Kinship Trouble: Anthropological Perspectives on the Ancient DNA Revolution

About this event

Join the Department of Anthropology in welcoming Dr. Sabina Cveček, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Field Museum of Natural History in her talk titled "Kinship Trouble". This talk explores what anthropology can contribute to the growing dialogue between archaeology and archaeogenetics. While ancient DNA research has transformed how researchers reconstruct kinship and social organization in the past, genetic relatedness is not synonymous with kinship. Drawing on archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic evidence from the X-KIN project, based on research conducted during a three-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Field Museum, the talk examines households, burial practices, gender, and social belonging to investigate how people in the past created and negotiated kinship beyond biological ancestry. It argues that integrating anthropological perspectives into ancient DNA research can foreground “kinship trouble,” complicating and ultimately enriching understandings of how people became, negotiated, and were recognized as kin.