Christina Warinner is a Presidential Research Professor and Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oklahoma and holds a W2 position at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. Dr. Warinner is pioneering the study of ancient human microbiota by using tissue samples from ancient skeletons and mummies to research how humans have evolved to adapt to changing diets, diseases, and environments over the last 10,000 years. Her research focuses on the exploration of calculus, a kind of fossilized dental plaque, as a novel biomolecular reservoir of ancient health and dietary indicators. This long-neglected mineralized biofilm is revealing itself to be a vital source of information about past human infections and a rich substrate for the study of bacterial evolution.

Dr. Warinner will also be a keynote speaker in the State of the Field 2019: The Ancient DNA Revolution in Archaeology starting on Friday, February 22 at 4:00pm in RI Hall 108.

Sponsored by Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Program in Early Cultures, Department of Anthropology, and Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

Watch a video of the lecture here: Christina Warinner - The Archaeology of Microbes