Reconnecting Genes, Languages and Material Culture in Island Southeast Asia: Aphorisms on Geography and History

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Denham ◽  
Mark Donohue
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Human Genetics ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Multidisciplinary Data ◽  
History Of

The Holocene history of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) is dominated by the ‘Out-of-Taiwan’ hypothesis and derivatives, such as the spread of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic. According to these ideas, approximately 4500–4000 years ago, farmer-voyagers from Taiwan migrated southward into ISEA to subsequently acculturate, assimilate or displace pre-existing inhabitants. These processes are considered to have produced a consilience between human genetics, Austronesian languages and the archaeological record within ISEA, although recurrent critiques have questioned these putative correspondences. These critiques have proposed that each line of evidence should be independently evaluated and considered, rather than assumed to correspond. In this paper, the authors advocate a fuller engagement with and a deeper understanding of the spatial and temporal processes that structure archaeological, genetic and linguistic distributions within Island Southeast Asia. Geography and history are often marginalized in discussions of the Holocene history of ISEA, yet both are fundamental to the interpretation and reconciliation of multidisciplinary data within the region. These themes are discussed using aphorisms that are designed to be illustrative, namely to promote thought and reflection, rather than to be comprehensive.

Patterns of dispersal and diversification in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-115
Author(s):  
Marian Klamer ◽  
Mily Crevels ◽  
Pieter Muysken
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Structural Homogeneity ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
History Of ◽  
Large Families ◽  
Background Considerations

This chapter presents some background considerations relevant to the patterns of language dispersal and diversification in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania. First an overview of languages and language families is given, including three large families—the widely dispersed Austronesian family, the Trans New Guinea (TNG) family in New Guinea, and the Pama-Nyungan family in Australia—as well as many smaller families and isolates. Then the main distinctive typological features of Austronesian languages, New Guinea and Australia are presented. Australia shows surprising structural homogeneity when compared to New Guinea and even to Austronesian. Subsequent sections cover the history of the study of the languages in the region, the history of the region itself, and issues for further research, including the mechanisms in the spread of Austronesian and the language development of New Guinea. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of the chapters in the book regarding the region.

The “Austronesian” Dispersal in Island Southeast Asia

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Denham
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Distance Decay ◽  
Global History ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Cultivation Practices

The dispersal of Austronesian-speaking farmer-voyagers from Taiwan into Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and out into the Pacific is one of the great metanarratives of global history. In this chapter, the major lines of multidisciplinary evidence for the “Austronesian” dispersal into ISEA are critically evaluated. Several key points emerge: usage of the term “Austronesian” should be restricted to languages and not be applied to genetic attributes or material culture; the dispersals of genes and Austronesian languages do not correspond within ISEA; and, there is limited evidence for the dispersal of farming across ISEA together with the spread of Austronesian languages from Taiwan. An alternative, multidirectional, distance-decay scenario is advanced for the spread of domesticated animals and plants, cultivation practices, and other material cultural items, in which the inhabitants of ISEA are active participants in the creation of their own history.

The dating of the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic: an attempt at chronometric hygiene and linguistic correlation

Antiquity ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (240) ◽  
pp. 587-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Spriggs
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Agricultural Crops ◽  
Agricultural Economy ◽  
Island Southeast Asia

As with conventional definitions of the Neolithic anywhere, the concept in this region relies on there being an agricultural economy, the traces of which are largely indirect. These traces are artefacts interpreted as being linked to agriculture, rather than direct finds of agricultural crops, which are rare in Island Southeast Asia. This definition by artefacts is inevitably polythetic, particularly because many of the sites which have been investigated are hardly comparable. We can expect quite different assemblages from open village sites as opposed to special use sites such as burial caves, or frequentation caves that are used occasionally either by agriculturalists while hunting or by gatherer-hunter groups in some form of interaction with near-by agricultural populations. And rarely is a full range of these different classes of sites available in any one area.

The role of contact and language shift in the spread of Austronesian languages across Island Southeast Asia

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-194
Author(s):  
Mark Donohue ◽  
Tim Denham
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Austronesian Languages ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
South West ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
European Colonization

The spread of modern humans into and across Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific represents the earliest confirmed dispersal of humans across a marine environment, and involved numerous associated technologies that indicate sophisticated societies on the move. The later spread of ‘Austronesian’ over the region shows language replacement on a scale that is reminiscent of the period of state-sponsored European colonization, and yet the Austronesian languages present a typological profile that is more diverse than any other large language family. These facts require investigation. This chapter examines the separate, but intertwined, histories of the region. It shows that the dispersal of Austronesian languages, originating in Taiwan, should not be portrayed as a technological and demographic steamroller. This involves discussion of the nature of pre-Austronesian society and language in the south-west Pacific, and the degree to which it has and has not changed following ‘Austronesianization’.

Networks and Synchronisms in Southeast Asian History

1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denys Lombard
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Main Difficulty ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
History Of ◽  
Asian History

It is truly not easy to write a “well integrated” history of Southeast Asia. If today, anybody feels such a necessity, the procedure is far from obvious, and thus the utility of using a special issue such as the present one to take stock of the situation is quite evident. The main difficulty is in fact to transcend the heaviness of regional, colonial and then nationalistic histories which have strongly partitioned off the historical space.

Southeast Asian Hua-Ch'iao in Chinese History-Writing

1981 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wang Gungwu
Keyword(s):  
Social Science ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Full Scale ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Chinese Descent ◽  
History Of

The number of scholarly books and articles on the Chinese in Southeast Asia has increased so rapidly during this century that it would be useful to examine some of the trends in writing and put the results into some historical perspective. For example, there have been the early writings by Chinese in China and by various colonial officials of the region; then came writings by Southeast Asian Chinese themselves, whether in Chinese or in some local or colonial language; and more recently, the work of specialist scholars trained in social science disciplines, including the work of local scholars whether of Chinese descent or not. There is scope for a full-scale study of the whole range of historical works and it is hoped that the study will be attempted soon. This essay is a preliminary outline and focuses on writings in Chinese, especially those which help to mark some important turning-points both in the history of the Chinese communities and in the writing of history itself.

scholarly journals A HISTORY OF Hadrami COMMUNITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-188
Author(s):  
Imam Subchi
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Southeast Asian ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Asian Region ◽  
History Of

Hadrami-Arabs have played essential roles in Islamisation process across Southeast Asian region. This article diachronically examines the history of Hadrami community and their roles in islamisation. It looks at the dynamics, adaptation, and contestation of Islamisation in the region. This article offers actors-centered accounts of how the Hadrami community contributes to Islamic proselitisation activism (dakwah), politics, and contestation within the community. It further argues that, throughout the history of Hadrami in Southeast Asia, political adaptation and contestation have been essential elements that shape the current Islamic-scape in contemporary Southeast Asia.

scholarly journals Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50,000 years

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (13) ◽  
pp. e2026132118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maximilian Larena ◽  
Federico Sanchez-Quinto ◽  
Per Sjödin ◽  
James McKenna ◽  
Carlo Ebeo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Human Migration ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Rice Agriculture ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Genetic Landscape ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Taiwan Strait

Island Southeast Asia has recently produced several surprises regarding human history, but the region’s complex demography remains poorly understood. Here, we report ∼2.3 million genotypes from 1,028 individuals representing 115 indigenous Philippine populations and genome-sequence data from two ∼8,000-y-old individuals from Liangdao in the Taiwan Strait. We show that the Philippine islands were populated by at least five waves of human migration: initially by Northern and Southern Negritos (distantly related to Australian and Papuan groups), followed by Manobo, Sama, Papuan, and Cordilleran-related populations. The ancestors of Cordillerans diverged from indigenous peoples of Taiwan at least ∼8,000 y ago, prior to the arrival of paddy field rice agriculture in the Philippines ∼2,500 y ago, where some of their descendants remain to be the least admixed East Asian groups carrying an ancestry shared by all Austronesian-speaking populations. These observations contradict an exclusive “out-of-Taiwan” model of farming–language–people dispersal within the last four millennia for the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia. Sama-related ethnic groups of southwestern Philippines additionally experienced some minimal South Asian gene flow starting ∼1,000 y ago. Lastly, only a few lowlanders, accounting for <1% of all individuals, presented a low level of West Eurasian admixture, indicating a limited genetic legacy of Spanish colonization in the Philippines. Altogether, our findings reveal a multilayered history of the Philippines, which served as a crucial gateway for the movement of people that ultimately changed the genetic landscape of the Asia-Pacific region.

scholarly journals Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Leprosy and Yaws in the Indonesian Archipelago, 1500-1950

MANUSYA ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 20-41
Author(s):  
Peter Boomgaard
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Sexually Transmitted Diseases ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Island Southeast Asia ◽  
Indonesian Archipelago ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islam And Christianity ◽  
The Impact

This paper dexamines the history of sexually transmitted diseases in Southeast Asia and explores the origins of venereal disease, specifically syphilis and gonorrhoea, in the region. The arrival of new diseases that accompanied Europeans from about 1500, is a subject that scholars have largely ignored in favour of the 19th and 20th centuries. While concentrating on the Indonesian archipelago, the paper also considers to other parts of Southeast Asia to investigate the impact of syphilis and gonorrhoea on the rate of population growth in the region. Unlike gonorrhoea, which was present before the arrival of Europeans, syphilis was a new disease whose introduction by the Portuguese had lethal consequences. Possibly, the propagation of Islam and Christianity in island Southeast Asia after 1500 and of Buddhism in mainland Southeast Asia, were important mitigating factors in checking the spread of syphilis.

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