TY - JOUR
T1 - 'Ancient crops provide first archaeological signature of the westward Austronesian expansion'
AU - Crowther, Alison
AU - Lucas, Leilani
AU - Helm, Richard
AU - Horton, Mark
AU - Shipton, Ceri
AU - T Wright, Henry
AU - Walshaw, Sarah
AU - Pawlowicz, Matthew
AU - Radimilahy, Chantal
AU - Douka, Katerina
AU - Picornell-Gelabert, Llorenc
AU - Fuller, Dorien Q.
AU - Boivin, Nicole
PY - 2016/6/14
Y1 - 2016/6/14
N2 - The Austronesian settlement of the remote island of Madagascar remains one of the great puzzles of Indo-Pacific prehistory. Although linguistic, ethnographic, and genetic evidence points clearly to a colonization of Madagascar by Austronesian language-speaking people from Island Southeast Asia, decades of archaeological research have failed to locate evidence for a Southeast Asian signature in the island’s early material record. Here, we present new archaeobotanical data that show that Southeast Asian settlers brought Asian crops with them when they settled in Africa. These crops provide the first, to our knowledge, reliable archaeological window into the Southeast Asian colonization of Madagascar. They additionally suggest that initial Southeast Asian settlement in Africa was not limited to Madagascar, but also extended to the Comoros. Archaeobotanical data may support a model of indirect Austronesian colonization of Madagascar from the Comoros and/or elsewhere in eastern Africa.
AB - The Austronesian settlement of the remote island of Madagascar remains one of the great puzzles of Indo-Pacific prehistory. Although linguistic, ethnographic, and genetic evidence points clearly to a colonization of Madagascar by Austronesian language-speaking people from Island Southeast Asia, decades of archaeological research have failed to locate evidence for a Southeast Asian signature in the island’s early material record. Here, we present new archaeobotanical data that show that Southeast Asian settlers brought Asian crops with them when they settled in Africa. These crops provide the first, to our knowledge, reliable archaeological window into the Southeast Asian colonization of Madagascar. They additionally suggest that initial Southeast Asian settlement in Africa was not limited to Madagascar, but also extended to the Comoros. Archaeobotanical data may support a model of indirect Austronesian colonization of Madagascar from the Comoros and/or elsewhere in eastern Africa.
KW - archaeobotany dispersal Madagascar language rice
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1522714113
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1522714113
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
C2 - 27247383
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 113
SP - 6635
EP - 6640
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 24
ER -