Winter sediment coring from a lake

This painting is the first in the series — depicting two women scientists take a sediment core from a lake bottom during the winter so that they can stand on the lake ice. The coring equipment has to be drilled through the ice, reach all the way through the water, and finally extract layers of sediment from the lake bottom. In the sediment, they find ancient pollen and seeds. Of particular interest is pollen from the Norway spruce tree.

Spring core extraction from a bog

This painting is the second in the series — depicting the boots of a scientist as they stand on a bog. They are taking a core in the bog, another region where layers are well preserved. Jill created this piece so she could highlight the varied strata beneath the ground — a cross section of history. The more brown layers near the surface contain a lot of organic material. With depth, the soil begins to get more grey. This transition shows the material becoming less organic, with more clays. This ...

Ancient pollen & macrofossils

This painting is the third in the series — depicting what is found in the sediment cores taken from lake bottoms and bogs. The scientists can look at each layer individually. Within are ancient pollen grains and seeds and other macrofossils from various plant species. They are preserved, although not always perfectly. Jill painted these based on microscope images we sent her. The pollen grains are the more rounded, smoother shapes, whereas the seeds take many forms. The seeds would actually be m...

Plotting Norway spruce postglacial history

This painting is the fourth painting in the series — depicting a map of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and other northern European countries. Data points on the map are depicted as the pollen grains for the spruce tree — these show where sediment cores have been taken. The colors represent what information the pollen revealed: the time when spruce populated the region, indicating that ice was gone. Light yellow is modern and dark blue is 10,000 years ago. So, over this long time period the spruce slow...

Treeline migration & climate change

This painting is the 5th and final painting in the series depicting how Norway spruce may shift habitat zones as the climate changes rapidly today. The lower portion shows a dense forest of spruce — they stop growing on the mountain side at the tree line (the edge of their habitat.) Jill chose to make this line a graph of global temperature data from 1880 to 2020. Above this line there may be a few very old and worn looking trees (krummholz). These are typically clonal trees, growing from an ol...

The Giant of Segorbe

The study explains the genetic contribution of North Africa and the Middle East to the population of Iberia during the Islamic period. The analyzes are compared with ancient populations to explain the genetic transformation of the medieval population in the eastern Spanish peninsula.

The girl from Sabaters street

The study analyzes the ancient DNA of one of the two Roman burials found on Sabaters street in Valencia dated between 250 and 400 CE. The DNA preservation level was six times higher than the norm, enabling the sequencing of its genome in the summer of 2019 and establishing that the burial belonged to a women who exhibited a genetic amalgamation, reflecting a blend of individuals from Iberia and the eastern Mediterranean within the Roman Empire.