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Slow boat to Melanesia?

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen J. Oppenheimer

    (Green College)

  • Martin Richards

    (University of Huddersfield)

Abstract

The origin of the Polynesian islanders and of the Austronesian languages that they speak has been debated for more than 200 years. Diamond has presented the predominantly held modern viewpoint, described as the 'express train to Polynesia' model, which proposes that the ancestors of the Polynesians were early farmers who dispersed south from a homeland in South China/Taiwan, through Island Southeast Asia (replacing an indigenous 'Australoid' hunter-gatherer population), and then on east, out into the Pacific — all within the past 6,000 years1. However, evidence is accumulating from several genetic markers that Polynesian lineages have a much deeper ancestry within tropical Island Southeast Asia than this hypothesis would suggest. The new evidence implies that the Polynesians originated not in China/Taiwan, but in eastern Indonesia, somewhere between Wallace's line and the island of New Guinea.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen J. Oppenheimer & Martin Richards, 2001. "Slow boat to Melanesia?," Nature, Nature, vol. 410(6825), pages 166-167, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:410:y:2001:i:6825:d:10.1038_35065520
    DOI: 10.1038/35065520
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