Dr Andrzej Aleksander Romaniuk
IASH-HCA Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2022 - June 2023
Home Institution: University of Edinburgh (email: andrzej.romaniuk@ed.ac.uk)
Andrzej Romaniuk is a 2022 archaeology PhD graduate from the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, and a research volunteer in the National Museums of Scotland (vertebrates collection) since 2015. His research is interdisciplinary, combining archaeology and biology of small vertebrates with statistical possibilities offered by modern programming. It deals with a multitude of questions, including recognising and working around possible methodological issues, successfully identifying a variety of human-animal and animal-animal relationships, and ways of tracking migrations and short-term evolution using archaeological material. This is his first postdoctoral fellowship since being awarded his PhD. Separately to his scientific pursuits, since 2019 Dr Romaniuk has also been teaching students and academics the basics of data wrangling, data analysis and analytical coding. He is an active member of the Edinburgh Carpentries, volunteering/working as an instructor or helper during data carpentry workshops. Recent blogs:
Project Title: Archaeology and evolution: molar tooth shape in field mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) and house mice (Mus musculus) in Orkney from the 4th millennium BC to the present
This project aims to examine the evolutionary history of two closely related mouse species, field mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and house mouse (Mus musculus), using both archaeological and modern materials from the Orkney isles. It would be done by examining first molar morphology through geometric-morphometrics, identifying resulting patterns and comparing between different populations.
This research will improve our understanding of morphological evolution over short timescales (~thousands of years) and inform us about human involvement in the evolution of commensal species. The Orkney isles are uniquely suited for such research pursuits. Orkney was separated by rising seas from the rest of Britain soon after the end of the last glaciation, too fast for the newly opened land to be settled by terrestrial mammals. All mammal species currently present on the isles or once inhabiting them had to be introduced, accidentally (e.g. with grain, along migrations) or intentionally (released to the wild), by humans. Such a situation includes both key mice species, one adapted to the wild but opportunistically taking an advantage of a manmade environment (field mice) and one specifically evolved to dwell within or near the human habitation (house mice).
The project will also demonstrate the value of archaeological finds to traditionally biological questions. In current research on short-term evolution, predominantly modern specimens are being investigated, with archaeological material being seldom included. Given that short-term evolution is not necessarily a steady process, and that sometimes whole populations can go extinct later to be replaced by newcomers, at least a way of confirming the validity of contemporary-based models is necessary, if not a regular usage of archaeological data as an actual source of primary information.
The project was developed in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh (UK), Cornell University (USA), University of Lyon (France) and National Museums of Scotland (UK).