Another joy of this job I have got is the trips for collecting samples. The most recent one, now in late February, went to Kiev. There are many good things with Kiev. The food, the beauty of the monuments, the hospitality. This time a large portion of the groups went, Natalya, Maja, Torun, Anna, I, and we were accompanied by Fjodor and Charlotte.
But we did not come here to enjoy the place (even if that became a nice bonus), we came here to work. And here is a lot to work with. Now, when I am leaving, we have already seen some fantastic materials at the Taras Shevchenko University, at the Kiev Centre for Archaeology, and at the Institute of Archaeology. And also, we had a chance to present our most recent work to an auditorium full of trained and critical local archaeologists. Such presentations are always good and rewarding. Excellent work from Natalya and Fjodor who organised the visit, and from all our Ukrainian colleague’s, who helped us while we were here. And good luck to the rest of the group who are staying for some more time when I am leaving.
Ancient DNA Research 