Ester ORAS
University of Tartu in Estonia
Recent years have evidenced a rapid development of various biomolecular methods, which are directly
influencing the advancement of archaeological research. However, archaeology is not alone here, and
there has been a vast expansion of biomolecular methodologies into different fields of humanities. In
the first half of this talk I will introduce the concept of biomolecular humanities as an emerging new
transdisciplinary field rewriting our scientific epistemology and praxis for the years to come. Thereafter I
will use different archaeological case studies from the Baltic Sea region that combine biomolecular
methodologies and humanities thinking to highlight the merits and complexities of such a combined
research agenda.
Ester Oras is Professor of Archaeochemistry at the Institutes of Chemistry, and History and Archaeology,
at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and the Pro Futura Scientia fellow at the Swedish Collegium for
Advanced Study. She is the founder and director of the interdisciplinary Archemy Lab, focussing on the
symbiosis of archaeology with biomolecular and environmental sciences. Her main interest lies is ancient
dietary and disease reconstructions using cutting-edge analytical techniques, and she is currently
executing an ERC Starting Grant called FoodID on this topic. Ester is a spokesperson for cross-disciplinary
scientific work, who has initiated several synergetic frameworks combining humanities and natural
sciences at home and internationally, including coining a new paradigm Biomolecular Humanities in her
recent paper in iScience. Ester is also a founding member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences.
Conférence en anglais, en collaboration avec le CReA-Patrimoine
La conférence sera suivie d'un café et de biscuits. Vous êtes tous les bienvenus, mais veuillez nous indiquer votre présence avant le 9 mars
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