The ISAS Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM) Student Mini-Grants in Archaeometry are intended to assist UIUC undergraduate or graduate students conduct archaeometric studies related to MA or PhD theses or capstone projects.  Funding is provided by ISAS. Students are expected to conduct analyses at UIUC laboratory/facilities.

ISAS would like to congratulate this year's ISAS/ATAM Student Mini-grant Awardees:

Alyssa Bader

Using ancient dental calculus as a less destructive method of reconstructing paleodiet in the ancestral Coast Tsimshian community of Prince Rupert Harbour, Canada

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Alyssa will use stable isotope analysis of dental calculus as a potential less destructive tool for paleodietary studies.  This will be part of her larger dissertation research that considers dietary change and social change among the Tsimshian of Prince Rupert Harbour, Canada.  Stable isotope analysis will be conducted in the Environmental Isotope Paleobiogeochemistry Lab in the Department of Anthropology.

Karthik Yarlagadda

The Influence of diet on the ancient dog gut microbiome

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Karthik will use existing genomic data from archaeological dog coprolites, and comparative data from modern dogs, to better understand the dog genetic microbiome of the gut under certain diets.  It will provide a previously untapped dataset for exploring diet and the interaction of dogs and humans (e.g., feeding).  This research will be a chapter in his dissertation and will utilize a bioinformatics pipeline on the Institute for Genomic Biology Biocluster.