Austronesian cultural origins: Out of Taiwan, via the Batanes Islands, and onwards to Western Polynesia

Abstract

In 1988, Jared Diamond wrote a much-quoted article in which he compared the Austronesian dispersal from South-east Asia into Oceania to the rapid movement of an express train (Diamond 1988). This view was based on archaeological evidence, and Diamond did not specify a particular homeland for the Austronesians. He noted that any suggestion of China or Taiwan could, at that time, only be speculative. Since 1988, a large literature has arisen in which the chronological concept of an ‘express train’ has somehow become conflated with the geographical concept of an Austronesian homeland in Taiwan. This circumstance, for which Diamond cannot be blamed, has led to a situation of confusion. The term ‘Express Train’ should now be dropped from the Austronesian debate. The hypothesis that we espouse is better termed the ‘Out of Taiwan hypothesis for Austronesian dispersal’ (Bellwood and Dizon 2005).

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