Who were they? Conversations between Genetics and Archaeology

Academy Discourse conversation exploring how best to align genetic and archaeological datasets and ways of thinking about them.

In recent years, studies of ancient genomics have offered exciting and compelling narratives on our understanding of human prehistory. Geneticists utilising innovative analyses of aDNA have offered us stories about people in the past that incorporate migration, ancestry, kinship and the possibility of conflict. On the other hand, archaeologists, inspired by the anthropological diversity of human relationships and the archaeological evidence, have long sought to understand how people in the past constructed, enacted and negotiated their social identities of gender, status, kinship, community and belonging through their relationships with each other, with place, animals, things and time.

This Royal Irish Academy Discourse will explore through conversations between geneticists and archaeologists how best to align genetic and archaeological datasets and ways of thinking about them. What are the challenges in trying to establish a productive dialogue that is cognisant of disciplinary differences and retains a critical perspective on the role of archaeology and genetics in the present?

A panel discussion chaired by Aidan O’Sullivan MRIA, Professor of Archaeology, UCD. He is joined by panellists Dan Bradley MRIA, Professor of Population Genetics at TCD; Dr Lara Cassidy, Assistant Professor at the Department of Genetics, TCD; Professor Joanna Brück, Professor and Head of School of Archaeology at UCD and Dr Neil Carlin, Lecturer in the School of Archaeology, UCD.