Archaeozoology - Estonian Roots: Centre of Excellence

The archaeozoology research group is bridging expertise available in three research institutions: the Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences and the Institute of History and Archaeology at the University of Tartu, and the Archaeological Research Collection at Tallinn University. 

The primary focus of the archaeozoology working group is to investigate the role of domesticated animals in human history. One of the objectives is to study the origins of various domestic animals brought to our area, the continuity of their populations over time and space, and the changes brought about by environmental shifts and human migrations. We are also interested in how diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa (zoonotic diseases) have changed over time and how these changes are related to the spread of domestic animals and zoonotic pathogens. We use animal remains and coprolites as a source material and analyse these with archaeological and genetic methods.