| Abstract: |
This chapter examines the genesis of agriculture from an indigenous background of hunting and gathering in China, followed by the spread of an agricultural population through southern China into Taiwan by about 3500 BCE and onwards into the Philippines by about 2200 BCE. It also examines the waterlogged sites at Nanguanli in Taiwan, where unusual circumstances of preservation have revolutionized understanding of Neolithic economy in that region. Given the need for a migration hypothesis, the only period of major archaeological change in Island Southeast Asia that can be correlated with the whole phenomenon of Austronesian language dispersal was the commencement of the Neolithic. Late Paleolithic populations continued to use Island Southeast Asian caves long after Neolithic cultures arrived, as suggested by Armand Mijares for northern Luzon. The Neolithic settlements in, and migrations through, southern China, Taiwan, and the Philippines took place in landscape settings that were under constant change as a result of geomorphic processes.
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