Kseniia Ashastina
FEDD Research Group
Main Focus
Paleoecology, Paleoethnobotany, Central and Northeastern Asia
Kseniia is a technician at the Paleoethnobotany laboratory, working for the FEDD Project (Fruits of Eurasia: Domestication and Dispersal). She pretreats archeological samples and performs macrofossil analyses to the Central Asian material. She is also responsible for the daily laboratory organisation and the procurement of laboratory materials.
Curriculum Vitae
Kseniia received her Diploma in Physical Geography and Ecology from the Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia, in 2011 and her double MSc degree in Polar and Marine Research from the University of Hamburg, Germany, and the Saint-Petersburg State University, Russia, in 2013. Later on she began the PhD project “Tundra-Steppe: Interactions between vegetation, climate and large herbivores in West Beringia during the late Pleistocene” at the Senckenberg Research Station of Quaternary Palaeontology in Weimar, Germany. In 2018 Kseniia defended her PhD at the Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena, Germany, with her dissertation “Palaeo-environments at the Batagay site in inland West Beringia during the late Quaternary”.
Publications
Reinecke, J., Ashastina, K., Kienast, F., Troeva, E., Wesche, K. 2021. Effects of large herbivore grazing on relics of the presumed mammoth steppe in the extreme climate of NE-Siberia, Scientific Reports, 11, 12962. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-92079-1
Spengler, R.N., Petraglia, M., Roberts, P., Ashastina, K., Kistler, L., Mueller, N. and Boivin, N., 2021. Exaptation Traits for Megafaunal Mutualisms as a Factor in Plant Domestication, Frontiers in Plant Science, 12, p. 434.
Opel, T., Murton, J. B., Wetterich, S., Meyer, H., Ashastina, K., Günther, F., Grotheer, H., Mollenhauer, G., Danilov, P. P., Boeskorov, V., Savvinov, G. N., and Schirrmeister, L., 2019. Middle and Late Pleistocene climate and continentality inferred from ice wedges at Batagay megaslump in the Northern Hemisphere’s most continental region, Yana Highlands, interior Yakutia, Climate of the Past, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2018-142.
Kienast, F., Ashastina, K., and Troeva, E., 2018. Phylogeography of a west-Beringian endemic plant: An ancient seed of Stellaria jacutica Schischk. detected in permafrost deposits of the last interglacial. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 259, 48-54 p.
Ashastina, K., Kuzmina, S., Rudaya, N., Troeva, E., Schoch, W.H., Römermann, C., Reinecke, J., Otte, V., Savvinov, G., Wesche, K., and Kienast, F., 2018. Woodlands and steppes: Pleistocene vegetation in Yakutia‘s most continental part recorded in the Batagay permafrost sequence. Quaternary Science Reviews, 196, 38-61 p.
Ashastina, K., Schirrmeister, L., Fuchs, M., and Kienast, F., 2017. Palaeoclimate characteristics in interior Siberia of MIS 6–2: first insights from the Batagay permafrost mega-thaw slump in the Yana Highlands. Climate of the Past, 13(7), p.795.
Non-scientific publications and Public Outreach
An article in Science by Richard Stone "Siberia’s ‘gateway to the underworld’ grows as record heat wave thaws permafrost", published Jul. 28 2020.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/siberia-s-gateway-underworld-grows-record-heat-wave-thaws-permafrost
A short video by the BBC "Siberia's enormous hole in the ground is getting bigger", published Jul. 27 2020.
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08lmh4z/siberia-s-enormous-hole-in-the-ground-is-getting-bigger
Comic book Frozen Ground Cartoon. Lead translator of the Russian version of the Comic Book. https://frozengroundcartoon.com/
Ashastina, K., Reinecke, J., 2017. Conserved in permafrost - glance in the Ice Age environment. Photo presentation at 360° OST - 15. Potsdamer Lange Nacht der Naturphotographie (360° EAST - 15. Potsdam Long Photography Night), Potsdam 14 January 2017.