Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 223

Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia Reframing Austronesian History

by Mark Donohue and Tim Denham

Current portrayals of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) over the past 5,000 years are dominated by discussion of the Austronesian “farming/language dispersal,” with associated linguistic replacement, genetic clines, Neolithic “packages,” and social transformations. The alternative framework that we present improves our understanding of the nature of the Austronesian language dispersal from Taiwan and better accords with the population genetics, archaeological evidence, and crop domestication histories for ISEA. Genetic studies do not demonstrate that the dispersal of Austronesian languages through ISEA was associated with large-scale displacement, replacement, or absorption of preexisting populations. Linguistic phylogenies for Austronesian languages do not support staged movement from Taiwan through the Philippines into Indo-Malaysia; in addition, the lexical and grammatical structure of many Austronesian languages suggests significant interaction with pre-Austronesian languages and cultures of the region. Archaeological evidence, including domestication histories for major food plants, indicates that ISEA was a zone of considerable maritime interaction before the appearance of Austronesian languages. Material culture dispersed through ISEA from multiple sources along a mosaic of regional networks. The archaeological evidence helps us to shape a new interpretative framework of the social and historical processes that more parsimoniously accounts for apparent discrepancies between genetic phylogenies and linguistic distributions and allows for more nuanced models of the dispersal of technologies and societies without reference to the farming/language dispersal hypothesis.

The Current View of Austronesian (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984; Renfrew 1987) and that Dispersal across Island Southeast Asia of Bantu-language speakers across sub-Saharan Africa (Ehret 1998). In each case, an inclusive historical interpretation of Current portrayals of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) over the demic expansion, or the movement of farming peoples to- past 5,000 years are dominated by variants of the Austronesian gether with their languages and cultures, accounts for and dispersal hypothesis (e.g., Bellwood 1984–1985, 1997, 2005; links together present-day language distributions and human Bellwood, Fox, and Tryon 1995; Blust 1995; Diamond 2001; population genetics and the transformation and diffusion of Diamond and Bellwood 2003; Shutler and Marck 1975). The material culture through time. Although the consonance of Austronesian dispersal is cited as an archetypal example of a languages, genes, and cultures is increasingly qualified (Bell- purportedly global phenomenon, the farming/language dis- wood 2005, 2007), general correspondences among multidis- persal (Bellwood 2005; Bellwood and Renfrew 2002; Diamond ciplinary data remain a central tenet of the farming/language and Bellwood 2003). Other panregional examples include the dispersal hypothesis and underpin its explanatory power. spread of Indo-European-language speakers across Eurasia According to conventional wisdom, Austronesian lan- guages, along with their speakers and associated technologies, dispersed from Taiwan into the Philippines and Indo-Malaysia Mark Donohue is Research Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and, after largely bypassing New Guinea, moved into the Pa- at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies of Australian cific. The dispersal of these peoples is presumed to have been National University (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia [[email protected]]). Tim Denham is Monash Research accompanied and enabled by agricultural technologies, pri- Fellow at the School of Geography and Environmental Science of marily based on rice but including other plant domesticates Monash University (Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia). This paper and a suite of domesticated animals (pigs, dogs, and chickens), was submitted 24 VII 08 and accepted 12 XII 08. and other “Neolithic” cultural traits, including pottery and

᭧ 2010 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2010/5102-0004$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/650991 224 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 polished stone adzes (Bellwood 1997, 2005; Diamond 2001; during the spread of Austronesian languages and cultural in- Diamond and Bellwood 2003). Rice-based agriculture and fluences from Taiwan. other technologies are considered to have enabled the Aus- tronesians to colonize and, to varying degrees, replace pre- Human Population Genetics existing hunter-gatherer populations occupying ISEA (Bell- wood 1997, 2005; Diamond 2001). Linguistic reconstructions Bellwood (2002:17) asserts that “early farmers . . . frequently have been matched to archaeological chronologies to variously colonized outwards from homeland regions . . . in the process argue for staged and sequential migration from Taiwan to the spreading foundation trails of material culture, language, and Philippines beginning ca. 4,500–4,000 years ago, to eastern genetic distinctiveness.” To what extent is there a distinctive Indonesia by ca. 4,000–3,500 years ago, across the north of genetic trail among the current human populations of ISEA New Guinea to the Bismarck Archipelago (but largely ex- indicating that an Austronesian, or “out-of-Taiwan,” colo- cluding mainland New Guinea) by ca. 3,500–3,300 years ago, nization event occurred? This is not a simple question, since and to the Solomons and Vanuatu by ca. 3,100–3,000 years different genetic markers carry their own tales, and there are ago (Bedford 2006; Bellwood 2005; Blust 1995; Spriggs 2003, even questions about the extent to which we might expect a 2007). After this expansion, Austronesian speakers colonized genetic trail, or cline, to persist (e.g., Excoffier and Ray 2008). uninhabited islands over a vast area, including all of Micro- Care must be taken in the evaluation of genetic studies, nesia and Polynesia in the Pacific (Kirch 2000), areas that particularly to ensure that more than one marker is used, that show no clear evidence of prior human settlement. the historical implications of different genetic markers are Detractors of the Austronesian hypothesis of regional pre- properly understood (Hurles 2002), and that sampling cov- history as it applies to ISEA have speculated on alternatives erage of regional populations is sufficient as a basis for the but have been unable to address all aspects of the evidence conclusions (e.g., consider the limited representation of sam- usually cited to support that hypothesis or to provide a viable ples from ISEA in Friedlaender et al. 2008). Under the Aus- interpretation that sufficiently accounts for the multidisci- tronesian dispersal hypothesis, which invokes the migration plinary lines of evidence (e.g., Meacham 1984–1985; Oppen- of colonizing farmers tracing their origins to Taiwan, the hu- man genetics of ISEA populations might be anticipated heimer 2004; Oppenheimer and Richards 2001b; Solheim to reflect a Taiwanese genetic inheritance, potentially as a 1984–1985; Szabo´ and O’Connor 2004; Terrell 2004; Terrell, distance-decay effect, or cline, away from that island. Hunt, and Gosden 1997; Terrell, Kelly, and Rainbird 2001). Although some of the genetic variation among human pop- Generally, the standard view of Austronesian dispersal is taken ulations in ISEA can be attributed to Taiwanese influence, the as writ; researchers across a range of fields continue to pre- proportion does not by any means represent the wholesale suppose this historical account in their interpretations of data replacement or absorption of preexisting populations (Op- from ISEA and the Pacific (e.g., Lansing et al. 2007). penheimer 2004; Oppenheimer and Richards 2002). Maxi- In this paper, we examine multiple lines of historical evi- mally 20% of Y chromosome variation (Capelli et al. 2001) dence—including genetics, linguistics, archaeology, and plant and at most 20% of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) var- domestication histories—separately. The noncongruence of iation (Hill et al. 2007) in ISEA populations can be explained the multidisciplinary lines of evidence offers a strong critique by an out-of-Taiwan hypothesis. At the same time, approx- of the farming/language dispersal hypothesis and similar imately the same number of genetic markers in these same models of Neolithic spread (Spriggs 2003, 2007) as they apply ISEA populations, representing most of the diversity found, to the past five millennia of ISEA history. We find that the are best explained as having been present in situ since the evidence, not only in aggregate but also when examined dis- colonization of the area by modern humans during the Late cipline by discipline, points to a mid- to late-Holocene history Pleistocene (Soares et al. 2008). Hill et al. (2007:38–39) con- for ISEA that is very different from that portrayed by the sider it likely, on the one hand, that “about a fifth of the conventional Austronesian dispersal hypothesis. These find- modern inhabitants can trace their maternal ancestry back to ings are of global importance because Austronesian dispersal the first anatomically modern settlers of ISEA” and, on the has been promoted as an archetype of the farming/language other, that “if a mid-Holocene migration did occur, it was— dispersal hypothesis; the lack of fit of the farming/language on the maternal side at least—demographically minor, con- dispersal hypothesis to ISEA severely undermines its relevance tributing, at most, only a fifth of the modern ISEA mtDNAs.” as a global model to account for major language groupings Furthermore, the degree of genetic inheritance does not and the diffusion of agriculture. exhibit a clear pattern from Taiwan across ISEA and beyond. In the latter part of the paper a new historical framework For example, a paternal genetic signal does persist from (east- is proposed to account for the observed multidisciplinary ern) Taiwan to Polynesia (e.g., Kayser et al. 2008), the east- phenomena in ISEA during the Holocene. This alternative ernmost limit of Austronesian migration, showing that at least historical interpretation is a radical departure from conven- some genetic markers were not lost in migratory “surfing” tional portrayals. It emphasizes the mosaic of regional net- (following Excoffier and Ray 2008). However, this same ge- works and the social processes prevalent in ISEA before and netic signal is not prominent in ISEA. Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 225 Even more problematic for hypotheses involving a large- Reassessing Austronesian Linguistics scale human migration is that Taiwan represents an endpoint, rather than a source, of numerous genetic phylogenies (Soares Bellwood (1984–1985:109) states, “The question of Austro- et al. 2008). The evidence from several genetic markers sug- nesian origins is basically a linguistic question,” and while the question is no longer exclusively a linguistic one, “Austro- gests that the net flow of genes has been from south to north nesian” is still essentially a linguistic construct. The Austro- (e.g., Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1988; Hill and Serjeantson 1989; nesian family comprises more than 1,000 languages spread Oppenheimer 2004; Su et al. 1999), again perhaps reflecting over a vast area between Madagascar and Easter Island. Over- more ancient population dispersals of modern Homo sapiens whelming linguistic evidence shows an origin for the Austro- than those assumed under most accounts of Austronesian nesian languages on Taiwan (Blust 1995), and we do not dispersal. It is likely that some of the approximately 20% of dispute this. On the other hand, we question the nature of Y chromosome or mtDNA variation will turn out to have the linguistic “dispersal” out of Taiwan and into ISEA. We spread before the mid-Holocene, reducing their values as should note that the “Austronesian dispersal” might better be markers of an Austronesian dispersal. termed a “Malayo-Polynesian dispersal,” since nine of the 10 Furthermore, Austronesian language–speaking populations primary subgroups of Austronesian are attested to only on tend to mimic, genetically, any non-Austronesian populations Taiwan and only the Malayo-Polynesian branch has members with which they are in contact, rather than presenting starkly outside Taiwan (and none on mainland Taiwan). Therefore, contrasting genetic histories. This is true of all areas in which we hereafter refer to “Malayo-Polynesian” rather than “Aus- there are both Austronesian-speaking and non-Austronesian- tronesian” where the former is more appropriate. speaking populations, including Madagascar, Southeast Asia, The standard version of the Austronesian linguistic phy- and Melanesia (Chow et al. 2005; Hurles et al. 2005; Li et al. logeny is very hierarchical, with bifurcations corresponding 2008). This implies that the genetic history of Austronesian to inferred movements from Taiwan (the Proto-Austronesian speakers, in whichever region they are found, implicates the [PAN] homeland, where nine of the 10 first-order subgroups are found) through ISEA (the various languages designated preexisting populations of these regions as much as any pu- as Western Malayo-Polynesian, including groups that have tative migration out of Taiwan. The arrival of Taiwanese genes, since moved to the Southeast Asian mainland and Madagas- rather than replacing earlier populations, was associated with car) and eastern Indonesia (Central Malayo-Polynesian), gradual blending and gene flow between the populations. across northern New Guinea (the South Halmahera–West In sum, multiple studies demonstrate that the Taiwanese New Guinea branch of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian), and fi- contribution to the genetics of ISEA populations, both Aus- nally into the Pacific (Oceanic, including Polynesian and Mi- tronesian and non-Austronesian, is relatively minor. There is cronesian; e.g., Blust 1995; Tryon 1995; see fig. 1A). no genetic evidence of a mass migration of farmers out of In recent years, this Austronesian phylogeny has been Taiwan who replaced or absorbed populations across ISEA. shown to be flatter at multiple levels (fig. 1B). Linguistic The majority of genetic markers, both paternal and maternal, subgrouping and the consequent construction of a layered in ISEA populations reflect Pleistocene colonization move- hierarchy rely on the sharing of innovations in the inherited ments by modern humans and “dispersals across the region linguistic signal to define phylogenetic subgroups. For in- of Austronesia throughout the early to mid Holocene” (Hill stance, the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup, comprising all of et al. 2007:40). Conversely, events from the mid-Holocene the Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan, can be onward play a relatively minor role in the genetic history of defined as a valid subgroup on the basis of a number of shared most of ISEA. The failure of most genetic studies, especially innovations, both regular and irregular (see table 1, abbre- those focused on paternally inherited markers (Friedlaender viating material in Blust 2001). However, it is recognized that et al. 2008; Kayser et al. 2008), to differentiate between the the same is not true of Western Malayo-Polynesian, in which languages show the Malayo-Polynesian innovations but noth- speakers of what are distinct linguistic groupings indicates ing unique relative to Malayo-Polynesian languages to the that “biological genetic features have geographically based east, namely, those assigned to Central-Eastern Malayo-Poly- rather than linguistically based distributions” (Nichols and nesian (e.g., Ross 1995). The Central-Eastern Malayo-Poly- Peterson 1998:612). There is at best a weak correlation be- nesian branch contains the Central Malayo-Polynesian and tween language and genes in ISEA (pace Cavalli-Sforza et al. Eastern Malayo-Polynesian subgroups and comprises the Aus- 1988 but in accordance with Sokal 1988 and numerous other tronesian languages of eastern Indonesia and northwestern studies). There is no “genetic distinctiveness” in ISEA that New Guinea, as well as those of Oceania. Problematically, the suggests that a mid-Holocene out-of-Taiwan population evidence for the Central Malayo-Polynesian and Central-East- movement is especially privileged in determining the genetic ern Malayo-Polynesian subgroupings is not conclusive, since makeup of the present populations in the area. Rather, we many of the innovations that have been proposed for each find a complex range of signals, with no single origin dom- of these subgroups (e.g., Blust 1993) are present in languages inating the genetic history of ISEA. in the Western Malayo-Polynesian area and, in some cases, 226 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Figure 1. Representations of the Austronesian phylogeny. A, Earlier phy- logeny (from Pawley 2007, after Blust 1995); B, revised phylogeny (fol- lowing Donohue and Grimes 2008 and Ross, Pawley, and Osmond 2008). Earlier representations of the Austronesian family (A) have a very hi- erarchical structure, but recent revisions (B) show a flatter structure with multiple starbursts. even as far north as in Taiwan (Donohue and Grimes 2008). Further, there are very few large interisland subgroups in As a result, while we can group the “extra-Formosan” lan- the Malayo-Polynesian area west of New Guinea; most sub- guages together as Malayo-Polynesian against those groups groups are confined to single islands or adjacent islands (fig. that did not migrate from Taiwan, we cannot justify any large 2A, based on Adelaar 2005a and Ross 1995). Notable excep- subgroupings that would link the languages of the Philippines tions are Malagasy, which migrated relatively recently from and western Indonesia together, as opposed to the languages southeastern Borneo, and Malayo-Sumbawan, which includes spoken near and east of New Guinea. This fact represents a Malay and the languages of several islands east of Java (Ade- major challenge to computational models that claim success laar 2005b). Since there is no known structured phylogeny in replicating large subgroups within this nonexistent clade among the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages, we cannot (e.g., Gray and Jordan 2000) and weakens their conclusion say that the northern Malayo-Polynesian groups represent that linguistic evidence supports the so-called express-train higher branches on the tree and that the southern groups are model of a rapid Austronesian dispersal. farther (phylogenetically) from the source. On the contrary, Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 227

Table 1. Innovations defining Malayo-Polynesian (selection only)

Proto-Austronesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Comments

-mu “2pl genitive” -mu “2sg genitive” Irregular development ∗panudaN “pandanus” ∗pandan “pandanus” Irregular development ∗S ∗h Regular change ∗Siwa “nine” ∗siwa “nine” Irregular development ∗-eS ∗-ah ∗e and ∗a are otherwise distinct ∗C ( ∗t ∗Cand∗t merge as ∗t Regular merger ∗N ( ∗n ∗Nand∗n merge as ∗n Regular merger there is no evidence suggesting that, for instance, Nias in the which are to the west of New Guinea, is tenuous at best. southwest is any closer to or, importantly, any farther from, Adelaar (2005a:26) discusses the evidence for the claim, not- cladistically, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) than are any of ing that “there is essentially no phonological evidence to sup- the languages of the Philippines. Consequently, the impression port the claim that together they form an exclusive higher- of a graduated dispersal of Malayo-Polynesian languages south level subgroup.” Furthermore, Ross (1995:84) notes that the from Taiwan does not hold up and must be rethought. If we “putative lexical innovations” that have been advanced “may restrict our inquiry to the linguistic evidence alone, there was be exclusively shared inherited features,” indicating that their a rapid, multidirectional, and multimodal propagation of origin might derive not from local innovation but from the Malayo-Polynesian languages across most of ISEA, from south- retention of older forms that have been lost elsewhere. If true, ern Indonesia to the Batanes Islands in the north, without this would eliminate the use of these lexical innovations to direction or hierarchy (see fig. 2B; Ross 2005). Can we ascertain define an Eastern Malayo-Polynesian subgroup. Eventually, a center for the dispersal? On purely linguistic grounds, the we might eliminate this node; the resulting phylogenetic tree answer must be no. It is true that the presence of nine of the would have no hierarchical structure between PMP and primary subgroups of Austronesian in Taiwan unambiguously Proto-Oceanic. If this is the case, then the range of possible indicates that Taiwan is the homeland for the language family dispersal centers for Malayo-Polynesian, based solely on lin- and that, ultimately, the Malayo-Polynesian languages are the guistic evidence, would extend as far east as the Pacific. Con- southern branch of the higher Austronesian node, but this says sequently, it is clear that there is no linguistic evidence for an nothing about the internal relationships, dispersals, and later orderly north-to-south dispersal of Malayo-Polynesian lan- history of Malayo-Polynesian. From the presence and location guages from Taiwan. of the proposed Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian subgroup, The linguistic evidence for Malayo-Polynesian presents us which is seen as the eastern split of Malayo-Polynesian, as well with additional methodological challenges. The lexical con- as the presence of more proposed subgroups in the south than servatism of the family is remarkable (Blust 2000b). Outside in the north, we can deduce that the center of dispersal was a Melanesian area, both west and east of New Guinea, where in central or eastern Indonesia, using the standard historical various kinds of “aberrancy” are prominent (Pawley 2006), linguistic principle of “least moves” (e.g., Anttila 1972; Joseph the languages retain a very high proportion of the recon- and Janda 2003). Indeed, on linguistic grounds, Blust (1995) structed vocabulary of PMP (fig. 3). The overt similarities considers a location not far from the Sulu Sea, on the Phil- between languages are so striking that relationships between ippines/eastern Indonesia border area, to be the logical home- far-flung members of the family were recognized 300 years land for Malayo-Polynesian, but in the same paper he later ago (Reland 1708), long before the Indo-European languages disregards this conclusion on the basis of arguments from ar- were seen as being related. When we compare Austronesian chaeological data. Since all the evidence suggests that the Phil- with other language families, it is apparent that the amount ippines has seen significant leveling and loss of earlier diversity of lexical change found in Austronesian is consistent with in the past two millennia (Blust 1991, 2000a, 2005), we might either a much younger or a much smaller language family logically move the “center of gravity” farther north, but there (Joseph and Janda 2003; Peiros 2000; Wichmann, forthcom- is no surviving linguistic evidence with which to test this ing). Smaller language families tend to be more compact geo- hypothesis. graphically and show less change because of continued contact These conclusions follow a reexamination of the data based between the different members of the family. Young language on the existing, “standard” view of the Austronesian phylog- families, on the other hand, have in the main not had the eny. If we follow the revisions proposed by Donohue and time required to spread and diversify. The Austronesian fam- Grimes (2008), which eliminate the Central-Eastern Malayo- ily, however, is neither small nor seemingly recent, and these Polynesian and Central Malayo-Polynesian nodes, we are left discrepancies must be addressed. with a “center” that is even farther to the southeast. To this Wichmann (forthcoming) offers a metric for comparing we should add the fact that the evidence for the Eastern internal diversity by evaluating the degree of lexical diversi- Malayo-Polynesian subgroup, the western boundaries of fication in different language families, thereby removing sub- Figure 2. The distribution of Austronesian languages of ISEA. A,Sub- groupings within Malayo-Polynesian (MP) languages from figure 1A. B, Major subgroups of MP, from figure 1B. The subgroup of Austronesian languages south of Taiwan (i.e., MP) shows 30–40 different primary subgroups in A, with the only claimed subgroupings being found in eastern Indonesia and East Timor (Central MP and Eastern MP) and in the Pacific (Oceanic group). Non-Austronesian languages within the area of the Austronesian dispersal are shown in yellow; their substratal effects are obvious in many southern Austronesian languages (Capell 1975; Don- ohue 2007b; see fig. 5). There is no Austronesian presence anywhere in Australia, and mainland Asia has only peripheral and recent Austrone- sian-speaking populations. Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 229

Figure 3. Proportion of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian vocabulary retained in individual languages. Austronesian languages show remarkable conser- vatism in their lexicons, except near New Guinea (especially eastern New Guinea), where the languages display neither the grammatical structures (fig. 5) nor, overwhelmingly, the lexicon of their more conservative rel- atives in, for example, western Indonesia or the Philippines. Only in the area enclosed by the dashed line is the average retention rate less than 30%; the area enclosed by a solid line has a less than 20% average retention rate. jective judgements from assessments of “conservatism.” The Iroquoian (10 languages), Na-Dene (47), Plateau Penutian mean lexical cognacy found between modern languages in a (4), Mixe-Zoquean (16), or Ka´riban (29), rather than that of family can be determined and then evaluated in terms of the a family with more than 1,000 languages. From the degree of “minimum centuries” (mc) that would be expected to have retention of common vocabulary, we can state that Austro- elapsed to result in this level of diversification, assuming that nesian, at least the Malayo-Polynesian branch that has mi- 2% of the “basic” lexicon of a language will change per cen- grated beyond Taiwan, does not exhibit the characteristics tury, a value that is taken as standard (e.g., Swadesh 1950, expected of a large, ancient language family. 1952, 1955; for Austronesian, Dyen 1965, though see Blust The lexical conservatism of Austronesian languages, when 1 2000b). When this metric is applied to families for which examined in detail, does not uniformly extend to reconstruc- documentation is adequate (Wichmann’s results are sum- tions of PAN. There is no evidence of a Taiwanese origin for marized in table 2), large language families, those with more much of the basic vocabulary that is cited as characteristic of than 100 member languages, show an average mc value of the Austronesian dispersal, such as terms for maritime tech- 93.5, implying that we expect the initial divergence to have nology and many of the food plants that have been associated taken place ca. 9,000 years ago (a clearly inflated date, but with the Austronesians (cf. Blust 1984–1985; Pawley 2007). we are interested in relative values, not absolute ones). The Rather, the etymologies for the majority of the plants and only exception in this group is Austronesian, with an mc value maritime technologies that are found in the Pacific can be of 35. Regardless of the faith we place in glottochronological found in PMP, the generic ISEA entity, and not in PAN, the methods, this low figure indicates that Austronesian shows Taiwan-anchored, reconstructed protolanguage. The linguistic the profile of a family with fewer than 50 languages, such as evidence suggests that, having left Taiwan, the Austronesians were exposed to an influx of new material-culture items that 1. Note that this method does not ascribe a glottochronological age to a family but merely evaluates the internal diversity of the family in were already present in ISEA and were adopted into the ex- terms of the lexicon. panding Malayo-Polynesian culture(s). This explains why 230 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Table 2. Measures of lexical diversity in families (from In contrast to lexical conservatism, we find a “plethora of Wichmann, forthcoming) different systems” of grammar in different modern Austro- nesian languages outside Taiwan (Ross 1995:64; recent quan- No. Minimum tifications in Wichmann and Kamholz 2008). No grammatical Language family languages centuries (mc) traits are common to all Austronesian languages (figs. 4, 5); Yeniseian 2 5 further, grammatical interrelationships between Austronesian Xincan 4 10 language groups follow geographical rather than phyloge- Plateau Penutian 4 42 netic-subgroup boundaries (Donohue 2007b). A remarkable Caddoan 5 33 diversity characterizes the Malayo-Polynesian languages at all South Caucasian (Kartvelian) 5 40 Chukotka-Kamchatka 5 40 levels of their grammar, including phonology, morphology, Moseten-Chon 5 51 and syntax; this diversity almost certainly reflects early con- Barbako´an 7 33 tacts with pre-Austronesian languages (Adelaar 1995; Capell Iroquoian 10 35 1975; Donohue 2004, 2005, 2007b). These contacts show their Totonakan 11 26 strongest effects south of the Philippines. Figure 6 shows the Eskimo-Aleut 11 30 Mixe-Zoquean 16 36 locations of different isoglosses defined by contact-induced Salishan 27 45 change in Austronesian languages. Note that, despite the clear Hokan 28 88 boundaries that emerge in this examination of structural sim- Ka´riban 29 37 ilarities, there are no major phylogenetic breaks between the Khoisan 29 111 northern languages and the southern ones or between the Hmong-Mien (Miao-Yao) 32 40 North Caucasian 34 60 eastern languages and the western ones. The early recognition Uralic 38 60 of more “Papuan” characteristics in the east of the Indonesian Algic 40 30 archipelago was stated clearly in the nineteenth century (Bran- Quechuan 46 15 des 1884:187): Na-Dene 47 35 Uto-Aztekan 62 48 One can distinguish a western and an eastern division in Altaic 65 77 the Malayo-Polynesian languages in the archipelago. The Mayan 69 42 Tai-Kadai (Daic) 70 30 border between the two is a line drawn between Sawu and Tupı´an 70 55 Rote, Flores and the Solor islands, east of Buton, west of Dravidian 75 40 the Sula islands, east of Minahasa, the Sangir and Talaud Otomanguean 172 60 islands, and (east of) the Philippines.2 Nilo-Saharan 199 150 Australian 258 95 Brandes’s division, which closely approximates the heavy Sino-Tibetan 365 60 dashed line in figure 2A, is based on the then-current un- Afro-Asiatic 372 113 Indo-European 443 70 derstanding of the relative order of the possessor and pos- Trans-New Guinea 552 100 sessum in a construction such as “the man’s house.” In this Austronesian 1,262 35 phrase, “man” represents the possessor (or “Genitive”), and Niger-Congo 1,489 100 “house” the possessum (or “N,” in the literature). This English Note. The correlation between number of languages and internal lexical example shows a GenN order, the same order that dominates diversity, measured in mc, is significant (r p 0.35 ), but it increases to in Melanesia and surrounding “eastern” areas in Indonesia r p 0.50 if Austronesian is omitted. and East Timor. West of the line, an NGen order is found, as in the Indonesian translation of the same phrase, shown these terms are reconstructible to PMP and not to PAN (Paw- in figure 7. Figure 6 marks the distribution of this typological ley 2007). Figure 3 shows the percentage of reconstructed feature with the green line and shows additional features that PMP vocabulary that is retained in a number of modern evidence the Papuan influence on Austronesian languages in languages (from Greenhill, Blust, and Gray 2008). The per- the approach to New Guinea and (less obvious in this map) centage of retained vocabulary is calculated by comparing the the Austroasiatic influence on the southwestern languages, as standard word list for PMP with the same word list for the well as the existence of a significant north-south divide in the modern languages; word lists and calculations of retained typology of the languages that cannot be explained phylo- vocabulary follow Blust (1981). The original vocabulary does genetically. not decay with distance from Taiwan; rather, it is clear that Contact-induced changes such as these, resulting in the geo- proximity to New Guinea and its non-Austronesian societies is the best predictor of vocabulary loss. The map shows the 2. In the original, “Bij de Maleisch-Polynesische talen in den Archipel kan men eene Westelijke en eene Oostelijke afdeeling onderscheiden. De areas in which the average retention rate is below 30% and grens tusschen beiden is een lijn, getrokken tusschen Sawu en Rotti, Flores below 20%, with both clustering around New Guinea and the en de Solor-eilanden, beoosten Buton, bewesten de Sulla-eilanden, beoos- islands close to (Papuan-dominated) Bougainville. ten de Minahasa, de Sangi-, de Talaur-eilanden, en de Philippijnen.” Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 231

Figure 4. Locations of languages listed in figure 5. 1, Tagalog (Schachter and Otanes 1972); 2, Indonesian (authors’ knowledge); 3, Tukang Besi (Donohue 1999); 4, Palu’e (authors’ knowledge); 5, Ambai (Silzer 1983; D. S. Price, T. R. Price, P. J. Silzer, C. Silzer, and N. Merasi, unpublished manuscript); 6, Tobati (Donohue 2002); 7, Manam (Lichtenberk 1984); 8, Mekeo (Jones 1998); 9, Maori (Krupa 1973). graphic (as opposed to phylogenetic) clustering of grammatical Austronesian language elements form substrates across wide properties, as well as the presence of numerous linguistic iso- regions in areas now dominated by Malayo-Polynesian lan- lates within the Austronesian area (Donohue 2007a,2007b; guages, primarily near New Guinea (fig. 1) but also including Pawley 2002), are often associated with early interactions be- Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatera in the west (Ade- tween two populations that came into contact. One linguistic laar 1995). The acquisition of Malayo-Polynesian languages entity has vanished, in the conventional historical sense, but by Negritos in the Philippines may provide a model for the has left traces in the changes the surviving language has acquired adoption of Malayo-Polynesian languages across much of (e.g., Nichols 1997). The data we can see in figure 6 suggest ISEA (e.g., Reid 1994). that the Malayo-Polynesian spread in ISEA was a social overlay Language families, like bacteria or bdelloid rotifers (Arkhi- involving cultural interaction with preexisting populations pova and Meselson 2000), can form because of the convergence rather than the simple imposition of a new linguistic phylogeny of originally unrelated taxa (e.g., Dagan and Martin 2007). As across space through population replacement (Dutton 1995; people abandon their original language and adopt a new one, Ross 1994; Thomason and Kaufman 1988). they preserve some aspects of their original linguistic code as With varying degrees of linguistic shift, resulting in Aus- a substrate, creating innovations in different aspects of the tronesian conservatism in some parts of the grammar and grammar of their new language (Bakker 2000; Capell 1975; some parts of the ISEA area and more innovative traits Dutton 1995; Nettle 2000; Ross 1994; Thurston 1987). During (as viewed from a Taiwanese perspective) in others, a new the initial expansion of Malayo-Polynesian, linguistic affiliation Malayo-Polynesian lexicon was in many areas grafted onto a derived as much from recruitment of speakers of other lan- disparate collection of at best distantly related language groups guages as it did from “normal” linguistic diachrony involving that predated the arrival of Malayo-Polynesian languages organic changes and splits. For those languages that owe their across the region. In many regions, especially in the south Malayo-Polynesian affiliation to shift rather than to generic and east of ISEA and in the Pacific, the Austronesian language linguistic evolution, we can identify numerous substratal traces family does not display the characteristics of a phylogenetic of their earlier linguistic affiliations in their phonologies, such entity with the time depth, or historical profile, that has gen- as the presence of implosive stops or gaps for /g/. Such a process erally been ascribed to it. In addition to the significant break might be likened to the development of regional varieties of a between PAN and PMP, a significant number of culturally creole, although we do not suggest that this can account for significant words predate the Malayo-Polynesian dispersal all of the divergence in Austronesian languages, even among (Mahdi 1994a, 1994b), suggesting that significant pre- the so-called aberrant languages (Pawley 2006). However, the 232 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Figure 5. Malayo-Polynesian linguistic diversity (grammatical) and sim- ilarity (lexical). Nine Austronesian languages spoken between the Phil- ippines and Polynesia show significantly different grammatical structures for the same sentence (see sources in fig. 4). The verb, subject, and object reconstruct to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian: ∗inum, “drink”; ∗(ba-)b!in1ahi, “woman”; and ∗wahiR, “water.” Noncognates are shown in italics (the Tobati and Manam forms reflect ∗danum, “water,” an alternative Malayo- Polynesian reconstruction). At the same time, the grammatical structures in which these Austronesian words are embedded differ greatly. The verb “drink” in each example is shown in black; red indicates the word for “woman” and blue that for “water.” The grammatical morphemes case and agreement are shown in green and violet, respectively, with other grammatical morphemes in brown. The right-hand column compares the order of verb, subject, and object (V, S, and O, respectively), an important typological variable (e.g., Dryer 1992). Dedicated morpholog- ical voice systems are found in Tagalog, Indonesian, and Maori, with other voice systems being present in Tukang Besi, Palu’e, and Ambai, while no such diathesis is reported for Tobati, Manam, and Mekeo. ISEA: Island Southeast Asia; NG: New Guinea. great numbers of typologically disparate Austronesian languages 1997); rather, the evidence is more suggestive of prolonged are consistent with the mechanisms of language shift and ab- interaction and mixing among populations across ISEA. Fur- normal transmission. thermore, there is no clear directionality in the frequency and nature of molecular markers through ISEA away from Taiwan. Archaeology of the “Austronesians” The same region, however, has witnessed massive language replacement, effected by the dispersal of Malayo-Polynesian We have seen that the genetic and linguistic phylogenies for languages originating on Taiwan seemingly within the past ISEA are demonstrably discordant. There is insufficient evi- few thousand years. Archaeological data can potentially shed dence to suggest large-scale replacement, punctuated or oth- light on the processes that gave rise to the genetic and lin- erwise, of preexisting hunting and gathering populations by guistic discordance across ISEA, and they will be considered farming-voyaging immigrants from Taiwan or anywhere else. with specific reference to the farming/language dispersal hy- Although a clearly defined cline may not be anticipated for human dispersal across an archipelago, as opposed to across pothesis proposed for the region (Bellwood 1997, 2005; Dia- a continental land mass, multiple molecular markers provide mond and Bellwood 2003). highly variable evidence of the Taiwanese contribution to the An initial caveat in considerations of the archaeology of genetic makeup of the present-day inhabitants of ISEA. There ISEA during the mid-to late Holocene concerns radiometric is no genetic evidence for large-scale population replacement, dating of sites and derived materials. Despite efforts at chron- displacement, or absorption such as that originally postulated ometric hygiene, namely, a method to restrict historical in- for hunter-gatherers by farmers across ISEA (after Bellwood terpretation to those sites and artifacts associated with more Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 233

Figure 6. Substratal effects in Austronesian languages. The numbered lines show the southern limits of prenominal relative clauses (1), pre- nominal adjectives (2), prenominal demonstratives (3), and preverbal subjects (4). Exceptions to limit 4 are discussed in Donohue (2005, 2007b). Colored lines show the western limits of prenominal possessors (green), postnominal numerals (blue), contrastive inalienable possession (red), dedicated morphological voice systems (yellow), and verbal agree- ment (brown; also found in much of Sumatera). Sources: Dryer (2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e, 2005f ) and Nichols and Bickel (2005); dis- cussion in Donohue (2007b). The lines mark the limits of the features concerned, in both Austronesian and non-Austronesian languages. The appearance of Papuan languages just at the area delineated by these different features and the presence both of Austroasiatic languages close to Sumatera and of ample substratal and toponymic evidence for a prior Austroasiatic presence in Sumatera strongly suggest that, away from the areas of strong empire building over the past two millennia, significant numbers of pre-Austronesian linguistic elements survived, even though the languages spoken are now (lexically) members of the Austronesian family. reliable dates (Spriggs 1989), the chronologies of ISEA ar- that East Asian farming practices from Taiwan diffused across chaeology are severely limited. Even the most systematic at- ISEA approximately 4,000–3,500 years ago, that is, during the tempts to develop robust chronologies for the occurrence and initial period of purported Austronesian expansion. Very little dispersal of material-culture items, such as pottery (Spriggs suitably aged and taxonomically specific archaeobotanical evi- 2003, 2007), are plagued by chronological uncertainties. These dence exists for the domesticated plants that are hypothesized include a high reliance on material types that can be highly to have dispersed with farming from Taiwan, especially rice problematic for radiocarbon dating, including bone, marine (Oryza sativa) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica), or for as- shell, and artifact residues; evidence of disturbance and mix- sociated farming technologies and landscape transformations. ing; and selective arguments for the rejection or retention of There is an almost complete lack of domesticated rice dat- dating evidence (Spriggs 2007). The resultant chronologies ing to 4,000–3,000 years ago in archaeological contexts as- for the dispersal of material-culture items across ISEA are sociated with food processing and consumption across the problematic and fragile; indeed, they are bedeviled by many whole region, except as inclusions in pottery: of the same uncertainties that have discredited claims for pre- Lapita pig and pottery at sites along the north coast of New All in all, in Island Southeast Asia, there are 23 sites where Guinea (Spriggs 1996). archaeobotanical sampling has been applied. Only one, Gua There is extremely limited evidence supporting the idea Sireh, has reported rice phytoliths from the matrix of the 234 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Figure 7. Expression of the genitive (i.e., order of elements in possessive phrases) in English and six representative languages of Indonesia. In each case “man” is shown in red and “house” in black. The English phrase codes the possessor before the noun (N) and so shows a GenN order, the same order that dominates in Melanesia and surrounding “eastern” areas. West of Brandes’s line, an NGen order prevails, as in the Indonesian translation of the phrase rumah orang, literally “house-man.” Note that in addition to the overwhelming majority of Papuan languages (such as the unrelated Lani, Skou, and Kanum), eastern Austronesian languages, such as Palu’e, also show the preposed genitive. In addition to the order of the words, different languages also employ other coding strategies, such as marking a noun as being the possessor (green; English ’s, Tukang Besi nu, Kanum -ne) or marking features of the possessor on the possessed noun (Palu’e -n,Skou-ke´ke), approximately signaling “his.”

site. There are at least 36 sites with reported rice inclusions with agriculture, implying that many of its archaeological oc- in pottery fabrics; one in Luzon, one in Negros island, one currences could be derived more from extralocal trade than in Sabah (Bukit Tengkorak) and the rest in Sarawak. (Paz from local food production (Paz 2002). Significantly, the age 2002:279) of the Gua Sireh finds and the site’s location on Borneo suggest that domesticated rice may have initially entered ISEA The situation has changed little since Paz’s review, except for from mainland Asia, before its putative dispersal from Taiwan. recently noted rice remains at Ulu Leang on southern Sula- Furthermore, and arguably, rice became an important staple wesi, which may date to ca. 4000 cal BP (Paz 2005:112, 113). The basis for this age has not been fully reported, but it may crop across ISEA only after the advent of open-field farming help resolve chronological uncertainties regarding other pu- there, which occurred in the past 2,000–1,500 years (Anshari, tatively early rice remains at this site (Glover and Higham Kershaw, and van der Kaars 2001; see Barton and Denham, 1996:436–437; Paz 2002:277, 2005:112). At present, the two forthcoming) and potentially much later on some islands. most reliable and best-dated sites for early rice in ISEA are a Similarly, there is a near absence of relevant archaeobotan- charred rice grain inclusion in a pottery sherd at Gua Sireh, ical evidence for the dispersal of other crop plants likely to western Sarawak, dated to before 4000 cal BP (Paz 2002:277), have been domesticated on the Asian mainland. An exception and organic materials in association with pottery at Anda- is a reported grain of foxtail millet (S. italica), noted as post- rayan, Luzon, that likely date to ca. 3700–3500 cal BP (based dating 3000 cal BP, from Timor (Ian Glover’s research in on information in Paz 2002:277). Bellwood 1997:231). Even taking into account the low level Rice cultivation was well established on Taiwan by at least of confidence for this identification (Paz 2002:279), this cereal 4,000 years ago (Bellwood 2005), and numerous words for grain postdates the putative period of early Austronesian ex- the plant and associated processing and storage practices have pansion into this region; it certainly does not provide sup- been reconstructed to PAN (Blust 1984–1985; Pawley 2007). porting evidence for the claimed introduction of an agricul- Rice cultivation cannot, however, be heavily implicated in the tural economy to Timor approximately 4,000 years ago early phases of Malayo-Polynesian language dispersal as con- (Bellwood 1997:231). ventionally portrayed. Only two sites in ISEA provide poten- Evidence for the dispersal of agricultural technology with tially early evidence for rice, aside from inclusions in pottery, early Malayo-Polynesian-speaking voyagers is similarly weak. and only one of these, Gua Sireh, is reliably dated. On the There are examples of farming implements in ISEA with Tai- contrary, rice seems more clearly associated with pottery than wanese or Chinese affiliations, such as the waisted hoe at Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 235

Torongan cave and other stone hoe fragments from the Ba- south of the Philippines between ca. 4,000 and 3,600 years tanes Islands (Bellwood and Dizon 2005:8, 11). However, the ago and then spread eastward to eastern Indonesia (Bellwood ages of these artifacts are not clearly determined; as reported 2005; Shutler 1999; Solheim 1964; Spriggs 1989, 2003, 2007). for the Batanes materials, some are likely to be much more An earlier “cord or basketry-wrapped paddle impressed” pot- recent on the basis of inferred associations with Iron Age sites tery tradition appears to have spread from mainland Southeast on Taiwan (Bellwood and Dizon 2005:11). Asia to Borneo, and potentially other islands, before Taiwan- Furthermore, there is no clear paleoecological signal of the ese influences are discerned (see Spriggs 2007). Sparse ar- environmental transformations that might be anticipated to chaeological evidence and chronological uncertainties suggest accompany the dispersal of agricultural populations through that ISEA was a region into which multiple pottery traditions ISEA between 4000 and 3500 cal BP. Such signals have been were introduced at different times, although the archaeolog- discerned for the emergence and transformation of agriculture ical record does not yet provide sufficiently high-resolution in the highlands of New Guinea (Haberle 2003). Across much geographical and temporal information to map the spread of ISEA, large-scale anthropic disturbance of vegetation is more and transformation of each pottery tradition through time. recent (e.g., Dam et al. 2001; Suparan et al. 2001; van der Kaars In the absence of historical detail, however, red-slipped pot- et al. 2001) or much earlier, including from ca. 6500 cal BP at tery is still presumed to be a reliable and verifiable chrono- Niah on Borneo (Hunt and Rushworth 2005) and from at least logical marker that provides a likely maximum age for the 7000 cal BP on Sumatera (Flenley 1988). The interpretation of influence of Malayo-Polynesian speakers in the region the human contribution to paleoecological data over the past (Spriggs 2007) as well as the precursor of the Lapita pottery 5,000 years, however, is complicated by the intensification of tradition in Melanesia from ca. 3,500 years ago (Kirch 2000). El Nin˜o–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events during this period In terms of other claimed components of a Taiwanese cul- (e.g., Anshari et al. 2004). Increased ENSO variability, rather tural package, a range of shell artifact types from Wallacea than the expansion of agricultural economies, has been cited and Melanesia, including fishhooks, shell beads, and shell as the primary cause of increased burning, as well as of the adzes—and presumably the technologies required for their maintenance of the diversity of tropical rain forests, in Indo- manufacture—predate the period of presumed Malayo-Poly- nesia and New Guinea over the past 5,000 years (Haberle, Hope, nesian expansion into those regions (O’Connor 2007; and van der Kaars 2001). O’Connor and Veth 2005; Swadling et al. 1989; Szabo´ 2004; Given that there is no solid evidence that either farmers or Szabo´, Brumm, and Bellwood 2007). Of particular signifi- farming spread across ISEA in toto from Taiwan approxi- cance are Tridacne shell adzes, together with edge-ground mately 4,000–3,500 years ago, there is similarly no good rea- stone tools and a fully ground triangular stone “chisel,” from son to assume that the history of the dispersal and adoption contexts dated to at least 7200–5000 cal BP at the Pamwak of Malayo-Polynesian languages between islands, along coast- rock shelter on Manus Island in Melanesia (Fredericksen, lines, and later penetrating inland corresponds to the spread Spriggs, and Ambrose 1993; Golson 2005). Recent genetic and adoption of an associated “cultural package” of new tech- characterizations of pig (Sus spp.) populations indicate a nologies (Denham 2004). Over the past 30 years, archaeol- spread from mainland Southeast Asia, a region that has been ogists and linguists have repeatedly revised down, or “un- proposed as a center of pig domestication (Hongo et al. 2002), packed,” the size of the material-culture package that to eastern ISEA before and independent of the arrival of purportedly spread from Taiwan with the dispersal of Malayo- Malayo-Polynesian speakers (Dobney, Cucchi, and Larson Polynesian languages (compare claims in Pawley and Green 2008; Larson et al. 2007). Similar trajectories of eastward dif- 1973 with those in Bellwood 2005 or Pawley 2007). Recent fusion were followed at different times by at least one pottery incarnations of the Austronesian-dispersal orthodoxy restrict tradition (Spriggs 2003) and, potentially, by rice (see above) the Taiwanese material-culture package to pottery, polished and the chicken from their center of domestication in main- stone adzes, shell artifacts, tattooing chisels, and domesticated land Southeast Asia (Dobney, Cucchi, and Larson 2008, after animals (pigs, dogs, and chickens; Bellwood 2005). Impor- Liu, Zhu, and Yao 2006). tantly, none of these material-culture types are necessary or On the basis of the archaeological evidence, there was no unique markers of farming or, perhaps more accurately, hor- “cultural package” of technologies that originated on Taiwan ticulture in ISEA. From the emerging archaeological record, and was exclusively—or can necessarily be—associated with however, even this smaller set of remaining elements is not the dispersal of Malayo-Polynesian languages in ISEA. Most a secure and exclusive archaeological marker of Taiwanese elements that have been presumed to have diffused with influence or Malayo-Polynesian language dispersal (Anderson Malayo-Polynesian speakers were already present in ISEA be- and O’Connor 2008). fore the appearance of uniquely Taiwanese influences in the The earliest records of pottery across ISEA are suggestive archaeological record of that region. Certainly, some cultural of multiple incursions into the region by at least two different items can be sourced to Taiwan, such as nephrite (jade) ar- styles and traditions, one from mainland Southeast Asia and tifacts, and they are a reliable marker of that island’s incor- at least one from Taiwan. Current portrayals suggest that a poration into trade networks to the Philippines from possibly red-slipped pottery tradition originating on Taiwan dispersed ca. 4000 cal BP, with a much later and wider distribution 236 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 through ISEA from ca. 2500 to 1500 cal BP (Hung et al. in broad terms from a combination of plant genetics, the 2007). However, different material-culture items and tra- limited archaeobotanical evidence available to us, and his- ditions have singular histories of emergence, dispersal, and torical linguistics (Kennedy and Clarke 2004). transformation that do not conflate into a unitary, or even The unusual genetics of bananas—whereby chloroplast DNA semiporous, cultural package. Consequently, there is no his- (cpDNA) and mtDNA are inherited maternally and paternally, torical imperative to invoke a material-culture package, or respectively—enable the lineages and contributions of subspe- Neolithic cultural complex, that was exclusively associated cies and species to be easily tracked for banana cultivar groups, with the dispersal of Austronesian languages from Taiwan. shedding light on the history of their domestication and spread ISEA was already integrated into exchange networks with (Carreel et al. 2002; De Langhe and de Maret 1999; Kennedy neighboring regions before Taiwanese influences, which have 2008). For example, several different groups of bananas, in- been presumed to mark Austronesian language dispersal, be- cluding Pacific plantains (Lebot 1999), Western and Central come apparent in the archaeological record. Indeed, there is African plantains (AAB), and an East African AAA cultivar no reason to presume that early Taiwanese influences in the (Carreel et al. 2002), trace part of their ancestry to the New archaeological record of ISEA are necessarily associated with Guinean Musa acuminata ssp. banksii. Significantly, the two Malayo-Polynesian language dispersal; they may simply rep- groups of African bananas show different temporal-geographic resent the incorporation of Taiwan, like parts of mainland domestication pathways (Carreel et al. 2002), with the diffusion Southeast Asia and Melanesia, into a mosaic of exchange net- of plantains to West Africa documented to at least 2,500 years works that stretched across ISEA. The trajectories of Malayo- ago (Mbida et al. 2001) and that of a banana to East Africa to Polynesian language dispersal may have a separate tempo- ca. 5,000 years ago (Lejju, Robertshaw, and Taylor 2006). Al- rality. Rather than representing the introduction of a new though the archaeobotanical evidence for the identification of cultural package, the arrival of Malayo-Polynesian speakers bananas in Africa is contested by some (Vansina 2003; cf. Mbida in ISEA was more likely to have been associated with, either et al. 2004), these findings clearly demonstrate a pre-Malayo- suddenly or gradually, a new social context that revolutionized Polynesian time depth for the westward dispersal into ISEA of the ways in which the mosaic of interaction across the ar- bananas from the New Guinea region (Denham and Donohue chipelagos operated. Through time, preexisting exchange net- 2009; Kennedy 2008). works were intensified and expanded, bringing about, in turn, A similar scenario, initial domestication in New Guinea an increasing standardization of traded items and the sem- with subsequent diffusion and multiple interspecific hybrid- blance of a cultural package. izations on mainland Asia, has been invoked for sugarcane (Grivet et al. 2004). A term for sugarcane, ∗CebuS, recon- Crop Domestication Histories structs to PAN (Blust 1984–1985; Pawley 2007), and, like rice, the crop was seemingly on Taiwan before the languages dis- In addition to rice (discussed above), the history of Austro- persed ca. 4,000 years ago. If the linguistic reconstructions nesian language–speaking peoples has been intimately asso- are valid and sufficiently specific chronologically, then we ciated with a range of plant domesticates. In a seminal paper, must suppose that sugarcane also moved westward from its Pawley and Green (1973) considered a whole suite of do- home in New Guinea before the Malayo-Polynesian language mesticated crop plants to be reconstructible to PAN, including dispersal into ISEA. This can have been possible only if some bananas, breadfruit, coconut, rice, sago palm, taro, and yam. pre-Malayo-Polynesian seafarers brought the sugarcane north However, more recently (Blust 1984–1985; Pawley 2007), the and west to Taiwan, that is, if the dispersal of food crops list reconstructed for a Taiwanese PAN has been revised down across ISEA was not reliant on Austronesian speakers. to include only rice, sugarcane, and giant taro (Alocasia in- In sum, the initial stages of banana and sugarcane domes- dica), reflecting an increasingly sophisticated understanding tication, with subsequent diffusion westward, occurred before of the Austronesian phylogeny. These linguistic revisions mir- the appearance of Malayo-Polynesian languages in ISEA. ror those unfolding from genetic research into the histories Other relevant food plants of the region reflect varying his- of domesticated crop plants. torical processes despite the absence of great amounts of ar- Evaluating the data from studies of plant genetics suggests chaeobotanical information. The genetic characterizations of that several staple crops underwent initial, or separate, do- taro suggest separate domestication events in mainland South- mestication in the New Guinea or eastern Indonesian region, east Asia and Melanesia, with only limited gene flow between including bananas (Musa spp.; Carreel et al. 2002), sugarcane the two regions until recently (Lebot et al. 2004), and so do (Saccharum officinarum; Grivet et al. 2004), taro (Colocasia not provide any evidence for a dominating spread from either esculenta; Lebot et al. 2004), greater yam (Dioscorea alata; the west or the east (and certainly none for a spread from Malapa et al. 2005), and sago (Metroxylon sagu; Kjær et al. the north). By contrast, the greater yam is thought to have 2004). The early and mid-Holocene processes of use and do- undergone domestication in the New Guinea region, with mestication for these plants remain largely unknown (Den- subsequent widespread anthropic diffusion of cloned cultivars ham 2005; Denham et al. 2003; Fullagar et al. 2006), but their through ISEA, mainland Asia, and Africa (Malapa et al. 2005). histories of domestication and diffusion can be reconstructed Sago palm (M. sagu) is similarly thought to have originated Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 237 and been domesticated in Melanesia, with a subsequent west- Although general regions of origin are largely known, most ward spread (Kjær et al. 2004). types of artifact, animal, plant, and technology demonstrate Importantly, all these staples underwent initial domesti- distinctive histories and geographies of diffusion. Conse- cation in New Guinea. As with different types of material quently, diffusion, which refers to the cumulative movement culture, the variability in the geography of subsequent dif- of ideas and things, must be assumed to have been multi- fusion indicates that they did not spread together, along the directional across space, and this diffusion yielded net east- same paths, or at the same time. Specifically, these domes- ward and westward movements just as much as net southward ticates did not spread westward from New Guinea across ISEA ones (fig. 8). An interpretation other than one that seeks to as part of a single agricultural or cultural package. The suc- identify the homeland is now needed to understand the social cessful onward movement of domesticates was dependant on and historical processes that account for the widespread adop- social groups along the relevant exchange networks having tion of an intrusive language family by, and the variable ap- some knowledge of the plant-specific husbandry, cultivation, pearance of material-culture elements among, the widespread and processing techniques. As plants such as bananas and and diverse cultures that must have existed in ISEA before sugarcane were exchanged and moved across ISEA, they were the appearance of the Malayo-Polynesian-speaking peoples. transformed through intra- and interspecific hybridization and through incorporation into cultivation practices that were Maritime Interaction in ISEA widespread, albeit variable, across the region before Malayo- during the Holocene Polynesian language dispersal. A long history of maritime interaction can now be recon- Disconnecting Genes, Language, and structed for ISEA and adjoining regions, including the Asian Material Culture mainland and Melanesia. Patterns and continuity of inter- action similar to those now emerging for ISEA during the A recurrent failing of successive portrayals of Austronesian early to mid-Holocene are well attested to for the variable dispersal or origins has been the presumption that the his- interisland movement of people, marsupials, plants, obsidian, tories of genetics, language, and material culture should to stemmed tools, and the enigmatic “mortar, pestle, and figu- any large degree correlate and follow the same trajectory (as rine complex” in the circum–New Guinea region during the discussed in Terrell 2000b). The consonance of these lines of Pleistocene and Holocene (e.g., Araho, Torrence, and White evidence for ISEA over the past 4,000 years is, at best, unclear; 2002; Summerhayes 2003; Summerhayes and Allen 1993; in some cases, there are clear disparities (i.e., between genetic Swadling and Hide 2005; Torrence and Swadling 2008; White and linguistic evidence) and asynchronies (i.e., for different 2004). Given the absence of wholesale population movements types of material culture and many domesticated plants). Even (as suggested by the lack of any genetic evidence for replace- the value of red-slipped pottery as a marker of Austronesian ment), the diffusion of ideas and things must have occurred language dispersal across ISEA is, on the basis of current through socially mediated exchange networks over predom- evidence (Spriggs 2007), a poorly corroborated claim. Despite inantly short (terrestrial and maritime) and less frequently several attempts, the isochrones of pottery dispersal are yet long maritime distances (after Hughes 1977; Irwin 2008). to be fixed across ISEA. Even after the chronology of diffusion These exchange networks were probably not continuously op- is determined, red-slipped pottery may mark only the incor- erational in either time or space, but they certainly existed in poration of Taiwanese influences into the maritime exchange varying forms before, during, and after Austronesian language networks of ISEA rather than a large-scale demic, farming, dispersal from Taiwan (Solheim 1984–1985). language, or Neolithic dispersal. Across ISEA, different peoples had been exchanging, adopt- In contrast to theories of Austronesian farming/language ing, and transforming various plants, animals, and technol- dispersal, as well as critiques of (Oppenheimer and Richards ogies since the early Holocene, including (1) localized trans- 2001b) and commentaries on (Anderson and O’Connor 2008) locations of the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) to Flores them, we suggest that there was not a single homeland, a (Dobney, Cucchi, and Larson 2008) and of a marsupial (Pha- single migratory route, a single cultural package, or a single langer orientalis) from New Guinea to East Timor (White mode of language transmission that spread through ISEA. 2004); (2) widespread diffusion of the domesticated pig (Sus Equally, complexity cannot be ascribed to two homelands, scrofa) from mainland Southeast Asia to eastern Indonesia two migratory routes, or two cultural packages. A radically (Dobney, Cucchi, and Larson 2008); (3) widespread diffusion different type of hypothesis must be considered to account of bananas and sugarcane from the New Guinea region west- for the observed phenomena. ward to mainland Asia (Denham and Donohue 2009; Ken- The linguistic and archaeological records, as well as plant nedy 2008); and (4) potential diffusion of pottery from main- domestication histories, are suggestive of considerable com- land Southeast Asia to Borneo (Spriggs 2003, 2007). Some plexity in parts of ISEA before and during the dispersal of movements were idiosyncratic, others more general. Some Malayo-Polynesian languages from Taiwan; the directionality things, such as taro and some yams (e.g., Dioscorea bulbifera; and chronology of diffusions are unclear or contradictory. Lebot 1999), did not move, presumably because they were 238 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Figure 8. Places of origin for selected cultural items entering exchange networks in Island Southeast Asia during the mid-Holocene. The eastward and westward movements from mainland Southeast Asia and Melanesia occurred before the southward movement from Taiwan. relatively ubiquitous resources, were subject to varying local indirectly linked vast areas and may well have initially re- forms of management and domestication, and did not make mained under the control of non-Austronesian peoples after highly prized trade items. contacts between ISEA and Taiwan. Without a significant cul- Two related topics are keys to understanding how Malayo- tural disruption, the existing networks would have enabled Polynesian speakers and some elements of their distinctive the widespread distribution of any new prized item, such as material culture became incorporated into preexisting net- a new pottery style. works of maritime-facilitated exchange in ISEA: the origins Through time, perhaps millennia, more and more parts of of voyaging technology and the rapid appearance of red- these previous maritime networks came to be increasingly slipped pottery across the northeast fringe of the region be- dominated by Malayo-Polynesian languages, probably initially tween 4,000 and 3,600 years ago. in scattered coastal enclaves. Just as different technologies There is nothing uniquely Taiwanese about the outrigger were variously adopted and adapted in ISEA, so too did dif- canoe, the technological artifact currently most famously as- ferent peoples in different locales take up an intruder lan- sociated with Austronesian dispersal. Linguistically, the term guage, to different degrees, as the larger societies in which does not reconstruct to PAN (Blust 1984–1985; Pawley 2007), they participated were increasingly dominated by Malayo- and the vessel has long been presumed to have originated in Polynesian speakers. Wallacea or, potentially, Melanesia (e.g., Horridge 1995). On the basis of DNA evidence and sexual roles in modern There were maritime movements of material culture, plants, societies, we propose that a small group (or groups) emigrated animals, and technologies to, within, and from ISEA and from Taiwan and intermixed with indigenous populations, Melanesia before Austronesian language expansion from Tai- leaving an inconsistent genetic trace. The domination that wan, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the canoes, these immigrant groups enjoyed over the preexisting popu- or their precursors, were used in this exchange. Maritime lations was neither numerical nor accompanied by large-scale exchanges also occurred between Taiwan, China, and nearby population movements or replacement. It is unclear why islands from potentially 4,500 years ago, thought to have been Malayo-Polynesian speakers came to dominate, but an “elite facilitated by bamboo rafts (Rolett, Chen, and Sinton 2000). dominance model” (e.g., Best 2002; Spriggs 2003), whereby The rapid spread of red-slipped pottery, a manufacturing small groups of politically important men leave a greater ge- style considered to have spread through ISEA southward from netic signature than their numbers would suggest, can be Taiwan, clearly indicates the incorporation of Taiwan into invoked. Social dominance, as well as the continuation, in- some ISEA exchange networks from ca. 4,000 years ago tensification, and extension of trade networks through time, (Spriggs 2003, 2007). These preexisting exchange networks is linked to control over new trade goods in the network, Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 239 perhaps such as red-slipped pottery and some types of pol- languages (Lewis 2009). Through time, some local languages ished stone adze, as well as over the knowledge to make them. have become less important and increasingly replaced by what The continuation and intensification of exchange through had previously been a secondary language. Indeed, the in- maritime networks and the subsequent ubiquity of items give creasing use of this language of wider communication in the illusion of a standardized “Neolithic” cultural package at Papua New Guinea has compromised the future of many archaeological sites, despite the disparate sources of many of languages, which are now endangered, prompting educational the items implicated in this “package.” After decades or cen- support in community schools and academic efforts to doc- turies of increasing exchange and social interaction, numerous ument them. items, practices, and kinds of knowledge that may have been Social change in the New Guinea highlands over the past locally restricted within or around ISEA became more com- 75 years is not directly comparable to the maritime landscape mon, both across space and in their co-occurrence. Thus, of ISEA in the mid-Holocene, but the comparison is useful dispersed occurrences of “early” artifacts in ISEA and neigh- insofar as it highlights some of the social processes that may boring regions are not archaeological anomalies that require have occurred in ISEA during the Holocene. In both cases, a methodological, as opposed to historical, explanation. Simi- small incoming group effected major linguistic and cultural larly, a Taiwanese cultural package, whether Austronesian or changes without leaving a major genetic signal. Genetically, Neolithic, is illusory for ISEA as a whole; it did not originate most populations remained in place, except for a minor over- in one place and disperse outward but formed through the lay derived from newcomers and intermixing reflecting new increasing co-occurrence of used and traded items by people movements, social interactions, and lifestyles. For instance, across ISEA, who were increasingly connected through an the expanded role of Malayo-Polynesian speakers in the trade expanding network of exchanges. networks of ISEA may have initiated or intensified exchanges among other social groups and may have been accompanied Social and Historical Contexts by a new sociocultural milieu. During the mid- to late Ho- of Exchange locene, new material-culture items and associated technolo- gies diffused differentially through exchange networks and Trade is not just about use or exchange value; it occurs be- were variably incorporated into preexisting practices. Through tween people and establishes or reinforces social relationships time, exchanged material-culture items became more wide- (e.g., Mauss 1990). The arrival of people with new material spread and co-occurred with greater frequency, producing the culture, language, technologies, and worldviews can have dra- semblance of a cultural package. Also through time, the orig- matic impacts on societies; under the right conditions, these inal languages of ISEA were increasingly replaced by versions impacts can confer a high status on the new arrivals. History of the Malayo-Polynesian lingue franche that were variably is replete with examples of powerful groups dominating larger adopted by local populations in order to participate in a new indigenous populations, with language transfer and the var- social world. Language replacement was effected not by pop- iable adoption of cultural items and practices. The period of ulation replacement or absorption but by changing social con- European colonial expansion over the past 500 years is simply texts and practices (Mufwene 2001). the most recent and, perhaps, most visible example. The model of maritime interaction and social transfor- The nature of some of the social processes involved can be mation in ISEA advanced here accords with the observed data illustrated with reference to a historically well-documented better than other hypotheses, including that of Austronesian example: the arrival of Europeans in highland New Guinea farming/language dispersal. Further, we have shown that the in the 1930s (Connolly and Anderson 1987; Leahy 1991). various lines of evidence, both individually and taken together, Small, disparate groups of newcomers were able to dominate require us to suppose a series of viable networks connected much larger indigenous populations through the manipula- by maritime technology, trading a range of commodities and tion of now greatly expanded trading networks and world- ideas. Given that we must posit these technologies and in- views, reinforced by the use of violence (Swadling 1996). Sev- novative exchanges in ISEA before the advent of the Malayo- eral items of European introduction to Melanesia had Polynesian-speaking peoples, considerations of parsimony re- differentially spread through local exchange networks ahead quire us to question the need to posit a Taiwan-initiated of direct contact, in some cases by centuries, including items advance in food, material, and maritime technologies. The of high value and prestige, such as steel axes (Hughes 1977) continued transformation in social contexts during the late and a widely adopted staple crop, the sweet potato (Ipomoea Holocene furthered linguistic and cultural homogenization batatas; see papers in Ballard et al. 2005). Some intermixing through the maintenance and intensification of maritime ex- occurred between indigenous populations, Europeans, and change networks, the spread of Indic civilizations, and later accompanying lowland Melanesians. People soon began to Islamization and European colonialism (e.g., Reid 1995; Su- learn Tok Pisin, a largely English-lexified creole language that pomo 1995). serves as a lingua franca in much of Papua New Guinea (Baker The “Austronesian dispersal” cannot be considered to have and Mu¨hlha¨usler 1996; Laycock 1982; Mu¨hlha¨usler 1996), been a single expansionary process from Taiwan through the where fewer than six million people still speak more than 800 islands to its south, let alone east to Polynesia (contra Dia- 240 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 mond 2001). We have proposed an alternative historical analysis and any reliable molecular dating method for the framework that focuses on the ways that Taiwanese, mainland Holocene (Ho et al. 2007). Austronesians do not “mimic, Southeast Asian, and Melanesian influences, as well as those genetically, any non-Austronesian populations with which from within ISEA, were transformed through time and across they are in contact.” There are no such populations beyond space. The social dynamics underlying Malayo-Polynesian peripheral regions of Vietnam, peninsular Malaysia, Near language dispersal through previously inhabited regions of Oceania (especially New Guinea), and Madagascar. ISEA and Melanesia (Green 2000) were almost certainly fun- In terms of linguistics, the Malayo-Polynesian (MP) “tree” damentally different from those driving the colonization of has long been observed to be a rake (Pawley 1999), indicative uninhabited islands in the Pacific. of rapid multidirectional dispersal, thus explaining why Proto- Of broader significance, the Austronesian dispersal has been MP cannot be sourced to any specific extra-Taiwan region. promoted as an archetype of the farming/language dispersal The authors offer no new insight here. Subsequent high levels hypothesis. Our discussion demonstrates the inability of that of interaction between MP-speaking populations in ISEA have hypothesis to account for the distribution of genes, languages, led to high levels of lexical retention. Austronesian beyond and material culture across ISEA over the past 4,000 years. Taiwan results from a recent, rapid, and multidirectional dis- We have proposed an alternative, more complex hypothesis persal, mostly within the past 3,500 years, or Wichmann’s drawing on the distinctive histories of each line of evidence (forthcoming) 35 minimum centuries. Why should it be ex- and the social contexts of exchange across ISEA. Conse- pected to “exhibit the characteristics expected of a large, an- quently, the presumed consonance of genes, language, and cient language family,” when it is not ancient at all? material culture, and the suitability of the farming/language The suggestion that MP languages spread by “varying de- dispersal hypothesis to other historical and geographical con- grees of linguistic shift,” with new lexicon grafted onto pre- texts, such as the Bantu expansion in sub-Saharan Africa, existing non-Austronesian languages, is grossly overdone. should be progressively challenged. Why are there not far more non-Austronesian enclaves sur- viving in ISEA, as there are in western Island Melanesia, where Acknowledgments such a language shift is implied by the higher levels of lexical diversity? “Elite dominance” simply does not work and lacks Thanks are due to Huw Barton, Geoff Hope, Peter Kershaw, historical analogy. The recent spread of Tok Pisin in Papua David Mitchell, Andrew Pawley, Victor Paz, Martin Richards, New Guinea is due to imposition of a language in colonial Malcolm Ross, and Matthew Spriggs for answering queries and modern circumstances in which hundreds of mutually and to the Centre of Southeast Asian Studies at Monash Uni- unintelligible languages are spoken. At least two millennia of versity for providing an opportunity to present our research. precolonial trade and interaction in New Guinea, famous to We also thank four Current Anthropology referees for con- anthropologists since Malinowski and before, led to no sig- structive criticism of earlier drafts and Kara Rasmanis, Uri nificant lingua franca formation. Were language shift to be Gilad, and Kay Dancey for their help preparing our figures. the true explanation, then surely all the peoples of New Guinea would have shifted to MP languages 3,000 years ago. The archaeological records for Taiwan and the northern Philippines, unquoted by these authors, are rich in artifactual Comments (but not yet economic) detail, assisted by large numbers of 14C dates (Bellwood and Dizon 2008; Bellwood et al., forth- Peter Bellwood coming; Hung 2008). There is no network of preceramic in- School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National teraction hiding here or in the Moluccas, Borneo, or Sulawesi. University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Excepting claims for Timor Leste, there is no good evidence Australia ([email protected]). 21 V 09 (and the authors offer none) that cord-marked pottery, shell fishhooks, cut-shell beads, and shell adzes predate Malayo- This “nuanced” but misinformed paper denigrates the farm- Polynesian arrival in ISEA, given the widespread use of old ing/language dispersal hypothesis by associating it with imag- shell for making artifacts and the propensity of these artifacts ined concepts of “wholesale replacement,” “large-scale human to migrate through or be cached within cave strata (Bellwood migration,” and “mass migration,” concepts not required by 2009). Pigs did not spread from mainland Southeast Asia the clinal models of population dispersal that I prefer (Bell- before they spread from Taiwan into the northern Philippines wood 1997, 2005; the authors quote both books but appear (Piper et al. 2009). The authors lack knowledge of the ar- to have read neither with due attention). The genetics dis- chaeologies of Vietnam, Borneo, and certainly Taiwan, where cussion is dominated by haploid molecular clock–based as- the gradual development of red-slipped pottery as a dominant sumptions, ignoring current criticisms (Cox 2005, 2008). The style was well established between 4500 and 4000 BP, long statement that only 20% of modern mtDNA and NRY (non- before such pottery appeared to the south (Hung 2008). The recombining Y chromosome) variation reflects Austronesian Taiwan “cultural package” is certainly not illusory in the dispersal in ISEA is guesswork in the absence of ancient-DNA northern Philippines (Bellwood and Dizon 2008). Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 241

Bemoaning the “lack of domesticated rice dating to essarily right, and, more importantly, they are not often very 4,000–3,000 years ago,” the authors fail to note the lack of useful. searching with appropriate techniques. Little phytolith or A good model should be simple (i.e., reduce the complexity starch research has yet been done in ISEA, and the archaeology of the world), explicit (i.e., use stable, well-defined concepts), is dominated by caves, reluctant locales for food production. and, most importantly, testable (i.e., have clearly defined out- Coastal Neolithic village sites in ISEA are likely to be buried comes). These ideals are not readily apparent in Donohue beneath many meters of redeposited sediment (Bellwood et and Denham’s work, primarily because concepts like a “mo- al. 2008). Lack of evidence in circumstances lacking suitable saic of regional networks” are not sufficiently concrete. Did recovery techniques cannot be proof of absence. Indo-Pacific populations interact equally across geography The Austronesian cognate vocabulary for food production and time? (Greenhill and Gray [2005:34] would call this a and increasing numbers of reports of rice in pottery and as “maximally interconnected network.”) Or, as we suspect Don- phytoliths, even when identifiable charcoal macroremains are ohue and Denham intend instead, did Indo-Pacific popula- absent, leave little room for any nonfarming argument for tions interact in very specific ways at very specific times in early MP-speaking colonists. Suggestions that bananas, sug- very specific places? If so, when exactly were those times, and arcane, greater yam, and sago might have been domesticated what exactly were those places? in Melanesia, especially New Guinea, are not here disputed, Herein lies the rub. The out-of-Taiwan model is so easy to but the only “archaeological evidence” presented for their criticize precisely because it is relatively simple, explicit, and early domesticated occurrence in ISEA consists of a contro- testable. It has clear expectations: we can distinguish when versial claim for banana phytoliths in a site in Uganda. data fit the model and when they do not. Conversely, Don- The paper finishes by denigrating the ability of the farming/ ohue and Denham’s model is sufficiently imprecise that it language dispersal hypothesis to account for the distribution cannot readily be evaluated. The charge leveled against Ter- of genes, languages, and material culture across ISEA over the rell’s earlier incarnation applies: such an “anything goes” past 4,000 years. But this hypothesis remains the best expla- model risks being “vague to the point of uselessness” (Lum’s nation for the observed situation (Bellwood 2009). The MP comment in Terrell, Kelly, and Rainbird 2001:116). language spread occurred mainly as a result of population By way of example, the out-of-Taiwan model is commonly movement (Ross 2008), not elite dominance. criticized for its insistence on correspondences between in- terdisciplinary data sets (such as genetics and language). Amusingly, the initial stimulus behind this now-lengthy de- bate (Terrell and Fagan 1975) was the finding of just such a Murray P. Cox and J. Stephen Lansing statistical association between g-immunoglobulin diversity Institute of Molecular BioSciences, Massey University, and language affiliation in New Guinea (Giles, Ogan, and Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand ([email protected] Steinberg 1965). However, this discovery was no mere fluke: .nz)/Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, over the past 40 years, similar associations have been found Tucson, Arizona 85721, U.S.A. ([email protected]). 28 V on geographical scales both large (e.g., Cavalli-Sforza et al. 09 1988) and small (e.g., Lansing et al. 2007). The latter case is particularly informative: the study ex- As the influential statistician George Box once noted, “all amined genetic and linguistic diversity in 532 men from eight models are wrong, but some are useful” (Box 1979:202). This small communities on Sumba, an island in east Indonesia less statement is not mere semantics: models are by necessity sim- than 200 km across. Under the out-of-Taiwan model, we plifications of the real world; they can be considered useful might expect a rapid Austronesian expansion to have left only if they tell us something new. While Donohue and Den- specific signals in modern communities: they should carry ham rightly warn about the dangers of entrenched views, their some Asian contribution and have a mid-Holocene origin, own model of Indo-Pacific prehistory is neither new nor sim- and we might also observe remnants of shared linguistic/ ple, nor, more importantly, is it particularly useful. genetic heritage. This is exactly what we find. Around a quar- Despite claiming differences of opinion, Donohue and ter of Sumbanese men carry Asian Y chromosome lineages; Denham’s idea that “material culture [and language and Bayesian coalescent inference, a particularly robust form of genes] dispersed through ISEA from multiple sources along molecular dating, indicates that their villages are less than a mosaic of regional networks” is remarkably similar to earlier 5,000 years old; and the proportion of male Asian ancestry themes. As far back as 1988, John Terrell advocated a related correlates significantly with villages’ retention of proto- outlook: that Indo-Pacific prehistory revolved around “inter- Austronesian cognates. Expectations under Donohue and locking, expanding, sometimes contracting and ever-changing Denham’s model are much less clear, but it seems unlikely set of social, political, and economic subfields” (Terrell 1988: that long-standing regional networks could produce a com- 647). Such general concepts have understandable appeal: they bination of patterns quite like these. capture the complexity of human society in a way that simple For those who dislike the tenacity of the out-of-Taiwan models do not. Unfortunately, such generalities are not nec- model, the reason seems obvious: there is no meaningful al- 242 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 ternative. Clearly, some early ideas were wrong (any expansion of ISEA and Oceania than to that of the mainland (Lin et al. did not result in complete replacement), but equally clearly, 2005). some ideas were right (several genetic markers do trace back Language subgrouping based on exclusively shared inno- to Taiwan). Rather than yet another personal take on Pacific vations requires that the considered cognate sets include only prehistory, what we need now are good alternative models: inherited forms (not borrowings). But Malayo-Polynesians simple, explicit, and testable. What expectations do these pro- are notorious for long-distance contacts, and there was, more- duce for Sumba? How do expectations differ between models? over, a systematic source of noise. Malay-speaking seamen No matter if these new models turn out to be wrong; in the spanned ISEA since 200 BCE–200 CE (Solheim 1980)—trans- meantime, it would at least be very helpful if they were useful. porting spices from Maluku to the Malayan Peninsula, India, and China—and sailed through the Philippines to China be- fore 300 CE (Mahdi 1994a, 1999a, 1999b). This resulted in Waruno Mahdi borrowings across group boundaries and in misleading sec- Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, Faraday- ondary sound correspondences, with fateful consequences for weg 4-6, D-14195 Berlin, Germany ([email protected] eliciting a structured phylogeny of Western and Central .de). 9 VI 09 Malayo-Polynesian. Until this is conclusively resolved, it in- evitably creates a misleading impression of “propagation of Donohue and Denham present a challenging reappraisal of Malayo-Polynesian languages . . . without direction or hierarchy.” the Malayo-Polynesian dispersal, also reexamining the role of Borrowing also camouflages the separate status of Central- non-Austronesians in ISEA culture history and reinspecting Eastern Malayo-Polynesian: several “almost-exclusive” inno- the farming/language dispersal hypothesis. The Malayo- vations have cognates only in Sulawesi and the Philippines, Polynesian dispersal hypothesis adapted repeatedly to newer but their distribution suggests that they represent a remnant insights: a successively developing “out-of-Indochina” model substratum of the former southward movement of Central- (Heine-Geldern 1932; Kern 1889; Schmidt 1906) gave way to Eastern Malayo-Polynesians (Mahdi 1994b). Malayo-Poly- the “out-of-Taiwan” (Chang, Grace, and Solheim 1964) model nesian is only one of several highest-level branches of Aus- currently under discussion. The dispersal is a baffling subject, tronesian, and a “significant break between PAN and PMP” having been linear in neither its linguistic, genetic, nor cultural is relevant only if demonstrated to be substantially greater aspect. However, if the manifestations and consequences of than those between PAN and Atayalic or between PAN and that nonlinearity previously remained inadequately appreci- Proto-Tai-Kadai (grouped under PAN; Sagart 2005). So al- ated, the present treatment perhaps oversimplifies them. together, the apparent inconsistencies in the linguistic picture Modern humans inhabited ISEA long before the Holocene, do not disprove an out-of-Taiwan dispersal. but the rising sea (14,000–10,000 BP; Dunn 1970) caused With regard to the material-culture record, equatorial cli- migrations from inundated lowlands. Besides increasing pop- matic conditions required significant adaptations. The daily ulation diversity and density (encouraging plant domestica- photoperiod was too short for japonica rice (Grist 1959), while tion) at both ends, Indochina and New Guinea, retreating Zimmermann (1992) concluded that rice-cultivating “Proto- populations would often be trapped on temporary islands; Malays” settled the highlands because of the more suitable only those who learned to cross the sea survived (Mahdi soil (Mahdi 1994b). Adapting the rice variety to the tropics 1988). The authors thus rightly stress early to mid-Holocene and littoral immigrants to a highland habitat required time. development of maritime interaction and the resulting dif- Malayo-Polynesians of the first wave depended on locally fusion of cultural artifacts and irregular distribution of genetic available staples, learning from the indigens they encountered. markers. Equatorial populations of inundated regions also The authors correctly stress the role of the latter in domes- reached Taiwan, implying that the later Malayo-Polynesian tication and distribution of the cultigens but perhaps under- dispersal included their descendants. Whether genetic traces estimate the adaptive ability of Malayo-Polynesians. of this southward movement are discernible before the back- Farming by Malayo-Polynesians as well as by indigens must ground of their earlier northward migration is unclear. have been the decisive factor underlying maritime contact In terms of former racial concepts, ethnologists distin- and exchange. Thus, stressing the role of indigens and the guished darker-skinned “Proto-Malays” and lighter “Deutero- importance of contact and exchange does not dismantle the Malays,” as having, respectively, a greater and a lesser equa- farming/language dispersal hypothesis altogether but modifies torial admixture (cf. Bylmer 1943). A similar distinction was it, by appreciating the reciprocal role of indigenous farming. made by the Malayo-Polynesians, with two distinct proto- Watercraft likewise gained central importance, but the out- forms for “person” (Mahdi 1994b). Intensive contacts ema- rigger canoe was not the original Malayo-Polynesian water- nating from western ISEA since 2000 BP could explain why craft. That was the double canoe (Doran 1981; Mahdi 1999a; distribution of genetic markers linking Polynesia with Taiwan also Mahdi 1988, 1994b). A distribution area, beginning in “is not prominent in ISEA.” Nevertheless, indigenous Tai- China (Mahdi 1994b, 1999a; Needham, Wang, and Lu 1971), wanese are reported to be genetically closer to the population stretches over ISEA to Oceania and also to India and Sri Lanka Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 243

(among others, Doran 1981, fig. 40; Mahdi 1999a, fig. 5.4). [MP] dispersal,’ since nine of the 10 primary subgroups of But this too apparently involved exchange, even of actor iden- Austronesian are attested to only on Taiwan and only the tities. Thus, seafaring Sama-Bajau and Oranglaut were typi- Malayo-Polynesian branch has members outside Taiwan (and cally Negritos, and Malay speakers were described in Chinese none on mainland Taiwan)” and then proceed, with evidence, sources as “black and naked” (Mahdi 1999a; Pelliot 1925). to collapse the hierarchical MP tree, also removing its north- Meanwhile, there are hunter-gatherers of distinct Mongoloid south, west-east directional nature, questioning even the va- appearance in the interior of Kalimantan (Sellato 1994; Ser- lidity of the Central-Eastern- and Eastern-MP branches. The combe and Sellato 2007). Therefore, Donohue and Denham MP tree thus increases from 25 to 30–40 primary branches, rightly modify the farming/language dispersal hypothesis in of which Proto-Oceanic may be one, and ends up looking a second way, by allowing for interchange of immigrants and less like a tree than a scatter bomb with no identifiable point indigens in various roles. of dispersal, although their evidence points geographically to The linguistic data do not contradict a Malayo-Polynesian eastern Indonesia (pace Dyen 1965). By showing that “the language dispersal from Taiwan, but the authors’ genetic and impression of a graduated dispersal of Malayo-Polynesian lan- culture arguments indeed strongly indicate a more active role guages south from Taiwan does not hold up and must be of indigens in that process. rethought,” they kick out the language support from the ar- chaeolinguistic orthodoxy and puncture recent lexicostatis- tical claims to reproduce and date those stages in a multitiered Stephen J. Oppenheimer hierarchy (Gray, Drummond, and Greenhill 2009). Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Taking another dissenters’ leaf, they point out the fact that School of Anthropology, Oxford University, 64 Banbury “there is no evidence of a Taiwanese origin for much of the Road, Oxford OX2 6PN, United Kingdom (stephen basic vocabulary that is cited as characteristic of the Austro- [email protected]). 5 VI 09 nesian dispersal, such as terms for maritime technology and many of the food plants that have been associated with the Austronesians.” This observation is not new, also applies to Paradigms, especially old ones, die harder than Bruce Willis. faunal terms, and long ago was shown as a hole (e.g., Op- (James Adovasio 1999) penheimer and Richards 2001a) in the cognate lists of Blust’s The “express train to Polynesia from Taiwan” paradigm has seminal homeland paper (1984–1985), where less than a third a contentious 34-year history (Shutler and Marck 1975). Don- of any PMP cognates reconstruct in Taiwan. This back-to- ohue and Denham, like Shutler and Marck a linguist- front linguistic picture fits with their cited archaeological and archaeologist team, without directly challenging the argu- genetic evidence that the same items are prior Southeast Asian ments for an Austronesian linguistic homeland in Taiwan, innovations, again already reviewed in the literature (e.g., Op- question its whole relevance to Southeast Asian and Oceanic penheimer 2006). However, their linguistic perspective also demography, culture, and prehistory. What is new, and what implies a massive influx (up to 68%) of borrowed lexicon in will hopefully have most impact in shifting the logjam in the Island Southeast Asia if Taiwan was the true homeland. This field, is that now there is a linguist leading the challenge. perspective is not taken account of in their characterization Why should a single discipline matter so in what is nec- of Austronesian as a lexically conservative family, although essarily a multidisciplinary field? Simply because the archae- they have made this estimation for the effect of similar non- ologist paradigm-champions made it so. Donohue and Den- AN borrowing in Melanesia. For instance, of Blust’s ham aptly quote Bellwood’s tautology “the question of (1984–1985) cognate set, only 32% of those that reconstruct Austronesian origins is basically a linguistic question”; this is in Taiwan survive in Proto-Oceanic, by contrast with the 56% more malapropism than tautology, based on the conviction survival for PMP cognates (88% in Blust [1993:245]), making that languages, genes, and culture move hand in hand to only PMP conservative. invade and replace (Diamond and Bellwood 2003). Combined A couple of flies buzz around this excellent paper. The with the oft-stated stricture that only linguists and like- authors claim that their reconstructive approach to the issue minded archaeologists are qualified to comment on Austro- is new, which it is in respect of the illuminating linguistic nesian (AN) linguistics, this idea has locked the issue up from perspectives, but their claim that dissenters “have been unable objective review by anyone but an inner circle for well over to address all aspects” is disingenuous, since most of the rest a generation. For these arcane reasons, voices from the hu- of their archaeological and genetic arguments, though sound, manities guilds of linguists and archaeologists doubting the are extensively discussed and prefigured in their cited dis- adequacy of the emperor’s old clothes will resonate better senting literature (see also Oppenheimer 2004, 2006; Oppen- than any number of raggedy dissenters from other disciplines, heimer and Richards 2001a, 2002). They claim novelty for however objective and informed their critiques. several insights, such as the importance of maritime net- Donohue and Denham commence their linguistic reas- working, effectively omitting full acknowledgement of Sol- sessment with the old dissenters’ truism that “the ‘Austro- heim’s seminal work (2006), and the complexity of interac- nesian dispersal’ might better be termed a ‘Malayo-Polynesian tions, previously stressed by Terrell (1988) and caricatured by 244 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 his opponents as “confused.” Even the claim that dissenters view that interaction without population movement is suf- were too concerned with the relevance of language and home- ficient to change languages. In the Philippine experience, for lands is overstated (e.g., Oppenheimer 2004; Oppenheimer example, the power and prestige in the hands of a few native and Richards 2002). That was the orthodox camp. Finally, speakers of Spanish or English did not change the languages they seem ambivalent about the linguistic significance of red- of the Philippines from Austronesian to Indo-European in slipped pottery, acknowledging the absence of a clear link but the past 400 years; this may have something to do with the sometimes relying on it as evidence. small population size of native speakers. If we assume that I thank Martin Richards, John Terrell, Mark Donohue, and cultures were already interacting at the very beginning, the Tim Denham for helpful comments on mine. possible advantage of the Austronesian-speaking cultures over others may be based on a suite of cultural and technological know-how that island populations saw fit to adopt at various Victor Paz points in a long series of interaction. Archaeological Studies Program, University of the The seeming simplicity of the FLDH may be misleading to Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines critics. It has been expounded on and transformed by ad- ([email protected]). 1 VI 09 vocates, especially in its ISEA application, in response to new data and in engagement with basic research. For example, Donohue and Denham address head-on an ongoing discourse from a main hypothesis that cereal agricultural was the engine on early Island Southeast Asian (ISEA) history and propose for population movement and culture spread, Bellwood an alternative way of looking at the state of knowledge in (1995:108–110) has postulated at least seven interrelated ex- three fields. The paper engages the dominant farming and language dispersal hypothesis (FLDH) as represented in the planations as to why people moved, including a possible role Austronesian dispersal, which explains the processes involved for an early form of marcher culture. in the transformation of culture within a time depth of about The claimed “new historical framework” for understanding 5,000 years by using data from linguistics, archaeology, and the nature of culture change in the mid-Holocene in ISEA is genetics. The authors review the latest studies and find the not necessarily new. The emphasis on “the mosaic of regional Austronesian expansion hypothesis wanting in answering the networks and the social processes” has already been articu- complexities of past human cultures around the mid-Holo- lated in a way very close to the description presented here cene in ISEA. My own views on the topic have close affinity (see Meacham 1984–1985, 1995; Solheim 1969, 1990, 2006). with the spirit behind the article. I agree with the authors on The approach is fresh, however, in that it works within the some points, differ on others, and have more sympathy for same methodological frame in which the dominant FLDH is the Austronesian-spread hypothesis than they do. based and not just in a dominantly single-discipline data set. There are strong arguments in the paper. It presents how I see the discourse on the nature of mid-Holocene ISEA complicated are the dynamics between the various data sets culture as married to the very problematic archaeological pe- used to answer questions about the human past—clearly riod label “Neolithic.” A serious assessment of what “Neo- showing that these data sets are more often than not hard to lithic” means in ISEA is much needed, and this work is a whip into cadence—while still underscoring the importance contribution in that direction. For starters, I think that Aus- of pursuing multiple disciplinary lines of inquiry. I also agree tronesian-speaking cultures did not simply encounter small that the default thinking for understanding cultural history bands of hunter-gatherers as they moved through the land- in ISEA should not be that cultures developed in isolation scape. There is a small but growing data set from my own before interacting; it should rather be that cultures developed research and that of colleagues that seriously suggests the while interacting with other cultures from the very beginning. possibility of a pan-ISEA existence of much more complex It is significant to me that the authors did not strongly societies that, at least, were maritime, had a developed suite challenge the historical linguistic conclusion on the Austro- of shell material culture, perhaps had non-cereal-based ag- nesian homeland, concentrating instead on the nature of the riculture that had existed before and had interacted with Aus- spread and eventual dominance of this language family across ISEA and the Pacific, which they then use to question the tronesian-speaking cultures. reasoning of the FLDH. This tells me that it is still a relevant I posit that the early spread of Austronesian-based cultures challenge to know the sequence of language formation, es- may not necessarily be well represented in observed ISEA pecially within the Malayo-Polynesian languages. The genetics cultures. I am also looking at the possibility that the more data review highlights the significance of the small percentage significant pattern coming from the twinning of data sets of Taiwan-based markers found in the current ISEA popu- reflects much later interactions and confluences, perhaps from lation. It is, however, not clear to me whether this conclusion around the time of population movements of Austronesians was due to sampling strategies or to methodological limita- with developed rice agriculture, metallurgy, and intricate pot- tions of modern population genetics in revealing fine-grained tery production. Much is yet to be reflected on and learned, images of past populations. I also have reservations about the making basic research in our region ever more exciting. Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 245

BC. Their view could be tested by comparing the structures Matthew Spriggs of reconstructed protolanguages for slightly later-settled areas School of Archaeology and Anthropology, A. D. Hope to the east, such as Proto-Oceanic (POc) or later subgroups Building, Australian National University, Canberra, in the island Pacific beyond any possible direct substratal Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia influence. There is also another underutilized resource: the ([email protected]). 12 VI 09 two remotest ISEA Austronesian languages, those of the Mar- ianas and Palau, settled from ISEA simultaneously with or The core of the paper is a new and stimulating treatment of even slightly earlier than Lapita in the Bismarcks and pre- the linguistics of ISEA. The treatments of genetics and ar- sumably not subject to a great deal of later Southeast Asian chaeology seem built on much flimsier foundations. In part, linguistic influence. Do they show the required substratal in- this is because trying to catch a “moment” in historical ge- fluences? I doubt it. So genetic support is fickle, and the early netics is almost impossible, given that there are frequent re- Malayo-Polynesian (MP) languages that were involved in sub- visions of interpretation and continuing problems of inade- sequent spread into the Pacific were neither near-creoles quate sampling of relevant populations. nor MP-lexically-but-something-else-structurally, as Don- Historical genetics presents a very immature disciplinary ohue and Denham portray them. profile compared to both archaeology and linguistics for the For the archaeology, the immediately pre-Neolithic period region. Thus, we can have the “origin of the Lapita complex” in ISEA is critical, as they suggest, but at present the evidence solved by a study of people in the East Sepik region on the of the long-distance preadapted exchange networks that their north coast of Papua New Guinea (Vilar et al. 2008), a pop- model requires is lacking. The diffusion of crops of New ulation that almost certainly derives from a westward Aus- Guinean origin to the west in pre-MP times doubtless took tronesian expansion that, on archaeological evidence, arrived place, but it may have done so over a long period and with only sometime around 1,700–1,500 years ago! Similarly, Fried- initially no great implications for the societies involved. It was laender et al. (2008) “contribute to a resolution of the debates the combination of plants and domestic animals that was over Polynesian origins and their past interactions with Mel- revolutionary, along with a developed boat technology that anesians” by choosing, almost without exception, populations we know must have existed in ISEA for the 3500 BP or earlier in the Bismarcks from areas where there is either no evidence open-ocean crossing to the Marianas. Add in the pottery, of Lapita occupation or clear evidence of post-Lapita cata- polished stone adzes, distinctive shell artifacts, and tattooing strophic vulcanism and subsequent population replacement. chisels noted by Donohue and Denham—and one could add The modern populations are thus almost completely irrele- other features, such as the jar burial complex (Bedford and vant in consideration of the problem they are seeking to re- Spriggs 2007)—and it still looks like a “package” to me. solve: the ISEA contribution to the settlement of the Pacific. There are many positive aspects of the paper, too. The Problems of interpretation do not stop there. Donohue and flattening of MP linguistic subgroups between Proto-MP and Denham quote a most interesting paper by Excoffier and Ray POc better explains the almost instantaneous archaeological (2008) to explain the apparent link between indigenous Tai- dates for Neolithic spread across much of ISEA around 3800 wanese and Polynesians as being due to genetic “surfing,” BP than does Blust’s (1995) earlier subgrouping: I wish I had where originally low-frequency alleles can reach high fre- had this paper in front of me when I last considered the quencies during rapid population expansion. But the paper relationship between Austronesian spread and archaeology makes clear that there is a major equifinality problem in the across its range in a paper written in 2006 (Spriggs, forth- interpretation of genetic data in historical terms. The equally coming). Contrary to their hope, however, there may still be plausible explanation for the link is, of course, that the original a need for an Eastern MP or at least some node between PMP “signal” of the expansion remains clear in both Taiwan and and POc, as there is a pause between the earliest Neolithic Polynesia but has been obscured by later population replace- dates for the Philippines, Sulawesi, and the Lesser Sundas, at ment or mixing in areas in between. about 3800 BP, and dates for the earliest Lapita sites in the This is, in fact, exactly what seems to have happened lin- Bismarcks, at around 3350 BP. guistically as well, and again current situations may be poor guides to past ones. But Donohue and Denham do not seem to draw the obvious conclusion. There may be much mixing John Edward Terrell and substratal influence in ISEA Austronesian languages, but Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois 60605, this has likely occurred over the past 3,000-plus years, after U.S.A. (terrell@fieldmuseum.org). 30 V 09 the population wave had passed through to the east en route to Polynesia. Delineating such influence is interesting, but it If a generation is taken to be 25 years long, then two gen- is again irrelevant to the problem they are seeking to address, erations of archaeologists working in the Pacific have been which is primarily about the conditions under which Aus- working with, or under, the same interpretative paradigm. tronesian languages and putatively associated sets of material This abiding source of inspiration has been comparative his- culture spread across the region in the second millennium torical linguistics, a field of intellectual expertise with a lengthy 246 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 pedigree in Western scholarship that effectively reached the been at play, genetically speaking, is some form of Batesian university scene in Hawai‘i, New Zealand, and Australia after mimicry rather than love and marriage or the commonplace World War II, concurrently with the arrival of academically but less sanctioned—although still highly interactive—alter- trained archaeologists at the same universities. natives to either or both. There is no doubt that research done on Pacific prehistory I also have a substantive quibble. Was Taiwan the Proto- over the past 50 years, inspired by the formulae and logical Austronesian homeland because this is “where nine of the 10 procedures of comparative historical linguistics, helped jump- first-order subgroups are found”? Taiwan is a beautiful island, start modern archaeological work in Oceania after the war. and not a small one as islands go. But until someone explains It is no secret, however, that I think this paradigm outlived why there are so many top-notch subgroups there (and why its effectiveness years ago. not all of them, pray tell?), I will be skeptical. Why did this Instead, I have been preaching (I am sure this is how some degree of diversity develop there? Why has it been maintained have seen my own contributions to this journal, written with there for so many millennia? Why should this diversity, how- several of my colleagues) that the ancient Pacific, seen in ever highfalutin, be seen solely as a sign of great age rather human terms, is an “interlocking, expanding, sometimes con- than as a sign also that there is something noteworthy about tracting and ever-changing set of social, political, and eco- Taiwan as a social, ecological, and political realm? nomic subfields” (Terrell 1988:647), a playing field, so to Nonetheless, Donohue and Denham have given us a data- speak, where people have taken up different positions, at dif- rich, compelling, and radical reinterpretation of prehistory in ferent times, traveling different distances, and perhaps from island Southeast Asia. I never thought I would live to see the different directions to play often similar although somewhat day when a linguist and an archaeologist working in the Pa- different games. cific would team up to write jointly, for example, “language Critical to this perspective is the idea that isolation between families, like bacteria or bdelloid rotifers, can form because settlements, islands, and even archipelagoes has rarely been of the convergence of originally unrelated taxa.” I do not think so absolute that new rules, discoveries, fashions, inventions, that even George Grace would go this far, and shockingly few or genetic traits could not be shared, passed along, traded Pacific archaeologists have ever seriously challenged the his- back and forth, or, for that matter, stolen if thought worthy, torical truth value of the methodological simplifications that wonderful, pleasing, or desirable. Also important is the idea are built into the comparative method and have for far too that the people involved in each instance could have come long provided too many with easy and compelling but im- from down the road, across the bay or valley, or from just plausible reconstructions of Pacific prehistory. over the hill. They did not have to be people who lived far away in some unknown homeland in southern China or Taiwan. Robin Torrence The metaphor of a playing field only partly captures this Anthropology Department, Australian Museum, 6 College interactive perspective on the past, which is why more than Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia 20 years ago I also suggested, borrowing a metaphor from ([email protected]). 20 V 09 Darwin, that Pacific prehistory could be seen as an “entangled bank” (Terrell 1988), a suggestion since then widely misun- First impressions gained during European expansion have derstood and often maligned (Terrell 2000a). Therefore, while heavily influenced research agendas for Pacific and ISEA ar- it may be just wishful thinking, I am delighted to find Don- chaeology that underlie models for the spread of Austronesian ohue and Denham saying much the same thing when they languages. This welcome and convincing critique of the per- write about “prolonged interaction and mixing among pop- vasive Austronesian farming-language dispersal model over- ulations across ISEA,” and emphasize “the mosaic of regional comes many, but not all, of these biases. First, Cook (and networks and the social processes prevalent in ISEA before successors) was especially taken by the Polynesians, with their and during the spread of Austronesian languages and cultural fair skin and hierarchical society (“just like us”), but was influences from Taiwan.” horrified by the unruly Melanesians. Since then, scholars have I would, however, quibble somewhat about their choice of been obsessed with human colonization of the remote reaches wording. A “mosaic” is a tessellated picture or pavement. of Polynesia and uncomfortable with imagining how the Opting for this metaphor could be read as saying that human seemingly less sophisticated Melanesian cultures could have diversity is a jigsaw puzzle of different entities (“societies,” contributed to the achievements of their eastern cousins. This “cultures,” and the like) rather than “an interlocking, ex- focus also meant that archaeologists have sought a single ex- panding, sometimes contracting and ever-changing set of so- planation for Polynesia, one that involves simple, directional cial, political, and economic subfields.” change, and have been less concerned whether it was equally Nor do I think that using the word “mimic” to describe applicable to the enormous and highly diverse region encom- why it is that neighboring Austronesian and non-Austronesian passed by Austronesian languages. Several commentators speaking communities are often genetically similar is likely to noted that the “Polynesian tail wagging the dog” (e.g., Allen be helpful. This word choice makes it sound as if what has 1991) prevented new ideas about the peopling of the Pacific Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 247 and the spread of Austronesian languages, but the farming- the long run, a semblance of homogeneity could be generated language dispersal model (“one size fits all”) has continued across a region. to dominate research and thinking, even for ISEA. A brief example will highlight the potential for new inter- The second consequence of European exploration is an pretations of prehistory that follow Donohue and Denham’s assumption that since New Guinea was always separate cul- identification of a supraisland social entity. My focus on peo- turally from its ISEA neighbors, the movement of Austro- ple actively seeking innovations to bring back home might nesian language/ceramics/pigs/etc. required a singular, one- explain the rapid distribution of red-slipped pottery within way event. This misguided view also derives from historical ISEA and the Bismarck Archipelago. It echoes Allen and circumstances. After Europeans took control of the Spice Is- White’s (1989:142) proposal that “the craft of pot making lands, long-term contacts to the west were significantly dis- was first acquired by some aceramic voyagers” rather than rupted, creating an unusual period of isolation of ISEA from introduced by foreigners. More recently, Torrence and Swad- New Guinea and beyond. As the Donohue and Denham re- ling (2008; cf. Torrence et al. 2009) argued that wide-scale sults now make brilliantly clear, modern international bound- social networks of the sort implied by Donohue and Denham aries did not operate in the past (cf. Swadling 1996). provided the structure through which the practice of red- Two of the authors’ approaches are integral for their suc- slipped ceramics could have spread initially. The concept of cessful overhaul of the language-farming hypothesis. First, “adventurers,” driven by competition for status, who return independent studies of the genetic, linguistic, and archaeo- novelties to their home communities rather than impose them logical data using distinct and specific methods relevant to on others, adds the missing process from previous ideas. With each field of study have efficiently unpacked the model. Since Eurocentric biases removed, prehistory in ISEA and the Pacific their analyses show that genes, languages, agriculture, and has a bright future. technologies moved at different speeds, directions, and tim- ings, it is clear that social processes were the key motor. This is an important theoretical shift from the vague notion of “progress” underlying agriculture as a prime mover. Second, they note that seemingly directional changes can accrue over Reply long time periods. Their paper makes it abundantly clear that The comments on our paper are thoughtful, diverse, and well a supra-island social entity fueled by frequent communication received; they variably offer criticism, lend support, and sug- and exchange was built up slowly. This diffuse nest of social gest new lines of inquiry. Inevitably, our response focuses on networks was not coterminous with a single language/genetic criticisms. However, we acknowledge the predominantly pos- group. Its existence has been overlooked because of the as- itive reaction of most commentators and look forward to sumption that cultural groups were isolated and because it pursuing some of their thought-provoking suggestions. operated on a greater spatial scale than is generally studied Foremost, we do not claim to be the first either to critique by linguists and anthropologists. the farming/language dispersal hypothesis in the Austronesian Donohue and Denham’s effective criticism of the language/ context or to propose an alternative metanarrative focused farming dispersal model encourages reinterpretations of ISEA on maritime social networks within ISEA. Our arguments and Melanesian prehistory that consider supraisland social follow and augment but are different from those made pre- networks. Their use of Australian colonization of the New viously by Solheim, Meacham, Terrell, Oppenheimer, and Guinea highlands as an analogy for the spread of Austronesian Richards. As Paz notes, ours is a “head-on” multidisciplinary language and the Neolithic cultural package, however, shows assault on and revision of ISEA history during the Holocene. that there is still a need to shed Eurocentric biases. Their The strengths of the argument derive from our examination— thinking is flawed because it uses landlocked groups, like the in disciplinary isolation and in multidisciplinary combina- original Renfrew dispersal theory they dispute, in contrast to tion—of the historical implications of genetic, linguistic, the maritime universe that they stress fits ISEA. The Donohue archaeological, and crop plant data for ISEA during the Ho- and Denham model also suffers because it is fundamentally locene. Ours is a new synthesis intended to provoke a new based on notions of power relations between visitor and local challenge. communities derived from recent colonial society in New We do not question the hypothesis of a Taiwanese origin Guinea. In this highly risky and unstable environment, where for the Austronesian languages; indeed, recent work adds fur- natural disasters (volcanoes, tsunamis) are frequent and wide- ther credence to the idea that this island was the most likely spread, the maintenance of external links was essential for homeland of Austronesian languages (Ross 2009). We ques- continual reproduction of small groups. Since transport was tion the extent to which the dispersal of Austronesian lan- easy and quick but potentially perilous, people could achieve guages from Taiwan can be linked to the demic dispersal of prestige by returning safely from beyond the horizon with farming or a “Neolithic revolution” across ISEA. Explicit or mates, resources, and “wealth” (Renfrew 1993) that might implicit assumptions of linkages between genetics, linguistics, stimulate the adoption of novel ideas/languages/objects. Over and archaeology are pervasive in “Austronesian culture his- 248 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 tory” and continually lead to problems of interdisciplinary morro and Palauan, the Austronesian languages of the circularity. Marianas and Palau, show evidence of substratal influences Some commentators demonstrate a continual slippage be- that must have been acquired before their migration east from tween archaeological evidence and linguistic interpretation to the Philippines area (Donohue 2007b). Similarly, while we present an inclusive historical metanarrative. The two lines agree with Spriggs that Proto-Oceanic is well-established of evidence are continually deployed in self-referential and within Malayo-Polynesian, it is defined by a series of irregular interchangeable ways for mutual support. There is no expla- changes and has a strongly “Papuanized” grammar, indicating nation of why agriculture, the purported “Neolithic” package, nonorganic developments in its history. and Malayo-Polynesian languages necessarily spread together; We reiterate that the genetics of Austronesian-speaking they are merely assumed to have spread together. Our argu- populations need not be different from those of non-Austro- ment, by contrast, has been carefully crafted to ensure that nesian-speaking populations in regions of contact (Mona et different lines of evidence are neither conflated nor used in- al. 2009). Bellwood circumlocutiously concurs by implying terchangeably. We consider each line of evidence separately that such populations occur in several peripheral regions, and then compare them to assess accordance or discordance. namely, all of those places in which Austronesian and non- Illustrating the problem of slippage, Spriggs suggests that Austronesian speaking populations are juxtaposed. As Terrell an Eastern-MP subgrouping should be retained because of “a notes, the word “mimic” implies an intentional act, whereas pause between the earliest Neolithic dates” for ISEA and the we intended to characterize unforeseen, cumulative effects. earliest Lapita sites in the Bismarcks. His use of archaeological Cox and Lansing reaffirm the purported correspondence evidence to justify a linguistic interpretation is predicated on between genetics and language in ISEA at both large and small a major assumption, namely, that an archaeological artifact scales. Given the problems outlined above, it is not surprising (effectively, red-slipped pottery) can be used to closely track that there are few others who still maintain that there are language dispersal in the past. The veracities of this particular significant correspondences between Austronesian languages link, as well as of overarching conceptions of farming/lan- and Taiwanese genetic signals at the large scale in ISEA (e.g., guage dispersal and Neolithic spread, are left unexamined. In Capelli et al. 2001), with similar reservations in other regions our article, we open these assumptions up to examination (e.g., Heggarty 2007). At the small scale, Cox and Lansing and find them wanting. throw down the Sumba gauntlet, even though, a priori, a As several commentators note, there are major problems pattern between language and a genetic marker on one island with the application of historical genetics in ISEA. These in- cannot be extrapolated to be symptomatic of a whole region. clude the absence of “any reliable molecular dating method On Sumba itself, we note the discordance between linguistic for the Holocene” (Bellwood, contra Cox and Lansing), the and genetic data sets for the island (based on information in “methodological limitations of modern population genetics Lansing et al. 2007): the linguistic “homeland” of Austro- in revealing fine-grained images of past populations” (Paz), nesian language dispersal on the island shows the lowest rates and disciplinary immaturity and equifinality (Spriggs); all of occurrence of the Y chromosome haplogroup (O) that is conspire against a unified picture. Our review highlights the claimed to be diagnostic of Austronesian farmers. lack of clear and significant genetic clines from Taiwan across How do we account for the geographical variability in ge- ISEA. Indeed, no unequivocal reconstructions of human mi- netic markers and linguistic associations across ISEA? It seems grations within ISEA during the Holocene emerge from the improbable that a “simple” model (following Cox and Lan- human genetics of contemporary populations; various studies sing), albeit one that is ”explicit and testable,” will do; ease detect different signals and reach different conclusions, de- of utility is no measure of veracity. At the same time, we assert pending on geographical scale of analysis, locale, molecular that the mosaic of social interactions that we are proposing marker, and interpretative stance. At best, genetic signals as a conceptual framework for understanding ISEA is no less across ISEA are “fickle” (Spriggs). explanatory or testable than a seemingly unitary hypothesis. There is general agreement on the need to revise current To quote Bellwood (2002:27), “No claim is being made that interpretations of the phylogeny of Austronesian languages only farmers ever dispersed through already-inhabited areas (see Mahdi, Oppenheimer, and Spriggs), although several mi- in prehistoric times, or that only farmers ever spread large nor linguistic issues are raised. Spriggs suggests that the non- language families. . . . No claim is being made that all early Taiwanese features of the grammars of Malayo-Polynesian farmers were obliged to undergo expansion” (emphasis in languages may be due to borrowing rather than substratal original). Campbell (2002) points out that language families influences. We note that substratal properties might reflect associated with agriculture show the same frequency of borrowing early in the history of a language or language shift. spreading as those that are not. In short, the farming/language Given the nature of the properties we discuss and the massive dispersal hypothesis does not provide a testable model for replacement of vocabulary (see our discussion of Wichmann’s ISEA or elsewhere, because ultimately, the key factors in de- measure and the replacement rates highlighted in Oppen- termining spread of language families are not the presence or heimer’s response), we tend toward the language-shift hy- absence of agriculture but rather “historical contingency and pothesis. Following Spriggs’s comments, we confirm that Cha- opportunity” (Bellwood 2002:27). Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 249

Archaeology is concerned with elucidating the complexities problematizes the application of the concept “Neolithic” in of human (pre)history through observed traces of material the ISEA context. culture. As such, it is ideally situated to shed light on the Evidentially, there is no multidisciplinary evidence of rev- social and historical complexities that underlie the geograph- olutionary socioeconomic or cultural changes across ISEA at ical variability of genetic-linguistic accordance/discordance in the supposed time of Malayo-Polynesian language dispersal, ISEA. As has long been realized, spatial correlations are often whether fast train, slow boat, or pulse paused. If the plants methodologically problematic and, even when valid, require and domestic animals carried by these early farmer-voyagers explanation (Gould 1970). In this case, we must elucidate the were such important drivers of change, why is archaeological (pre)histories of social exchange, interaction, and practice and paleoecological evidence of these revolutionary transfor- within ISEA that account for the observed genetic, linguistic, mations so elusive? More dramatic evidence of agricultural and archaeological phenomena. expansion, as well as more ubiquitous cultural remains, occur Of greatest significance is that the farming/language dis- millennia later (as Paz notes). Even if “early” rice and do- persal hypothesis is devoid of archaeological and paleoeco- mesticated animal remains are found at the occasional site in logical evidence to indicate the spread of farming across ISEA ISEA, such fragmentary evidence is consistent with intro- from Taiwan. The earliest Malayo-Polynesian speakers were duction via multidirectional exchange networks and adoption agricultural; this conclusion is apparent from historical lin- within, as well as transformation of, preexisting practices and guistic evidence and accords with archaeological evidence social forms. As Mahdi eloquently states, greater consideration from Taiwan. Malayo-Polynesian speakers contributed to the is needed of the “reciprocal role of indigenous farming.” range of plant exploitation practices within ISEA, as did the Preceramic maritime interactions within ISEA, as well as people living there and those from mainland Asia and Mel- with and within neighboring Melanesia, are clear (Bulbeck anesia. The chicken, dog, and pig were initially domesticated 2008; Torrence and Swadling 2008; White 2004). An increas- in Asia and then brought into ISEA, but the archaeozoological ing body of evidence from archaeology and historical lin- evidence does not indicate that they were all brought at a guistics indicates that several elements of the putatively single time or along a single route, namely, via Taiwan. Malayo-Polynesian cultural package either were already in ISEA before Taiwanese influences or were introduced from None of the commentators present evidence to bolster an elsewhere; these traits include voyaging technology, some do- argument for the spread of farming from Taiwan. The lack mestic animals, at least one pottery style, numerous crop of archaeobotanical evidence for rice is claimed by Bellwood plants, non-cereal-based agriculture, and shell material culture to result from a lack of microfossil (phytolith and starch (see Mahdi’s and Paz’s comments). Taiwanese influences were analyses) applications in ISEA contexts. This is a sleight of probably strongest in the northern Philippines, just as Mel- hand (see Paz 2005). Rice is frequently detected from mac- anesian influences were strongest in eastern Indonesia; these robotanical remains at archaeological sites in mainland East patterns are products of distance-decay effects across socially Asia and yet is seldom found, except as inclusions in pottery, constructed space. Although distinctively regional material at purportedly early “Austronesian” or “Neolithic” sites in cultures persisted, a seeming material-culture “package” con- ISEA. Although the absence of evidence is not evidence of sisting of originally indigenous and exotic traits formed in absence, it certainly cannot be used in support of something, ISEA through a partial homogenizing process of social inter- namely, farming. action, exchange, adoption, and transformation. Items were Most commentators agree with, and Mahdi and Paz elab- assimilated into Malayo-Polynesian languages within ISEA, orate on, our notion of pre-Malayo-Polynesian cultivation in and Malayo-Polynesian speakers took these words and things ISEA, which is implied from the dispersal of vegetatively prop- to, as well as exchanged them with, places outside ISEA. agated plants. Our argument for this is not founded solely We have not questioned a Taiwanese origin for red-slipped on the controversial evidence of banana from Uganda (Lejju, pottery, but as Torrence has noted, it need not have dispersed Robertshaw, and Taylor 2006), as Bellwood claims (see pa- solely with Malayo-Polynesian people or languages. To allay pers in Denham, De Langhe, and Vrydaghs 2009). Spriggs any ambivalence on this matter (noted by Oppenheimer), the concludes that these forms of horticulture had “no great im- spread of red-slipped pottery should not automatically be plications for the societies involved.” He considers the com- equated with or used as a proxy for the spread of farming, a bination of plants and domestic animals carried by Malayo- language family, or people in ISEA. There are no presumptive Polynesian-speaking, “Neolithic” farmer-voyagers to be the correspondences: farming ( red-slipped pottery ( language source of truly revolutionary change. There are two problems ( people. Each element has its own historicogeographic ex- with Spriggs’s argument: conceptual and evidential. Concep- pression; sometimes these elements co-occur, and sometimes tually, his interpretation carries echoes of a “people without they do not. history” (Wolf 1982), whereby not much happened before the Torrence takes us to task for using the recent colonial ex- arrival of Malayo-Polynesian speakers; real (pre)history seem- perience of New Guinea as an analogue of processes on islands ingly begins with the “Neolithic.” Such views exhibit a strong in ISEA during the Holocene. The analogy was designed to Eurocentric inheritance (raised by Torrence), and, further, Paz be a heuristic illustrative of “some of the social processes” 250 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010 involved and should not be read literally. Her criticism is Anttila, Raimo. 1972. An introduction to historical and comparative founded in terms of our use of a landlocked example, whereby linguistics. New York: Macmillan. Araho, Nick, Robin Torrence, and J. Peter White. 2002. Valuable and we fail to capture the appropriate maritime qualities needed useful: Mid-Holocene stemmed obsidian artefacts from West New to understand ISEA during the Holocene. We accept these Britain, Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society criticisms. 68:61–81. To sum up, we are not proposing an alternative hypothesis, Arkhipova, Irina, and Matthew Meselson. 2000. Transposable ele- simple or otherwise, to “model” human interaction over the ments in sexual and ancient asexual taxa. Proceedings of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences of the USA 97(26):14473–14477. Holocene period in a pancontinental region; we are seeking Baker, Philip, and Peter Mu¨hlha¨usler. 1996. The origins and diffusion to recast the whole multidisciplinary narrative. None of the of Pidgin English in the Pacific. In Atlas of languages of intercultural comments cause us to question our primary conclusions. Var- communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, vol. II.1. ious incarnations of the farming/language dispersal hypothesis Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mu¨hlha¨usler, and Darrell T. Tryon, eds. fail to provide an historical narrative to account for the dis- Pp. 551–594. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Bakker, Peter. 2000. Rapid language change: creolization, intertwin- tribution of genes, languages, and material culture across ISEA ing, convergence. In Time depth in historical linguistics. Colin Ren- over the past 5,000 years. “Austronesian dispersal,” whether frew, April McMahon, and Larry Trask, eds. Pp. 585–620. Cam- fast, slow, or pulse paused, was not a single expansionary bridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. process from Taiwan through ISEA and eventually onward to Ballard, Chris, Paula Brown, R. Michael Bourke, and Tracey Har- Polynesia. We propose an alternative interpretative framework wood, eds. 2005. The sweet potato in Oceania: a reappraisal. Oceania Monograph 56. Sydney: University of Sydney; Pittsburgh: De- that focuses on the social dynamics through which Taiwanese, partment of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. mainland Southeast Asia, and Melanesian influences, as well Barton, Huw, and Tim P. Denham. Forthcoming. Prehistoric vege- as those from within ISEA, were transformed through time culture and social life in Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia. In and across social space. Why cultivate? anthropological and archaeological approaches to —Tim Denham and Mark Donohue foraging-farming transitions in Southeast Asia. Graeme Barker and Monica Janowski, eds. Leiden: KITLV Press. Bedford, Stuart. 2006. Pieces of the Vanuatu puzzle: archaeology of the north, south and centre. Terra Australis 23. Canberra: Australian References Cited National University. Bedford, Stuart, and Matthew Spriggs. 2007. Birds on the rim: a Adelaar, Alexander. 2005a. The Austronesian languages of Asia and unique Lapita carinated vessel in its wider context. Archaeology in Madagascar: a historical perspective. In The Austronesian languages Oceania 42(1):12–21. [MS] of Asia and Madagascar. Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus P. Him- Bellwood, Peter. 1984–1985. A hypothesis for Austronesian origins. melmann, eds. Pp. 1–42. London: Routledge. Asian Perspectives 26(1):107–117. ———. 2005b. Malayo-Sumbawan. Oceanic Linguistics 44(2): ———. 1995. Austronesian prehistory in Southeast Asia: homeland, 357–388. expansion and transformation. In The Austronesians: historical and Adelaar, K. Alexander. 1995. Borneo as a cross-roads for comparative comparative perspectives. Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Austronesian linguistics. In The Austronesians: historical and com- Tryon, eds. Pp. 103–118. Canberra: Australian National University. parative perspectives. Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell [VP] Tryon, eds. Pp. 81–102. Canberra: Australian National University. ———. 1997. Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago. Hono- Adovasio, James M. 1999. Paradigm-death and gunfights. In Special lulu: University of Hawaii Press. Report “Monte Verde revisited.” Scientific American Discovering ———. 2002. Farmers, foragers, languages, genes: the genesis of Archaeology 1(6):20. [SJO] agricultural societies. In Examining the farming-language dispersal Allen, Jim. 1991. Introduction. In Report of the Lapita Homeland hypothesis. Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew, eds. Pp. 17–28. Project. Jim Allen and Chris Gosden, eds. Pp. 1–8. Occasional Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Papers in Prehistory 20. Canberra: Department of Prehistory, Re- ———. 2005. First farmers: the origins of agricultural societies. Oxford: search School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Blackwell. [RT] ———. 2007. Overview. In Review feature: First farmers: the origins Allen, Jim, and J. Peter White. 1989. The Lapita homeland: some of agricultural societies. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17:88–91. new data and an interpretation. Journal of the Polynesian Society ———. 2009. Holocene population history in the Pacific region as 98(2):129–146. [RT] a model for world-wide food producer dispersals. Paper presented Ammerman, Albert J., and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. 1984. The Neo- at the Wenner-Gren Symposium “The Beginnings of Agriculture: lithic transition and the genetics of populations in Europe. Princeton, New Data, New Ideas,” Hacienda Temozo´n Sur, Mexico, March NJ: Princeton University Press. 6–13. [PB] Anderson, Atholl, and Sue O’Connor. 2008. Indo-Pacific migration Bellwood, Peter, Geoffrey Chambers, Malcolm Ross, and Hsiao-chun and colonization: introduction. Asian Perspectives 47(1):2–11. Hung. Forthcoming. Are “cultures” inherited? multidisciplinary Anshari, Gusti, A. Peter Kershaw, and Sander van der Kaars. 2001. perspectives on the origins and migrations of Austronesian speak- A late Pleistocene and Holocene pollen and charcoal record from ing peoples prior to 1000 BC. In Investigating archaeological cul- peat swamp forest, Lake Sentarum Wildlife Reserve, West Kali- tures: material culture, variability and transmission. Ben Roberts mantan, Indonesia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeo- and Marc van der Linden, eds. Dordrecht: Springer. [PB] ecology 171(3–4):213–228. Bellwood, Peter, and Eusebio Dizon. 2005. The Batanes Archaeolog- Anshari, Gusti, A. Peter Kershaw, Sander van der Kaars, and Ger- ical Project and the “out of Taiwan” hypothesis for Austronesian aldine Jacobsen. 2004. Environmental change and peatland forest dispersal. Journal of Austronesian Studies 1(1):1–31. dynamics in the Lake Sentarum area, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. ———. 2008. Austronesian cultural origins: out of Taiwan, via the Journal of Quaternary Science 19(7):637–655. Batanes Islands, and onwards to western Polynesia. In Past human Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 251

migrations in East Asia: matching archaeology, linguistics and ge- Vincenzo L. Pascali, Tsang-Ming Ko, and David B. Goldstein. 2001. netics. Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, Roger Blench, Malcolm D. Ross, Ilia A predominantly indigenous paternal heritage for the Austrone- Peiros, and Marie Lin, eds. Pp. 23–39. London: Routledge. [PB] sian-speaking peoples of insular Southeast Asia and Oceania. Bellwood, Peter, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon. 1995. The Austro- American Journal of Human Genetics 68(2):432–443. nesians in history: common origins and diverse transformations. Carreel, Franc¸oise, Diego Gonza´lez de Leo´n, Pierre Lagoda, Claire In The Austronesians: historical and comparative perspectives. Peter Lanaud, Christophe Jenny, Jean-Pierre Horry, and Hugues Te´zenas Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, eds. Pp. 1–16. Canberra: du Montcel. 2002. Ascertaining maternal and paternal lineage Australian National University. within Musa chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA RFLP analyses. Bellwood, Peter, and Colin Renfrew, eds. 2002. Examining the farm- Genome 45(4):679–692. ing-language dispersal hypothesis. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, Alberto Piazza, Paolo Menozzi, and for Archaeological Research. Joanna Mountain. 1988. Reconstruction of human evolution: Bellwood, Peter, Janelle Stevenson, Eusebio Dizon, Armand Mijares, bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data. Pro- Gay Lacsina, and Emil Robles. 2008. Where are the Neolithic land- ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 85(16): scapes of Ilocos Norte? Hukay (Manila) 13:25–38. [PB] 6002–6006. Best, Simon. 2002. Lapita: a view from the east. Auckland: New Zea- Chang, Kwang-chih, George W. Grace, and Wilhelm G. Solheim II. land Archaeological Association. 1964. Movement of the Malayo-Polynesians: 1500 B.C. to A.D. Blust, Robert. 1981. Variation in retention rate among Austronesian 500. Current Anthropology 5(5):359–406. [WM] languages. Paper presented at the Third International Conference Chow, Rachel A., Jose L. Caeiro, Shu-Juo Chen, Ralph L. Garcia- on Austronesian Linguistics, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, January Bertrand, and Rene J. Herrera. 2005. Genetic characterization of 1–11. four Austronesian-speaking populations. Journal of Human Ge- ———. 1984–1985. The Austronesian homeland: a linguistic per- netics 50(11):550–559. spective. Asian Perspectives 26(1):45–67. Connolly, Bob, and Robin Anderson. 1987. First contact: New ———. 1991. The Greater Central Philippines hypothesis. Oceanic Guinea’s highlanders encounter the outside world. New York: Viking. Linguistics 30(2):73–129. Cox, Murray P. 2005. Indonesian mitochondrial DNA and its op- ———. 1993. Central and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. Oce- position to Pleistocene era origin of Proto-Polynesians in Island anic Linguistics 32(2):241–293. Southeast Asia. Human Biology 77(2):179–188. [PB] ———. 1995. The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples: ———. 2008. Accuracy of molecular clock dating with the Rho a view from language. Journal of World Prehistory 9(4):453–510. statistic: deviations from coalescent expectations under a range of ———. 2000a. Chamorro historical phonology. Oceanic Linguistics demographic models. Human Biology 80(4):335–357. [PB] 39(1):83–122. Dagan, Tal, and William Martin. 2007. Ancestral genome sizes specify ———. 2000b. Why lexicostatistics doesn’t work. In Time depth in the minimum rate of lateral gene transfer during prokaryote evo- historical linguistics. Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry lution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA Trask, eds. Pp. 311–331. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Ar- 104(3):870–875. chaeological Research. Dam, Rien A. C., Jennie Fluin, Papay Suparan, and Sander van der ———. 2001. Malayo-Polynesian: new stones in the wall. Oceanic Kaars. 2001. Palaeoenvironmental developments in the Lake Ton- Linguistics 40(1):151–155. dano area (N. Sulawesi, Indonesia) since 33,000 yr BP. Palaeo- ———. 2005. The linguistic macrohistory of the Philippines: some geography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 171(3–4):147–183. speculations. In Current issues in Philippine linguistics and anthro- De Langhe, Edmond, and Pierre de Maret. 1999. Tracking the banana: pology: parangal kay Lawrence A. Reid. Hsiu-chuan Liao and Carl its significance in early agriculture. In The prehistory of food: ap- R. Galvez Rubino, eds. Pp. 31–68. Manila: Linguistic Society of petites for change. Chris Gosden and Jon Hather, eds. Pp. 377–396. the Philippines and SIL Philippines. London: Routledge. Box, George E. P. 1979. Robustness in the strategy of scientific model Denham, Tim. 2004. The roots of agriculture and arboriculture in building. In Robustness in statistics. Robert L. Launer and Graham New Guinea: looking beyond Austronesian expansion, Neolithic N. Wilkinson, eds. Pp. 201–236. New York: Academic Press. [MPC/ packages and indigenous origins. World Archaeology 36(4):610– JSL] 620. Brandes, Jan A. 1884. Bijdragen tot de Vergelijkende Klankleer der ———. 2005. Envisaging early agriculture in the highlands of New Westersche afdeeling van de Maleis-Polynesische taalfamilie. Leiden: Guinea: landscapes, plants and practices. World Archaeology 37(2): van de Weijer. 290–306. Bulbeck, David. 2008. An integrated perspective on the Austronesian Denham, Tim, Edmond De Langhe, and Luc Vrydaghs, eds. 2009. diaspora: the switch from cereal agriculture to maritime foraging History of banana domestication. Special issue, Ethnobotany Re- in the colonisation of Island Southeast Asia. Australian Archaeology search and Applications 7:164–380. 67:31–51. Denham, Tim, and Mark Donohue. 2009. Pre-Austronesian dispersal Bylmer, Hendricus J. T. 1943. Newer data on blood groups from the of banana cultivars west from New Guinea: linguistic relics from Indian Archipelago, and their classification in the triangle of eastern Indonesia. Archaeology in Oceania 44:18–28. Streng. Genetica 23:257–276. [WM] Denham, Tim, Simon G. Haberle, Carol Lentfer, Richard Fullagar, Campbell, Lyle. 2002. What drives linguistic diversification and lan- Judith Field, Michael Therin, Nick Porch, and Barbara Winsbor- guage spread? In Examining the farming/language dispersal hy- ough. 2003. Origins of agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the highlands pothesis. Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew, eds. Pp. 49–63. Cam- of New Guinea. Science 301:189–193. bridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Diamond, Jared. 2001. Polynesian origins: slow boat to Melanesia? Capell, Arthur. 1975. The “West Papuan phylum”: general, and Timor (reply) Nature 410(6825):167. and areas further west. In Papuan languages and the New Guinea Diamond, Jared, and Peter Bellwood. 2003. Farmers and their lan- linguistic scene, vol. 1 of New Guinea area languages and language guages: the first expansions. Science 300:597–603. study. Stephen A. Wurm, ed. Pp. 667–716. Canberra: Pacific Dobney, Keith, Thomas Cucchi, and Gregor Larson. 2008. The pigs Linguistics. of Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific: new evidence for taxo- Capelli, Cristian, James F. Wilson, Martin Richards, Michael P. H. nomic status and human-mediated dispersal. Asian Perspectives 47: Stumpf, Fiona Gratrix, Stephen Oppenheimer, Peter Underhill, 59–74. 252 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Donohue, Mark. 1999. A grammar of Tukang Besi. Berlin: Mouton casional Papers in Prehistory 24. Canberra: Department of Pre- de Gruyter. history, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National ———. 2002. Tobati. In The Oceanic languages. John Lynch, Malcolm University. Ross, and Terry Crowley, eds. Pp. 186–203. London: Curzon. Friedlaender, Jonathan S., Franc¸oise R. Friedlaender, Floyd A. Reed, ———. 2004. Typology and linguistic areas. Oceanic Linguistics 43(1): Kenneth K. Kidd, Judith R. Kidd, Geoffrey K. Chambers, Rodney 221–239. A. Lea, et al. 2008. The genetic structure of Pacific Islanders. PLoS ———. 2005. Word order in New Guinea: dispelling a myth. Oceanic Genetics 4(1):e19. Linguistics 44(2):527–536. Fullagar, Richard, Judith Field, Tim Denham, and Carol Lentfer. ———. 2007a. The Papuan language of Tambora. Oceanic Linguistics 2006. Early and mid Holocene tool-use and processing of taro 46(2):520–537. (Colocasia esculenta), yam (Dioscorea sp.) and other plants at Kuk ———. 2007b. Word order in Austronesian from north to south Swamp in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Journal of Ar- and west to east. Linguistic Typology 11(2):351–393. chaeological Science 33(5):595–614. Donohue, Mark, and Charles E. Grimes. 2008. Yet more on the Giles, Eugene, Eugene Ogan, and Arthur G. Steinberg. 1965. Gamma- position of the languages of eastern Indonesia and East Timor. globulin factors (Gm and Inv) in New Guinea: anthropological Oceanic Linguistics 47(1):115–158. significance. Science 150:1158–1160. [MPC/JSL] Doran, Edwin, Jr. 1981. Wangka: Austronesian canoe origins. College Glover, Ian C., and Charles F. W. Higham. 1996. New evidence for Station: Texas A&M University Press. [WM] early rice cultivation in South, Southeast and East Asia. In The Dryer, Matthew S. 1992. The Greenbergian word order correlations. origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism in Eurasia. David Language 68:81–138. R. Harris, ed. Pp. 413–441. London: University College London ———. 2005a. Order of adjective and noun. In World atlas of lan- Press. guage structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, Golson, Jack. 2005. The middle reaches of New Guinea prehistory. and Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 354–357. Oxford: Oxford University In Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Press. Papuan-speaking peoples. Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, ———. 2005b. Order of demonstrative and noun. In World atlas of Jack Golson, and Robin Hide, eds. Pp. 451–491. Pacific Linguistics language structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David 572. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Aus- Gil, and Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 358–361. Oxford: Oxford Uni- tralian National University. versity Press. Gould, Peter. 1970. Is statistix inferens the geographical name for a ———. 2005c. Order of genitive and noun. In World atlas of language wild goose? Economic Geography 46(suppl.):439–448. structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Gray, Russell D., Alexei J. Drummond, and Simon J. Greenhill. 2009. Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 350–353. Oxford: Oxford University Language phylogenies reveal expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific Press. settlement. Science 323:479–483. [SJO] ———. 2005d. Order of numeral and noun. In World atlas of lan- Gray, Russell D., and Fiona M. Jordan. 2000. Language trees support guage structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, the express-train sequence of Austronesian expansion. Nature and Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 362–365. Oxford: Oxford University 405(6790):1052–1055. Press. Green, Roger. 2000. Lapita and the cultural model for intrusion. In ———. 2005e. Order of relative clause and noun. In World atlas of Australian archaeologist: collected papers in honour of Jim Allen. language structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Atholl Anderson and Tim Murray, eds. Pp. 372–392. Canberra: Gil, and Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 366–369. Oxford: Oxford Uni- Australian National University. versity Press. Greenhill, Simon J., Robert Blust, and Russell D. Gray. 2008. The ———. 2005f. Order of subject and verb. In World atlas of language Austronesian basic vocabulary database: from bioinformatics to structures. Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics 4:271–283. Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. 334–337. Oxford: Oxford University Greenhill, Simon J., and Russell D. Gray. 2005. Testing population Press. dispersal hypotheses: Pacific settlement, phylogenetic trees and Dunn, Frederick L. 1970. Cultural evolution in the Late Pleistocene Austronesian languages. In The evolution of cultural diversity: phy- and Holocene of Southeast Asia. American Anthropologist 72(5): logenetic approaches. Ruth Mace, Clare J. Holden, and Stephen 1041–1054. [WM] Shennan, eds. Pp. 31–52. London: University College London Dutton, Tom. 1995. Language contact and change in Melanesia. In Press. [MPC/JSL] The Austronesians: historical and comparative perspectives. Peter Grist, Donald H. 1959. Rice. 3rd edition. London: Longmans. [WM] Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, eds. Pp. 207–228. Can- Grivet, Laurent, Christian Daniels, Jean-Christophe Glaszmann, and berra: Australian National University. Angelique D’Hont. 2004. A review of recent molecular genetics Dyen, Isidore. 1965. A lexicostatistical classification of the Austronesian evidence for sugarcane evolution and domestication. Ethnobotany languages. International Journal of American Linguistics Memoir Research and Applications 2:9–17. 19. Baltimore: Waverly. Haberle, Simon G. 2003. The emergence of an agricultural landscape Ehret, Christopher. 1998. An African classical age: eastern and southern in the highlands of New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania 38: Africa in world history, 1000 BC to AD 400. Charlottesville: Uni- 149–158. versity of Virginia Press. Haberle, Simon G., Geoff S. Hope, and Sander van der Kaars. 2001. Excoffier, Laurent, and Nicolas Ray. 2008. Surfing during population Biomass burning in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea: natural expansions promotes genetic revolutions and structuration. Trends and human induced fire events in the fossil record. Palaeogeog- in Ecology & Evolution 23(7):347–351. raphy, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 171(3–4):259–268. Flenley, John R. 1988. Palynological evidence for land use changes Heggarty, Paul. 2007. Linguistics for archaeologists: principles, meth- in South-East Asia. Journal of Biogeography 15(1):185–197. ods and the case of the Incas. Cambridge Archaeological Journal Fredericksen, Clayton F. K., Matthew Spriggs, and Wallace Ambrose. 17(3):311–340. 1993. Pamwak rockshelter: a Pleistocene site on Manus Island, Heine-Geldern, Robert. 1932. Urheimat und fru¨heste Wanderunngen Papua New Guinea. In Sahul in review: Pleistocene archaeology in der Austronesier. Anthropos 27:543–619. [WM] Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia. Michael A. Smith, Hill, Adrian V. S., and Susan W. Serjeantson, eds. 1989. The colo- Matthew Spriggs, and Barry Fankhauser, eds. Pp. 144–152. Oc- nization of the Pacific: a genetic trail. Oxford: Clarendon. Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 253

Hill, Catherine, Pedro Soares, Maru Mormina, Vincent Macaulay, Kirch, Patrick Vinton. 2000. On the road of the winds: an archaeo- Dougie Clarke, Petya B. Blumbach, Matthieu Vizuete-Forster, et logical history of the Pacific islands before European contact. Berkeley: al. 2007. A mitochondrial stratigraphy for Island Southeast Asia. University of California Press. American Journal of Human Genetics 80(1):29–43. Kjær, Anders, Anders S. Barfod, Conny B. Asmussen, and Ole Seberg. Ho, Simon Y. W., Beth Shapiro, Matthew J. Phillips, Alan Cooper, 2004. Investigation of genetic and morphological variation in the and Alexei J. Drummond. 2007. Evidence for time dependency of sago palm (Metroxylon sagu; Arecaceae) in Papua New Guinea. molecular rate estimates. Systematic Biology 56(3):515–522. [PB] Annals of Botany 94(1):109–117. Hongo, Hitomi, Naotaka Ishiguro, Takuma Watanobe, Nobuo Shi- Krupa, Viktor. 1973. Polynesian languages: a survey of research. The gehara, Tomoko Anezaki, Vu The Long, Dang Vu Binh, Nguyen Hague: Mouton. Trong Tien, and Nguyen Huu Nam. 2002. Variation in mito- Lansing, J. Stephen, Murray P. Cox, Sean S. Downey, Brandon M. chondrial DNA of Vietnamese pigs: relationships with Asian do- Gabler, Brian Hallmark, Tatiana M. Karafet, Peter Norquest, et al. mestic pigs and Ryukyu wild boars. Zoological Science 19: 2007. Coevolution of languages and genes on the island of Sumba, 1329–1335. eastern Indonesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Horridge, Adrian. 1995. The Austronesian conquest of the sea: up- of the USA 104(41):16022–16026. wind. In The Austronesians: historical and comparative perspectives. Larson, Gregor, Thomas Cucchi, Masakatsu Fujita, Elizabeth Mati- Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, eds. Pp. 143–160. soo-Smith, Judith Robins, Atholl Anderson, Barry Rolett, et al. Canberra: Australian National University. 2007. Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into Hughes, Ian. 1977. New Guinea Stone Age trade: the geography and Neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania. Pro- ecology of traffic in the interior. Terra Australis 3. Canberra: Aus- ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104(12): tralian National University. 4834–4839. Hung, Hsiao-chun. 2008. Migration and cultural interaction in Laycock, Donald C. 1982. Tok Pisin: a Melanesian solution to the southern coastal China, Taiwan and the northern Philippines, 3000 problem of Melanesian linguistic diversity. In Melanesia beyond BC to AD 1. PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra. diversity. Ronald J. May and Hank Nelson, eds. Pp. 263–272. Can- [PB] berra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National Hung, Hsiao-chun, Yoshiyuki Iizuka, Peter Bellwood, Kim Dung University. Nguyen, Be´re´nice Bellina, Praon Silapanth, Eusebio Dizon, Rey Leahy, Michael J. 1991. Explorations into highland New Guinea: Santiago, Ipoi Datan, and Jonathan H. Manton. 2007. Ancient 1930–1935. Douglas E. Jones, ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Ala- jades map 3000 years of prehistoric exchange in Southeast Asia. bama Press. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 104(50): Lebot, Vincent. 1999. Biomolecular evidence for plant domestication 19745–19750. in Sahul. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 46(6):619–628. Hunt, Christopher O., and Garry Rushworth. 2005. Cultivation and Lebot, Vincent, Made Sri Prana, Nelleke Kreike, Herman van Heck, human impact at 6000 cal yr B.P. in tropical lowland forest at Jose´ Pardales, Tom Okpul, T. Gendua, et al. 2004. Characterisation Niah, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Quaternary Research 64(3): of taro (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) genetic resources in South- 460–468. east Asia and Oceania. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 51(4): Hurles, Matthew E. 2002. Can the hypothesis of language/agriculture 381–392. co-dispersal be tested with archaeogenetics? In Examining the farm- Lejju, B. Julius, Peter Robertshaw, and David Taylor. 2006. Africa’s ing/language dispersal hypothesis. Peter Bellwood and Colin Ren- earliest bananas? Journal of Archaeological Science 33(1):102–113. frew, eds. Pp. 299–309. Cambridge: McDonald Institute of Ar- Lewis, Paul M., ed. 2009. Ethnologue: languages of the world.16th chaeological Research. edition. Dallas: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com/. Hurles, Matthew E., Bryan C. Sykes, Mark A. Jobling, and Peter Li, Hui, Bo Wen, Shu-Juo Chen, Bing Su, Patcharin Pramoonjago, Forster. 2005. The dual origin of the Malagasy in Island Southeast Yangfan Liu, Shangling Pan, et al. 2008. Paternal genetic affinity Asia and East Africa: evidence from maternal and paternal lineages. between western Austronesians and Daic populations. BMC Evo- American Journal of Human Genetics 76(5):894–901. lutionary Biology 8:146. Irwin, Geoffrey. 2008. Pacific seascapes, canoe performance, and a Lichtenberk, Frantisek. 1984. A grammar of Manam. Honolulu: Uni- review of Lapita voyaging with regard to theories of migration. versity of Hawaii Press. Asian Perspectives 47(1):12–27. Lin, Marie, Chen-Chung Chu, Richard E. Broadberry, Lung-Chih Jones, Alan A. 1998. Towards a lexicogrammar of Mekeo. Canberra: Yu, Jun-Hun Loo, and Jean A. Trejaut. 2005. Genetic diversity of Pacific Linguistics. Taiwan’s indigenous peoples: possible relationship with insular Joseph, Brian D., and Richard D. Janda, eds. 2003. The handbook of Southeast Asia. In The peopling of East Asia: putting together ar- historical linguistics. London: Blackwell. chaeology, linguistics and genetics. Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench, Kayser, Manfred, Ying Choi, Mannis van Oven, Stefano Mona, Silke and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, eds. Pp. 230–247. London: Rout- Brauer, Ronald J. Trent, Dagwin Suarkia, Wulf Schiefenho¨vel, and ledgeCurzon. [WM] Mark Stoneking. 2008. The impact of the Austronesian expansion: Liu, Yi-Ping Liu, Qing Zhu, and Yong-Gang Yao. 2006. Genetic re- evidence from mtDNA and Y chromosome diversity in the Ad- lationship of Chinese and Japanese gamecocks revealed by mtDNA miralty Islands of Melanesia. Molecular Biology and Evolution sequence variation. Biochemical Genetics 44(1–2):18–28. 25(7):1362–1374. Mahdi, Waruno. 1988. Nachtrag. In Morphophonologische Besonder- Kennedy, Jean. 2008. Pacific bananas: complex origins, multiple dis- heiten und historische Phonologie des Malagasy. Waruno Mahdi, ed. persals? Asian Perspectives 47(1):75–94. Pp. 347–423. Vero¨ffentlichungen des Seminars fu¨r Indonesische Kennedy, Jean, and William Clarke. 2004. Cultivated landscapes of und Su¨dseesprachen der Universita¨t Hamburg 20. Berlin: Reimer. the southwest Pacific. Research Management in the Asia-Pacific [WM] (RMAP) Working Paper 50. Canberra: RMAP, Australian National ———. 1994a. Some Austronesian maverick protoforms with University. culture-historical implications. I. Oceanic Linguistics 33(1):167– Kern, Hendrik. 1889. Taalkundige gegevens ter bepaling van het 229. stamland der Maleisch-Polynesische Volken. Verslagen en Mede- ———. 1994b. Some Austronesian maverick protoforms with deelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling culture-historical implications. II. Oceanic Linguistics 33(2):431– Letterkunde, 3e reeks, 6:270–287. [WM] 490. 254 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

———. 1999a. The dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Polynesia”: on the congruence of proxy lines of evidence. World Indian Ocean. In Archaeology and language III: artefacts, languages Archaeology 36(4):591–600. and texts. Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, eds. Pp. 144–179. ———. 2006. The “Austronesian” story and farming-language dis- London: Routledge. [WM] persals: caveats on timing and independence in proxy lines of ———. 1999b. Linguistic and philological data towards a chronology evidence from the Indo-European model. In Uncovering Southeast of Austronesian activity in India and Sri Lanka. In Archaeology Asia’s past: selected papers from the 10th International Conference and language IV: language change and cultural transformation. of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. Eliz- Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, eds. Pp. 160–240. London: abeth A. Bacus, Ian C. Glover, and Vincent C. Piggott, eds. Pp. Routledge. [WM] 65–73. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. [SJO] Malapa, Roger, Gemma Arnau, Jean-Louis Noyer, and Vincent Lebot. Oppenheimer, Stephen, and Martin Richards. 2001a. Fast trains, slow 2005. Genetic diversity of the greater yam (Dioscorea alata L.) and boats, and the ancestry of the Polynesian islanders. Science Progress relatedness to D. nummularia Lam. and D. transversa Br. as re- 84(3):157–181. [SJO] vealed with AFLP markers. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution ———. 2001b. Polynesian origins: slow boat to Melanesia? Nature 52(7):919–929. 410(6825):166–167. Mauss, M. 1990. The gift: the form and reason for exchange in archaic ———. 2002. Polynesians: devolved Taiwanese rice farmers or Wal- societies. W. D. Halls, trans. London: Norton. lacean maritime traders with fishing, foraging and horticultural Mbida, Christophe M., Hugues Doutrelepont, Luc Vrydaghs, Rony skills? In Examining the farming-language dispersal hypothesis. Peter L. Swennen, Rudy J. Swennen, Hans Beeckman, Edmond De Bellwood and Colin Renfrew, eds. Pp. 287–297. Cambridge: Langhe, and Pierre de Maret. 2001. First archaeological evidence McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. of banana cultivation in central Africa during the third millennium Pawley, Andrew. 1999. Chasing rainbows: implications of the rapid before present. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 10(1):1–6. dispersal of Austronesian languages for subgrouping and recon- ———. 2004. Yes, there were bananas in Cameroon more than 2000 struction. In Selected papers from the Eighth International Confer- years ago. InfoMusa 13(1):40–42. ence on Austronesian Linguistics. Elizabeth Zeitoun and Paul Jen- Meacham, William. 1984–1985. On the improbability of Austrone- kuei Li, eds. Pp. 95–138. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia sian origins in South China. Asian Perspectives 26(1):89–106. Sinica. [PB] ———. 1995. Austronesian origins and the peopling of Taiwan. In ———. 2002. The Austronesian dispersal: languages, technologies Austronesian studies relating to Taiwan. Paul Jen-kuei Li, Cheng- and people. In Examining the farming-language dispersal hypothesis. hwa Tsang, Ying-kuei Huang, Dah-an Ho, and Chiu-yu Tseng, eds. Peter Bellwood and Colin Renfrew, eds. Pp. 251–273. Cambridge: Pp. 227–294. Taipei: Academica Sinica. [VP] McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Mona, Stefano, Katharina E. Grunz, Silke Brauer, Brigitte Pakendorf, ———. 2006. Explaining the aberrant Austronesian languages of Loredana Castrı`, Herawati Sudoyo, Sangkot Marzuki, et al. 2009. southeast Melanesia: 150 years of debate. Journal of the Polynesian Genetic admixture history of eastern Indonesia as revealed by Y- Society 116:213–256. chromosome and mitochondrial DNA analysis. Molecular Biology ———. 2007. The origins of early Lapita culture: the testimony of and Evolution 26(8):1865–1877. historical linguistics. In Oceanic explorations: Lapita and western Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The ecology of language evolution. Cam- Pacific settlement. Stuart Bedford, Christophe Sand, and Sean P. bridge: Cambridge University Press. Connaughton, eds. Pp. 17–49. Canberra: Australian National University. Mu¨hlha¨usler, Peter. 1996. Development and spread of Tok Pisin 1920 Pawley, Andrew, and Roger Green. 1973. Dating the dispersal of the to present. In Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in Oceanic languages. Oceanic Linguistics 12:1–67. the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, vol. 1. Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Paz, Victor. 2002. Island Southeast Asia: spread or friction zone? In Mu¨hlha¨usler, and Darrell T. Tryon, eds. Map 50. Berlin: Walter de Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis. Peter Bell- Gruyter. wood and Colin Renfrew, eds. Pp. 275–285. Cambridge: McDonald Needham, Joseph, Wang Ling, and Lu Gwei-djen. 1971. Civil engi- Institute for Archaeological Research. neering and nautics, vol. IV:3 of Science and civilisation in China. ———. 2005. Rock shelters, caves, and archaeobotany in Island Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [WM] Southeast Asia. Asian Perspectives 44(1):107–118. Nettle, Daniel. 2000. Linguistic diversity, population spread and time Peiros, Ilia. 2000. Family diversity and time depth. In Time depth in depth. In Time depth in historical linguistics. Colin Renfrew, April historical linguistics. Colin Renfrew, April McMahon, and Larry McMahon, and Larry Trask, eds. Pp. 665–677. Cambridge: Trask, eds. Pp. 75–105. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Ar- McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. chaeological Research. Nichols, Johanna. 1997. Modeling ancient population structures and Pelliot, Paul. 1925. Quelques textes chinois concernant l’Indochine movement in linguistics. Annual Review of Anthropology 26: hindouise´e. In E´tudes asiatiques, publie´es a` l’occasion du vingt- 359–384. cinquie`me anniversaire de l’E´cole Franc¸aise de l’Extreˆme-Orient, vol. Nichols, Johanna, and Balthasar Bickel. 2005. Possessive classifica- 2. Pp. 243–263. Publication de l’E´ cole Franc¸aise de l’Extreˆme- tion. In World atlas of language structures. Martin Haspelmath, Orient (EFEO) 20. Hanoi: EFEO. [WM] Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil, and Bernard Comrie, eds. Pp. Piper, Philip J., Hsiao-chun Hung, Fredeliza Z. Campos, Peter Bell- 242–245. Oxford: Oxford University Press. wood, and Rey Santiago. 2009. A 4000 year-old introduction of Nichols, Johanna, and David A. Peterson. 1998. Amerind personal domestic pigs into the Philippine Archipelago: implications for pronouns: a reply to Campbell. Language 74:605–614. understanding routes of human migration through Island South- O’Connor, Sue. 2007. New evidence from East Timor contributes to east Asia and Wallacea. Antiquity 83(3):687–695. [PB] our understanding of earliest modern human colonisation east of Reid, Anthony. 1995. Continuity and change in the Austronesian the Sunda Shelf. Antiquity 81:523–535. transition to Islam and Christianity. In The Austronesians: historical O’Connor, Sue, and Peter Veth. 2005. Early Holocene shell fish hooks and comparative perspectives. Peter Bellwood, James J. Fox, and from Lene Hara Cave, East Timor establish complex fishing tech- Darrell Tryon, eds. Pp. 333–350. Canberra: Australian National nology was in use in Island South East Asia five thousand years University. before Austronesian settlement. Antiquity 79:249–256. Reid, Lawrence A. 1994. Possible non-Austronesian lexical elements Oppenheimer, Stephen. 2004. The “express train from Taiwan to in Philippine Negrito languages. Oceanic Linguistics 33(1):37–72. Donohue and Denham Farming and Language in Island Southeast Asia 255

Reland, Adriaan. 1708. Hadriani Relandi dissertationum miscella- Solheim, Wilhelm G., II. 1964. Pottery and the Malayo-Polynesians. nearum pars tertia et ultima dissertatio de linguis insularum qua- Current Anthropology 5(5):360–406. rundam orientalium. Trajecti ad Rhenum (Utrecht): Broedelet. ———. 1969. Reworking Southeast Asian prehistory. Paideuma 15: Renfrew, Colin. 1987. Archaeology and language. London: Jonathan 125–139. [VP] Cape. ———. 1980. Neue Befunde zur spa¨ten Pra¨historie Su¨dostasiens und ———. 1993. Trade beyond the material. In Trade and exchange in ihre Interpretation. Saeculum 31(3–4):275–317, 319–344. [WM] prehistoric Europe. Christopher Scarre and Frances Healy, eds. Pp. ———. 1984–1985. The Nusantao hypothesis: the origin and spread 5–16. London: Oxbow. [RT] of Austronesian speakers. Asian Perspectives 26(1):77–88. Rolett, Barry V., Wei-chun Chen, and John M. Sinton. 2000. Taiwan, ———. 1990. Thoughts on land and sea peoples in Southeast Asia Neolithic seafaring and Austronesian origins. Antiquity 74:54–61. and their possible relationships to initial settlement of Micronesia. Ross, Malcolm. 1994. Areal phonological features in north central Micronesica Supplement 2:241–246. [VP] New Ireland. In Language contact and change in the Austronesian ———. 2006. Archaeology and culture in Southeast Asia: unravelling world. Tom Dutton and Darrell T. Tryon, eds. Pp. 551–572. Berlin: the Nusantao. Quezon City: University of Philippines Press. [SJO, Mouton de Gruyter. VP] ———. 1995. Some current issues in Austronesian linguistics. In Spriggs, Matthew. 1989. The dating of the Island Southeast Asian Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austro- Neolithic: an attempt at chronometric hygiene and linguistic cor- nesian studies. Darrell T. Tryon, ed. Pt. 1, fasc. 1. Pp. 45–120. Berlin: relation. Antiquity 63:587–613. Mouton de Gruyter. ———. 1996. Early agriculture and what went before in island Mel- ———. 2005. The Batanic languages in relation to the early history anesia: continuity or intrusion? In The origins and spread of ag- of the Malayo-Polynesian family. Journal of Austronesian Studies riculture and pastoralism in Eurasia. David R. Harris, ed. Pp. 1(2):1–24. 524–537. London: University College London Press. ———. 2008. The integrity of the Austronesian language family: ———. 2003. Chronology of the Neolithic transition in Island from Taiwan to Oceania. In Past human migrations in East Asia: Southeast Asia and the western Pacific: a view from 2003. Review matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics. Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, of Archaeology 24:57–80. Roger Blench, Malcolm D. Ross, Ilia Peiros, and Marie Lin, eds. ———. 2007. The Neolithic and Austronesian expansion within Is- Pp. 161–181. London: Routledge. [PB] land Southeast Asia and into the Pacific. In From Southeast Asia ———. 2009. Proto-Austronesian verbal morphology: a reappraisal. to the Pacific: archaeological perspectives on the Austronesian ex- In Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: a festschrift pansion and the Lapita cultural complex. Scarlett Chiu and Chris- for Robert Blust. Alexander Adelaar and Andrew Pawley, eds. Pp. tophe Sand, eds. Pp. 104–125. Taipei: Centres for Archaeological 295–326. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Studies Research and for Humanities and Social Sciences, Aca- Ross, Malcolm, Andrew Pawley, and Meredith Osmond. 2008. The demica Sinica. lexicon of Proto-Oceanic: the culture and environment of ancestral ———. Forthcoming. “I was so much older then, I’m younger than Oceanic society. 3: Plants. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. that now”: why the dates keep changing for the spread of Aus- Sagart, Laurent. 2005. Tai-Kadai as a subgroup of Austronesian. In tronesian languages. In A journey through Austronesian and Papuan The peopling of East Asia: putting together archaeology, linguistics linguistic and cultural space: papers in honour of Andrew Pawley. and genetics. Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench, and Alicia Sanchez- John Bowden, Nikolaus Himmelmann, and Malcolm Ross, eds. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [MS] Mazas, eds. Pp. 177–181. London: RoutledgeCurzon. [WM] Su, Bing, Junhua Xiao, Peter Underhill, Ranjan Deka, Weiling Zhang, Schachter, Paul, and Fe T. Otanes. 1972. Tagalog reference grammar. Joshua Akey, Wei Huang, et al. 1999. Y-chromosome evidence for Los Angeles: University of California Press. a northward migration of modern humans into eastern Asia during Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1906. Die Mon-Khmer-Vo¨lker, ein Bindeglied the last Ice Age. American Journal of Human Genetics 65(6): zwischen Vo¨lkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens. Archiv fu¨r An- 1718–1723. thropologie 33:59–106. [WM] Summerhayes, Glenn R. 2003. The rocky road: the selection and Sellato, Bernard. 1994. Nomads of the Borneo rainforest. Stephanie transport of Admiralties obsidian to Lapita communities. Austra- Morgan, trans. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. [WM] lian Archaeology 57:135–142. Sercombe, Peter G., and Bernard Sellato, eds. 2007. Beyond the green Summerhayes, Glenn R., and Jim Allen. 1993. The transport of Mopir myth: Borneo’s hunter-gatherers in the twenty-first century. Copen- obsidian to late Pleistocene New Ireland. Archaeology in Oceania hagen: NIAS. [WM] 28:145–148. Shutler, Richard, Jr. 1999. The relationship of red-slipped and lime- Suparan, Papay, Rien A. C. Dam, Sander van der Kaars, and Theo impressed pottery of the southern Philippines to that of Micronesia E. Wong. 2001. Late Quaternary tropical lowland environments and the Lapita of Oceania. In Le Pacifique de 5000 a` 2000 avant on Halmahera, Indonesia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Pa- le pre´sent/The Pacific from 5000 to 2000 B.P. Jean-Christophe Ga- laeoecology 171(3–4):229–258. lipaud and Ian Lilley, eds. Pp. 521–529. Paris: Institut de Recherche Supomo, Suryohudoyo. 1995. Indic transformation: the Sanskriti- pour le De´veloppement. zation of Jawa and the Javanization of the Bharata. In The Aus- Shutler, Richard, Jr., and Jeffery Marck. 1975. On the dispersal of tronesians: historical and comparative perspectives. Peter Bellwood, the Austronesian horticulturalists. Archaeology and Physical An- James J. Fox, and Darrell Tryon, eds. Pp. 309–332. Canberra: Aus- thropology in Oceania 10:81–113. tralian National University. Silzer, Peter. 1983. Ambai: an Austronesian language of eastern In- Swadesh, Morris. 1950. Salish internal relationships. International donesia. PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra. Journal of American Linguistics 16(4):157–167. Soares, Pedro, Jean Alain Trejaut, Jun-Hun Loo, Catherine Hill, Maru ———. 1952. Lexicostatistic dating of prehistoric ethnic contacts. Mormina, Chien-Liang Lee, Yao-Ming Chen, et al. 2008. Climate Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96:452–463. change and postglacial human dispersals in Southeast Asia. Mo- ———. 1955. Towards greater accuracy in lexicostatistic dating. In- lecular Biology and Evolution 25(6):1209–1218. ternational Journal of American Linguistics 21(2):121–137. Sokal, Robert R. 1988. Genetic, geographic, and linguistic distances Swadling, Pamela. 1996. Plumes of paradise: trade cycles in outer in Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the Southeast Asia and their impact on New Guinea and nearby islands USA 85(6):1722–1726. until 1920. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 256 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 2, April 2010

Swadling, Pamela, John Chappell, Geoff Francis, Nick Araho, and Thurston, William R. 1987. Processes of change in the languages of Baiva Ivuyo. 1989. A Late Quaternary inland sea and early pottery north-western New Britain. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. in Papua New Guinea. Archaeology in Oceania 24:106–109. Torrence, Robin, and Pamela Swadling. 2008. Social networks and Swadling, Pamela, and Robin Hide. 2005. Changing landscape and the spread of Lapita. Antiquity 82:600–616. social interaction: looking at agricultural history from a Sepik- Torrence, Robin, Pamela Swadling, Nina Kononenko, Wallace Am- Ramu perspective. In Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological brose, Pip Rath, and Michael D. Glascock. 2009. Mid-Holocene histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Andrew Pawley, Robert At- social interaction in Melanesia: new evidence from hammer- tenborough, Jack Golson, and Robin Hide, eds. Pp. 289–328. Pa- dressed obsidian stemmed tools. Asian Perspectives 48(1):119–148. cific Linguistics 572. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and [RT] Asian Studies, Australian National University. Tryon, Darrell T. 1995. Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an in- Szabo´, Katherine. 2004. Technique and practice: shell-working in the troduction to Austronesian studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Western Pacific and Island Southwest Asia. PhD thesis, Australian van der Kaars, Sander, Dan Penny, John Tibby, Jennie Fluin, Rien National University, Canberra. Szabo´, Katherine, Adam Brumm, and Peter Bellwood. 2007. Shell A. C. Dam, and Papay Suparan. 2001. Late Quaternary palaeo- artifact production at 32,000–28,000 BP in Island Southeast Asia: ecology, palynology and palaeolimnology of a tropical lowland thinking across media? Current Anthropology 48(5):701–723. swamp: Rawa Danau, West-Java, Indonesia. Palaeogeography, Pa- Szabo´, Katherine, and Sue O’Connor. 2004. Migration and com- laeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 171(3–4):185–212. plexity in Holocene Island Southeast Asia. World Archaeology Vansina, Jan. 2003. Bananas in Cameroun c. 500 BCE? not proven. 36(4):621–628. Azania 38(1):174–176. Terrell, John. 1988. History as a family tree, history as an entangled Vilar, Miguel G., Akira Kaneko, Francis W. Hombhanje, Takahiro bank: constructing images and interpretations of prehistory in the Tsukahara, Ilomo Hwaihwanje, and J. Koji Lum. 2008. Recon- South Pacific. Antiquity 62:642–657. [MPC/JSL, SJO, JET] structing the origin of the Lapita Cultural Complex: mtDNA anal- Terrell, John Edward. 2000a. Anthropological knowledge and sci- yses of East Sepik Province, PNG. Journal of Human Genetics 53(8): entific fact. American Anthropologist 102:808–817. [JET] 698–708. [MS] ———. 2000b. A “tree” is not a “train”: mistaken analogies in Pacific White, J. Peter. 2004. Where the wild things are: prehistoric animal archaeology. Antiquity 74:331–333. translocations in the Circum New Guinea Archipelago. In Voyages ———. 2004. The “sleeping giant” hypothesis and New Guinea’s of discovery: the archaeology of islands. Scott M. Fitzpatrick, ed. Pp. place in the prehistory of Greater Near Oceania. World Archaeology 147–164. Westport, CT: Praeger/Greenwood. 36(4):601–609. Wichmann, Søren. Forthcoming. Neolithic linguistics. In Language Terrell, John Edward, and Joel L. Fagan. 1975. The savage and the and prehistory of the Indo-European peoples: a cross-disciplinary innocent: sophisticated techniques and naive theory in the study perspective, Gojko Barjamovic, Irene Elmerot, Adam Hyllested, Be- of human population genetics in Melanesia. Yearbook of Physical nedicte Nielsen, and Bjørn Okholm Skaarup, eds. Budapest: Ar- Anthropology 19:2–18. [MPC/JSL] chaeolingua. Terrell, John Edward, Terry L. Hunt, and Chris Gosden. 1997. The dimensions of social life in the Pacific: human diversity and the Wichmann, Søren, and David Kamholz. 2008. A stability metric for myth of the primitive isolate. Current Anthropology 38(2):155–195. typological features. STUF: Language Typology and Universals Terrell, John Edward, Kevin M. Kelly, and Paul Rainbird. 2001. Fore- 61(3):251–262. gone conclusions? in search of “Papuans” and “Austronesians.” Wolf, Eric R. 1982. Europe and the people without history. Los Angeles: Current Anthropology 42(1):97–124. University of California Press. Thomason, Sarah Grey, and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language con- Zimmermann, Gerd R. 1992. Die Besiedlung Su¨dostasiens: eine ethno- tact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Los Angeles: University of o¨kologische Perspektive. Nackenheim am Rhein: M.-C. Edith Zim- California Press. merman. [WM]