Talk by Päivi Onkamo

DAG Talk

  • Date: Jun 14, 2016
  • Time: 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Päivi Onkamo
  • University of Helsinki Department of Biosciences
  • Location: MPI SHH Jena
  • Room: Villa V14
  • Host: Department of Archaeogenetics
  • Contact: arnold@shh.mpg.de
"The project on ancient Finno-Ugrians"
Abstract:
Finno-Ugric languages speaking people include Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, and a number of smaller, fragmented language communities in current Russia, such as Mari, Mordvin, Veps, Komi, Khanty etc. The origin and closest relatives of the language family are unclear - as well as the prehistory of the people. Before Slavic expansion, e.g. 1000 AD, the Finno-Ugric speakers used to occupy the whole North-Eastern Europe. Archeologically, there has been settlement in the region since the last Ice Age. When - and with which archeological culture - did the Finno-Ugric people or language spread? Who were living there before them? How does the arrival of "Finno-Ugric genome", if such exists, fit with the evolution and dispersion of the Finno-Ugric language family on the one hand, and with the archaeological material on the other?

A short cv:
Dr. Päivi Onkamo (PhD, adjunct professor) holds a permanent position as University lecturer in Genetic Bioinformatics in the Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki. She leads the project "Ancient Fenno-Ugrian Genome" (funded by Kone and Erkko Foundations, 2016->) and previously a related project "Finnish population history – an archeological and population genetic approach". Her latest publications involve population genetics of Finns, event reconstruction through Bayesian chronology in multidisciplinary setting (integrating archeological, radiocarbon dating and ecological data in interpreting ancient phenomena), and simulations and spatiotemporal modelling as tools to understand the spread and numbers of ancient people.
She has long previous experience from gene mapping as well as multidisciplinary projects (including genetics, statistics and computer science) starting already from late 90’s, yielding currently to 56 publications. Her own fields of expertize are genetics and bioinformatics.


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