Research

The latest issue of the journal Keel ja Kirjandus focuses on variation in runo song.

Members of the Folkloristics and Cultural Geography research group have curated the November issue of Keel ja Kirjandus.

Regilaulust varieeruva süsteemina saab lugeda Mari Väina artiklist, kirjalikest jälgedest korpuses annab ülevaate Liina Saarlo, regilaulust tänapäeval kirjutavad Taive Särg ja Janika Oras ning Andreas Kalkun arutleb selle üle, kas seto laulud on tõlgitud või omastatud.

All articles in the journal are open access.

Estonian scientists contributed to the largest-ever ancient DNA study on a medieval cemetery, revealing 1,000 years of genetic history in the Low Countries

Geneticists from KU Leuven, the Institute of Genomics at the University of Tartu, and their international colleagues have conducted the largest ancient DNA study ever performed on human remains from a single medieval burial site. In total, they analysed the remains of 400 individuals buried between the 8th and 18th centuries beneath what is now the main square (Groenmarkt) of Sint-Truiden, a historic town in present-day Belgium.

The study offers unprecedented insights into how migration, urban development, family structures, and epidemics shaped the genetic landscape of this medieval city and of the broader Low Countries. Remarkably, it also uncovered the first direct evidence of the plague in medieval Flanders, at a time when no written sources from the town make mention of the disease.