| Abstract: |
This contribution examines briefly some major issues concerning the human colonisation of the Southeast Asian islands which lie east of the Wallace Line, and the Pacific Islands. First, a number of contextual and chronological issues are discussed with respect to the Pleistocene and Austronesian layers of human colonisation. These issues are all subject to debate, and in the second section an opinion is offered as to why different interpretative world views can often appear to clash so inelastically. Looking-in versus looking-out approaches to interpretation, the attractions of phylogeny versus reticulation, and an unfortunate tendency to believe in unsound radiocarbon dates are all major factors here. Indeed, issues connected with archaeolinguistic origin and dispersal, in Oceania as elsewhere in the world, will always attract a polarisation of views because of their underlying broad significance. The final section of the paper discusses some interpretations of archaeolinguistic prehistory in Southeast Asia which are deemed to have multidisciplinary support.
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