Enset is a giant perennial herb that provides the staple food for 20 million people, but outside of Ethiopia, this remarkable banana relative is virtually unknown. Like many tropical clonal crops, which tend to preserve poorly in the archaeological record, enset’s domestication history is poorly understood. Yet today we observe over a thousand unique landraces, many with traits specialised for disease tolerance, taste, co-products and other useful attributes. The successful applicant will make a major contribution to understanding how farmers selected and cultivated this diversity, and over what time period, helping to unravel the mystery of enset domestication. This has significant applications in supporting the adaptation of enset and other clonal crops to climate change. The successful applicant will also form part of a vibrant, dynamic and cross disciplinary scientific environment, with access to Kew’s state-of-the-art laboratory facilities and opportunities to develop professional skills for the next stage of their career. This role coincides with a major new collaboration between Kew and the UCL Institute of Archaeology as we apply novel approaches combining genomics and archeobotany.
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