Mariya Antonosyan
Postdoctoral ResearcherMain Focus
Maria’s research is aiming to investigate the ecosystems and species-specific responses of fauna to climate change and human activity in the South Caucasus and test the “refugium hypothesis” for the region during the Last Glaciation using zooarchaeological and molecular data recovered from the Palaeolithic Karin Tak cave.
Curriculum Vitae
Maria received a BA in Biochemistry and an MSc in Zoology and Conservation from Yerevan State University, Armenia. Her MSc thesis entitled "Genetic Reconstruction of Palaeofauna of Karin Tak cave, South Caucasus" was the first study to apply Bulk Bone Metabarcoding method to reconstruct Middle to Upper Palaeolithic faunal diversity in the Caucasus region. Currently, she is a researcher and PhD student in the Evolutionary Genomics Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology, National Academy of Sciences, Armenia. Since 2016, Maria is actively involved in the archaeological excavations of Karin Tak cave and management of the fossil data collection. During her research visit to the L. Hirszfeld Institute in Wroclaw, Poland (2017), and Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm (2019), Maria gained relevant knowledge and skills of working in state-of-the-art modern and ancient DNA laboratories. As a part of her research she has presented the obtained results at various international conferences. Further, in 2019 Maria was among the organizers of the “8th Postgraduate Zooarchaeology Forum” international conference in Armenia.
Publications
Antonosyan, M., Seersholm, F. V., Grealy, A. C., Barham, M., Werndly, D., Margaryan, A., Cieślik, A, Stafford, T.W., Allentoft, M.E., Bunce, M., Yepiskoposyan, L. 2019. Ancient DNA shows high faunal diversity in the Lesser Caucasus during the Late Pleistocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 219, 102-111.