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

该项目旨在阐明中央安纳托利亚种群的遗传多样性和民族历史。安纳托利亚一直是一个繁忙的十字路口，也是几个人口和文化网络的中心，欧洲、高加索和中东通过这些网络联系在一起。该项目将记录该地区当代村庄的生物和文化多样性，从当地角度重新评估新石器时代扩张和突厥语入侵造成的中安纳托利亚遗传多样性格局，并从区域角度介绍更广泛研究的结果。为了实现这些目标，将在中安纳托利亚的村庄进行民族志实地考察，记录这些村庄的当地历史及其彼此之间的文化和社会联系。在此期间，将从其居民中收集生物样本进行遗传分析，并将使用统计和系统发育方法对所得数据进行分析，以确定中央安纳托利亚种群的生物亲缘关系，并重建该区域的迁徙历史。与土耳其以前的遗传变异研究相比，通过田野调查获得的人种学信息将允许更准确的解释。这种分析土耳其遗传变异的当地方法将检验使用该地区当代人口评估新石器时代人口事件的有效性，这反过来将允许重新审查根据语言和考古学证据发展的新石器化或欧洲的模型。因此，该项目的数据可能会为新石器时代的扩张提供新的线索，通过填写一些问题来了解中安纳托利亚的人口和农业是如何扩散的，然后在更具地区性和更具年代性的背景下向巴尔干地区扩散。此外，这项研究提供的详细的人种学和基因数据应有助于深入了解安纳托利亚的突厥化，并可能解释突厥语民族迁徙的更广泛趋势。拟议的分析还将产生关于中安纳托利亚村际多样性程度的关键信息，并在家谱数据的背景下，提供关于村庄内亲属关系和特定性别流动的程度的信息。这些数据还将表明自认为的生物祖先与参与者的实际遗传背景的一致性。这个项目有几个更广泛的影响。首先，这是土耳其和美国的机构以及具有身体人类学、人类遗传学和法医学背景的科学家之间的合作和跨学科努力。此外，该项目将作为申请者(Gokumen)博士论文的基础，并可能成为土耳其学生撰写的其他博士和硕士论文的基础。该项目收集的信息将在土耳其和英国的学术出版物和会议上发表，这些出版物和会议将与土耳其和美国的学者共同撰写。拟议的项目可通过显示安纳托利亚各群体历史上的相似之处和不同之处，在建设性的层面上促进关于身份的讨论。在这方面，这项研究将是一个案例，有助于社区努力重塑其文化差异，同时保持其民族自豪感。

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.