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Spread

Range

Source: TW

While today spread across the Archipelago and the Pacific Island world, it seems the proto-Austronesian originated in the middle Yangtze River region in the Neolithic. Their journey from there all the way to New Zealand and Hawai is rather is one of the most peculiar in human history.

Be it the Maori or the Moriori, whom they ate up, have their ultimate roots here. Today and in the past the Austronesians showed a remarkable spectrum of subsistence: some in the early neolithic state, some long-range seamen destroying island wildlife as they coursed along, and some who played a central role in the development of Archipelago Hindu dharma.

Old tongue and back-flow

But the ancient Austronesian tongue has vanished in this Urheimat. The Chamic Austronesian languages found in Southeast Asia and China (e.g., Tsat) are more derived than the basal Formosan branch of Austronesian and also the Nicobarese branch that reached the Nicobar islands of India. Thus, they appear to have secondarily dispersed back to the Asian mainland, rather than being a remnant of that old Austronesian. That completes tracing the history of PAN back to the mainland.

In terms of higher-order relationships, their Figure 2B suggests that genetic affinities are possibly more compatible with a higher-order relationship between the Kra-Dai = Tai-Kadai family (e.g., Thai, Lao, and Zhuang) than an Austric clade linking Austroasiatic and Austronesian. However, they could all have a remote higher grouping, like some kind of East-Asiatic proposed by some workers.

Island fauna loss

Source: TW

The Austronesians were one of the most destructive forces for island fauna across the southern arc. They destroyed 9 species of Moa in about 100 years in New Zealand and 4 species of elephant birds over 500-800 years in Madagascar. They probably had far greater trouble penetrating the entire length of Madagascar.