Adaptation and Demographic Processes in Ukraine from the Mesolithic to the Present

Migration, admixture and natural selection have been shaping human societies and genomes through time. Southern Ukraine, as part of the Eurasian Steppe, has been in the path of several migrating groups, e.g.

Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists, mixed-origin Cimmerians and Scythians, Gothic Chernyakhov people, Iranian Alans, Golden Horde Mongols, Turkic Nogais, Slavic Cossacks.

This fellowship aims to study how one of the main ancestry components in Europe, the fusion of Steppe and early farmer ancestry, formed and how other migration processes shaped genetic variation in Ukraine.

Furthermore, we aim to identify important signals of selection (e.g., diet- and immunity-related) and their ecological drivers. To that end, genomic data of 150 individuals will be generated.

The ancestry composition of the individuals will be characterized in the context of modern and ancient samples, and interpreted in the context of archaeological and historical information.

A novel likelihood-based method will be used to test hypotheses of which ecological factors, such as urbanization, higher population density, mobility, zoonoses, famine and wider contact networks, have been important in driving selection on alleles related to infectious disease resistance, through influencing sanitation and pathogen transmission.

The researcher will mature to be independent thanks to developing excisting and acquiring new skills through training received from the host and the secondment host.

She will further her skills in her current research area of demographic history inference and will expand into a new field – studying natural selection.

Furthermore, she will develop transferable skills by conceiving and managing a project, disseminating the project results through journal articles, conference presentations etc., communicating scientific results to students, science enthusiasts and the general public, networking with people from the host/secondment team and external collaborators, supervising students.