3.5 The West Pacific Warm Pool as a Long-Distance Voyaging Nursery
47
Fig. 3.4 The ancient continents of Sahul and Sundaland. Modern topography is shown within the
ancient continental boundaries
on the hero Gilgamesh; there are American Indian flood legends; and, in western
culture, memory of the last Ice Age flood survives in the biblical story of Noah and
his ark. Given the dramatic consequences of this ocean flood in Island Southeast
Asia, it is hardly surprising that, as Oppenheimer tells us, “The Austronesian speakers of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region have more flood stories than
peoples of any other single language phylum” [12]. Nor is it surprising that the biblical story of Noah was already known in Polynesia before European missionaries
arrived.
47
Fig. 3.4 The ancient continents of Sahul and Sundaland. Modern topography is shown within the
ancient continental boundaries
on the hero Gilgamesh; there are American Indian flood legends; and, in western
culture, memory of the last Ice Age flood survives in the biblical story of Noah and
his ark. Given the dramatic consequences of this ocean flood in Island Southeast
Asia, it is hardly surprising that, as Oppenheimer tells us, “The Austronesian speakers of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region have more flood stories than
peoples of any other single language phylum” [12]. Nor is it surprising that the biblical story of Noah was already known in Polynesia before European missionaries
arrived.