The appointed candidate will work within the overarching goal of the project EcoArch to disentangle the drivers of landscape and climate change in the Afrotropics since the introduction of domesticated food economies. Candidates should propose a research project that provides, in one form or another, an examination of landscape transformation in the Afrotropics since the advent of agriculture using faecal, fire and vegetation biomarkers and stable isotopes from sediments recovered from lakes or swamps as well as archaeological sites. The candidate will apply state-of-the-art laboratory analyses of biomarkers and substance-specific isotopes from dated lake and swamp cores from Africa and Arabia. Applicants are required to upload/attach a research proposal (hf.uio.no) stating how they intend to address the central research questions and offer theoretical and methodological approaches to attend to the project’s objectives. Preference will be given to independent projects devoted to addressing one or more of these following possible themes: 1/ The roles humans have had over the last 6000 years in shaping ecological baselines. 2/ Landscape changes across the Afrotropics following the introduction of pastoralism and plant cultivation. 3/ Potential roles of fire, land clearance, grazing, plant selection and climate variability in shaping landscape complexion. 4/ Use of organic biomarkers and stable isotopes to shape our understandings of ecosystem functionality over different time scales.
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