Austronesian peoples

TheAustronesian peoples, sometimes referred to asAustronesian-speaking peoples,are large group of peoples who have settled inTaiwan,maritime Southeast Asia, parts ofmainland Southeast Asia,Micronesia, coastalNew Guinea,Island Melanesia,Polynesia, andMadagascarthat speakAustronesian languages.They also include indigenous ethnic minorities inVietnam,Cambodia,Myanmar,Thailand,Hainan, theComoros, and theTorres Strait Islands.The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.
They originated from aprehistoric seaborne migration, known as the Austronesian expansion, fromTaiwan, circa 3000 to 1500 BCE. Austronesians reached theBatanes Islandsin the northernmost Philippines by around 2200 BCE. They used sails some time before 2000 BCE.In conjunction with their use ofother maritime technologies(notablycatamarans,outrigger boats,lashed-lug boats, and thecrab claw sail), this enabled phases of rapid dispersal into the islands of theIndo-Pacific, culminating in the settlement of New Zealandc.1250 CE.During the initial part of the migrations, they encountered and assimilated (or were assimilated by) thePaleolithicpopulations that had migrated earlier into Maritime Southeast Asia andNew Guinea. They reached as far asEaster Islandto the east,Madagascarto the west,andNew Zealandto the south. At the furthest extent, they might have also reached theAmericas.
Aside from language, Austronesian peoples widely share cultural characteristics, including such traditions and traditional technologies astattooing,stilt houses,jadecarving,wetland agriculture, and variousrock artmotifs. They also sharedomesticated plants and animalsthat were carried along with the migrations, includingrice, bananas, coconuts,breadfruit,Dioscoreayams,taro,paper mulberry, chickens, pigs, anddogs.
The linguistic connections betweenMadagascar,Polynesia, andSoutheast Asia, particularly the similarities betweenMalagasy,Malay, andPolynesiannumerals, were recognized early in thecolonial eraby European authors.The first formal publication on these relationships was in 1708 by DutchOrientalistAdriaan Reland, who recognized a "common language" from Madagascar to western Polynesia, although Dutch explorerCornelis de Houtmanobserved linguistic links between Madagascar and theMalay Archipelagoa century earlier, in 1603.GermannaturalistJohann Reinhold Forster, who traveled withJames Cookonhis second voyage, also recognized the similarities of Polynesian languages to those of Island Southeast Asia. In his bookObservations Made during a Voyage round the World(1778), he posited that the ultimate origins of the Polynesians might have been the lowland regions of the Philippines and proposed that they arrived to the islands via long-distance voyaging.
The SpanishphilologistLorenzo Herváslater devoted a large part of hisIdea dell'universo(1778–1787) to the establishment of alanguage familylinking theMalay Peninsula, theMaldives, Madagascar,Indonesia(Sunda IslandsandMoluccas), thePhilippines, and thePacific Islandseastward toEaster Island. Multiple other authors corroborated this classification (except for the erroneous inclusion ofMaldivian), and the language family came to be known as "Malayo-Polynesian", first coined by the German linguistFranz Boppin 1841 (German:malayisch-polynesisch).The connections between Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and the Pacific Islands were also noted by other European explorers, including the OrientalistWilliam Marsdenand the naturalistJohann Reinhold Forster.
Johann Friedrich Blumenbachadded Austronesians as the fifth category to his"varieties"of humans in the second edition ofDe Generis Humani Varietate Nativa(1781). He initially grouped them by geography and thus called Austronesians the "people from the southern world". In the third edition, published in 1795, he named Austronesians the "Malay race", or the "brown race", after correspondence withJoseph Banks, who was part of thefirst voyage of James Cook.Blumenbach used the term "Malay" due to his belief that most Austronesians spoke the "Malay idiom" (i.e., theAustronesian languages), though he inadvertently caused the later confusion of his racial category with theMalay ethnic group.The other varieties Blumenbach identified were the "Caucasians" (white), "Mongolians" (yellow), "Ethiopians" (black), and "Americans" (red). Blumenbach's definition of the "Malay" race is largely identical to the modern distribution of the Austronesian peoples, including not only Islander Southeast Asians but also the people of Madagascar and the Pacific Islands. Although Blumenbach's work was later used inscientific racism, Blumenbach was amonogenistand did not believe the human "varieties" were inherently inferior to each other. Rather, he believed that the Malay race was a combination of the "Ethiopian" and "Caucasian" varieties.
By the 19th century, however, a classification of Austronesians as being a subset of the "Mongolian" race was favoured, as waspolygenism. TheAustralo-Melanesianpopulations of Southeast Asia and Melanesia (whom Blumenbach initially classified as a "subrace" of the "Malay" race) were also now being treated as a separate "Ethiopian" race by authors likeGeorges Cuvier,Conrad Malte-Brun(who first coined the term "Oceania" asOcéanique),Julien-Joseph Virey, andRené Lesson.
The British naturalistJames Cowles Prichardoriginally followed Blumenbach by treating Papuans andIndigenous Australiansas being descendants of the same stock as Austronesians. But by his third edition ofResearches into the Physical History of Man(1836–1847), his work had become more racialized due to the influence of polygenism. He classified the peoples of Austronesia into two groups: the "Malayo-Polynesians" (roughly equivalent to the Austronesian peoples) and the "Kelænonesians" (roughly equivalent to theAustralo-Melanesians). He further subdivided the latter into the "Alfourous" (also "Haraforas" or "Alfoërs", the Native Australians), and the "Pelagian or Oceanic Negroes" (theMelanesiansand western Polynesians). Despite this, he acknowledges that "Malayo-Polynesians" and "Pelagian Negroes" had "remarkable characters in common", particularly in terms of language andcraniometry.
In linguistics, the Malayo-Polynesian language family also initially excludedMelanesiaandMicronesia, due to the perceived physical differences between the inhabitants of these regions from Malayo-Polynesian speakers. However, there was growing evidence of their linguistic relationship to Malayo-Polynesian languages, notably from studies on theMelanesian languagesbyGeorg von der Gabelentz,Robert Henry Codrington, andSidney Herbert Ray. Codrington coined and used the term "Ocean" language family rather than "Malayo-Polynesian" in 1891, in opposition to the exclusion of Melanesian and Micronesian languages. This was adopted by Ray, who defined the "Oceanic" language family as encompassing the languages of Southeast Asia and Madagascar, Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
In 1899, the Austrian linguist and ethnologistWilhelm Schmidtcoined the term "Austronesian" (German:austronesisch, fromLatinauster, "south wind"; and Greekνῆσος, "island") to refer to the language family.Schmidt had the same motivations as Codrington: he proposed the term as a replacement to "Malayo-Polynesian", because he also opposed the implied exclusion of the languages of Melanesia and Micronesia in the latter name.It became the accepted name for the language family, withOceanicandMalayo-Polynesian languagesbeing retained as names for subgroups.
The term "Austronesian", or more accurately "Austronesian-speaking peoples", came to refer to people who speak the languages of the Austronesian language family. Some authors, however, object to the use of the term to refer to people, as they question whether there really is any biological or cultural shared ancestry between all Austronesian-speaking groups.This is especially true for authors who reject the prevailing "Out of Taiwan" hypothesis and instead offer scenarios where the Austronesian languages spread among preexisting static populations through borrowing or convergence, with little or no population movements.
Despite these objections, the general consensus is that the archeological, cultural, genetic, and especially linguistic evidence all separately indicate varying degrees of shared ancestry among Austronesian-speaking peoples that justifies their treatment as a "phylogeneticunit". This has led to the use of the term "Austronesian" in academic literature to refer not only to the Austronesian languages but also the Austronesian-speaking peoples, their societies, and the geographic area ofAustronesia.
Some Austronesian-speaking groups are not direct descendants of Austronesians and acquired their languages throughlanguage shift, but this is believed to have happened only in a few instances, since the Austronesian expansion was too rapid for language shifts to have occurred fast enough.In parts ofIsland Melanesia, migrations and paternal admixture fromPapuangroups after the Austronesian expansion (estimated to have started at around 500 BCE) also resulted in gradual population turnover. These secondary migrations were incremental and happened gradually enough that the culture and language of these groups remained Austronesian, even though in modern times, they are genetically more Papuan.In the vast majority of cases, the language and material culture of Austronesian-speaking groups descend directly through generational continuity, especially in islands that were previously uninhabited.
Serious research into the Austronesian languages and its speakers has been ongoing since the 19th century. Modern scholarship on Austronesian dispersion models is generally credited to two influential papers in the late 20th century:The Colonisation of the Pacific: A Genetic Trail(Hill&Serjeantson, eds., 1989) andThe Austronesian Dispersal and the Origin of Languages(Bellwood, 1991).The topic is particularly interesting to scientists for the remarkably unique characteristics of the Austronesian speakers: their extent, diversity, and rapid dispersal.
Regardless, certain disagreements still exist among researchers with regards to chronology, origin, dispersal, adaptations to the island environments, interactions with preexisting populations in areas they settled, and cultural developments over time. The mainstream accepted hypothesis is the "Out of Taiwan" model first proposed byPeter Bellwood. But there are multiple rival models that create a sort of "pseudo-competition" among their supporters due to narrow focus on data from limited geographic areas or disciplines.The most notable of which is the "Out of Sundaland" (or "Out of Island Southeast Asia") model.
Austronesians were the first humans with seafaring vessels that could cross large distances on the open ocean; this technology allowed them to colonize a large part of theIndo-Pacificregion.Prior to the 16th-centurycolonial era, the Austronesian language family was the most widespread in the world, spanning half the planet fromEaster Islandin the easternPacific OceantoMadagascarin the westernIndian Ocean.
Languages of the Austronesian family are today spoken by about 386 million people (4.9% of the global population), making it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages includeMalay(around 250–270 million in Indonesia alone in its own literary standard, namedIndonesian),Javanese, andFilipino(Tagalog). The family contains 1,257 languages, the second-largest number of any language family.
The geographic region that encompasses native Austronesian-speaking populations is sometimes referred to as "Austronesia".Other geographic names for various subregions includeMalay Peninsula,Greater Sunda Islands,Lesser Sunda Islands,Island Melanesia,Island Southeast Asia,Malay Archipelago,Maritime Southeast Asia,Melanesia,Micronesia,Near Oceania,Oceania,Pacific Islands,Remote Oceania,Polynesia, andWallacea. In Indonesia, the nationalistic termNusantara, fromOld Javanese, is also popularly used for the Indonesian islands.
Austronesian regions are almost exclusively islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, with predominantlytropicalorsubtropicalclimates with considerable seasonal rainfall.
Inhabitants of these regions includeTaiwanese indigenous peoples, most ethnic groups inBrunei,East Timor,Indonesia,Madagascar,Malaysia,Micronesia, thePhilippines, andPolynesia. Also included are theMalaysofSingapore; thePolynesiansofNew Zealand,Hawaii, andChile; theTorres Strait Islandersof Australia; the non-Papuan peoplesofMelanesiaand coastalNew Guinea; theShibushispeakers of theComoros, and theMalagasyand Shibushi speakers ofRéunion. Austronesians are also found in the regions ofSouthern Thailand; theChamareas inVietnam,Cambodia, andHainan; and theMergui Archipelagoof Myanmar.
Additionally, modern-era migration has brought Austronesian-speaking people to the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK,mainland Europe,Cocos (Keeling) Islands, South Africa,Sri Lanka,Suriname,Hong Kong,Macau, andWest Asian countries.
Some authors also propose further settlements and contacts in the past in areas that are not inhabited by Austronesian speakers today. These range from likely hypotheses to very controversial claims with minimal evidence. In 2009,Roger Blenchcompiled an expanded map of Austronesia that encompassed these claims based on a variety of evidence, such as historical accounts, loanwords,introduced plants and animals, genetics, archeological sites, and material culture. They include areas like thePacific coastof the Americas, Japan, theYaeyama Islands, the Australian coast, Sri Lanka and coastalSouth Asia, thePersian Gulf, someIndian Oceanislands,East Africa, South Africa, andWest Africa.
Austronesian peoples include the following groupings by name and geographic location (incomplete):
The broad consensus on Austronesian origins is the "two-layer model", where an originalPaleolithicindigenous population inIsland Southeast Asiawere assimilated to varying degrees by incoming migrations ofNeolithicAustronesian-speaking peoples from Taiwan andFujian, in southern China, from around 4,000BP.Austronesians also mixed with other preexisting populations as well as later migrant populations among the islands they settled, resulting in further genetic input. The most notable are theAustroasiatic-speaking peoples in western Island Southeast Asia (peninsular Malaysia,Sumatra,Borneo, andJava);theBantu peoplesinMadagascarand theComoros; as well asJapanese,Persian,Indian,Arab, andHan Chinesetraders and migrants in more recent centuries.
Island Southeast Asia wassettled by modern humansin thePaleolithicfollowingcoastal migration routes, presumably starting before 70,000BPfromAfrica, long before the development of Austronesian cultures.These populations are typified by having dark skin, curly hair, and short statures, leading Europeans to believe, in the 19th century, that they were related toAfrican Pygmies. However, despite these physical similarities, genetic studies have shown that they are more closely related to other Eurasian populations than to Africans.
The lowered sea levels of thePleistocenemade some of the modern-day islands ofSundalandaccessible via land bridges. However, the spread of humans across theWallace lineand intoSahulnecessitated crossing bodies of water. Remains of stone tools and marine shells in Liang Sarru,Salibabu Island, North Sulawesi, dated to 32,000–35,000 years ago, is possible evidence for the longest sea voyage by Paleolithic humans ever recorded. The island was previously uninhabited by humans orhomininsand can only be reached from eitherMindanaoor theSangihe Islandsby crossing an expanse of water at least 100 km (62 mi) wide, even during the low sea levels of the Pleistocene. Other evidence of early maritime transport are the appearance ofobsidiantools with the same source on neighboring islands. These include the Philippine obsidian network (MindoroandPalawan, ca.33,000-28,000 BP), and theWallaceaobsidian network (Timor,Atauro,Kisar,Alor, ca.22,000 BP). However, the method of crossing remains unknown and could have ranged from simpleraftstodugout canoesby the terminal Pleistocene.
These early settlers are generally historically referred to as "Australo-Melanesians", though the terminology is problematic, as they are genetically diverse, and most groups within Austronesia have significant Austronesian admixture and culture. The unmixed descendants of these groups today include the interiorPapuansandIndigenous Australians.
In modern literature, descendants of these groups, located in Island Southeast Asia west ofHalmahera, are usually collectively referred to as "Negritos", while descendants of these groups east of Halmahera (excludingIndigenous Australians) are referred to as "Papuans".They can also be divided into two broad groups based onDenisovan admixture.Philippine Negritos, Papuans,Melanesians, and Indigenous Australians display Denisovan admixture, while Malaysian and western Indonesian Negritos (Orang Asli) andAndamanese islandersdo not.
Mahdi (2017) also uses the term "Qata" (fromProto-Malayo-Polynesian*qata) to distinguish the indigenous populations of Southeast Asia, versus "Tau" (fromProto-Austronesian*Cau) for the later settlers from Taiwan and mainland China. Both are based on proto-forms for the word "person" inMalayo-Polynesian languagesthat referred to darker-skinned and lighter-skinned groups, respectively.Jinamet al.(2017) also proposed the term "First Sundaland People" in place of "Negrito", as a more accurate name for the original population of Southeast Asia.
These populations are genetically distinct from later Austronesians, but through fairly extensive population admixture, most modern Austronesians have varying levels of ancestry from these groups. The same is true for some populations historically considered "non-Austronesians", due to physical differences—like Philippine Negritos, Orang Asli, and Austronesian-speaking Melanesians, all of whom have Austronesian admixture.InPolynesiansinRemote Oceania, for example, the admixture is around 20 to 30% Papuan and 70 to 80% Austronesian. The Melanesians inNear Oceaniaare roughly around 20% Austronesian and 80% Papuan, while in the natives of theLesser Sunda Islands, the admixture is around 50% Austronesian and 50% Papuan. Similarly, in the Philippines, the groups traditionally considered to be "Negrito" vary between 30 and 50% Austronesian.
The high degree of assimilation among Austronesian, Negrito, and Papuan groups indicates that the Austronesian expansion was largely peaceful. Rather than violent displacement, the settlers and the indigenous groups absorbed each other.It is believed that in some cases, like in theToalean cultureof Sulawesi (c. 8,000–1,500 BP), it is even more accurate to say that the densely populated indigenous hunter-gatherer groups absorbed the incoming Austronesian farmers, rather than the other way around.Mahdi (2016) further asserts that Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *tau-mata ("person")is derived from a composite protoform *Cau ma-qata, combining "Tau" and "Qata" and indicative of the mixing of the two ancestral population types in these regions.
The broad consensus on theUrheimat(homeland) of Austronesian languages as well as theNeolithicearly Austronesian peoples is accepted to beTaiwan, as well as thePenghu Islands.They are believed to have descended from ancestral populations in coastal mainland southern China, which are generally referred to as the "pre‑Austronesians".Through these pre-Austronesians, Austronesiansmay also share a common ancestrywith neighboring groups in Neolithic southern China.
These Neolithic pre-Austronesians from the coast of southeastern China are believed to have migrated to Taiwan between approximately 10,000 and 6000 BCE.Other research has suggested that, according to radiocarbon dates, Austronesians may have migrated from mainland China to Taiwan as late as 4000 BCE (Dapenkeng culture).They continued to maintain regular contact with the mainland until 1500 BCE.
The identity of the Neolithic pre-Austronesian cultures in China is contentious. Tracing Austronesian prehistory inFujianand Taiwan has been difficult due to thesouthward expansion of the Han dynasty(2nd century BCE) and the recentQing dynasty annexation of Taiwan(1683 CE).Today, the only Austronesian language in southern China isTsat, spoken inHainan. The politicization of archaeology is also problematic, particularly erroneous reconstructions among some Chinese archaeologists of non-Sinitic sites asHan.Some authors, favoring the"Out of Sundaland"model, likeWilliam Meacham, reject the southern Chinese mainland origin of pre-Austronesians entirely.
Nevertheless, based on linguistic, archaeological, and genetic evidence, Austronesians are most strongly associated with the early farmingculturesof theYangtze Riverbasin thatdomesticated ricefrom around 13,500 to 8,200BP. They display typical Austronesian technological hallmarks, includingtooth removal,teeth blackening,jadecarving, tattooing,stilt houses, advanced boatbuilding,aquaculture,wetland agriculture, and the domestication of dogs, pigs, and chickens. These include theKuahuqiao,Hemudu,Majiabang,Songze,Liangzhu, andDapenkengcultures that occupied the coastal regions between the Yangtze River delta and theMin Riverdelta.
Based on linguistic evidence, there have been proposals linking Austronesians with other linguistic families intolinguistic macrofamiliesthat are relevant to the identity of the pre-Austronesian populations. The most notable are the connections of Austronesians to the neighboringAustroasiatic,Kra-Dai, andSiniticpeoples (asAustric,Austro-Tai, andSino-Austronesian, respectively). These are still not widely accepted, as evidence of these relationships are still tenuous, and the methods used are highly contentious.
In support of both the Austric and Austro-Tai hypothesis,Robert Blustconnects the lower Yangtze Neolithic Austro-Tai entity with the rice-cultivating Austroasiatic cultures, assuming the center of East Asian rice domestication, and putative Austric homeland, to be located in the Yunnan/Burma border area,instead of the Yangtze River basin, as is currently accepted.Under that view, there was an east–west genetic alignment, resulting from a rice-based population expansion, in the southern part of East Asia: Austroasiatic-Kra-Dai-Austronesian, with unrelated Sino-Tibetan occupying a more northerly tier.Depending on the author, other hypotheses have also included other language families likeHmong-Mienand evenJapanese-Ryukyuaninto the larger Austric hypothesis.
While the Austric hypothesis remains contentious, there is genetic evidence that at least in westernIsland Southeast Asia, there had been earlierNeolithicoverland migrations (pre-4,000 BP) by Austroasiatic-speaking peoples into what is now theGreater Sunda Islandswhen the sea levels were lower, in the earlyHolocene. These peoples were assimilated linguistically and culturally by incoming Austronesian peoples in what is now modern-day Indonesia and Malaysia.
Several authors have also proposed that Kra-Dai speakers may actually be an ancient daughter subgroup of Austronesians that migrated back to thePearl River Deltafrom Taiwan and/orLuzon, shortly after the Austronesian expansion, later migrating further westwards to Hainan,Mainland Southeast Asia, andNortheast India. They propose that the distinctiveness of Kra-Dai (it istonalandmonosyllabic) was the result of linguistic restructuring due to contact with Hmong-Mien and Sinitic cultures. Aside from linguistic evidence,Roger Blenchhas also noted cultural similarities between the two groups, like facial tattooing, tooth removal orablation, teeth blackening, snake (or dragon) cults, and the multiple-tonguedjaw harpsshared by the indigenous Taiwanese and Kra-Dai-speakers. However, archaeological evidence for this is still sparse.This is believed to be similar to what happened to theCham people, who were originally Austronesian settlers (likely fromBorneo) to southern Vietnam around 2100–1900 BP and had languages similar toMalay. Their languages underwent several restructuring events tosyntaxandphonologydue to contact with the nearby tonal languages of Mainland Southeast Asia and Hainan.Although the populations of the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and neighboring islands are Austronesian-speaking, they have significantly high admixture from Mainland Southeast Asian populations. These areas were already populated (most probably by speakers of Austroasiatic languages) before they were reached by the Austronesian expansion, roughly 3,000 years ago. Currently, only the indigenousAsliansstill speak Austroasiatic languages. However, some of the languages in the region show signs of underlying Austroasiatic substrates.
According toJuha Janhunenand Ann Kumar, Austronesians may have also settled parts of southern Japan, especially on the islands ofKyushuandShikoku, and influenced or created the Japanese hierarchical society. It is suggested that Japanese tribes like theHayato people, theKumaso, and theAzumiwere of Austronesian origin. Until today, local traditions and festivals show similarities to Malayo-Polynesian culture.
TheSino-Austronesian hypothesis, on the other hand, is a relatively new hypothesis byLaurent Sagart, first proposed in 1990. It argues for a north–south linguistic genetic relationship between Chinese and Austronesian. This is based on sound correspondences in basic vocabulary and morphological parallels.Sagart places special significance in shared vocabulary on cereal crops, citing them as evidence of shared linguistic origin. However, this has largely been rejected by other linguists. The sound correspondences between Old Chinese and Proto-Austronesian can also be explained as a result of theLongshan interaction sphere, when pre-Austronesians from the Yangtze region came into regular contact with Proto-Sinitic speakers in theShandong Peninsula, around the 4th to 3rd millennia BCE. This corresponded with the widespread introduction of rice cultivation to Proto-Sinitic speakers and conversely, millet cultivation to Pre-Austronesians.An Austronesiansubstratumin formerly Austronesian territories that have beenSinicizedafter theIron AgeHan expansionis also another explanation for the correspondences that do not require a genetic relationship.
In relation to Sino-Austronesian models and the Longshan interaction sphere, Roger Blench (2014) suggests that the single migration model for the spread of the Neolithic into Taiwan is problematic, pointing out the genetic and linguistic inconsistencies between different Taiwanese Austronesian groups.The surviving Austronesian populations in Taiwan should rather be considered as the result of various Neolithic migration waves from the mainland and back-migration from the Philippines.These incoming migrants almost certainly spoke languages related to Austronesian or pre-Austronesian, although their phonology and grammar would have been quite diverse.
Blench considers the Austronesians in Taiwan to have been amelting potof immigrants from various parts of the coast ofEast Chinathat had been migrating to Taiwan by 4000 BP. These immigrants included people from thefoxtail millet-cultivatingLongshan cultureofShandong(with Longshan-type cultures found in southern Taiwan), the fishing-based Dapenkeng culture of coastal Fujian, and theYuanshan cultureof northernmost Taiwan, which Blench suggests may have originated from the coast ofGuangdong. Based on geography and cultural vocabulary, Blench believes that the Yuanshan people may have spokenNortheast Formosan languages. Thus, Blench believes that there is in fact no "apical" ancestor of Austronesian in the sense that there was no true singleProto-Austronesian languagethat gave rise to present-day Austronesian languages. Instead, multiple migrations of various pre-Austronesian peoples and languages from the Chinese mainland that were related but distinct came together to form what we now know as Austronesian in Taiwan. Hence, Blench considers the single-migration model into Taiwan by pre-Austronesians to be inconsistent with both the archaeological and linguistic (lexical) evidence.
The Austronesian expansion (also called the "Out of Taiwan" model) is a large-scale migration of Austronesians from Taiwan, occurring around 3000 to 1500 BCE.Population growthprimarily fueled this migration. These first settlers settled in northernLuzon, in the archipelago of the Philippines, intermingling with the earlierAustralo-Melanesianpopulation who had inhabited the islands since about 23,000 years earlier. Over the next thousand years, Austronesian peoples migrated southeast to the rest of the Philippines, and into the islands of theCelebes Seaand Borneo.From southwestern Borneo, Austronesians spread further west in a single migration event to bothSumatraand the coastal regions of southern Vietnam, becoming the ancestors of the speakers of theMalayicandChamicbranches of the Austronesian language family.
Soon after reaching the Philippines, Austronesians colonized theNorthern Mariana Islandsby 1500 BCE or even earlier, becoming the first humans to reachRemote Oceania. TheChamorromigration was also unique in that it was the only Austronesian migration to the Pacific Islands to successfully retain rice cultivation.PalauandYapwere settled by separate voyages by 1000 BCE.
Another important migration branch was by theLapita culture, which rapidly spread into the islands off the coast of northernNew Guineaand into theSolomon Islandsand other parts of coastal New Guinea andIsland Melanesiaby 1200 BCE. They reached the islands ofFiji,Samoa, andTongaby around 900 to 800 BCE. This remained the furthest extent of the Austronesian expansion into Polynesia until around 700 CE, when there was another surge of island colonization. It reached theCook Islands,Tahiti, and theMarquesasby 700 CE;Hawaiiby 900 CE;Rapa Nuiby 1000 CE; and New Zealand by 1200 CE.For a few centuries, the Polynesian islands were connected by bidirectional long-distance sailing, with the exception of Rapa Nui, which had limited further contact due to its isolated geographical location.Island groups like thePitcairns, theKermadec Islands, and theNorfolk Islandswere also formerly settled by Austronesians but later abandoned.There is also putative evidence, based in the spread of thesweet potato, that Austronesians may have reached South America from Polynesia, where they might have traded with theIndigenous peoples of the Americas.
In the Indian Ocean, Austronesians in Maritime Southeast Asiaestablished trade linkswithSouth Asia.They also established early long-distance contacts with Africa, possibly as early as before 500 BCE, based on archaeological evidence like bananaphytolithsinCameroonandUgandaand remains of Neolithic chicken bones inZanzibar.By the end of the first millennium BCE, Austronesians were already sailingmaritime trade routeslinking theHan dynastyof China with the western Indian Ocean trade in India, theRoman Empire, and Africa.An Austronesian group, originally from theMakassar Straitregion aroundKalimantanandSulawesi,eventuallysettledMadagascar, either directly from Southeast Asia or from preexisting mixed Austronesian-Bantupopulations fromEast Africa. Estimates for when this occurred vary, from the 5th to 7th centuries CE.It is likely that the Austronesians that settled Madagascar followed a coastal route through South Asia and East Africa, rather than directly across the Indian Ocean.Genetic evidence suggests that some individuals of Austronesian descent reached Africa and theArabian Peninsula.
A competing hypothesis to the "Out of Taiwan" model is the "Out ofSundaland" hypothesis, favored by a minority of authors. Notable proponents includeWilliam Meacham,Stephen Oppenheimer, andWilhelm Solheim. For various reasons, they have proposed that the homelands of Austronesians were withinIsland Southeast Asia(ISEA), particularly in the Sundaland landmass drowned during the end of theLast Glacial Periodby rising sea levels. Proponents of these hypotheses point to the ancient origins ofmtDNAin Southeast Asian populations, pre-dating the Austronesian expansion, as proof that Austronesians originated from within Island Southeast Asia.
However, these have been repudiated by studies usingwhole genome sequencing, which have found that all ISEA populations had genes originating from aboriginal Taiwanese.Contrary to the claim of a south-to-north migration in the "Out of Sundaland" hypothesis, the new whole genome analysis strongly confirms the north-to-south dispersal of the Austronesian peoples in the prevailing "Out of Taiwan" hypothesis. Researchers have further pointed out that while humans have been living in Sundaland for at least 40,000 years, the Austronesian people were recent arrivals. The results of the previous studies failed to take into account admixture with the more ancient but unrelatedNegritoandPapuanpopulations.
By the beginning of the first millennium CE, most of the Austronesian inhabitants inMaritime Southeast Asiabegan trading with India and China. The adoption of theHindustatecraft model allowed the creation ofIndianized kingdoms, such asTarumanagara,Champa,Butuan,Langkasuka,Melayu,Srivijaya,Mataram,Majapahit, andBali. Between the 5th and the 15th century,HinduismandBuddhismwere established as the main religion in the region. Muslim traders from theArabian Peninsulawere thought to have broughtIslamby the 10th century. This was established as the dominant religion in the Malay archipelago by the 16th century. The Austronesian inhabitants ofNear OceaniaandRemote Oceaniawere unaffected by this cultural trade and retained their indigenous culture in the Pacific region.
TheKingdom of LarantukainFlores, East Nusa Tenggara, was the onlyChristian(Roman Catholic)indigenouskingdom in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia, with its first king named Lorenzo.
Western Europeans in search of spices and gold later colonized most of the Austronesian-speaking countries of the Asia-Pacific region, beginning in the 16th century, with the Portuguese and Spanish colonization of the Philippines,Palau,Guam, theMariana Islands, and some parts of Indonesia (present-dayEast Timor); the Dutch colonization of the Indonesian archipelago; the British colonization of Malaysia and Oceania; the French colonization ofFrench Polynesia; and later, theAmerican governance of the Pacific.
Meanwhile, the British, Germans, French, Americans, and Japanese began establishing spheres of influence within the Pacific islands during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Japanese later invaded most of Southeast Asia and some parts of the Pacific duringWorld War II. The latter half of the 20th century initiated independence of modern-day Indonesia, Malaysia, East Timor, and many of the Pacific island nations, as well as the re-independence of the Philippines.
The native culture of Austronesia varies from region to region. The early Austronesian peoples considered the sea as the basic feature of their life.Following their diaspora to Southeast Asia and Oceania, they migrated by boat to other islands. Boats of different sizes and shapes have been found in every Austronesian culture, from Madagascar, Maritime Southeast Asia, to Polynesia, and have different names. In Southeast Asia, head-hunting was restricted to the highlands as a result of warfare. Mummification is only found among the highland AustronesianFilipinosand in some Indonesian groups in Celebes and Borneo.
Seagoingcatamaranandoutrigger shiptechnologies were the most important innovations of the Austronesian peoples.They were the first humans with vessels capable of crossing vast distances of water. The crossing from the Philippines to theMariana Islandsat around 1500 BCE, a distance of more than 2,500 km (1,600 mi), is likely the world's first and longest ocean crossing of that time.These maritime technologies enabled them to colonize the Indo-Pacific in prehistoric times. Austronesian groups continue to be the primary users of outrigger canoes today.
Early researchers like Heine-Geldern (1932) and Hornell (1943) once believed that catamarans evolved from outrigger canoes, but modern authors specializing in Austronesian cultures, like Doran (1981) and Mahdi (1988), now believe it to be the opposite.
Two canoes bound together developed directly from minimal raft technologies of two logs tied together. Over time, the double-hulled canoe form developed into the asymmetric double canoe, where one hull is smaller than the other. Eventually the smaller hull became the prototype outrigger, giving way to the single outrigger canoe, then to the reversible single outrigger canoe. Finally, the single outrigger types developed into the double outrigger canoe (ortrimarans).
This would also explain why older Austronesian populations inIsland Southeast Asiatend to favor double outrigger canoes, as it keeps the boats stable whentacking. However, there are small regions where catamarans and single-outrigger canoes are still used. In contrast, more distant outlying descendant populations inMicronesia,Polynesia,Madagascar, and theComorosretained the double-hull and the single-outrigger canoe types, but the technology for double outriggers never reached them (although it exists in westernMelanesia). To deal with the problem of the boat's instability when the outrigger faces leeward when tacking, they instead developed theshuntingtechnique in sailing, in conjunction with reversiblesingle-outriggers.
The simplest form of all ancestral Austronesian boats had five parts. The bottom consisted of a single piece of hollowed-out log. At the sides were two planks, and two horseshoe-shaped wood pieces formed theprowandstern. These were fitted tightly together edge-to-edge, withdowelsinserted into holes in between, and then lashed to each other with ropes (made fromrattanor fibre) wrapped around protruding lugs on the planks. This characteristic and ancient Austronesian boatbuilding practice is known as the "lashed-lug" technique. They were commonlycaulkedwith pastes made from various plants as well astapa barkand fibres that would expand when wet, further tightening joints and making the hull watertight. They formed the shell of the boat, which was then reinforced by horizontal ribs. Shipwrecks of Austronesian ships can be identified from this construction as well as the absence of metal nails. Austronesian ships traditionally had no central rudders but were instead steered using an oar on one side.
The ancestral rig was the mastless triangular crab claw sail, which had two booms that could be tilted to the wind. These were built in the double-canoe configuration or had a single outrigger on the windward side. In Island Southeast Asia, these developed into double outriggers on each side, which provided greater stability. The triangular crab claw sails also later developed into square or rectangulartanja sails, which, like crab claw sails, had distinctive booms spanning the upper and lower edges. Fixed masts also developed later in both Southeast Asia (usually as bipod or tripod masts) and Oceania.Austronesians traditionally made their sails from woven mats of the resilient and salt-resistantpandanusleaves. These sails allowed them to embark on long-distance voyaging. In some cases, however, they were one-way voyages. The failure to establish populations inRapa Nuiand New Zealand is believed to have isolated their settlements from the rest of Polynesia.
The ancientChampaof Vietnam also uniquely developed basket-hulled boats whose hulls were composed of woven andresin-caulked bamboo, either entirely or in conjunction with plankstrakes. They ranged from smallcoracles(o thúng) to large oceangoing trading ships like theghe mành.
The acquisition of catamaran and outrigger technology by non-Austronesian peoples inSri Lankaandsouthern Indiais due to the result of very early Austronesian contact with the region, including theMaldivesand theLaccadive Islands, estimated to have occurred around 1000 to 600 BCE and onwards. This may have possibly included limited colonization by people who have since been assimilated. This is still evident in Sri Lankan and South Indian languages. For example,Tamilpaṭavu,Telugupaḍava, andKannadapaḍahu, all meaning "ship", are all derived fromProto-Hesperonesian*padaw, "sailboat", with Austronesian cognates likeSundaneseparahu,Javaneseperahu,Kadazanpadau,Maranaopadaw,Cebuanoparáw,Samoanfolau,Hawaiianhalau, andMāoriwharau.
Austronesian architecture is diverse but often shares certain characteristics that indicate a common origin. ThereconstructedProto-AustronesianandProto-Malayo-Polynesianforms of various terms for "house", "building", or "granary" among the different linguistic subgroups of Austronesians include *rumaq ("house");*balay ("public building", "community house", or "guest house");*lepaw ("hut", "field hut", or "granary");*kamaliR ("bachelor's house", or "men's house");and *banua ("inhabited land", or "community territory").
Austronesian structures commonly have raised floors. The structures are raised onpiles, usually with space underneath also utilized for storage ordomestic animals. The raised design has multiple advantages, including mitigating damage during flooding and (in very tall examples) acting as defensive structures during conflicts. The house posts are also distinctively capped with larger-diameter discs at the top, to prevent vermin and pests from entering the structures by climbing them. Austronesian houses and other structures are usually built in wetlands and alongside bodies of water but can also be constructed in the highlands or even directly on shallow water.
Building structures on pilings is believed to be derived from the design of raised granaries and storehouses, which are highly important status symbols among the ancestrally rice-cultivating Austronesians.The rice granary shrine was also the archetypal religious building among Austronesian cultures and was used to store carvings of ancestor spirits and local deities.
Another common feature arepitched roofswith ornamentedgables. The most notable of these are saddlebacked roofs, a design common forlonghousesused for village meetings or ceremonies. The overall effect of this is reminiscent of a boat, underlining the strong maritime connections of Austronesian cultures. The boat motif is common throughout, particularly inEastern Indonesia. In some ethnic groups, the houses are built on platforms that resemblecatamarans. Among theNage people, a woven representation of a boat is added to the ridge of the roof; among theManggarai people, the roofs of houses are shaped like an upside-down boat; while among the people ofTanimbarand easternFlores, the ridge itself is carved into a representation of a boat. Furthermore, elements of Austronesian structures (as well as society in general) are often referred to in terminologies used for boats and sailing. These include calling elements of structures "masts", "sails", or "rudders", or calling the village leaders "captains" or "steersmen". In the case of the Philippines, the villages themselves are referred to asbarangay, from an alternate form ofbalangay, a type of sailboat used for trading and colonization.
Austronesian buildings have spiritual significance, often containing what has been coined by anthropologistJames J. Foxas a "ritual attractor". These are specific posts, beams, platforms, altars, and so on that embody the house as a whole, usually consecrated at the time of building.
The Austronesian house itself also often symbolizes various aspects of indigenous Austronesiancosmologyandanimism. In the majority of cases, the loft of the house (usually placed above thehearth), is considered to be the domain of deities and spirits. It is essentially a raised granary built into the structure of the house itself and functioning as a second floor. It is commonly used to store sacred objects (like effigies of granary idols or deceased ancestors), heirlooms, and other important objects. These areas are usually not part of the regular living space and may only be accessible to certain members of the family or after performing a specific ritual. Other parts of the house may also be associated with certain deities, and thus certain activities like receiving guests or conducting marriage ceremonies can only be performed in specific areas.
While rice cultivation wasn't among the technologies carried intoRemote Oceania, raised storehouses still survived. Thepātakaof theMāori peopleis an example. The largestpātakaare elaborately adorned with carvings and are often the tallest buildings in the Māoripā. These were used to store implements, weapons, ships, and other valuables; while smallerpātakawere used to store provisions. A special type ofpātaka, supported by a single tall post, also had ritual importance and was used to isolate high-born children during their training for leadership.
The majority of Austronesian structures are not permanent. They are made from perishable materials like wood, bamboo, plant fibre, and leaves. Similar to traditional Austronesian boats, they do not use nails but are traditionally constructed solely by joints, weaving, ties, anddowels. Elements of the structures are repaired and replaced regularly or as they get damaged. Because of this, archaeological records of prehistoric Austronesian structures are usually limited to traces of house posts, with no way of determining the original building plans.
Indirect evidence of traditional Austronesian architecture, however, can be gleaned from their contemporary representations in art, such asfriezeson the walls of laterHindu-Buddhiststone temples (like in reliefs atBorobudurandPrambanan). But these are limited to the recent centuries. They can also be reconstructed linguistically from shared terms for architectural elements, like ridge poles, thatch, rafters, house posts, hearths, notched log ladders, storage racks, public buildings, and so on. Linguistic evidence also makes it clear that stilt houses were already present among Austronesian groups since at least theLate Neolithic.
In modern Indonesia, varying styles are collectively known asrumah adat.
Arbiet al.(2013) have also noted the striking similarities between Austronesian architecture and Japanese traditional raised architecture (shinmei-zukuri). Particularly the buildings of theIse Grand Shrine, which contrast with thepit-housestypical of the NeolithicYayoi period. They propose significant Neolithic contact between the people of southern Japan and Austronesians or pre-Austronesians that occurred prior to the spread ofHan Chinesecultural influence to the islands.Rice cultivation is also believed to have been introduced to Japan from a para-Austronesian group from coastal eastern China.Waterson (2009) has also argued that the architectural tradition of stilt houses is originally Austronesian and that similar building traditions in Japan and mainland Asia (notably amongKra-DaiandAustroasiatic-speaking groups) correspond to contacts with a prehistoric Austronesian network.
Outside of Taiwan, assemblages of red-slipped pottery, plainware, and incised and stamped pottery associated with Austronesian migrations are first documented from around 2000 to 1800 BCE in the northern Philippines, from sites in theBatanes Islandsand theCagayan Valleyof Northern Luzon. From there, pottery technology rapidly spread to the east, south, and southwest.
This type of pottery dispersed south and southwest to the rest of Island Southeast Asia. The eastward and southward branches of the migrations converged inIsland Melanesia, resulting in what is now known as theLapita culture, centered around theBismarck Archipelago.
The oldest known pottery assemblages inOceaniaare circle- and punctate/dentate-stamped pottery in theMarianas Islands, securely dated to 1500 BCE–1300 BCE from multiple archaeological sites. It predates the earliest Lapita culture pottery assemblages (c. 1350 –1300 BCE) and bears closest resemblance to a subset of the more diverse Nagsabaran pottery of the northern Philippines. It is currently disputed whether this is indicative of a direct ancient voyage from the northern Philippines to the Marianas. Hunget al.(2011) proposed a direct deliberate voyage from easternLuzon, which would make it the longest sea crossing undertaken by that time in human history.This has also been proposed by earlier authors like Blust (2000) and Reid (2002), based on linguistics.
Winteret al.(2012), on the other hand, dismissed the similarities as being generic rather than specific to the region. This is from both analysis of the microscopic structure of the shards (indicating manufacturing techniques) and the impossibility of drift voyaging from Luzon, due to the prevailing wind and currents. Instead of a voyage directly from Luzon, they instead proposed an origin either from a direct single voyage fromMindanao(southern Philippines) orMorotai(Maluku Islands) toGuam; or two voyages, with way stations inPalauorYap.
Hunget al.(2012) pointed out in response that no pottery assemblages older than 2,000 years old have been found in Morotai, which also has a Papuan-speaking population. They also mentioned that present-day data on wind and currents is not a reliable way of ascertaining migration routes, and that the voyages settlingRemote Oceaniawould have been deliberate, not uncontrolled drifting. Similar presumptions byThor Heyerdahlled to his erroneous conclusion that Polynesia was settled from the Americas. Pottery manufacturing techniques are also diverse, even within a single community. Thus, analysis of manufacturing methods is less significant than comparison of decorative systems. Nevertheless, Hunget al.(2012) emphasized that they also did not discount other sources (yet undiscovered) from the southern Philippines. They also proposed theEastern Visayasas a likely point of origin. Sources south of the Philippines remain unlikely without further archaeological findings due to their related pottery assemblages being younger than 1500 BCE.
The dentate-stamped pottery of the Lapita culture (c. 1350–1300 BCE) retained elements also found in the Nagsabaran pottery in the Philippines, including stamped circles as well as the cross-in-circle motif.They carried pottery technology as far asTongain Polynesia. Pottery technology in Tonga, however, became reduced to undecoratedplainwarewithin only two centuries before abruptly disappearing completely by around 400 BCE. The reasons for this are still unknown. Pottery was absent in subsequent migrations to the rest of Remote Oceania, being replaced instead with carved wooden or bamboo containers,bottle gourds, and baskets.However, the geometric designs and stylized figures used in the pottery are still present in other surviving art forms, such as tattooing, weaving, andbarkclothpatterns.
A common practice among Austronesians in a large area of Island Southeast Asia is the use ofburial jars, which emerged during theLate Neolithicand flourished in the first millennium CE. They are characteristic of a region bordered by the Philippines to the north, southernSumatrain the southwest, andSumbaand theMaluku Islandsin the southeast. However, these didn't comprise a single tradition but can be grouped into at least fourteen different traditions scattered across the islands. In most cases, the earliest burial jars used were large indigenousearthenwarejars, followed by indigenous or importedstonewarejars (martaban), and finally importedporcelainjars acquired from the burgeoning maritime trade with China and Mainland Southeast Asia around the 14th century CE.
Slit drumsare indigenous Austronesian musical instruments invented and used by Southeast Asian-Austronesian and Oceanic-Austronesian ethnic groups.
Gongensembles are also a common musical heritage of Island Southeast Asia. The casting of gong instruments is believed to have originated from theBronze Agecultures of Mainland Southeast Asia. It spread to the Austronesian islands initially through trade as prestige goods. However, mainland Asian gongs were never used in ensembles; the innovation of using gong sets is uniquely Austronesian. Gong ensembles are found in western Malayo-Polynesian groups, though they never penetrated much further east. There are roughly two gong ensemble traditions among Austronesians, which also produced gongs in ancient times.
In western Island Southeast Asia, these traditions are collectively known asgamelan, being centred on the island ofJavain Indonesia. They include thecelempungof theMalay Peninsula,talempungof northernSumatra,caklempungof central Sumatra,chalempungof southern Sumatra,bonangof Java,kromongof westernKalimantan,engkromongofSarawak, andtrompongof westernNusa Tenggara.
In eastern Island Southeast Asia, these traditions are known askulintangand are centred inMindanaoand theSulu archipelagoof the southern Philippines. They include thekulintanganofSabahandPalawan,kolintangof northernSulawesi,kulintangofHalmaheraandTimor, andtotobuangof the southernMaluku Islands.
The ancestral pre-AustronesianLiangzhu culture(3400–2250 BCE) of theYangtze Riverdelta was one of the ancient centres ofNeolithicjadecarving. Jade was spread to Taiwan by around 3,000 BCE, then further into the Philippines at 2,000 BCE and Vietnam at 1,800–1,500 BCE. All of them began to produce various tools and ornaments in indigenous jade workshops, includingadzes, bracelets, beads, and rings.
The most notable jade products of these regions were the vast amounts ofpenannular(in the form of an incomplete circle) and double-headed earrings and pendants known aslingling-o, primarily produced in the Philippines and theSa Huỳnh cultureof Vietnam, mostly with raw jade material sourced from eastern Taiwan. These typically depicted two-headed animals or were ring-shaped with side projections. They were indicative of a very active ancient maritime trading region, known as theSa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere, that imported and exported raw jade and finished jade ornaments. They were produced during a period from 500 BCE to as late as 1000 CE, although later examples were replaced with metal, wood, bone, clay, greenmica, blacknephrite, or shell materials, rather than green jade.
Polished and ground stone adzes,gouges, and other implements, some of which are made from jade-like stone, have also been recorded in areas ofIsland Melanesiaand easternNew Guineaassociated with theLapita culture. These were considered valuable currency and were primarily used to trade for goods.In 2012, a Lapitajadeitegouge used for wood carving was found onEmirau Islandin theBismarck Archipelago. It was dated to around 3,300 BCE, but the origin of the jade material is unknown.Similar stone tools have also been found inNew Caledonia.
Jade was absent in most ofRemote Oceania, due to the lack of deposits. However, there is putative evidence that Polynesians may have remained familiar with jade and may acquired it through prehistoric trade contacts with New Caledonia, Island Melanesia, and/or New Zealand.
Jade-carving traditions reappeared among theMāori peopleof New Zealand. These were produced from locally sourcedpounamu(greenstone) and were used to producetaonga(treasure). They include various tools and weapons like adzes, scrapers, fishing hooks, andmere, as well as ornaments like thehei-tikiandhei matau. Certain ornaments like thepekapeka(double-headed animal pendant) and thekākā pōria(bird leg ring) bear remarkably strong resemblances to the double-headed and ring-typelingling‑o.Bellwoodet al.(2011) has suggested that the reappearance of these motifs might be evidence of a preserved tradition of Southeast Asian jade motifs (perhaps carved in perishable wood, bone, or shell by Polynesians prior to the reacquisition of a jade source), or they might even be the result of laterIron Agecontact between eastern Polynesia and the Philippines.
There are approximately six to seven hundredrock artsites discovered in Southeast Asia andIsland Melanesia, as well as over eight hundredmegalithicsites. The sites specifically associated with the Austronesian expansion contain examples of indigenouspictogramsandpetroglyphs. Within Southeast Asia, the sites associated with Austronesians can be divided into three general rock art traditions: the Megalithic Culture ofBorneo,Sulawesi, and theGreater Sunda Islands; the Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT) of theLesser Sunda Islands, coastalNew Guinea, and Island Melanesia; and the Austronesian Engraving Style (AES) ofPapua New Guineaand Island Melanesia.Despite proximity, these traditions can be distinguished readily from theAustralo-Melanesianrock art traditions of Australia (except theTorres Strait Islands) as well as the interior highlands of New Guinea, indicating the borders of the extent of the Austronesian expansion.
Dating rock art is difficult, but some of the sites subjected todirect datingpre-date Austronesian arrival, like theLene Hara paintingsof East Timor, which have an age range of 6,300 to 26,000 BP. Conversely, others are more recent and can be dated indirectly by their subjects. The depictions of pottery, ships, and metal objects, for example, put certain rock art sites at a range of 2,000 to 4,000 BP. Some hunter-gatherer groups have also continued to produce rock art well into the present period, as evidenced by their modern subjects.
The Megalithic Culture is mostly limited to western Island Southeast Asia, with the greatest concentration being western Indonesia. While most sites are not dated, the age ranges of dating sites are between the 2nd and 16th centuries CE. They are divided into two phases: The first is an older megalithic tradition associated with the Neolithic Austronesian rectangular axe culture (2,500 to 1,500 BCE), while the second is the 3rd- or 4th-century BCE megalithic tradition associated with the (non-Austronesian)Dong Son cultureof Vietnam. Prasetyo (2006) suggests that the megalithic traditions are not originally Austronesian but rather innovations acquired through trade with India and China, but this has little to no evidence in the intervening regions in Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
The Austronesian Painting Traditions are the most common types of rock art in Island Southeast Asia. They consist of scenes and pictograms typically found in rock shelters and caves near coastal areas. They are characteristically rendered in redochrepigments for the earlier forms, later sometimes superseded by paintings done in black charcoal pigments. Their sites are mostly clustered inEastern Indonesiaand Island Melanesia, although a few examples can be found in the rest of Island Southeast Asia. Their occurrence has a high correlation to Austronesian-speaking areas, further evidenced by the appearance of bronze artifacts in the paintings. They are mostly found near the coastlines. Their common motifs include hand stencils, "sun-ray" designs, boats, and active human figures with headdresses or weapons and other paraphernalia. They also feature geometric motifs similar to those of the Austronesian Engraving Style.Some paintings are also associated with traces of human burials and funerary rites, includingship burials. The representations of boats themselves are believed to be connected to the widespread "ship of the dead" Austronesian funerary practices.
The earliest APT site dated is fromVanuatuand was found to be around 3,000 BP, corresponding to the initial migration wave of the Austronesians. These early sites are largely characterized by face motifs and hand stencils. Later sites, from 1,500 BP onwards, however, begin to show regional divergence in their art styles. APT can be readily distinguished from olderPleistocene-era Australo-Melanesian cave paintings by their motifs, color, and composition, though they can often be found in the same locality. The most recognizable motifs of APT (like boats) do not occur in cave paintings (or engravings) that definitely pre-date the Austronesian arrival—the sole exception being the stenciled hand motif. Some APT examples are also characteristically found in relatively inaccessible locations, including very high up in cliffsides overlooking the sea. No traces of APT have been found in Taiwan or the Philippines, though there is continuity in the motifs of spirals and concentric circles found in ancestral petroglyphs.
AES, which consists of petroglyphs carved into rock surfaces, is far less common than APT. The majority of these sites are in coastal New Guinea and Island Melanesia. AES sites, which can be tentatively traced back to the similarWanshan petroglyphsof Taiwan, are believed to be largely correlated to the prehistoric extent of theLapita culture. The common motif of this tradition is curvilinear geometric engravings like spirals, concentric circles, and face-like forms. These resemble the geometric motifs in APT, though they are considered to be two separate artistic traditions.AES is particularly dominant in theSolomon IslandsandNew Caledonia, where engravings are far more abundant than painted sites.
O'Connoret al.(2015) proposes that APT developed during the initial rapid southward Austronesian expansion, and not before, possibly as a response to the communication challenges brought about by the new maritime mode of living. Along with AES, these material symbols and associated rituals and technologies may have been manifestations of "powerful ideologies" spread by Austronesian settlers that were central to the "Neolithization" and rapid assimilation of the various non-Austronesian indigenous populations of ISEA and Melanesia.
The easternmost islands of Island Melanesia (Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia) are considered part ofRemote Oceania, as they are beyond the inter-island visibility threshold. These island groups begin to show divergence from the APT and AES traditions ofNear Oceania. While their art traditions show a clear continuation of the APT and AES traditions, they also feature innovations unique to each island group, like the increasing use of black charcoal, rectilinear motifs, and being more commonly found inside sacred caves rather than on open cliffsides.
In Micronesia, the rock art traditions can be divided into three general regions: western, central, and eastern. The divisions reflect the various major migration waves from the Philippines into theMariana IslandsandPalauin 3,500 BP; a Lapita culture back-migration from Island Melanesia into central and eastern Micronesia around 2,200 BP; and finally, a back-migration from western Polynesia into eastern Micronesia around 1,000 BP.
In western Micronesia (Palau, Yap, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands), rock art primarily consists of paintings on high cave ceilings and sea-facing cliffs. It is very similar to APT in terms of its motifs as well as its placement in relatively inaccessible locations. Common motifs include hand stencils, faces, turtles and fish, concentric circles, and characteristic four-pointed stars. Petroglyphs are rare and mainly consist of human forms with triangular bodies without heads or arms. This is believed to be connected to the funerary rite of removing the heads from the bodies of deceased relatives.A notable megalithic tradition in western Micronesia are thehaligistone pillars of theChamorro people. These are capped stone pillars that are believed to have served as supports for raised buildings. They are associated with the Latte period (900 to 1700 CE), when a new wave of migrants from Southeast Asia reintroducedrice cultivationto the islands. Another megalithic tradition is that of therai stones, massive doughnut-shaped discs of rock that were used as currency on Yap.
Rock art in central Micronesia (Chuuk,Pohnpei, andKosrae), in contrast, is dominated by rock engravings with motifs tying it to the rock art traditions of Island Melanesia. They include curvilinear shapes like spirals and concentric circles, tree-like shapes, and the distinctive "enveloped cross" motif. ThePohnpaid petroglyphsare the largest assemblage of rock engravings in the region, with motifs dominated by footprints, enveloped crosses, and outlined "sword-paddles".Central Micronesia also hosts the ruins of the stone cities ofNan Madol(1,180–1,200 CE) andLeluh(1,200–1,800 CE), on the islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae, respectively.
In the low-lyingatollsof eastern Micronesia, rock art is rare-to-nonexistent, due to the absence of suitable rock surfaces for painting or engraving.
In Polynesia, rock art is dominated by petroglyphs, rather than paintings, and they show less variation than the rock art of Near Oceania and ISEA. In the western Polynesian islands nearest to Island Melanesia, rock art is rare (like inTongaandSamoa) or absent entirely (like in theCook Islands). However, petroglyphs are abundant on the islands in the further reaches of the Polynesian triangle, particularly on Hawaii, theMarquesas, andRapa Nui. Rapa Nui has the densest concentration of engravings in Polynesia as a whole, while thePuʻuloa petroglyphssite on Hawaii has the largest number of petroglyphs in a single site, at over 21,000 engravings.Polynesia also features megalithic sacred ceremonial centres generally known asmarae.
On Tonga and Samoa, the existing rock art sites consist mostly of engravings with motifs including curvilinear shapes, human figures, "jellyfish", turtles, birds, and footprints. These are typically carved in natural rock formations ormaraesites.
In the central-eastern Polynesian islands, which include the Marquesas and theSociety Islands, petroglyphs are more numerous. They show the archetypal Polynesian motifs of turtles, faces, cup-like depressions (cupules), stick-like human figures, boats, fish, curvilinear shapes, and concentric circles. Like in western Polynesia, they are typically carved intomaraesites or in rocks beside streams. The existing rock paintings also display the same motifs but are rendered in different styles.
On the Hawaiian islands, the abundant petroglyphs are remarkably all similar in execution. Their common subjects include stick-like human figures, dogs, boats, sails, paddles, footprints, and ceremonial headdresses. Depictions of marine life, however, are rare, unlike in the rest of Polynesia. They are typically carved into boulders, lava rock formations, and cliffsides. Red paintings of dogs on cliffsides and caves can also be found onKauʻaiandMaui.The megalithic traditions of Hawaii can be exemplified by theheiausacred sites, which can range from simple earth terraces to standing stones.
On Rapa Nui, the engravings are distinctive but still show similarities to the techniques and motifs of the Marquesas. Their motifs commonly include disembodied parts of the human body (vulvaein particular), animals, plants, ceremonial objects, and boats. A prominent motif is also that of the "birdman" figure, which is associated with thetangata manucult ofMakemake. The best-known rock art assemblage of Rapa Nui, however, are themoaimegaliths. A few paintings, mostly of birds and boats, have also been discovered, which are associated with the engravings, rather than being separate artforms.
The rock art in New Zealand can be divided into two regions.North Islandfeatures more engravings than paintings, whileSouth Islandis unique in that it is the only Polynesian island where there are more paintings than engravings. New Zealand rock paintings are done in red and black pigments and can sometimes be found at inaccessible heights. They typically depict human figures (particularly a front-facing human figure with flexed arms), birds, lizards, dogs, fish, and what has been identified as "birdmen". Engravings in open spaces like cliffsides are generally of spirals and curvilinear shapes, while engravings in enclosed caves and shelters depict faces and boats. The same motifs can also be seen indendroglyphson living trees.
Body artamong Austronesian peoples is common, especially elaboratetattooing, which is one of the most well-known pan-Austronesian traditions.
In modern times, tattoos are usually associated with Polynesian culture, due to the highly influential accounts ofJames Cookin his explorations of the Pacific in the 18th century. Cook introduced the word "tattoo" (archaic: "tattaow", "tattow") into the English vocabulary fromTahitianandSamoantātau("to tap"). However, tattoos existed prominently in various other Austronesian groups prior to contact with other cultures.
Tattoos had various functions among Austronesian societies. Among men, they were strongly linked to the widespread practice ofhead-huntingraids. In head-hunting societies, tattoos were records of how many heads the warrior had taken in battle, and they were part of theinitiation ritesinto adulthood. The number and location of tattoos, therefore, were indicative of a warrior's status and prowess.
Among theIndigenous Taiwanese, tattoos were present for both men and women. Among theTayal, facial tattoos were dominant. They indicated maturity and skill in weaving and farming for women and skill in hunting and battle for men. As in most of Austronesia, tattooing traditions in Taiwan have largely disappeared due to theSinicizationof native peoples after theChinese colonizationof the island in the 17th century, as well as conversion toChristianity. Most of the remaining tattoos are only found among elders.
One of the earliest descriptions of Austronesian tattoos by Europeans was during the 16th-centurySpanish expeditions to the Philippines, beginning with thefirst voyage of circumnavigationbyFerdinand Magellan. The Spanish encountered the heavily tattooedVisayan peoplein theVisayas Islands, whom they named thePintados(Spanish for "the painted ones").However, Philippine tattooing traditions (batok) have mostly been lost as the natives of the islands converted to Christianity andIslam, though they are still practiced in isolated groups in the highlands ofLuzonandMindanao. Philippine tattoos were usually geometric patterns or stylized depictions of animals, plants, and human figures.Some of the few remaining traditional tattoos in the Philippines are among elders of theIgorotpeoples. Most of these were records of war exploits against the Japanese duringWorld War II.
Among theMāoriof New Zealand, tattoos (moko) were originally carved into the skin using bone chisels (uhi) rather than through puncturing, as in usual practice.In addition to being pigmented, the skin was also left raised into ridges of swirling patterns.
Teeth blackeningwas the custom of dyeing one's teeth black with varioustannin-rich plant dyes. It was practiced throughout almost the entire range of Austronesia, including Island Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Island Melanesia, reaching as far east asMalaita. However, it was absent in Polynesia. It also existed in non-Austronesian populations in Mainland Southeast Asia and Japan. The practice was primarily preventative, as it reduced the chances of developingtooth decay, similar to moderndental sealants. It also had cultural significance and was seen as beautiful. A common sentiment was that blackened teeth separated humans from animals.
Teeth blackening was often done in conjunction with other modifications to the teeth associated with beauty standards, includingdental evulsionandfiling.
The religious traditions of the Austronesian people focus mostly on ancestral spirits, nature spirits, and gods, making it a complexanimisticreligion. Mythologies vary by culture and geographical location but share common basic aspects, such asancestor worship, animism,shamanism, and the belief in aspirit worldand powerful deities.There is also a great amount of shared mythology and a common belief inMana.
Many of these beliefs have gradually been replaced. Examples of native religions include:Indigenous Philippine folk religions(including beliefs inAnito),Sunda Wiwitan,Kejawen,Kaharingan, andMāori religion. Many Austronesian religious beliefs have been incorporated into foreign religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, which Austronesian peoples were introduced to later.
With the possible exception ofrongorongoonRapa Nui, Austronesians did not have an indigenous writing system but rather adopted or developed writing systems after contact with various non-Austronesian cultures.There existed various forms of symbolic communication usingpictograms and petroglyphs, but these did not encode language.
Rongorongo, said to have originally been calledkohau motu mo rongorongo("lines of inscriptions for chanting out"), is the only pre-contact indigenous Austronesian system of glyphs that appear to be true writing or at leastproto-writing. They consist of around 120 glyphs, ranging from representations of plants to animals, celestial objects, and geometric shapes. They were inscribed into wooden tablets about 12 to 20 in (30 to 51 cm) long using shark teeth and obsidian flakes. The wood allegedly came fromtoromiroandmakoʻitrees, which is notable given that Rapa Nui was completely deforested at thetime of European contact. Of the surviving two dozen tablets, a few were made from trees introduced after European contact, as well as wood originating from European ships anddriftwood.Rapa Nui also has a rich assemblage ofpetroglyphslargely associated with thetangata manu("birdman") cult ofMakemake. Although some rongorongo glyphs may have been derived from these petroglyphs, rongorongo does not appear in any of the abundant rock carvings in Rapa Nui and seems to be restricted to the wooden tablets.
The tablets were first described by an outsider in 1864 by the Catholic missionaryEugène Eyraud, who said they were found "in all the houses". However, he paid them little attention, and they remained unnoticed by the outside world. It wasn't until 1869 that one of the tablets came into the possession ofFlorentin-Étienne Jaussen, theBishop of Tahiti. He brought the tablets to the world's attention and instructed the Rapa Nui mission to gather more information about them. But by then, most of the tablets were allegedly already destroyed, presumed to have been used as fuel by the natives on the deforested island.
At the time of discovery of the tablets, Rapa Nui had undergone severe depopulation. This was largely due to the loss of the island's last trees and the Peruvian and Chileanslave raidsin the early 1860s. The literate ruling classes of theRapa Nui people(including the royal family and the religious caste) and the majority of the island's population were kidnapped or killed in the slave raids. Most of those taken died after only one or two years in captivity from harsh working conditions and European diseases. Succeeding epidemics ofsmallpoxandtuberculosisfurther decimated the island's population to the point that there were not enough people to bury the dead. The last remnants of the Rapa Nui people were assimilated by theTahitianswho were later brought to the island in an effort to repopulate it, further resulting in the loss of most of the OldRapa Nui language.
Oral tradition holds that the ruling classes were the only ones who could read the tablets, and the ability to decipher the tablets was lost along with them. Numerous attempts have been made to read the tablets, starting from a few years after their discovery. But to this day, none have proven successful. Some authors have proposed that rongorongo may have been an attempt to imitate European script after the idea of writing was introduced during the "signing" of the1770 Spanish Treaty of Annexationor through knowledge of European writing acquired elsewhere. They cite various reasons, including the lack of attestation of rongorongo prior to the 1860s, the clearly more recent provenance of some of the tablets, the lack of antecedents, and the lack of additional archaeological evidence since its discovery. Others argue that it was merely amnemoniclist of symbols meant to guide incantations. Whether rongorongo is merely an example oftrans-cultural diffusionor a true indigenous Austronesian writing system (and one of the few independent inventions of writing in human history) remains unknown.
In Southeast Asia, the first true writing systems of pre-modern Austronesian cultures were all derived from theGranthaandPallavaBrahmic scripts, all of which areabugidasfrom South India. Various forms of abugidas spread throughout Austronesian cultures in Southeast Asia as kingdoms becameIndianizedthrough early maritime trading. The oldest use of abugida scripts in Austronesian cultures are 4th-century stone inscriptions written inCham, from Vietnam. There are numerous other Brahmic-derived writing systems among Southeast Asian Austronesians, usually specific to a certain ethnic group. Notable examples includeBalinese,Batak,Baybayin,Buhid,Hanunó'o,Javanese,Kulitan,Lontara,Old Kawi,Rejang,Rencong,Sundanese, andTagbanwa. They vary from having letters with rounded shapes to characters with sharpcuneiform-like angles, as a result of the difference in writing mediums, with the former being ideal for writing on soft leaves and the latter on bamboo panels. The use of the scripts ranged from mundane records to encoding esoteric knowledge onmagico-religiousrituals andfolk medicine.
In regions that converted to Islam,abjadsderived from theArabic scriptstarted replacing the earlier abugidas at around the 13th century in Southeast Asia.Madagascaradopted the Arabic script in the 14th century. Abjads, however, have an even greater inherent problem with encoding Austronesian languages than abugidas, because Austronesian languages have more varied and salientvowels that the Arabic script usually cannot encode. As a result, the Austronesian adaptations such as theJawiand thePegon scriptshave been modified with a system ofdiacriticsthat encode sounds, both vowels and consonants, native to Austronesian languages but absent inSemitic ones.With the advent of theColonial Era, almost all of these writing systems have been replaced with alphabets adapted from theLatin, as in theHawaiian,Filipino, andMalay alphabet. However, several Formosan languages had been written inzhuyin, andCia-CiaoffSulawesihas experimented withhangul.
OnWoleaiand surrounding islands, ascriptwas developed for theWoleaian languagein the early 20th century. Approximately 20% of the script's letterforms were borrowed from Latin letters; the remaining characters seem to have been derived from indigenous iconography. Despite this heavy Latin influence, the script was asyllabary.
Vanuatuhas a unique tradition ofsand drawing, in which images are created by a single continuous line drawn in the sand. It is believed to have functioned as a means of symbolic communication in pre-contactIsland Melanesia, especially between travelers and ethnic groups that do not speak the same language. The sand drawings consist of around 300 different designs and seem to be shared across language groups.In the 1990s, elements of the drawings were adapted into a modernconstructed scriptcalledAvoiuliby theTuraga indigenous movementonPentecost Island.
Genetic studies have been conducted on Austronesian peoples.Haplogroup O1a, marked by the M119SNP, is frequently detected inNative Taiwaneseand people of the northern Philippines as well as some people in Indonesia, Malaysia, and non-Austronesian populations insouthern China.A 2007 analysis of the DNA recovered from human remains in archaeological sites of prehistoric peoples along theYangtze Riverin China also shows high frequencies of Haplogroup O1 in the NeolithicLiangzhu culture, linking them to Austronesian andTai-Kadaipeoples. The Liangzhu culture existed in coastal areas around themouth of the Yangtze. Haplogroup O1 was absent in other archaeological sites inland. The authors of the study suggest that this may be evidence of two different human migration routes during the peopling of Eastern Asia; one coastal and the other inland, with little gene flow between them.
An important breakthrough in studies in Austronesian genetics was the identification of the "Polynesian motif" (haplogroup B4a1a1) in 1989, a specific nine-base-pair deletion mutation inmitochondrial DNA. Several studies have shown that it is shared by Polynesians and Island Southeast Asians,with a sub-branch also identified in Madagascar, indicating shared maternal ancestry among Austronesians.Austronesian-speaking regions also have high-to-moderate frequencies of Haplogroup O1 of theY-DNA(including Madagascar), indicating shared paternal ancestry, with the exception of Polynesia where thePapuan-derived Haplogroup C2a1 predominates (although lower frequencies of AustronesianHaplogroup O-M122also exist). This indicates that theLapita people, the direct ancestors of Polynesians, were likelymatrilocal, assimilating Papuan men from outside the community by marriage in Near Oceania, prior to the Polynesian expansion into Remote Oceania.
Moodleyet al.(2009) identified two distinct populations of thegut bacteriaHelicobacter pylorithat accompanied human migrations into Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, called hpSahul and hspMāori. The study sampled Native Australians, Native Taiwanese, highlanders in New Guinea, and Melanesians and Polynesians in New Caledonia, which were then compared with otherH. pylorihaplotypes from Europeans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and others. They found that hpSahul diverged from mainland AsianH. pyloripopulations approximately 31,000 to 37,000 years ago and have remained isolated for 23,000 to 32,000 years, confirming theAustralo-Melanesiansubstratum in Island Southeast Asia and New Guinea. hspMāori, on the other hand, is a subpopulation of hpEastAsia, previously isolated from Polynesians (Māori, Tongans, Samoans) in New Zealand, and three individuals from the Philippines and Japan. The study found hspMāori from Native Taiwanese, Melanesians, Polynesians, and two inhabitants from the Torres Strait Islands, all of which are Austronesian sources. As expected, hspMāori showed greatest genetic diversity in Taiwan, while all non-Taiwanese hspMāori populations belonged to a single lineage they called the "Pacific clade". They also calculated the isolation-with-migration model (IMa), which showed that the divergence of the Pacific clade of hspMāori was unidirectional from Taiwan to the Pacific. This is consistent with the Out-of-Taiwan model of Austronesian expansion.
On 16 January 2020, thepersonal genomicscompany23andMeadded the category "Filipino & Austronesian" after customers with no known Filipino ancestors were getting false positives for 5% or more "Filipino" ancestry in their ancestry composition report (the proportion was as high as 75% inSamoa, 71% inTonga, 68% inGuam, 18% in Hawaii, and 34% in Madagascar). The company's scientists surmised that this was due to the shared Austronesian genetic heritage being incorrectly identified as Filipino ancestry.
A study about the ancestral composition of modern ethnic groups in the Philippines from 2021 similarly suggests that distinctiveAncient East-Eurasianancestry originated in Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000 BCE and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards, respectively. Mamanwa-related ancestry as well as later Austroasiatic ancestry from Mainland Southeast Asia, arrived into the Philippines prior to the Austronesian expansion. Austronesian speakers themselves are suggested to have arrived in Taiwan and the northern Philippines between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago from coastalFujian. The authors concluded that the Austronesian expansion into Island Southeast Asia and Polynesia was outgoing from the Philippines rather than Taiwan and that modern Austronesian-speaking people mostly have ancestry from the earliest Basal-Asians, Austroasiatic migrants from Mainland Southeast Asia, and Austronesian-speaking seafarers from the Philippines.
The Austronesian migrations were accompanied by a set ofdomesticated, semi-domesticated, and commensal plants and animalstransported viaoutrigger shipsandcatamaransthat enabled early Austronesians to thrive in their mostly island environments.These includecropsandanimalsbelieved to have originated from theHemuduandMajiabang culturesin the hypothetical pre-Austronesian homelands in mainland China,as well as other plants and animals believed to have been first domesticated from within Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, and New Guinea.Some of these plants are sometimes also known as "canoe plants", especially in the context of Polynesian migrations.They provide another source of evidence for Austronesian population movements.
Notable examples of these crops includecoconuts,bananas,rice,sugarcane,paper mulberry(tapa tree),breadfruit,taro,ube,areca nut(including the practice ofbetel chewing),ginger,turmeric,candlenut,pandan,andcitruses.Thecultivation of sweet potatoes in Polynesiamay also be evidence of prehistoric Austronesian contact with the Americas, though this remains disputed.The domesticated animals carried in Austronesian voyages include dogs,pigs,and chickens.
Austronesians also introduced these crops and domesticated animals westward via trade links. Island Southeast Asians establishedspice tradelinks with theDravidian-speakingregions inSri LankaandSouthern Indiaby around 1500 to 600 BCE.These early contacts resulted in the introduction of Austronesian crops and material culture to South Asia,includingbetel nut chewing, coconuts,sandalwood, domesticated bananas,sugarcane,cloves, andnutmeg.South Asian crops like themung beanandhorsegramwere also present in Southeast Asia by 400–100 BCE, indicating the exchange was reciprocal.
There is also indirect evidence of very early Austronesian contacts with Africa, based on the presence and spread of Austronesian domesticates like bananas,taro, chickens, andpurple yamin Africa in the first millennium BCE.
A genomic analysis in 2020 showed Austronesian contact with South America around 1150–1200 CE, the earliest one being betweenFatu HivaandColombia.