Olga Rickards

Olga Rickards (born July 20, 1952 in Rome ) is an Italian anthropologist who mainly deals with molecular anthropology , human evolution, paleodiet and mass migration in prescribed time.

Olga Rickards received her diploma di laurea in natural sciences in 1971 . In 1978 she received her PhD in anthropology and in 1981 in biology . From 1984 to 2000 she worked as a scientist at the University of Tor Vergata , initially as an assistant professor. She was a visiting researcher in human biology at the University of Bremen in 1985 and at the University of Naples in 1986 , as well as in Bilbao and Madrid (1994), and was a scholarship holder at the Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Hawaii (1991-92, 1994) , 1998-99).

Rickards has been full professor of molecular anthropology since 2000 and director of the Centro Dipartimentale di Antropologia Molecolare per lo Studio del DNA Antico at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” since 1996 . She has also been President of the Consiglio dei Corsi di Studio di Scienze Biologiche since 2005 and has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Associazione Antropologica Italiana since 2008 . In 2009 she won the International Prize for Anthropology of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei "Fabio Frassetto" . In 2009 she was director of the Italian section of the International Columbus Identification DNA Team under the direction of J. Lorente at the University of Granada. After all, she is a member of the GRANDI group, the GRoupement d'ANthropologie DIdactique of the European Anthropological Association .

In 2004 she took part in excavations in Libya related to the history of the Tuareg ( Al Awaynat , Tahala), then in the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, and published in the most prestigious journals in her area. She turned against the concept of "race" several times.

She is currently working on research into the ancient peoples of Italy with the aim of establishing a genetic history of Italy in the context of the Mediterranean. There were, for. Sometimes also to determine gender using genetic methods, the sites Balzi Rossi , Arene Candide , Ostuni, Romito , Grotta delle Veneri , Samari, Fontenoce di Recanati, Sant'Angelo Muxaro, Ticchiara, Madonna di Loreto, Monte Vodice, Ipogeo degli Aureli and Ferento subjected to new investigations. Then she examines the maternal lines of modern populations in the Libyan Sahara using mtDNA in order to reconstruct the pathways of the distribution of the groups of people. With her tools she also analyzes the early migrations, including those to South America, on the basis of DNA examinations of today's people, especially on the Y chromosome . Finally, always together with international teams, she researches the Neolithic population of Velia and central Italy as a whole, using bones obtained from DNA and collagen . Diet could be determined by examining the stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the collagen of human remains and their animal prey. In this way, considerable differences in terms of age and gender, but also a relationship with the type of burial, could be determined.

Works (selection)

with Gianfranco Biondi: I sentieri dell'evoluzione. Nuovi indizi sull'origine dell'uomo , Naples 2000.
with Gianfranco Biondi: Uomini per caso. Mito, fossili e molecular nella nostra storia evolutiva , Rome 2001.
with Gianfranco Biondi, F. Grione, V. Sborboni: Evoluzioni. Le Scienze tra Natura e Numbers. Antropologia, Biodiversità, Matematica , OMgrafica, Rome 2008.
with Gianfranco Biondi, F. Martini, G. Rotilio: In carne e ossa. DNA, cibo e culture dell'uomo preistorico , Laterza, Bari 2006.
with Gianfranco Biondi: Umani da sei milioni di anni , Carocci, Rome 2009.
with Gianfranco Biondi: L'errore della razza. Avventure e sventure di un mito pericoloso , Carocci, Rome 2011.

Web links

Curriculum vitae Olga Rickards (PDF), website of the Tor Vergata University in Rome

Olga Rickards: La menzogna della "razza" e le risposte della paleogenetica , conference recording from April 30, 2012 in Brescia (1:07:13)

Remarks

↑ For example in Gianfranco Biondi, Olga Rickards: The Scientific Fallacy of the Human Biological Concept of Race , in: Mankind Quarterly 42 (2002) 355-388 ( online , PDF).

personal data
SURNAME	Rickards, Olga
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Italian anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH	July 20, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH	Rome

[1] For example in Gianfranco Biondi, Olga Rickards: The Scientific Fallacy of the Human Biological Concept of Race , in: Mankind Quarterly 42 (2002) 355-388 ( online , PDF).