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Archaeology [Sticky] Official Austronesian Expansion

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josh avatar
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This thread will provide all the following evidence of Austronesian expansion towards

1. Japan
2. China
3. Thailand/Myanmar
4. Pacific islands
5. Australia
6. India and Sri Lanka
7. Indian Ocean islands
8. The Persian Gulf
9. Madagascar and the East African coast
8. West Africa
9. South Africa
10. The New World/ North & South America 

Austronesian Expansion
Austronesian centralamerica
AustronesianMainland

 Download: 

original source: Remapping the Austronesian expansion
Roger Blench
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
Kay Williamson Educational Foundation

Roger Blench website opening page

 

Please provide all PDF files, Sources, and Pictures and give a shout-out/link to the original contributor. 

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dyno avatar
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@zexsypmp23 The Austronesian ancestors of all pacific islanders are called Lapita people. Lapita came from the northern Philippines which proves Filipinos are the true and original Austronesians. Malays and Indonesians are actually mixed with Austroasiatic genes that originated from mainland southeast Asia.  

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Wow!  Great thread.

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The mass migration of Austronesian-speaking peoples thousands of years ago still has an impact on modern countries of the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

By Madison Moulton

Around 3000 BCE, a mass migration spurred by population growth launched from the coast of modern-day Taiwan. The migrants crossed the oceans of the Indo-Pacific over hundreds of years to settle in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Madagascar, with some historians estimating they travelled as far as the Americas. Known as the Austronesian Expansion, this event spread the language, culture, and technology of the Austronesian-speaking peoples to new parts of the world and changed the demographics and environments of these areas permanently in ways that can still be witnessed today.

The Out-of-Taiwan Theory, Explained by asianometry

ISLAND MASS MIGRATION

The dominant theory of the Austronesian Expansion begins in Taiwan, aptly named the ‘Out-of-Taiwan’ theory. According to this model, attributed to archaeologist Peter Bellwood and linguist Robert Blust around 1980, Taiwanese indigenous peoples first sailed from Taiwan to the Northern islands of the Philippines around 3000 BCE, just 1000 years after they migrated from mainland China to Taiwan. To facilitate this large-scale migration, the Austronesians developed new sailing technologies and methods of navigation that are still used today. This allowed them to travel long distances across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, settling on islands and mainlands across all hemispheres.

729px Balatik paraw trimaran cropped
A replica of a traditional Austronesian sailing trimaran. Göran Höglund.

From Luzon, a migrant group moved further South to cover the rest of the Philippines, Borneo, and Indonesia, while others moved west to Southeast Asia and reached as far as Madagascar. Around 1500 BCE, another group moved East to settle on the small islands of the Pacific. 500 years later, Austronesians became the first people to settle in the remote islands of Palau and Yap in Oceania and continued South to the areas surrounding the Solomon Islands.

How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean? by Alan Tamayose and Shantell De Silva

Over 1000 years after this first mass migration across the Pacific, a second wave of migration occured. Migrants travelled across the oceans once again to reach Tahiti, Hawaii, and New Zealand. Some argue the second wave of migration went beyond these islands, reaching South America and possibly Africa, Europe, and North America.

Map of Austronesian Expansion.

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE FOR THE ‘OUT-OF-TAIWAN’ THEORY

Most of the evidence supporting the Austronesian Expansion is linguistic. In the late 1970s, linguist Robert Blust of University of Hawaii defended the theory by breaking down the Proto-Austronesian language groups into subdivisions and linking these divisions back to Taiwan. Each Proto-Austronesian language subgroup was created at different stages of the migration, as new groups moved to new islands and settled there. Blust also linked certain words in the various Austronesian languages back to the environmental conditions in Taiwan, disproving the previous assumption that Austronesian languages originated from Vietnam or Cambodia.

800px Austronesian family
Map showing the distribution of Austronesian language subgroups

The ‘Out-of-Taiwan’ theory sparked widespread interest across the sciences. Archaeological studies of the Indo-Pacific region added further evidence to support the path of migration. Scientists attributed the introduction of pigs, chickens, and Pacific rats to the Austronesian Expansion, as well as various plant species – paper mulberry, taro, and coconuts. For evidence that the Austronesians reached the coasts of South America, scientists tracked the journey of the sweet potato from Taiwan (although this evidence not conclusive). Excavations across the islands have also uncovered similar pottery styles and stones that originate from Taiwan, providing further evidence for the theory.

Initial studies in genetics threatened to dispute the theory, as analysis of modern populations did not support the argument for Taiwanese origin. However, recent studies of fossils have produced genetic evidence of the Taiwanese migration to back up the strong evidence in other fields. According to the study, which compared genome sequences of different groups:

“Bayesian phylogenetic analysis allows us to reconstruct a history of early Austronesians arriving in Taiwan in the north ∼6,000 years ago, spreading rapidly to the south, and leaving Taiwan ∼4,000 years ago to spread throughout Island Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and Oceania.”

Early Austronesians: Into and Out Of Taiwan by Albert Min-Shan Ko et al.

THE IMPACT OF THE AUSTRONESIAN EXPANSION

The Austronesian Expansion is one of the most significant mass migrations of the era. As the Austronesian-speaking peoples colonized new islands, they spread their language and culture, forming the foundations of the modern languages and cultural traditions of each region. Today, the Austronesian language group is the fifth largest in the world, spoken by nearly 400 million people across many small ocean islands.

The migrants spread art and technology – particularly sailing technology – as well as domesticated crops and animals that became island staples in the areas they were introduced to. The Austronesians were also the first to settle in and populate remote islands that are dominated by Austronesian-speaking peoples today. Some historians suggest that the impact of this migration is even greater than we have evidence for, as linguistic and archaeological evidence of settlement in Europe, Africa, and the Americas may have been erased over time.

How the Taiwanese Aborigines Shaped Modern Asia by Masaman

Although heavily debated in the early 21st century, the ‘Out-of-Taiwan’ theory of the Austronesian Expansion is now widely accepted. This recent discovery, not even 50 years old, has altered the perceptions of seaborne migration across the Indo-Pacific region and provided valuable insight into the massive impacts of migrations in history.

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The Sweet potato - Wikipedia is usually given as evidence of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories - Wikipedia. There are also Inca histories of journeys to the west, and the Chumash people - Wikipedia of coastal and island Southern California have hints of trans-Pacific contact.

Any voyagers from the Western Pacific in the last few thousand years would have been Austronesian-speaking. Before that, hard to say.

Evidence of Polynesians reaching America 

 

 

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@zexsypmp23 , Austronesians of all types would make contact with other seafaring cultures including possibly the Chumash of central and southern coastal California.  Austronesians were probably the first people to have a transoceanic culture having crossed both the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, and some hypothesize even the Atlantic Ocean although I won't dwell on that.  As you mentioned the Chumash may have hints of trans-Pacific contact, in particular the sweet potato as you mentioned, and also some scholars believe that the Chumash's boat called the Tomol are influenced by Polynesian boat design, specifically the fact that Tomol's are planked boats that are sewn together and that the term Tomol may be an Austronesian loan word.  Whether this is true or not, the Chumash seafaring culture had its unique aspects.  From my understanding the Tomol's do not use any sails, and rely on paddling which is pretty amazing for a seafaring culture although the Chumash's seafaring capabilities were largely limited to the coast of California and the Channel Islands off the coast of California.  Another unique aspect is that the paddles were double bladed like kayaks, but much longer than the kayak paddles of the Inuits.  This to me suggest that the Chumash were in contact (at least at some point in their history) with the Inuits of Alaska which is another great seafaring culture way up North.  I very much doubt that the Chumash invented the double bladed paddles independently, although that is a possibility.  Regardless, the Chumash have modified the double bladed paddle to their liking by making it longer, and paddling in a crouching position versus a sitting position as done by kayakers.

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The Austronesian Expansion occurred for several reasons.  It's not just one reason.  Geography played a role.  The mainland of the Far East has a long coastline with peninsulas and bays allowing access for the early Austronesians to the sea.  The Austronesians were already accustomed to the sea even before they began their migration.  But the fact that there are several islands of varying sizes and shapes in the Far East and further into the Pacific is what allowed Austronesians to truly create their maritime culture and technology.  Now other Mongoloid groups had actually made it into Southeast Asia including Island Southeast Asia before the Austronesians such as the Manobo, the Austro-Asiatic speakers, and perhaps even the Mangyan, and although they too had some level of maritime culture and technology, one has to ask why they didn't develop it into the large scale maritime culture and network that would allow them to go further into the Pacific or into the Indian Ocean?  It could be argued that these groups arrived earlier into Southeast Asia especially Island Southeast Asia, and the Austronesians were more advanced when they began their migratory expansion on a later time period, but perhaps a more important reason is that these groups arrived into Southeast Asia via the land route following rivers and coastlines, and thus their migratory pattern was rooted to the land for the most part.  These groups would have to evolve their culture from a terrestrial, riverine, and coastal type to a truly maritime culture after arriving into Island Southeast Asia, and that's not easy to do.  The Austronesians that actually began the Austronesian expansion originate somewhere in Southeastern China, and were forced from the beginning to develop maritime technology in order to travel to Taiwan and the Philippines, or to the Ryukyu islands.  They could however migrated on land into Southeast Asia or travel by boat along the eastern coast of mainland Southeast Asia, but for some reason they did not do that, perhaps because those areas were already occupied and contested for and/or there was less of an incentive.  The point is that the Austronesians took the island route, and thus from its early migratory history, they were already developing the maritime culture and technology that would eventually allow them to explore and settle other islands further beyond.  It should be mentioned that there were also non-Mongoloid groups already present in Southeast Asia (and Island Southeast Asia) such as the various Negrito groups and Papuans, and they predate the arrival of any Mongoloid group, and they apparently had some level of seafaring skill and technology having reached some of the nearby islands including the large island of New Guinea, the continent of Australia, and the island of Tasmania.  They too could have had a more extensive maritime culture and technology that could be lost to time due to the elevation of the sea since the Last Glacial Maximum.  But since they occupied much of present day Island Southeast Asia when the sea level were much lower and therefore much of the Sunda and Sahul landmasses were more exposed to dry land, they could have largely been a more terrestrial group of people in the past, but this of course is just a guess.  But it appears that the various Negritos and Papuans may have had a "civilization collapse" since the Last Glacial Maximum.  Since the Last Glacial Maximum it appears that northern groups such as the Mongoloids would be more fortunate economically and technologically, and thus they were able to migrate into Southeast Asia despite the presence of the various Negritos and Papuan groups.    

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