Early oceanic linguistic prehistory:A Reassessment∗

Abstract

languages of Oceania are descended from a single proto language, known as Proto Oceanic (POC).1 A number of prehistorians associate POC and its early daughter languages with the Lapita cultural complex.2 But no agreement has been reached on whether the early Austronesian speakers moved fairly rapidly from island southeast Asia through Melanesia into the further reaches of the Pacific or whether they lingered for an extended period in a 'homeland' in the Bismarck Archipelago.8 Also problematic is whether the Austronesian speakers arrived in the Bismarcks with the major ingredients of the Lapita cultural com plex, including pottery, or whether the 'basic human adaptation to the Pacific Island world occurred in the Bismarck Archipelago'.4 Linguistic research has yet to throw any clear light on these problems. However, the findings presented in this paper, based on research5 into 140 languages representative of the 210 or so Oceanic (Austronesian) languages located in Papua New Guinea and the western Solomons (henceforth western Melanesia, abbreviated WM), do provide evi dence about the location of the Proto Oceanic homeland and early migrations of Austronesian-speakers into the Pacific, as well as the sequence of settlement in WM. This sequence seems to have been somewhat more complex than previous investigators have suggested.

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