DUTh

Christina Papageorgopoulou is a biological anthropologist with a strong background in the humanities. Since her doctoral studies in Switzerland, she has gradually gained international recognition as a leading scholar in anthropology combining different methodological approaches. Her main field of expertise is state-of-the-art physicochemical and molecular methods for the study of human skeletal remains. Although she has maintained her identity as an anthropologist, she has been intensively involved in ancient DNA and stable isotope studies, which is reflected in her publications and grants. In the last ten years she has established her own research group and a technologically advanced laboratory in Greece. Her research focuses on the study of transitional phases in history and prehistory from a demographic perspective (e.g. Neolithization, emergence of Bronze Age Civilisations, Ancient Greek Colonisation and city-state formation). Her aim is to study population continua on a large scale by combining different proxies and trying to model complex biological and cultural systems. In recent years, she has become increasingly involved in research communication. She developed novel museological applications, documentary films and organised very popular exhibitions in Greek museums.

Georgios Charizanis is Associate Professor of Byzantine History in the Department of Humanities at the Democritus University of Thrace. His research focuses on the political, social, economic, and religious history of Byzantium, with particular emphasis on Byzantine Thrace, monasticism, education, and the history of Mount Athos. He has authored four monographs and numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and has participated in several national and international research projects. Within the CityLife project, he contributes his expertise in Byzantine history.

https://hs.duth.gr/professors/gchariza/

Eleni Fassa studied at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, where she completed her undergraduate studies in the Department of Philology (specialization in Classical Philology) and earned her PhD in the Department of History and Archaeology (History). She also holds an MA in Ancient Drama and Society from the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. From 2017 to 2019, she served as Principal Investigator of the research project *The Gods of Egypt in Macedonia: Cultic Experience of Otherness and Strategies of Assimilation in the Greco-Roman Period*, based at the National Hellenic Research Foundation and funded by the IKY–ESPA programme. Since 2023, she has been affiliated with the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University, initially as a Research Fellow, working on the project *Gods on the Move: Divine Mobility in Hellenistic and Roman Macedonia*, and subsequently as a Research Associate. Her research focuses on the religious and cultural history of the Hellenistic and Roman East, from the late fourth century BCE to Late Antiquity. She is particularly interested in the establishment and development of the cults of Isis and other so-called “Oriental” deities in the Mediterranean, the religious history of Macedonia, and the processes through which gods perceived as “foreign” were integrated into the traditional Greek world. Her research also explores modes of religious experience as a formative factor in cultic reality, as well as the formation of spiritual communities in the Greco-Roman world. She haspublished monographs and articles in international peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. Within the CityLife project, Eleni contributes to the interpretation of the economy, religion, and social structure of the Roman period.

https://hs.duth.gr/professors/efassa/

Konstantinos Zafeiris is Professor of Demography at the Department of Humanities of the Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests include the analysis and modelling of mortality and health, in particular the models of stochastic analysis, fertility, population projections, anthropological demography and paleodemography. He has published a series of scientific papers and studies on Greece, the Greek periphery, as well as on European and global populations. He is a reviewer for several scientific journals abroad and has participated in numerous research programs examining the demographic characteristics of human populations. In CityLife, Konstantinos supervises the development of demographic projection methods and paleodemographic reconstructions.

https://hs.duth.gr/professors/kzafiris/

Asterios Aidonis is a biological anthropologist whose research integrates bioarchaeology with digital and computational technologies to investigate the biological history of past populations. His work in CityLife explores how environmental and societal change shaped human health, mortality, and adaptation, with particular emphasis on the demographic processes underlying population change. He has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork and museum-based research, analysing human skeletal assemblages from a wide range of archaeological contexts and chronological periods across Greece. By combining advanced osteological methods with quantitative analyses and computational approaches, he reconstructs patterns of health, resilience, and population dynamics, providing new insights into the complex interactions between humans, culture, and the environment. His research interests include paleodemography, physiological stress, trauma and violence, trepanation, craniofacial reconstruction, and the digital documentation and curation of osteological collections.

Elissavet Ganiatsou is a Bioarchaeologist. She holds a B.A. in History and Archaeology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, an M.Sc. in Archaeometry from the University of the Aegean, and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the Democritus University of Thrace. Her research focuses on the reconstruction of breastfeeding and weaning practices and dietary patterns in past populations through stable isotope analysis and the application of machine learning methods. She has extensive experience participating in nationally funded research projects. Elissavet has published in leading international scientific journals, including Cell, PLOS ONE, and Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, and has received several academic distinctions for her research. Within the CityLife project, she investigates infant and adult dietary patterns through stable isotope analysis and develops computational models to support the interpretation of isotopic data and the reconstruction of past dietary behaviours.

Angelos is a PhD candidate in the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology. His research focuses on population genetics, with a specialization in ancient humangenomics. He is also interested in developing and applying new analytical tools to investigate ancient genomic diversity. Angelos has participated in researchprojects investigating past populations from Greece, gaining experience in paleogenetic analysis and interdisciplinary research. Within the CityLife project, heanalyses ancient genomic data from Thessaloniki, using innovative methods and approaches to better understand how social structure was organized within the urban landscape.

Panagiota Bantavanou completed her undergraduate studies in Archaeology at the University of Thessaly (2012-2017) and continued her MSc studies in
Biological Anthropology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Democritus University of Thrace (2018-2022). She conducted her master thesis in histological applications on modern and archaeological skeletal remains at the Laboratory of Physical Anthropology of Democritus University of Thrace where she continues her PhD studies. Her research interests lie upon the biological profile of cremated individuals and the health condition of ancient populations. She has advanced the field of histology in bioarchaeology and forensics by introducing a new method for age-at-death estimation, as also providing empirical data of childhood physiological stress through the study of dental enamel hypoplasia. She has been awarded as a Harvard CHS Pre-Doctoral Fellow, in which she explored the cultural effects on the evolution of cremation practice between the Hellenistic (323-31 BCE) and the Roman (31 BCE – 324 CE) periods utilizing advanced methodologies (Optical Histology, SEM-EDS, FTIR-ATR). As part of the ERC CityLife project, her research focuses on the diachronic investigation of the health conditions of past populations through the analysis of developmental dental defects, with particular emphasis on Dental Enamel Hypoplasia and Interglobular Dentine, employing histological methods.

Christina Kakasa graduated in 2021 from the Department of History and Ethnology, specializing in Anthropology, and completed her Master’s degree in
Biological Anthropology through the Interdepartmental Postgraduate Programme History of Medicine and Biological Anthropology: Health, Disease and Natural Selection. Since 2022, she has worked as a Biological Anthropologist, contributing to the study and analysis of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites spanning different chronological periods, including Pella, Kastria, and Thessaloniki. Her research has been presented at national and international scientific conferences, and she has contributed to peer-reviewed publications resulting from the research projects in which she has participated. Within the CityLife project, Christina is focuses on patterns of physiological stress and well-being during growth and development in Thessaloniki population through macroscopic analysis of human skeletal remains and paleodemographic reconstructions

Chrysa Tsimopoulou graduated in 2020 from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) with a B.A. in Archaeology. In 2023 she completed her
M.Sc. in Archaeological Sciences and Human Evolution at the University of Tübingen, specializing in paleoanthropology. During her academic career, she has accumulated fieldwork and laboratory experience, participating in several archaeological and anthropological projects in Greece, Germany, Cyprus, and Spain. From 2021 to 2024, she worked as a student research assistant at the University of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment. Chrysa’s research focuses on the 3D digitization and functional adaptations of human skeletal remains. For her PhD she is exploring the shift in dietary practices through the analysis of mandibular morphological variation from (pre)historic to modern periods and across cultural contexts (urban-rural).

Vasileios Nanis holds a BA and MA in Archaeology and an MSc in Cultural Management. He has extensive experience in archaeological projects across
Thessaloniki, specializing in field excavations as well as the documentation and digitalization of cultural material. Since 2026, he has been serving as a Cultural Manager at the General Directorate of Contemporary Culture of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. Within the framework of the “City Life” project, his role focuses on the systematic collection and study of archival material and publications regarding the ancient and byzantine cemeteries of Thessaloniki, working in close collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki City.

Panagiota Xanthopoulou is a PhD candidate in Biological Anthropology, with a doctoral thesis entitled “New Approaches to the Management of Human Skeletal Remains: Documentation and Museological Integration.” She holds a BA in History and Ethnology from Democritus University of Thrace and an MSc in History of Medicine and Biological Anthropology: Health, Disease and Natural Selection. Her research interests focus on documentation practices and the management of anthropological collections. Within the CITYLIFE project, she contributes to the organization and management of skeletal material.

Charalampos Georgakis has a background spanning History and Archaeology (BA, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), Human Osteology and Palaeopathology (MSc, University of Bradford) and Applied Informatics (MSc, Harokopio University). As a PhD researcher, he built his doctoral work around making sense of complex, fragmentary datasets. A central part of this research in CityLife involved designing and building an osteoarchaeological lab database entirely from scratch, with no prior technical training, an effort later accompanied by the development of a full data management platform to support the lab’s ongoing research needs. His research interests include data Management, database development, human osteology, palaeopathology and digital tools for humanities research.

Theodora Ivanovits is a PhD candidate at the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, Democritus University of Thrace. She holds an MSc in Applied
Archaeological Sciences, a degree in Plastic Arts and Art Sciences with a focus on Art History and Theory, and a professional qualification in Art and Antiquities Conservation. Her research focuses on bioarchaeology and taphonomy, with particular emphasis on the processes shaping the preservation and post-depositional alteration of human skeletal remains. She is interested in investigating the interactions between skeletal remains and their depositional environment through multidisciplinary approaches, integrating osteological and archaeometric analyses of skeletal and associated environmental materials. Within the project, she was responsible for the preservation assessment, and the taphonomic study of the skeletal remains. Alongside her research activities, she has extensive experience in the financial and administrative management of national and European research and innovation projects.

Antoniou Fani holds a B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Crete (2004) and an M.Sc. in Applied Genetics and Biotechnology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2008). Expanding an interdisciplinary academic background at Democritus University of Thrace, she also completed studies in Turkish Language (2016), earned an M.Ed. in Didactics of Biosciences (2019), and graduated from the Department of History and Ethnology (2022). Fani is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology. Professionally,she has served for many years in the Hellenic Ministry of Education and has also held the position of seconded officer and advisor on education, defense, and foreign affairs at the Hellenic Parliament. In addition, she serves as an ethics expert for the European Commission, evaluating European Union research funding proposals with a focus on bioethical issues. Research interests center on the biological anthropology of ancient populations, with particular emphasis on breastfeeding and weaning practices, dietary reconstruction, paleodemography, and ancient epidemics. Within the CityLife project, Fani is responsible for the stable isotope analysis of human skeletal remains from Roman and Byzantine Thessaloniki, investigating dietary patterns with a particular focus on infant feeding practices, including breastfeeding and weaning.

Paraskevi Koutra is an archaeologist with specialization in biological anthropology and bioinformatics. Her research interests focus on the study of human evolution, demographic history and the adaptation of human populations to their environments through the integration of archaeological, anthropological, and genetic data. Within CityLife, she participated as a Bioinformatician and Biological Anthropologist and worked on the study of bioarchaeological material and the analysis and processing of ancient genomic data, contributing to the investigation of human history, evolution and population adaptation processes in urban environments.

JGU Mainz-Paleogenetics group

Joachim Burger is a Professor of Anthropology at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and a leading expert on aDNA and palaeogenomic analysis. Joachim studies the human past, with a particular focus on the history and evolution of people and their domestic animals. A major emphasis of his work is the Neolithic period, when human societies became sedentary and Europe was shaped by the spread of early farming populations from the Aegean region, as he and his team have shown in a series of studies from 2009 to 2016. He is also interested in the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, a key period for understanding the formation of present-day European populations and their family systems. To address these questions, Burger applies population genetics approaches to ancient genomes derived from archaeological human remains. His work integrates population genomic analyses, statistical modelling, and bioinformatic methods with archaeological and historical perspectives, aiming at a careful and interdisciplinary reconstruction of past human population dynamics. Within the CityLife project, Joachim is responsible for the ancient DNA and palaeogenomic research. As Director of the Palaeogenetics Group at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, he oversees the preparation and authentication of ancient samples in the group’s dedicated clean laboratory facilities and leads the population genomic analyses. His expertise underpins the reconstruction of the genetic history, mobility patterns, and biological relationships of the populations investigated by the project.

https://palaeogenetics-mainz.de/people/

https://palaeogenetics-mainz.de/people/

https://palaeogenetics-mainz.de/people/

https://palaeogenetics-mainz.de/people/

UNIVIE

Max-Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology

Collaborators

Advisory Board

Network – Institutes CityLife collaborates with

Laboratory of Biological Anthropology: The Laboratory of Biological Anthropology was founded in 1993 and since then fosters research and education in the scientific field of Biological Anthropology. The Laboratory is geared towards multi-faceted research of human presence from prehistorical periods till modern times and offers high-level educational programs, supporting the active participation of students in all stages of the research process.

Institute of Applied Bioarchaeological Research: The Institute of Bioarchaeological Research holds a leading position in the research of anthropological material, aiming to reconstruct aspects of ancient life, such as living conditions, diet, and demographic characteristics of populations. Its mission is to promote interdisciplinary research in bioarchaeology, biological anthropology, human evolution, and cultural management, through the application of cutting-edge biochemical analyses, microscopy, and three-dimensional imaging. As part of its activities, the Institute carries out pioneering research projects and offers specialized services in the fields of culture, and the creative industries, enhancing public understanding of past human history.