By Ophelie Lebrasseur, Associate Editor for Archaeogenetics
The 9th International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology (ISBA9) was held online from the 1st to the 4th of June 2021, hosted by the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse (CAGT - https://cagt.cnrs.fr/), CNRS/Université Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, France. Despite its digital nature, the symposium was a great success, with 461 participants connected throughout the four days of the conference, 81 talks, 99 posters, 2 keynotes and nearly 2500 messages exchanged online, attesting the keen supportive involvement of the members of this research community.
The last decade, and the major technological innovations that have emerged in high-throughput DNA sequencing, mass spectrometry, imaging, and computational science have truly revolutionised archaeological science. This has provided unprecedented opportunities to leverage the full archaeological record, including small organic residues and biomolecules, in order to reconstruct our evolutionary past at unprecedented resolution. The symposium endeavoured to address the wide breath of themes and questions now accessible through 12 sessions. These comprised human-centred sessions addressing human evolution, mobility, social organisation and population structure across time (from the Palaeolithic to the Medieval period) and space (within and beyond Western Europe), as well as themes surrounding domesticated, exploited and/or commensal animals (i.e. domestication, evolution, dispersal). Other sessions explored plant domestication and evolution, along with ancient diets and cuisine. Climate change is constantly at the news’ forefront, and the symposium delved into past climate and environmental change through sessions on palaeoecology, palaeoclimate reconstruction and sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) analyses, in addition to seeking knowledge on extinct animals and addressing conservation genetics. Another main topic currently heavily discussed is that of Covid-19 and the threat represented by pandemics. Through a session on ancient microbes and pathogens, members of the community showed how ancient biomolecules could shed light on past epidemics and health. Finally, two sessions highlighted cutting-edge methodological innovations, as well as ancient proteomics, the latter having undergone important development and growth in the last few years. The ISBA9 program was nested between two keynotes, with Prof Tamsin O’Connell opening the symposium, and Prof Christina Warinner bringing it to a close.
One of the highlights of this ISBA edition was the introduction of the novel and prestigious ‘ISBA Future Fellow Awards’, aimed at recognising and promoting the most promising young talents within the field. Nine PhD and Early Career researchers competed for the title this year, with the Scientific Committee awarding the title to Dr Anders Bergström for his research on wolf genomics, while members of the Public awarded the title to Megan Michel for her work on Streptococcus mutans. As well as becoming the first ISBA Future Fellows, these two winners will be heading to Toulouse for a research visit to CAGT, all costs covered. Zandra Fargernäs was awarded Best Poster by the Scientific Committee for her research on human migrations in the Pacific, whilst Eleanor Green won the Public’s Best Poster vote with her investigation of human crania recovered from the River Thames, UK. They will both see their ISBA10 registration costs fully covered.
The online nature of the conference did not prevent the organisers from putting on a culinary feast in the form of an online cooking class delivered by two young French chefs from ‘Comme Une Poule’. All participants were highly encouraged to post the photos of their tasty chef-d’oeuvre on twitter.
It is currently unknown where ISBA10 will be hosted, but given the impressive growth of the field and its community, the next edition is bound to be as exciting as ever. Stay tuned!
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