20
2 The Genetic Context
Chinese farmers who arrived in Taiwan about 7,000 years ago as likely ancestors for
the pottery-making Lapita peoples. In line with the agricultural expansion in Europe,
the Han Chinese migration was seen as a population expansion of Neolithic farmers,
ultimately bringing agriculture and pottery-making to Near Oceania. Dates for pottery in Taiwan and the Philippines suggested these Lapita ancestors had arrived in
the Philippines about 5,500 years ago, making their way to the Bismarck archipelago
north of New Guinea about 3,600 years ago. The obvious flaw in this theory was the
loss of their food staple, rice. The tree and root crops that the Lapita peoples carried
into Near Oceanic and the Pacific were all domesticates from Island Southeast Asia.
This recognition fuelled the second “Out of Taiwan” variant, the Slow Boat to
the Bismarcks, a theory designed to allow time for the Taiwanese rice farmers to
acquire a completely new agricultural base in Island Southeast Asia. As precedents
in Island Southeast Asia were found for some elements that at first were thought
to be unique to the Lapita cultural complex, the Voyaging Corridor Triple I variant, in turn, was proposed. It allowed for a more comprehensive acquisition by the
Taiwanese migrants of Island Southeast Asian technologies and for the possibility
of their own developments of some of their acquisitions.
A second prehistory for the Lapita peoples, the “Bismarck Indigenous Inhabitants” model was proposed by White and Allen in 1980 and by Allen in 1984
[9]. It abandoned the “Out of Taiwan” model altogether, rejecting the need for
migration into Near Oceania from elsewhere to explain the appearance of the Lapita
cultural complex. This complex is seen instead as an indigenous development within
Near Oceania. With the framing of this speculative prehistory, the range of possibilities for the Lapita peoples, from being seen as total outsiders to being seen as total
insiders, was complete.
Though the concept of an agricultural expansion of Neolithic Chinese farmers to
Near Oceania underlay the Out of Taiwan theory, the main support for their proposed
migration was linguistic and genetic. However, a serious discontinuity for the theory
of an agricultural expansion of Chinese farmers lay not only in the loss of their
rice staple but also in the fact that it was the nine indigenous tribes of Taiwan,
not Han Chinese farmers (supposedly the purveyors of agriculture and Neolithic
technologies such as pottery-making), who are genetically and linguistically linked
to modern Polynesians. The Han Chinese who invaded Taiwan about 7,000 years
ago, in fact, drove these indigenous tribes into mountain refuges or on to the east
coast where for the next 7,000 years they were effectively isolated not only from
the Han Chinese but also largely from one another. The linguistic diversity, seen
as proof that Taiwan was the homeland for the Austronesian languages, has lost its
strength in the light of the more recent research of Friedlaender et al. Friedlaender
et al. argue that both genetic and linguistic differentiation can be the hallmarks of
isolation especially for inland tribes in large islands [10].
In Europe by 1995 the established idea of the Neolithic revolution, as an agricultural expansion which had led to the replacement of indigenous hunter/gatherers
by Middle Eastern farmers, was being seriously challenged. Initially the genetic
analysis led by Luca Cavalli-Sforza [11], which mapped the worldwide distribution of blood groups, had seemingly produced a water-tight case for the concept of
2 The Genetic Context
Chinese farmers who arrived in Taiwan about 7,000 years ago as likely ancestors for
the pottery-making Lapita peoples. In line with the agricultural expansion in Europe,
the Han Chinese migration was seen as a population expansion of Neolithic farmers,
ultimately bringing agriculture and pottery-making to Near Oceania. Dates for pottery in Taiwan and the Philippines suggested these Lapita ancestors had arrived in
the Philippines about 5,500 years ago, making their way to the Bismarck archipelago
north of New Guinea about 3,600 years ago. The obvious flaw in this theory was the
loss of their food staple, rice. The tree and root crops that the Lapita peoples carried
into Near Oceanic and the Pacific were all domesticates from Island Southeast Asia.
This recognition fuelled the second “Out of Taiwan” variant, the Slow Boat to
the Bismarcks, a theory designed to allow time for the Taiwanese rice farmers to
acquire a completely new agricultural base in Island Southeast Asia. As precedents
in Island Southeast Asia were found for some elements that at first were thought
to be unique to the Lapita cultural complex, the Voyaging Corridor Triple I variant, in turn, was proposed. It allowed for a more comprehensive acquisition by the
Taiwanese migrants of Island Southeast Asian technologies and for the possibility
of their own developments of some of their acquisitions.
A second prehistory for the Lapita peoples, the “Bismarck Indigenous Inhabitants” model was proposed by White and Allen in 1980 and by Allen in 1984
[9]. It abandoned the “Out of Taiwan” model altogether, rejecting the need for
migration into Near Oceania from elsewhere to explain the appearance of the Lapita
cultural complex. This complex is seen instead as an indigenous development within
Near Oceania. With the framing of this speculative prehistory, the range of possibilities for the Lapita peoples, from being seen as total outsiders to being seen as total
insiders, was complete.
Though the concept of an agricultural expansion of Neolithic Chinese farmers to
Near Oceania underlay the Out of Taiwan theory, the main support for their proposed
migration was linguistic and genetic. However, a serious discontinuity for the theory
of an agricultural expansion of Chinese farmers lay not only in the loss of their
rice staple but also in the fact that it was the nine indigenous tribes of Taiwan,
not Han Chinese farmers (supposedly the purveyors of agriculture and Neolithic
technologies such as pottery-making), who are genetically and linguistically linked
to modern Polynesians. The Han Chinese who invaded Taiwan about 7,000 years
ago, in fact, drove these indigenous tribes into mountain refuges or on to the east
coast where for the next 7,000 years they were effectively isolated not only from
the Han Chinese but also largely from one another. The linguistic diversity, seen
as proof that Taiwan was the homeland for the Austronesian languages, has lost its
strength in the light of the more recent research of Friedlaender et al. Friedlaender
et al. argue that both genetic and linguistic differentiation can be the hallmarks of
isolation especially for inland tribes in large islands [10].
In Europe by 1995 the established idea of the Neolithic revolution, as an agricultural expansion which had led to the replacement of indigenous hunter/gatherers
by Middle Eastern farmers, was being seriously challenged. Initially the genetic
analysis led by Luca Cavalli-Sforza [11], which mapped the worldwide distribution of blood groups, had seemingly produced a water-tight case for the concept of