Background
I am a zooarchaeologist from Iceland and joined CEES as a PhD student in December 2016. My advisers are Dr Sanne Boessenkool & Dr Nils Chr. Stenseth, CEES, University of Oslo, Dr Jón Hallsteinn Hallsson, Agricultural University of Iceland and Dr Juha Kantanen, Natural Resources Institute Finland. The project I am working on is “The Sheep and Horses of the Vikings: Archaeogenomics of Domesticates in the North Atlantic” and it is very interdisciplinary in nature and will use both traditional zooarchaeology and ancient DNA analysis. I am interested in understanding the origin of the horse- and sheep breeds of the North Atlantic as well as the impact of climate and cultural adaptation on their genetic makeup. For the project I will be selecting Viking Age sheep and horse bones from Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Norway, the British Isles and more.
I have a husband and young daughter in Iceland so I will be based at the Agricultural University in Reykjavík during my PhD. I will be staying at CEES from January 2017 training in lab work and I will be at CEES regularly over the next years for lab work, data analysis and courses.
I completed my MA in zooarchaeology at Hunter College, The City University of New York in 2008 and before that a BA in Archaeology from the University of Iceland in 2005.