The story of the settlement of the western section of the Pacific Ocean actually started some 40,000 years ago when Stone Age humans migrated south from Asia, eventually settling most of south east Asia, New Guinea and then Australia. But as far as is known, they did not venture further out into the empty Pacific Ocean, apart from the nearby islands. Today these people are known as the "Austroloid" people, who had a distinctive language.
Much later around 4000 BCE (Before Christian Era) for reasons now unknown, groups of Mongoloid people began to leave Southern China and crossed the Taiwan Strait to Taiwan - 130 km of open water. Which means that they had already learned to make sea-going canoes. They left behind good polished stone adzes quite suitable for hollowing out canoes, as well as pig, dog and chicken bones and red clay pottery.
These adventurous people began to slowly move south, following land masses where they could and using some form of canoes or rafts to cross expanses of water when necessary. Sometimes they displaced the earlier Austroloid settlers or perhaps sometimes they intermarried with them before some again moved on.
They spread down through south east Asia, through the Philippines and reached Sumatra about 2000 BCE and Timor by around 2500 BCE. ( ref. Diamond: "guns, germs and steel', 1998).
As far as is known, these Stone Age explorers did not settle in New Guinea nor Australia. Instead they began to move across the seas to explore further east, skirting to the north of New Guinea, apparently mixing with the long settled Melanesian peoples as they progressed east. Another group turned west and eventually populated the island of Madagascar around the time of Christ.
These remarkable explorers who sailed to the east reached New Caledonia and the Solomons by 1200 BCE, the Hawaiian Islands and Easter Island by 500 BCE and the Marquesas by AD 1 and finally New Zealand by 1000 AD.
Today these people are known to archaeologists as speakers of the "Austronesian" language, and their progress has been confirmed by the traces of pig, dog and fish bones, stone adzes and their distinctive red pottery, now referred to as "Lapita" pottery, possibly named after the first place it was found: Lapita in New Caledonia. Another implement they used and which has been found was the 'Bark Beater', used to pound bark from certain trees to make woven clothing.
Recent DNA studies of today's Polynesian peoples have shown that they have a dual genetic origin: Asian and Melanesian. (ref. Manfred Kayser al: "Melanesian and Asian Origins of Polynesians," 2006)
There are two theories about the rate that the Austronesians moved eastward. The "Slow Boat" theory holds that they moved slowly, mixing with local people they found before eventually moving on. The "Fast Boat" theory says that the migration moved quickly, as waves of explorers moved ever eastward, island hopping as they went. Perhaps the "Slow Boat" theory fits best, because of the mixed DNA as mentioned above.
They sailed further east than anyone had ever done, and as they did so they found uninhabited islands all over the vast Pacific Ocean, thus having the rare pleasure of settling some of the most beautiful islands on earth.
If you would like more information about the spread of humans throughout the world, please visit the Ecotao site , and a very comprehensive project carried out by the National University of Singapore can be viewed as a pdf at The Lionhearts of the Pacific .
No comments:
Post a Comment