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This proposal unites researchers from Canada, Europe, Island Southeast Asia and Oceania to re-evaluate our understanding of the Austronesian expansion. It does so using new high-density data from archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics and genetics, united within a common statistical framework. OCSEAN achieves a true synthesis of disciplines using state-of-the-art computational and statistical methods to interrogate the structural relationship between joint data sets. The research contextualizes the expansion of the Austronesian language family within the growing evidence for social and political complexity across Island Southeast Asia and coastal mainland regions prior to the arrival of rice and millet agriculture to Taiwan during the mid 5th millennium BP. It also takes into account the rich history of interaction since the spread of the Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian outside of Taiwan. OCSEAN brings together leading researchers from the humanities and sciences and combines the resources of multiple laboratories to tackle questions that can only be addressed with this extensive network of cooperation. We will embrace the complexities of the archaeological, genetic and linguistic records, providing an alternative to directional, progressive and technological deterministic models, whilst recognizing the difficulties inherent in identifying concepts of culture or ethnicity with archaeological evidence, because of the very fluidity of these constructs. The OCSEAN proposal is big science. Through our combined expertise, we will demonstrate that a new way of working with big data leads to new insights at the small scale. In doing so, it will fundamentally change the way people do research. |
