A three-year studentship is being offered for people interested in the prehistory of the Indian Ocean in the SEALINKS project in the UK. The long term research project is led by Dr. Nicole Boivin of the University of Cambridge. Closing date is April 17.
Find out more about the studentship here.
About the project:
The SEALINKS Project is a new project that aims to better understand the origins and development of early seafaring activity in the Indian Ocean. Its aim is to tackle the complex and sometimes elusive prehistory of the Indian Ocean through a multidisciplinary approach that encourages scholars from fields as different as archaeology, historical linguistics, molecular genetics, and anthropology to work together in an integrated fashion. The project will employ this multidisciplinary approach in order to understand the role that early seafaring played in transforming the people and environments of the Indian Ocean. The movement of plants, animals, people, things and ideas – often by small-scale societies and traders – bridged distant continents, and had long-term impacts not only on societies, but also technologies, landscapes, agricultural regimes, and regional biodiversity.
About the studentship:
Applications are invited for an ERC-funded PhD studentship to investigate early plant and animal translocations in the Indian Ocean. The 3-year studentship will be based in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. The studentship is offered as part of the SEALINKS Project, which is undertaking m ulti-disciplinary studies on the prehistoric emergence of long-distance maritime contacts in the Indian Ocean. The 5-year project will take a unique interdisciplinary approach to maritime prehistory, and is of particular interest to students whose interests bridge the humanities and natural sciences.
The aim of the PhD studentship is to study early biological translocations in the Indian Ocean through the collection of linguistic data on plants and/or animals, and its synthesis with relevant historiographic, archaeological and genetic findings. The student will undertake fieldwork in areas of interest, which may include East Africa, Madagascar, India and/or Southeast Asia.