The world-famous historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes was back in Estonia last week, and this time she visited scientists at the University of Tartu, including the members of the Archemy Lab from our chair of analytical chemistry. Ester and Mari talked about their interdisciplinary research and recent discoveries in biomolecular archaeology.
As they say in the filming industry “to be continued…”.
Below are some first shots of the filming with Ester.
Photos by Kätlin Jansons
We are happy to announce that a member of our group, Mari Tõrv, research fellow in the Archemy team, is one of the three Estonian researchers to receive the Baltic Women in Science fellowship this year!
Mari’s research delves into the biological and cultural diversity of ancient humans, emphasizing the duality of the human body as both a historical and cultural construct and a biological reality. She studies life and death in past cultures through the analysis of ancient human remains, highlighting the importance of understanding end-of-life rituals to fully grasp human nature, a subject often taboo in the Western world.
Tarmo Soomere, President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences emphasized “Talented and successful women scientists deserve to be highlighted and recognised across the whole spectrum of science. Their example inspires and ignites.”
The fellowships were funded by the Ministry of Education and Research and awarded within the program co-organised by the Baltic National Academies of Sciences and National Commissions for UNESCO. The fellowship is aimed to support the research of young women scientists to continue their outstanding work in the Baltic States.
See the video below, where Mari talks more about her research. The basis of this blog post and information on the work of the other two laureates can be found here.
We are happy to announce that Ester Oras, Associate Professor in our Analytical Chemistry Chair and PI of the Archemy group has received the honorary title “Female Academic of the Year” from the Estonian Association of Academic Women!
Ester is a modern scientist who works across multiple disciplines, integrating methods from archaeology, chemistry, biology, and even food science. Her research is primarily focused on ancient diets in Northern Europe, particularly in Estonia. Through this work, she established the first archaeochemistry lab in the Baltic region called “Archemy” at the Univeristy of Tartu. Her studies focus on ancient food practices — what people ate, how diets varied between social classes, and how food was tied to broader economic and cultural systems. She has also applied her expertise in archaeochemistry to investigate topics such as ancient migrations and Stone Age crafting technologies.
At the same time, Ester’s research extends well beyond Estonia. She has trained at leading research institutions worldwide, including Oxford, Cambridge, Max Planck Institute, and Weizmann Institute, mastering advanced analytical techniques like mass spectrometry and chromatography. Internationally regarded as an expert in the biomolecular analysis of food remains, she collaborates with researchers from countries like Germany, Finland, and the UK. Her work has been published in over 50 scientific articles across top journals in archaeology and natural sciences. In recognition of her groundbreaking research, she was recently awarded the prestigious ERC Starting Grant, and she holds several international leadership roles in organizations such as the International Society for Biomolecular Archaeology.
Beyond her scientific work, Ester is deeply committed to public outreach and gender equality in science. She regularly speaks at schools, museums, and on television, raising awareness about archaeology and inspiring future generations of scientists. She is an advocate for women in science, having launched also in Estonia the celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and contributing to numerous international gender equality projects. Her leadership extends to the University of Tartu, where she has been part of developing the university’s gender equality plan and growing a more inclusive academic environment. Through her interdisciplinary research, international collaborations, and dedication to social issues, Ester is shaping both the future of science and the role of scientists in society.
Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition, Ester!
We’re delighted to share that members of our Archemy and Analysis of Cultural Heritage Objects groups have published a new article titled, “Influence of Mineral Composition and Firing Temperature on the Micro- and Mesoporosity of Replicate Archaeological Ceramics” in the journal of Clays and Clay Minerals (Volume 72, 2024, e13). Read the Open Access article here.
This study examines how the mineral composition of clay and temper, along with firing temperatures, influences the formation of micro- and mesopores in pottery. The porosity of ceramics is considered a significant factor in the absorption and preservation of organic compounds, such as lipids, within archaeological pottery. Our research provides the first quantitative analysis of pore structures in ceramics designed to replicate archaeological samples, establishing valuable baseline information for future investigations into ceramic porosity and organic residue analysis.
We are delighted to announce that the prestigious ERC Starting Grant was awarded to a member of our group and head of the Archemy team – Associate Professor in Analytical Chemistry and Archaeology Ester Oras!
The European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant is awarded to early-stage researchers to carry out their outstanding ideas over the next five years. Ester’s project aims to explore our distant ancestor’s identities through diet by conducting biomolecular analysis on at least 150 burial finds, uncovering details of life from a thousand years ago.
Food is a crucial element in understanding identity, revealing details about social roles, status, and even how the person spent their childhood. By examining bones, teeth, and food residues from pottery, the team can reconstruct how a person’s diet evolved over their lifetime. This will help answer questions like whether an individual ate foods typical of their gender or social class and if they grew up in the area where they were buried.
During the project, various burial finds will be analysed, focusing primarily on sites in Estonia from the years 1000–1400. Using advanced techniques, the team will analyse various molecules, including fats, proteins, and DNA, to uncover specific details about what ancient people ate. This comprehensive approach could even identify not only if the person ate fish but also whether it was cod or herring, offering a deeper look into the lives of our ancestors.
What makes this research groundbreaking is its combination of modern scientific methods with traditional archaeology. Machine learning will be used to integrate the results from various analyses, helping to identify connections between individuals and communities. The project marks a significant step forward for archaeological research, offering new perspectives on ancient identities and social structures.
Read the original blog post here.
Congratulations from all of us, Ester!
We are happy to announce that Mari Tõrv, Research Fellow in Analytical and Physical Chemistry and Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Tartu, was awarded the Professor Peeter Tulviste Memorial Fund scholarship.
Her interdisciplinary research combines archaeological heritage and analytical chemistry to gain insight into people’s past habits and practices. By applying both – humanities and natural sciences – she has improved our knowledge on human diet, diseases, and even funeral rites.
Besides research, she has been part of creating an infrastructure for preserving archaeological heritage digitally, founding the Estonian Association of Archaeologists, and developing the webpage eestijuured.ee to gather and promote the research about the ethnic history of Estonia during the last 11,000 years from the first hunter-gatherers to the digital nomads that we are today.
For Mari, the scholarship was a great recognition. “The scholarship proves that understanding cultural heritage is important in today’s crisis-torn world because it is the basis of our common identity.” She plans to use this scholarship to research further the culture of death by bringing together the analytical tools from biomolecular archaeology and social theory.
Mari obtained her PhD in archaeology in 2016 with joint supervision from the University of Tartu and the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel. Since 2017, she has led the Collegium for Transdisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics at the University of Tartu. In the Chair of Analytical Chemistry, she is part of the Archemy research group, where her expertise lays on stable isotope analysis of human and animal tissues.
Read more here from the original post.
Congratulations, Mari!
Our Archemy group has recently published two major collaborative articles about the arrival and spread of early farming in NE Baltic.
Based on pottery lipid residue and dietary stable isotope analysis combined with zooarchaeological data and archaeobotanical studies, it was shown that farming arrived in the NE Baltic with migrating Corded Ware cultures in the early 3rd millennium cal BCE, but here this new subsistence strategy relied on stockbreeding rather than crop cultivation.
Early farmers in the NE Baltic were exploiting both domesticated and wild species, whilst the introduction of domesticates had little if any impact on local hunter-fisher-gatherer communities who remained true to their forager lifeways. There was no clear transition from foraging to farming in the 3rd millennium cal BCE NE Baltic, instead we see separated communities and parallel worlds of local foragers and incoming early farmers practicing mixed economy. However, the lipid residue data in the wider Baltic context shows several regional variations in the arrival and spread of early farming practices.
Read full articles here:
Oras, E., Tõrv, M., Johanson, K, Rannamäe, E. et al. 2023. Parallel worlds and mixed economies: multi-proxy analysis reveals complex subsistence systems at the dawn of early farming in the northeast Baltic. R. Soc. open sci. 10230880230880. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230880
Lucquin, A., Robson, H. Oras, E. et al. 2023. The impact of farming on prehistoric culinary practices throughout Northern Europe. PNAS. 120 (43) e2310138120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2310138120
Although archaeology has been inherently interdisciplinary from its early years, recent decades have seen changes referred to as the third scientific revolution in archaeology. Innovative methods enable us to answer previously unanswered questions and pose new ones about the past.
Biomolecular archaeology brings together archaeologists, historians, biologists, and chemists. From September 13th to 15th, the tenth International Symposium of Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA10) took place at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu. The conference provided a comprehensive overview of the field, covering various research topics, from the domestication of different species to ancient diseases and migrations, as well as the methods employed. The conference abstracts are available here.
The material heritage studied through biomolecular archaeology methods is an irreplaceable resource. Therefore, it must be treated sustainably – obtaining maximum information with minimal damage. For example, it is possible determine the species of a bone to simply by rubbing its surface with an eraser (ZooMS). Still, we must continually justify the use of human remains as research resources, and ask whether the scientists’ perspective aligns with the institutions curating collections, as Rita Peyroteo-Stjerna reminded us. When analysing ancient materials, it is important to leave a mark. The field of biomolecular archaeology is increasingly recognizing the need for data standardization and accessibility, as demonstrated by James Fellows Yates in his presentation on a community-based approach to data integration.
Genetics, one sub-field of biomolecular archaeology, is rapidly evolving. It no longer focuses solely on major migrations. New technologies offer insights into ancient diseases, the environment, and even the presence of people where their remains are absent. For example, today we can obtain information about people from ancient chewing-gums or worn jewellery. Also, social structure and kinship is analysed in collaboration with archaeologists.
The molecules of lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates have been preserved in various ancient objects as burnt food crust or by being absorbed into pots, in animal and human bones, and other tissues, as well as in plants. While stable isotope analysis of bulk collagen provides a general picture of the diet, stable isotopes of individual amino acids allow distinguishing between terrestrial and aquatic origin of proteins.
Biomolecular archaeology cannot be the domain of nerds quietly working in the lab. Both keynote speakers at the conference, Anne Stone and Carl Heron, provided a broader insight into the developments of biomolecular archaeology. The former focused on one catalyst of the revolution, ancient DNA research, the significance of which for society was highlighted by the Nobel Prize awarded to Svante Pääbo in 2022. Carl Heron provided an excellent framework for the history of biomolecular archaeology and urged the community to think more about bringing scientific results to the public.
The conference was organized by: the University of Tartu and the Geenikeskus Foundation.
The organization of the conference was supported by: the Collegium for Transdisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics of the University of Tartu, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Faculty of Science and Technology; the International Society for Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA); the city of Tartu; the European Union through the PaleoMIX (No 101079396) and cGEM (No 810645) projects.
Shidong Chen, successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Unravelling prehistoric plant exploitation in eastern Baltic: organic residue analysis of plant-based materials by multi-method approach” on the 12th of September. We were honored to have Dr. Shinya Shoda from Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Japan as Shidong’s opponent.
Shidong’s PhD work is aimed at discovering plant exploitation in the ancient eastern Baltic area with a focus on two types of plant-derived materials: resinous materials and dietary plants. The main innovations are developing multi-methodological approaches and interpreting multi-proxy datasets with chemometric and statistical methods.
For identifying the composition of resinous adhesives, ATR-FT-IR analysis was conducted in combination with a PCA-based DA classification model for further compositional and spatial/temporal classification. This method can help simplify IR spectra interpretation and reduce the need for GC-MS analysis.
For identifying dietary plants, a multi-method approach was applied by plant micro fossil analysis and EA-IRMS combined with ORA. EA-IRMS can provide preliminary origins of samples with plant and/or animal bases. Plant micro fossil analysis and ORA in complementary can identify the species of plant remains. Correspondence analysis further compares and indicates the agreement of the three methods and visualizes the correlations between the multi-proxy data.
The plant exploitation in prehistoric easter Baltic shows different patterns with dedicated multi-method case studies on several Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age sites. In the Stone Age, plant exploitation was more technological (adhesives and resinous compounds) than dietary-related. The plant consumption for dietary purposes became more abundant in the Bronze Age. The major changes happened with the Iron Age displaying a more diverse plant-based diet with more inclusion of C3 cereals (e.g., wheat and barley), yet the spread and cultivation of C4 millet may not have emerged in this region.
Shidong is currently working at ARCHEMY lab as a lab technician at the University of Tartu. He will continue his journey discovering ancient food ways from pots and bones.
Elo Joandi (in the picture on the right), a gymnasium student of the Miina Härma Gymnasium, won the first prize at the Estonian Research Council’s contest for student research. Congratulations to Elo and her supervisors!
In her work “Identifying diet based on hair isotopic analysis: a case study of modern and archaeological material” Elo studied the dietary habits of present and past individuals through the stable isotope analysis of hair keratin.
A thorough theoretical work with the literature allowed her to conduct real experiments in our Archemy lab to analyse contemporary and archaeological hair samples. She demonstrated that the nitrogen values are clearly different for vegan and carnivorous people, and that both carbon and nitrogen isotope values change when a person changes their diet from omnivorous to that of a vegetarian one.
Elo’s work is the first of its kind at the University of Tartu, aiming to understand and develop the stable isotope analysis on hair keratin. She demonstrated that the pre-treatment has an effect on the stable isotope values, allowing a better-informed sample strategy for archaeological specimens in the future. Elo’s work is an exceptional example of bridging humanities and natural sciences in the study of cultural heritage.
The research was supervised by Holar Sepp, Helen Semilarski, and by two members of our group – Mari Tõrv and Ester Oras.
Here you can find more information about the contest and awardees (in Estonian).
