ARIES project meeting 2025
15 years of Archaeogenetics research in Portugal
September 11th – 12th, 2025 | Vairão, Portugal
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The research carried out within the scope of the ARIES project - The variation of Iberian domestic sheep: an archaeogenetics study - is multidisciplinary, bringing together researchers from the fields of Animal Genetics and Zooarchaeology. The ARIES project was designed to answer key questions about the genomic diversity, population structure and genetic improvement of native sheep breeds in the Iberian Peninsula. And, through the study of archaeological remains collected in this territory, to uncover crucial information about their origins, evolutionary trajectories and differentiation. ARIES began in March 2023 and is expected to last three years, so we felt it was appropriate to hold a meeting open to the entire community to communicate the results already achieved and promote the exchange of ideas among researchers, postgraduate students, breeder associations and anyone else interested in the subject.
Invited speakers
Allowen Evin
Institute for Evolutionary Sciences, University of Montpellier
Mariana Diniz
Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa - UNIARQ
José Matos
Unidade Estratégica de Biotecnologia e Recursos Genéticos, INIAV, I.P.
Áine Halpin
Smurfit Institute of Genetics
Trinity College Dublin
Jolijn Erven
Daily's Ruminant Palaeogenomics Lab - University College Dublin
Daily's Ruminant Palaeogenomics Lab - University College Dublin
Program
Program
Thursday - 11th September
Theme: Zooarchaeology
9:00 - 10:00 Opening session - Catarina Ginja, BIOPOLIS/CIBIO/InBIO, Universidade do Porto
10:00 - 10:30 Morphometric Evolution of Sheep in the Northwestern Mediterranean Basin | Allowen Evin, Institute for Evolutionary Sciences, University of Montpellier
10:30 - 11:00 Sheep through time in western Iberia: some case studies | Cleia Detry, Centre for Archaeology of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon – UNIARQ
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 - 12:00 The sheep lands: trends in animal husbandry in the Eastern shore of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands from the Early Neolithic to Late Antiquity | Silvia Valenzuela, Vanessa Navarrete and Lua Valenzuela, Institució Milà i Fontanals, CSIC-Barcelona
12:00 - 12:30 From Bone to Genome: Medieval Sheep (Ovis aries) from Algarve and Lisboa in the ARIES Project | Maria João Valente, Universidade do Algarve
12:30-13:00 Poster discussion
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch break
14:30 - 15:00 Where did they come from? How and when did they arrive? When were they improved? | Simon Davis, LARC - Laboratório de Arqueociências (LARC), PATRIMÓNIO CULTURAL, I.P
15:00 - 15:30 Guess Who? Tracing Sheep in the Zooarchaeology of Late Prehistoric Portugal | Nelson Almeida, Universidade de Évora
15:30 - 16:00 Olisipo menu: From Classical Sources to the Archaeological Record | Ana Beatriz Santos, Centre for Archaeology of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon – UNIARQ
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 - 17:30 Project meeting
19:00-22:00 Social dinner
Friday - 12th September
Theme: Zooarchaeology and Archaeogenomics
10:00 - 10:30 “Who among you would not lift his sheep out of a pit, even on the Sabbath?” – How sheep and flocks shaped human societies, the ethics of pastoralism, and Iberian prehistoric groups | Mariana Diniz, Centre for Archaeology of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon – UNIARQ
10:30 - 11:00 Genomic perspectives on the history and diversity of Iberian sheep | Daniel Gaspar, BIOPOLIS/CIBIO/InBIO, Universidade do Porto
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 - 12:30 The importance of being ancient | José Matos, Unidade Estratégica de Biotecnologia e Recursos Genéticos do INIAV-Oeiras
12:30-13:00 Posters | Stand with wool products
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch
14:30 - 15:00 Baa-ck in Time: Uncovering sheep ancestry through imputed genomes | Áine Halpin, Trinity College Dublin
15:00 - 15:30 Filling the Gaps: Genotype Imputation in Ancient Livestock Genomes | Jolijn Erven, University College Dublin
16:00 - 16:30 Final discussion | Future perspectives
Closure - Catarina Ginja & Ana Elisabete Pires, BIOPOLIS/CIBIO/InBIO, Universidade do Porto
Cultural activity: Guided tour to the Conímbriga National Museum on September 13th
Conimbriga is one of the best preserved Roman archaeological sites in the Iberian peninsula. It was first a Celtic settlement, but was occupied by the Romans in the 1st century A.D. It was during the Roman occupation that it turned into a prosperous city, but was destroyed during the Germanic invasions, when the Suevi arrived in 468 A.D. The ruins of the Roman town of Conímbriga have been known since the 16th century. In 1873, the Institute of Coimbra created a section and a Museum of Archaeology and started studying Conímbriga. The Conimbriga National Museum mission is to protect the ruins, promote their exposure to the public and continue archaeological research.
https://www.museusemonumentos.pt/en/museus-e-monumentos/museu-nacional-de-conimbriga
Organizing committee
Daniel Gaspar, BIOPOLIS | CIBIO-InBIO
Ludmilla Blaschikoff, BIOPOLIS | CIBIO-InBIO
Carolina Bruno de Sousa, BIOPOLIS | CIBIO-InBIO
Scientific committee
Catarina Ginja, BIOPOLIS | CIBIO-InBIO
Ana Elisabete Pires, Universidade Lusófona, Centro Universitário Lisboa
Cleia Detry, Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa - UNIARQ
Silvia Valenzuela, Institució Milà i Fontanals, CSIC-Barcelona
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