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Natalia Riabogina

Researcher

Department of Historical Studies
Mail
natalia.riabogina@gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Natalia Riabogina

Dr Natalia Ryabogina studies pollen and plant remains found in archaeological sites and nearby natural archives. Her research focuses on elucidating the complex relationships between climate, plant communities (including economically important species), and human adaptive responses. Her research covers shifts from foraging to agricultural economies and and the broad area in between. Dr Riabogina is also exploring how agricultural intensification and associated demographic growth have driven further shifts in vegetation communities and landscape transformation from the Neolithic period to the present day. Much of her work is focused on the northern part of the temperate zone of Eurasia, with ongoing projects in northern Eurasia, Central Europe, the Northern Caucasus, Central Asia, Western Siberia, and the Russian Far East.

Dr Riabogina joined the ERC-funded COREX project at GU, where she currently serves as curator of the Big Interdisciplinary Archaeological Database (BIAD). In this role, she harmonises and analyses large-scale archaeobotanical and anthracological datasets from European archaeological contexts.

SKILLS AND COMPETENCES:

Palynology: pollen analysis for over 20 years, including non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs) and parasite eggs in peat/lake sediments and cultural layers from archaeological sites.

Archaeobotany: experienced in extracting plant macro-remains in various soil and contextual conditions at archaeological sites and analysing archaeobotanical datasets.

Charcoal analysis: competent in studying local palaeofire activity in the past based on macro- and micro-charcoal analysis in peat or lake sediments, and in analysing anthracological (charcoal) datasets.

Quantitative Methods: Experience in assessing land cover and vegetation change using pollen indices, biomisation, REVEALS and statistical analysis and charcoal modelling.

Relational Databases: involved in curating and coordinating archaeobotanical data (BIAD), as well as familiar with charcoal, pollen and NPP data harmonisation (Neotoma).

Dr Riabogina's academic background includes advanced training at the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as exposure to European and American scientific traditions gained through fellowships from the DAAD at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and the Fulbright Programme in Washington University in St. Louis.

She led the Paleoanalytics Laboratory in Siberia for over a decade, where she trained technicians and early-career researchers in palynological and archaeobotanical techniques. She supervised bachelor's, master's and PhD students, and currently lectures in environmental methods in archaeology at the University of Gothenburg.

She has a strong record of peer-reviewed publishing, with over 20 articles in peer-reviewed international journals. Her research has mainly focused on Siberia (Quaternary International, 2010 and 2019; Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2022; Nature, 2025), but she has recently expanded her work to include palaeofire dynamics in boreal forests (Journal of Quaternary Science, 2024; Limnology and Freshwater Biology, 2024). In the North Caucasus, she has studied pollen from mountain peatlands and adjacent Caspian lowland swamps to reconstruct the Holocene environment (Quaternary International, 2019; Quaternary Science Reviews, 2022; Grana, 2022). She has studied signs of attempts to introduce agriculture in Siberia by combining pollen, archaeobotanical, and phytolith data (The Holocene, Archaeological Research in Asia). She participated in the study of the complete sediment sequence of Lake Constance (Grana, 2021), examining vegetation changes during the Holocene and the Late Glacial. She has contributed key pollen data to major international initiatives, including the Eurasian Modern Pollen Database Version 2 (Earth System Science Data, 2020), as well as to comprehensive reviews of Eurasian vegetation patterns (Quaternary Science Reviews, 2017).