Team Member Role: Graduate Students

Mr. Richard Arlt was a Master's of Science in Geology student under the supervision of Prof. Pavel Tarasov. Richard successfully defended his BAP-related thesis at Freie Universität Berlin on August 9, 2024. The topic of his thesis was "Lateglacial and Holocene fire history in the Upper Lena (Baikal Region, Siberia) based on the results of microcharcoal analysis of the sediment core recovered from Lake Ochaul in 2018". RESEARCH INTERESTS: Palaeoclimate reconstruction, Fire history, Palaeoecology The attached photo shows a happy [...]

Mr. Andreas W. Labohm was a Master's student with the Baikal Archaeology Project under the supervision of Prof. Pavel Tarasov specializing in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions using mollusc remains in the sediment of Lake Ochaul.  His BAP-related Master's thesis entitled “First results of the malacological analysis of the Och18-II sediment core from Lake Ochaul (Cis-Baikal region of Siberia) and their implications for the reconstruction of changes in the Lateglacial-Holocene environments” has been defended at the Institute of Geological Sciences Freie Universität Berlin [...]

Miss Lucy Koster completed her MSc at the University of Oxford in September 2021. Her thesis ‘Deep-rooted divides? Social inequality and life history at Zvejnieki’, completed under the supervision of Professor Rick Schulting, used stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of sequential dentine from the Mesolithic and Neolithic hunter-gather-fisher cemetery of Zvejnieki in Latvia to reconstruct breastfeeding and weaning practices (BWP), and early childhood provisioning. Combined with previous research on BWP at the site completed by Henderson et al. (2022, [...]

Ms Marine Caldarola recently completed her MSc at the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Professor Rick Schulting. Her Master's thesis, Stable isotope analysis of sequential dentine from an Early Bronze Age cemetery in Cis-Baikal, Siberia as a means to investigate weaning practices, helped to identify and compare breastfeeding, dietary and weaning patterns from the Uliarba cemetery. Significant differences between the EBA and EIA were found, Game-Fish and Game-Fish-Seal diets were observed in the EBA individuals and evidence of millet being [...]

Aleksandra Krikunova recently received her Master's Degree from Saint Petersburg State University and Hamburg University, as a member of the Russian-German Master Program for Polar and Marine Sciences (POMOR). Her Master's Thesis "Postglacial vegetation and climate history of the Northern Lake Onega Region inferred from palynological record of razlomnoe peatbog" was highly regarded by the Russian-German Scientific Committee and rated with the highest grade (1.0 "Excellent"). Aleksandra will start her BAP-related PhD project in January 2022 at the Free University [...]

Mr. Ruairidh (Rory) Macleod began working with the BAP in Fall 2019 as a research assistant for Dr. Eske Willerslev, performing labwork for ancient DNA extractions of individuals from cemeteries excavated by the BAP at the Centre for Geogenetics in Denmark. He is set to continue work on the ancient human genomic history of the Lake Baikal region as a graduate student supervised by Drs. Eske Willerslev and Matthew Collins at the University of Cambridge in Fall 2020, with Dr. [...]