Smart Integration of Genetics with Sciences of the Past in Croatia: Minding and Mending the Gap
“MendTheGap” is the top ranked project in the European Union for the program “H2020-TWINN-2015”.
Twinning: Spreading excellence and Widening Participation under grant agreement No 692249.
This project aims to overcome and address any existing "gaps" between the past explored through archaeology and new scientific, genetic advances, and to enable intelligent use of existing opportunities by advancing the scientific study of the past in Croatia and beyond. Several groups from different disciplines such as genetics, biology, geoarchaeology, anthropology and archaeology with different research experience work in the initiative as one research unit. Our research focuses on studies related to Eastern Adriatic (Croatia) and hypotheses on animal genetics, plant genetics, archaeogenetics, and zooarchaeology, along with cultural and ecological contexts of human-animal interaction in the past. We are aware that it is difficult to establish functional disciplinary research at MIT, but on the contrary, the potential benefits of a good holistic approach are enormous. We have developed a strategy to integrate genetics into the sciences dealing with the past because recent technological developments in genetics provide additional information that challenges a number of old and new hypotheses established in the sciences dealing with the past. Considering the number of archaeological remains available, the integration and extension of archaeogenetics opens a new perspective for progress. MendTheGap aims to bridge the spatial, scientific and economic gap in the Eastern Adriatic by strengthening scientific capacities and exploiting unique site-specific features and assets to become a positive example of smart specialisation in the EU.
