Emrah Kırdök

Stockholm University | SU · Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies

Arguments have long suggested that the advent of early farming in the Near East and Anatolia was linked to a ‘Mother Goddess’ cult. However, evidence for a dominant female role in these societies has been scarce. We studied social organisation, mobility patterns and gendered practices in Neolithic Southwest Asia using 131 paleogenomes from Çatalhöy...

With the Neolithic transition, human lifestyle shifted from hunting and gathering to farming. This change altered subsistence patterns, cultural expression, and population structures as shown by the archaeological/zooarchaeological record, as well as by stable isotope and ancient DNA data. Here, we used metagenomic data to analyse if the transition...

Prehistoric chewed pitch has proven to be a useful source of ancient DNA, both from humans and their microbiomes. Here we present the metagenomic analysis of three pieces of chewed pitch from Huseby Klev, Sweden, that were dated to 9,890–9,540 before present. The metagenomic profile exposes a Mesolithic oral microbiome that includes opportunistic o...

Analysis of microbial data from archaeological samples is a growing field with great potential for understanding ancient environments, lifestyles, and diseases. However, high error rates have been a challenge in ancient metagenomics, and the availability of computational frameworks that meet the demands of the field is limited. Here, we propose aMe...

Burial customs in the Iberian Period (Iron Age II) included cremation. Only perinatal and newborn infants were buried directly beneath floor settlement. These infants represent the very few unburned human remains recovered from Iberian sites. The interpretation of these infant burials is in debate, focusing on whether they are unnatural or natural...

We present a spatiotemporal picture of human genetic diversity in Anatolia, Iran, Levant, South Caucasus, and the Aegean, a broad region that experienced the earliest Neolithic transition and the emergence of complex hierarchical societies. Combining 35 new ancient shotgun genomes with 382 ancient and 23 present-day published genomes, we found that...

Analysis of microbial data from archaeological samples is a rapidly growing field with a great potential for understanding ancient environments, lifestyles and disease spread in the past. However, high error rates have been a long-standing challenge in ancient metagenomics analysis. This is also complicated by a limited choice of ancient microbiome...

The Middle East plays a central role in human history harbouring a vast diversity of ethnic, cultural and religious groups. However, much remains to be understood about past and present genomic diversity in this region. Here we present a multidisciplinary bioarchaeological analysis of two individuals dated to the late 7th and early 8th centuries, t...

We present genome-wide data from 40 individuals dating to c.16,900 to 550 years ago in northeast Asia. We describe hitherto unknown gene flow and admixture events in the region, revealing a complex population history. While populations east of Lake Baikal remained relatively stable from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age, those from Yakutia and west...

Human demography research in grounded on the information derived from ancient DNA and archaeology. For example, the study on the early postglacial dual-route colonisation of the Scandinavian Peninsula is largely based on associating genomic data with the early dispersal of lithic technology from the East European Plain. However, a clear connection...

The discussion of an early postglacial dual-route colonization of the Scandinavian Peninsula is largely based on associating genomic data to an early dispersal of lithic technology from the East European Plain. However, a direct link between the two has been lacking. We tackle this problem by analysing human DNA from birch bark pitch mastics, chewi...

Endophytes are microorganisms live with plants intercellulary and / or intracellulary without causing any apparent disease. Endophytic bacteria could have beneficial effect on plant growth with supplying additives and could have potential to use as bio-inoculants. Thus it’s a very attractive research topic to characterization of those bacteria for...

Microbial contamination in the plant tissue culture systems considered as in vitro pathogens and should be eliminated to prevent culture loss. However, some of these contaminants could have beneficial influence on plant growth with supplying different additives and could have potential to use as bio-inoculants. Thus, isolation and characterization...

Ornamental plants play a social and economic role in human society since antic ages, and its production consists about 78 % of total production. Thus, in situ and ex situ germplasm conservation techniques must be applied to preserve elite varieties. Since in situ strategies are more prone to environmental factors (e.g., biotic and abiotic stress) a...

Retrotransposon movements could lead to major genome rearrangements because of their special transposition mechanism and may be used to analyze differences between species as a marker system. In this context inter primer binding site (iPBS), inter-retrotransposon amplified polymorphism (IRAP) and retrotransposon-microsatellite amplified polymorphis...

One of the important issues that causes major crop losses is cold stress. Understanding and manipulation of the complex interactions using metabolic models and engineering could increase total crop production worldwide. Unlike identifying functions and interactions of few particular actors (e.g. transcription factors), systems biology approaches co...

Evergreen Fraser photinia (Photinia X fraser Dress.) which has an impressive appearance with its bright-green leaves is a woody ornamental plant that has commercial significance. Microshoots of fraser photinia were maintained actively proliferating for several years and its shoot apices were routinely used for the optimization of medium and long-te...

400 Thymus species exist worldwide and are used extensively, for medicinal and non-medicinal purposes. However, natural populations are inadequate to support such a great and growing demand for its products. Recently developed in vitro propagation and conservation techniques provide a unique alternative for the high-rate multiplication of plants of...

An efficient in vitro propagation protocol, applicable both to young and mature explants of two Thymus spp., results in genetically stable plantlets. In vitro-grown shoot tips of Thymus vulgaris L. were exposed to cytokinins (6-benzyladenine, kinetin, and thidiazuron) alone or in combination with auxins, gibberellic acid (GA3) and/or silver nitrate...

In this study, the efficiency of three vitrification-based cryopreservation techniques, i.e. vitrification, encapsulation-vitrification and droplet-vitrification were compared for cryopreserving Sequoia sempervirens apical and basal buds sampled from in vitro shoot cultures. The effect of cold-hardening of mother-plants and of bud culture medium an...

Use of Thymus spp. dates back to ancient Egyptians, and still today they are used extensively all around the world as a natural source of phenolic oils, oleoresins, fresh and dried herbs, both for medicinal and non-medicinal (i.e., in cosmetic and alimentary industries, as well as for ornamental use) purposes (Lawrence and Tucker 2002). However, na...

This study evaluated the survival and recovery of non-encapsulated and encapsulated shoots of Sequoia sempervirens after storage at 4 °C in the dark for up to 15 months on four different culture media. Survival and regrowth of encapsulated shoots declined within 3 months, regardless of the storage medium composition. By contrast, no significant dec...

Thymus is one of the most important genus of the Lamiaceae family, that serves as a natural source of phenolic oils, oleoresins, fresh and dried herbs, used all around the world. However, natural Thymus populations are far from being adequate to support such a great and even growing demand for its products. Interests focusing mainly on few selected...