Descrizione del progetto
Osservare più da vicino le interazioni tra gli oceaniani
In quanto discendenti di due principali ondate migratorie, dall’Africa oltre 50 000 anni fa e da Taiwan a partire da circa 5 000 anni fa, gli oceaniani possiedono una complessa storia della popolazione e rappresentano un panorama genetico complesso. Le interazioni tra gli oceaniani, tuttavia, rimangono scarsamente comprese. Il progetto NAMU, finanziato dall’UE, studierà i dati genetici di 114 individui antichi provenienti dall’antico sito di Namu nella Polinesia periferica, un sepolcreto sull'isola di Taumako, nelle Isole Salomone. Con l’obiettivo principale di comprendere la struttura delle società oceaniche e la sua relazione con la storia migratoria di questa popolazione, NAMU si avvarrà di metodi palaeogenomici per studiare i processi di insediamento e la storia demografica di Taumako, nonché l’organizzazione sociale e la stratificazione socioeconomica di Namu.
Obiettivo
Oceanians are descendants of two main migration waves: the early migration of modern humans out-of-Africa more than 50,000 years ago (ya), which ended in the Solomon Islands (Near Oceania); and the Austronesian expansion, that started around 5,000 ya in Taiwan and peopled the remaining unexplored territories of Oceania (Remote Oceania) up to Polynesia from 3,000 ya. Subsequent migrations within the region created a complex genetic landscape. Near Oceanian populations moved into Remote Oceania at least 2,500 ya. Afterwards, Polynesian-speaking groups expanded westward, outside the Polynesian triangle, to other Oceanian islands, giving rise to the so-called Polynesian Outlier communities. This complex population history created a highly differentiated sociocultural background among Oceanians, whose interactions remain poorly understood. We will leverage genetic data for 114 ancient individuals from the ancient Polynesian Outlier site of Namu, a burial in the Taumako island, occupied from the 13th to the 18th centuries AD, which represents, to our knowledge, the largest ancient DNA dataset ever studied from a single site. We will use cutting-edge paleogenomic methods to study: the settlement processes and the demographic history of Taumako, and the social organization and socioeconomic stratification of the Namu site, according to genetic ancestry, sex, kin relations and age. The ultimate objective is to understand the structure of Oceanian societies and its relation with their migratory history. To achieve the project’s goals, I will integrate in the Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics group at the University of Tübingen, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth, who is a worldwide known expert in paleogenomics. This innovative and multidisciplinary project is a unique opportunity for me to learn the full range of paleogenomic techniques from a leading group in the field and to establish myself as an interdisciplinary leader in this expanding research area.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinatore
72074 Tuebingen
Germania