About the project
This project aims to use multiple climate proxies and novel sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) and fecal biomarker analyses to reconstruct past environmental changes in Taiwan over the past 5000 years. The goal is to date and understand the environmental stressors that led to the ancestral Polynesian migration from Taiwan to the Pacific Ocean.
The migration of Polynesians to the central and eastern Pacific around 1500 BCE to 1000 CE is supported by a combination of linguistic, archaeological, anthropological, and genetic evidence. Recent studies suggest that this movement may be related to environmental stressors, like drought, which prompted the Polynesians to seek new lands. The initial migration of their ancestors, or Austronesians, is believed to have begun from Taiwan around 3000–1500 BCE. However, the precise timing and reasons for this migration are unclear, leaving gaps in our understanding of human-environment reactions and Polynesian migration history.
This project aims to address these gaps by analysing lake sediments in Taiwan to reconstruct past climate conditions, food productivity, and human impacts over the past 5000 years. This project will collect sediment cores from lakes at various elevations along the Central Mountain Range (3860 m) to investigate microclimate signals and food productivity across different biomes.
You will collect subsamples with ultra-clean protocols to avoid cross contamination and will analyse sediment geochemistry for climate data and pollen, macrofossils, biomarkers and sedimentary ancient DNA to identify signs of human, flora and fauna. The goal is to determine if environmental changes, population pressure, or technological advancement (which typically requires high food productivity) influenced the initial migration from Taiwan. You will acquire international sampling and collaboration experience and multi-disciplinary skills (e.g., geochemistry, molecular biology, bioinformatics, statistics, and paleoclimate reconstruction). The experience and skills acquired are useful for future career development after the doctorate.
