8 - Pre-Austronesian Origins of Seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia

Summary

Introduction

Earliest sea crossings and offshore fishing in various parts of the world—including Taiwan, the supposed homeland of Austronesian languages—are dated in the period of rising seas, from the outgoing Pleistocene (c. 14,000 BP) until Mid Holocene, or later. But archaeological data to be cited below show that sea crossings and high-sea fishing in Insular Southeast Asia (henceforth ISEA) must have begun at least three times earlier (c. 45,000 BP). When people elsewhere just began developing seaworthy watercraft, equatorial populations retreating before the rising seas in ISEA were likely to have already accumulated tens of millennia of experience, so it is only natural to expect that innovations in the construction of such watercraft originated from there.

In this process of constructional innovation, the raft—the primeval watercraft—was likely to have been replaced by a multiple dugout—a “raft” with dugouts instead of logs—and then a double canoe, when improved construction of dugouts, and perhaps also smaller loads, made more than two hulls superfluous. I cite evidence elsewhere (Mahdi 2016) indicating that Chinese as well as Malayo-Polynesian (henceforth MP) shipping had developed from a double canoe. However, as this latter was not a primeval watercraft construction, it was likely to have been acquired from the very equatorial populations—apparently ancestors of present-day Negritos—who, retreating before the rising seas, also brought it northwards from ISEA to Fujian, and subsequently to Taiwan.

I will cite biogenetic data which place populations of Taiwan and ISEA closer to one another than either of them to that of the Chinese mainland. These data have even led to theories, to be cited below, of an equatorial origin of the Austronesians. Nevertheless, linguistic studies will also be cited, which indicate that the reconstructable corpus of Proto-Austronesian shares a significant number of elements with language phyla of the mainland. At the same time, one can distinguish two distinct protoforms for “person”, depending on whether of Australoid or Mongoloid appearance. The first migration wave of Malayo-Polynesians apparently referred to themselves as the former (Mahdi 1994; 2016).

Available archaeological and other data to be discussed below suggest development of a maritime mercantile tradition in the South China Sea, connecting Mainland Southeast Asia (henceforth MSEA) with the Philippines, and Southeast China and Taiwan with ISEA.