratory where she oversees running of our Picarro Ring Down Cavity Spectrometer.
Mike Buckley
Mike Buckley uses proteomic and aDNA approaches to investigate paleobiodiversity and vertebrate evolution, isolate post-mortem decay pathways in bone, and better understand how humans exploited animal resources in the past. He currently directs the ancient biomolecules laboratory at the University of Manchester and has been at the forefront in developing cutting-edge paleoproteomic techniques including ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry). Mike brings his analytical expertise to ASIAPAST in order to trace dairy consumption in early pastoralists across Central Asia and document shifts in ancient herd demography throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages.
Richard Evershed
Richard is world-leading researcher who has pioneered analyses of ancient organic residues and direct radiocarbon dating of residues preserved in pottery sherds. Richard is PI and coordinator of the ERC funded NeoMilk project which explores the introduction and spread of cattle-based agriculture into Europe during the sixth millennium BC. Richard contributes his expertise to isolate the use of dairy and other animal fats by ancient steppe pastoralists in Russia and Kazakhstan.
Tuvshinjargal Tumurbataar
Tuvshinjargal Tumurbaatar is a PhD student at Kiel University investigating the spread of pastoralism across the Mongolian steppe using a combination of archaeological science approaches and field archaeology. He is currently exploring the role of traction in the initial translocation of bovid livestock through a re- examination of the rock art records and also paleopathological analyses of cattle remains from Bronze and Iron Age sites. Tuvshinjargal is also conducting multi-isotope analyses on the bones and teeth of ancient sheep, goats, and cattle to explore how animal dietary intake and mobility evolved with establishment of pastoralism in the Mongolian steppe. He also takes his zooarchaeological expertise to the Russian Altai where he has been involved with faunal analyses of material from several key Early Bronze Age sites. Tuvshinjargal also directs excavations at numerous sites in western Mongolia with a focus on Afanasievo and Early Bronze Age burial and settlement sites.
Rebekka Eckelmann
Rebekka Eckelmann is a MSc candidate at Kiel University exploring how differences in sample approached applied to tooth dentin structures for nitrogen isotope analyses impacts our interpretations of the duration and intensity of suckling by young animals. In addition to her isotope work associated with ASIAPAST, Rebekka also leads zooarchaeological analyses of Neolithic faunal remains from the LBK settlement Vrable (Slovakia), collaborates on analyses of Pre-Pottery Neolithic fauna from the Jafr Basin at al-Khashabiya, and has extensive field experience in Neolithic excavations in Jordan, Slovakia, and Germany.
Morgan Windle
Morgan Windle (MSc University of Sheffield) is a PhD Candidate at Kiel University exploring how human-reindeer relationships construct the subsistence and social worlds of Selkup herders in the Siberian taiga. As part of her research joining together ethnoarchaeological approaches with the archeological sciences, Morgan is examining regional and localized expressions of seasonal harvesting strategies and herd mobility through faunal and stable isotopic analyses of faunal remains collected from contemporary pastoralist winter camp sites across eastern Mongolia Morgan is also investigating the evolution of early pastoralist systems in the Russian Altai with particular attention to hypothesized shifts in herd management and pasturing dynamics gleaned from the zooarchaeological and isotopic records.