Workshop Report: Integration of Genetics with Archaeobotany

The Horizon 2020-TWINN project “MendTheGap” organised a workshop on Archaeobotany (wood identification) and Integration of Genetics with Archaeobotany for PhD students of Biology and Agriculture, as well as to Biology students who participated on last year’s Archaeobotany workshop and Summer school held in Vela Luka. The workshop was held at the Department of Biology at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science on June 12 th and 13 th , 2017.

The scope of the Archaeobotany workshop was to extend the knowledge (given on the first Archaeobotany workshop held last year) about identification of carpological plant remains, with theoretical and practical knowledge about wood (charcoal) anatomy and its microscopic identification. Participants had the opportunity to learn about key soft and hardwood structure features. The students also made few wood sections by themselves and analysed the wood anatomy they observed. The workshop was held by Sara Essert.

The Integration of Genetics with Archaeobotany workshop was designed to offer participants a fundamental understanding of the use of genetic tools in biodiversity studies. The course emphasized a hands-on approach to molecular diversity studies by combining lab exercise with lecture presentation. Lab exercises covered DNA isolation from fresh, herbarium and archaeological specimens, microsatellite analysis, amplification and sequencing of chloroplast DNA regions, capillary gel electrophoresis and raw data management. The topics of the subsequent lecture dedicated to molecular data analysis and interpretation were the following: measures of genetic diversity, genetic distance, multivariate statistics and the analysis of population structure. The practical part of the workshop was held by Zlatko Liber and the lecture by Zlatko.