| Abstract: |
This is a slightly modified version of a paper presented to the Conference on Asia-Mainland/Austronesiam Connections, held at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, May 10-13 1993. Because the conference proceedings will be published in a linguistics outlet (Oceanic Linguistics), the paper is presented here in the interests of discussion amongst archaeologists. The essence of the paper is that language macrofamily relationships probably chart ancient population dispersals on scales which the archaeological record often does not reveal. Archaeologists, particularly those working in Southeast Asia and Oceania, have tended always to favor the indigenous over the exogenous as a basis for explanation. Human reality, as seen through language and biology, suggests that population dispersals and replacements, especially those consequences on early developments of agriculture, were probably of great significance on many occasions in the Holocene prehistory throughout the world.
|
