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

该项目旨在阐明安纳托利亚中部人口的遗传多样性和民族史。 安纳托利亚一直是一个忙碌的十字路口，也是连接欧洲、高加索和中东的几个人口和文化网络的中心。 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人入侵导致的安纳托利亚中部遗传多样性模式，并从区域角度将更广泛研究的结果纳入背景。 为了实现这些目标，将在安纳托利亚中部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相互之间的文化和社会亲缘关系。 在此期间，将从其居民中收集生物样本进行遗传分析，并将用统计和系统发育方法分析所得数据，以确定安纳托利亚中部人口的生物亲缘关系，并重建该地区的迁移历史。 通过实地考察获得的人种学信息将允许更准确的解释相比，以前的研究在土耳其的遗传变异。 在土耳其的遗传变异分析的本地方法将测试的有效性，评估新石器时代的人口事件，使用当代人口在该地区，这反过来，将允许重新审查的模型的新石器时代或欧洲开发的语言和考古证据。 因此，这个项目的数据可能会为新石器时代的扩张提供新的线索，通过填补一些问题，了解人口和农业如何在安纳托利亚中部传播，然后在一个更区域化和更注重时间顺序的背景下传播到巴尔干半岛。 此外，这项研究中详细的人种学和遗传学数据应该可以深入了解安纳托利亚的突厥化，并可能解释突厥民族迁移的更广泛趋势。 拟议的分析还将产生关于安纳托利亚中部村庄间多样性程度的重要信息，以及在家谱数据的背景下，村庄内亲属关系和性别流动的程度。 这些数据还将表明参与者自我认定的生物祖先和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，这是土耳其和美国机构与具有体质人类学、人类遗传学和法医学背景的科学家之间的协作和跨学科努力。 此外，该项目将作为博士学位的基础。申请人的论文（Gokcumen），可能还有其他博士学位。和土耳其学生的硕士论文。 该项目收集的信息将在土耳其和英语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学者共同撰写。 拟议的项目可能有助于在一个建设性的水平，通过显示安纳托利亚群体的历史相似性和差异的身份的讨论。 在这方面，这项研究将成为一个案例，有助于社区努力重新塑造其文化差异，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.