Through ECHO’s collaborative network, Eastern Baltic research will gain prominence on the global stage, enriching our understanding of the origins of human diversity.
An international collaborative network, sharing cutting-edge tools and management techniques to shed light on overlooked regional developments in the post-Bronze Age period.
ECHO consolidates the existing academic excellence and creates new synergies in the Eastern Baltics by bringing together humanitarian scholars (archaeologists, historians), natural scientists (geneticists, bioinformaticians) and experts from the intersection of those disciplines (anthropologists) from the region to enhance and promote research in the human past within the interdisciplinary framework. The motivation of the ECHO is to understand the processes behind the current diversity of peoples and cultures, the role and mutual interaction of demographic developments and environmental changes in those processes, and to share this knowledge with society.
The ECHO’s pan-Eastern Baltic network of archaeogenomic research will link the resources of the three Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to conduct internationally competitive research on the human past. Within ECHO, the knowledge of state-of-the-art analytical tools and interdisciplinary project and data management skills, transferred from advanced EU partners, will be tested for addressing timely questions about the human past, with the focus on currently understudied local evolutionary developments during the post-Bronze Age period in the Eastern Baltic region.
The synergistic science conducted within ECHO will help to increase the visibility of the research done in the Eastern Baltic region on the human past at both European and global scales and to contribute to the common knowledge about the processes that have shaped the present diversity of human populations in the Eastern Baltic region, in the spatiotemporal context of Europe.
ECHO will contribute to sustainable interdisciplinary research on archaeogenomics in the Eastern Baltics, supported by the consolidated network of regional research centres, enhanced concepts and enriched methodology.
of UTARTU through knowledge transfer from UCPH and KUL to researchers and doctoral students of UTARTU archaeogenomics group.
between specialists from natural sciences and humanities by bringing together project partners in Eastern Baltics – UTARTU, LU and VU.
to carry out a Pilot Research Project as an interdisciplinary cooperation of stakeholders in the Eastern Baltic region.
of UTARTU by transferring expertise from KUL and UCPH to UTARTU researchers, research administrators and project managers.
between all project partners, with mutual benefits
The Advisory Board (AB) of the ECHO project is composed of leading experts in interdisciplinary studies of the human past, human-environment interactions, and statistical methods in population genetics. AB will provide external quality control for the project by monitoring progress and offering advice on time management and ethical aspects of R&D and human capital development.
Group Leader of Palaeoecology (Department of Archaeology, MPI of Geoanthropology, Germany).
Expert in interdisciplinary study of human-environment interaction.
CNRS UMR9015, LISN (Interdisciplinary Laboratory of Numerical Sciences), University Paris-Saclay, France.
Machine learning specialist and a developer of statistical methods in population genetics.
Department of Archaeogenetics, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany.
Expert in archaeogenomics.
The ECHO project brings together an international team of experts from the humanities (archaeologists, historians), natural sciences (geneticists, bioinformaticians) and experts from the intersection of those disciplines (anthropologists) to advance research in human population history and evolutionary genetics within the interdisciplinary framework.
The project, which has a total duration of 36 months, started in September 2024 and includes moments of discussion and sharing of cutting-edge methodologies, field research activities, and public dissemination events.
