Dissertation Improvement Grant: Ethnohistorical and Genetic Survey of Central Anatolian Villages

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The project aims to elucidate the genetic diversity and ethnohistory of Central Anatolian populations. Anatolia has been a busy crossroads, as well as a center for several demographic and cultural networks through which Europe, Caucasus and Middle East have been connected. The project will document the biological and cultural diversity in contemporary villages in this region to reassess the pattern of genetic diversity in Central Anatolia resulting from the Neolithic expansion and Turkic invasion from a local perspective, and to contextualize the findings of broader studies from a regional perspective. To accomplish these goals, ethnographic fieldwork in villages of Central Anatolia will be conducted, documenting the local histories of these villages and their cultural and social affinities with each other. During this time biological samples will be collected from their inhabitants for genetic analysis and the resulting data will be analyzed with statistic and phylogenetic methods to define the biological affinities of Central Anatolian populations, and reconstruct the migration history of the region. The ethnographic information obtained through fieldwork will allow more accurate interpretation in comparison to previous studies of genetic variation in Turkey. This local approach to the analysis of genetic variation in Turkey will test the validity of assessing the Neolithic population events using contemporary populations in the region, which, in turn, will allow the re-examination of models of the Neolithization or Europe developed from linguistic and archeological evidence. Thus, the data from this project may provide new clues to Neolithic expansion, by filling in some questions into how populations and agriculture spread in Central Anatolia, and then to the Balkans within a more regional and a more chronologically focused context. In addition, the detailed ethnographic and genetic data from this study should give insights into the Turkification of Anatolia and possibly explain broader trends in movement of Turkic peoples. The proposed analyses will also yield crucial information about the extent of inter-village diversity within Central Anatolia, and, in the context of genealogical data, the degree of kinship and sex-specific movements within villages. Such data will also indicate the consistency of self-identified biological ancestry and the actual genetic background of the participants. There are several broader implications of this project. First, it is a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort between Turkish and American institutions and scientists with backgrounds in physical anthropology, human genetics and forensics. In addition, this project will serve as the basis for the Ph.D. thesis of the applicant (Gokcumen), and possibly other Ph.D. and Master's theses by Turkish students. The information gathered in this project will be presented in both Turkish and English academic publications and conferences, which will be co-authored with Turkish and American scholars. The proposed project may contribute the discussions of identity in a constructive level by showing similarities as well as differences in the histories of Anatolian groups. In this regard, this study will be a case example for contributing to communities' effort to reinvent their cultural differences while maintaining their national pride.