Team and contact details

University of Groningen
Faculty of Arts

Groningen Institute of Archaeology
Poststraat 6
9712 ER Groningen
Contact: Daan Raemaekers

Canan Çakırlar Dr. Çakırlar is senior lecturer in zooarchaeology at the Department of Archaeology of the University of Groningen. She is also the scientific coordinator of the sub-division Zooarchaeology at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. Her research interests include the Neolithic and the spread of animal husbandry, marine resource exploitation, and the Anthropocene. She likes the lesser known and ambiguous creatures like hybrid camels.

Michael Dee is Assistant Professor of Isotope Chronology at the Centre for Isotope Research (CIO) of the University of Groningen. He heads up the radiocarbon dating unit of the CIO and is Principal Investigator on ECHOES, a Horizon 2020 project that focuses on annual radiocarbon analysis. Michael has extensive experience in radiocarbon-based chronology and Bayesian statistical modelling. His research also incorporates a line on radiocarbon production in the atmosphere and its relationship with solar and cosmic radiation.

Hans Peeters is associate professor at the Department of Archaeology of the University of Groningen. His research focuses on long-term hunter-gatherer behavioural dynamics in relation to Postglacial environmental change, and the drowning of ‘Doggerland’ in particular. For this purpose, Hans combines material culture studies with science-based analyses of features such as pit hearths, as well as computational modelling. He also likes to annoy the window cleaners by creating flint waste in the courtyard during knapping demonstrations and leaving it there to accumulate over the years.

Daan Raemaekers is full professor of Archaeology of Northwest-Europe at the University of Groningen. His research interests lie with the Neolithic in the area, and the transition to farming. He loves to work in collaboration with specialists in order to cover many aspects of Neolithic life. A ceramic specialist by training, he is always happy to study crumbs of Swifterbant ceramics and turn datasheets into meaningful reconstructions of prehistoric skill transfer. He is also quite keen on understanding the role of the prehistoric past in our current society. His secret ambition is to become a cultural anthropologist of the prehistoric past.

Nathalie Brusgaard is a postdoctoral researcher at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. Her research on the EDAN project focuses on the study of animal diet, mobility, and environment through stable isotope analysis of faunal remains. Nathalie’s research interests lie in the study of human-animal relationships and human-landscape interactions through combining different source materials and methods, including zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, iconography, and anthropology. Nathalie gets inspiration from doing fieldwork and from reading stories about unlikely animal friendships.

Merita Dreshaj is a PhD candidate at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and Centre for Isotope Research. Her contribution to the EDAN project relies on creating a chronological backbone, tackling the difficulties in precision and ambiguity of the available ¹⁴ C dates via Bayesian modeling approach. As a trained archaeologist and archaeological scientist, her research interests span over the application of isotope analysis in archaeological research and bridging the gap between science and humanities.

Jolijn Erven is a PhD candidate at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. Trained as a geneticist at Wageningen University, in the EDAN project she will disentangle the domestication process in the Netherlands using palaeogenomics. Jolijn is interested in (palaeo)genomics, population genetics, zooarchaeology, evolution, animal behaviour and ecology. Jolijn likes to tell trivia about animals, in particular about the quirkiness of animals.