About the Laboratory

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Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Palaeoecology (LAPE) is specialized research body of the university founded in September 2002 at the Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia as part of the Department of Botany. Since 2014 LAPE is a separate department of Faculty of Science.

Research activity of laboratory members is targeted at the area of bioarchaeology and palaeoecology, namely archaeobotany, archaeozoology, but also other specializations dealing with interaction between humans and environment in history. Bachelor, magister and doctor theses namely in botany, zoology and environmental archaeology are developed within the laboratory. In the case of environmental archaeology, laboratory closely collaborates with the Institute of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy. LAPE comprises research in the Czech Republic as well as abroad. LAPE also offers services for other research bodies. Besides consultancy concerning natural sciences in archaeology LAPE provides analytical work in several areas of bioarchaeology. LAPE co-edits the international journal Interdisciplinaria Archaeologica, Natural Sciences in Archaeology (IANSA).

Archaeogenetics

What is an Archaeogenetics?

The goal of archaeology is the study of past human societies and their environments through the systematic recovery and analysis of material or physical remains (Darvill 2003). The goal of genetics is to understand the rules of hereditary transmission in living organisms in that by knowing the characters of the progenitors one can predict the characters of the progeny (Oliveira 2008). Archaeogenetics attempts the reverse direction: inferring the characters of the progenitors from the characters of the descendents (Amorim 2007). Then, the archaeogenetics can be defined as the study of the human past using the techniques of modern molecular genetics (Renfrew and Bahn 2005).