Reflections on the New Data of

Southeast Asian ·Prehistory

AUSTRONESIAN ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCE

Received 4 May 1975

WILHELM G. SOLHEIM II

HIS article is neither a data paper nor a thorough review of data. Rather,

T it is an attempt to present a framework for the culture history of the

Austronesian-speaking peoples alternative to the traditional one first pre-
sented by Robert Heine-Geldern (1932), with variations and additions by many
others. I look briefly at the old data and their interpretation, then at the data
assembled during the last twenty years and what interpretations have been made
from these. With this background I make conjectures on the origin, expansion, and
interactions of the Austronesian-speaking peoples. Should these cdnjectures prove
to be even partially true, they would be so extremely different from the traditional
culture history that they should lead to a very different self-image for these people
and a somewhat different framework for the development of world culture.

THE 'OLD' DATA AND THEIR INTERPRETATION

The traditional reconstruction of Southeast Asian prehistory (Heine-Geldern

1932) was based on distribution studies of ethnographical, linguistic, and
archaeological data. The available archaeological data were either from poorly
documented surface collections or from archaeological sites which were dug rather
than excavated. The resulting artifacts thus were of little more value than those
from surface collections.
The general interpretation of these data, and of Heine-Ge1dern's reconstruction,
was that Southeast Asian cultures lagged far behind those of the rest of the world
and that all progressive culture change came into Southeast Asia from outside.
Neolithic culture (horticulture and agriculture, polishing of stone tools, pottery
This is a slightly revised version of a paper that ~as presented at the First International Conference
on Comparative Austronesian Linguistics, Honolulu, January 1974.
 SOLHEIM: Reflections on New Data 147
manufacture and other crafts) was presumably brought in by migrations from Japan
and/or China. Metallurgy and the primary Southeast Asian art style,. spread in
Southeast Asia by the so-called Dongson (Bronze Age) Culture of northern Vietnam,
was said to have originated because of contacts with Chou China in the 3rd century
B.C. (Karlgren 1942), or alternatively around the 8th century B.C. because of a
migration from eastern Europe (Heine-Geldern 1951). Political organization leading
to empires of one sort or another, monumental architecture, and writing (let's call
it civilization) were brought in from India and China around 2000 years ago. The
only culture truly of Southeast Asian origin was the Hoabinhian of northern
Vietnam and farther afield, which was considered a late and very primitive meso-
lithic culture. The Hoabinhian predecessor in the Late Pleistocene, also of Southeast
Asian origin, was known from what was considered an extremely primitive upper
palaeolithic stone industry.
This general conclusion that the Southeast Asian cultural region was backward
was based not on an objeCtive and independent analysis of the data, but on the·
prevailing philosophy of the late Victorian Age and the unconscious predisposition
of the European and European-oriented archaeologists who were doing the research
in and on Southeast Asian prehistory. The culture of western Europe was considered
as the peak of civilization to that time, with the known culture history which led
to that peak-including the early historic Middle East-+Greece-+Rome-being the
ideal path for culture to follow. The greater the difference and distance of a culture
from that path, as expressed in the prehistoric artifacts and known history, the
farther behind the ideal that culture was. What was known of Southeast Asian
prehistoric artifacts and living ethnic groups indicated that they were very different
from those of Europe, and thus were primitive.
Distribution studies of artifacts, art styles and motifs, languages, and ethnographic
data showed various relationships of Southeast Asia with China and India, and some
with eastern and western Europe. Both the first explorers and later scholars were
much impressed with the civilizations of China and India. What little they saw of
what they considered to be advanced culture in Southeast Asia had obvious Indian
or Chinese relationships. All evidence appeared to point very strongly to the
primitive nature of the prehistoric cultures and the derivative nature of the historic
cultures of Southeast Asia.
Without some form of exact dating for the cultural elements shared among
neighboring regions, there is no assurance of the direction in which these elements
moved. From the data themselves there was no evidence to indicate whether shared
elements of culture were earlier in China or India than in Southeast Asia. The
direction of movement was assumed to be from outside Southeast Asia inward.
It is to Heine-Geldern's credit that in several cases he suggested the alternative to
movement of cultural elements in from outside-that is, possible origin in Southeast
Asia. However, no one tested these alternatives.

THE "NEW" DATA

The new data that force a revision of the primitive status of Southeast Asian
cultures have been presented or summarized in a number of articles which have
appeared primarily during the last seven years. Rather than summarize these data
 Asian Perspectives, xvm(z), 1975

again, I include references to the major articles presenting them. The primary
reference is volume 13 of Asian Perspectives. Briefly, here are the highlights.
Spirit Cave, in far northwestern Thailand, was discovered by Chester Gorman
in 1965. It contained a typical Hoabinhian assemblage through all culture-bearing
levels with the addition in the top level of pottery, partially ground rectangular
stone adzes, and small slate knives. All excavated soil was screened in the hope of
locating floral remains, and these were found. Two different kinds of beans and a
pea may have been domesticated, while other forms that were found are grown or
tended today in Southeast Asia. A reliable series of Carbon-14 dates indicates that
these plant remains go back to 10,000 B.C. and earlier. Radiocarbon dates associated
with the new artifacts found in the top level show that they arrived in the site
about 7000 B.C. (Gorman 1970).
A salvage archaeology program, conducted by the Fine Arts Department of
Thailand and the University of Hawaii from 1963 to 1966, led to the discovery and
excavation of Non Nok Tha in northeastern Thailand. A second excavation was
made at Non Nok Tha by Donn Bayard in 1968 (1970; n.d.). A controversial series
of C-14 dates from Non Nok Thaplaced bronze matallurgy at this site by about
3000 B~C. The dated sequence for Non Nok Tha was strongly supported by a 1973
series of 16 thermoluminescence dates on pottery from Ban Chiang, also in north-
eastern Thailand.
The excavations at Non Nok Tha produced the first clear evidence of a long
period of bronze manufacture and use in Southeast Asia separate from and earlier
than iron. Since this first dating of early bronze, other C-14 dates for bronze from
the 2nd and 3rd millennia B.C. have been reported from northern and southern
Vietnam and the Khmer Republic as well as at Ban Chiang.
At Non Nok Tha, and much more so at Ban Chiang, was found painted pottery
associated with the earliest bronze. Painting of pottery did not continue for long
at Non Nok Tha but did persist at Ban Chiang. Previous to the painted pottery at
both of these sites, incised and impressed decoration was made on some of the
pottery, going back into the 4th and 5th millennia B.C. The designs include many
of the "Dongson" geometric designs, with the greatest emphasis on spirals and a
great variety of designs with intertwining elements.
Rice was present at Non Nok Tha from the earliest use of the site, as indicated
by impressions of rice husk and grain in pottery from the lowest level and up. Rice
husk impressions have also been reported from early pottery at Ban Chiang.
Gorman has found rice grains in Banyan Cave, not far from Spirit Cave, in associa-
tion with the same assemblage as that from the top layer of Spirit Cave. Bovine
remains were associated with some of the early burials at Non Nok Tha. The
remains have been identified as probably domesticated and probably Bos indicus,
the zebu cattle of India. These would date from the 4th millennium B.C. or earlier.
Pottery spindle whorls have been found at both NonNok Tha and Ban Chiang.
At the latter site an actual fragment of cloth was recovered in the spring of 1973
from the earliest bronze-producing level. This was found close to a bronze artifact
on which there was a cloth imprint. Pottery cylinders, with a hole through them
lengthwise and with deeply carved surfaces, have been found at both sites. It has
been convincingly suggested that these were used to print designs on cloth.
Three probable "neolithic" cultures are known from Taiwan from the 3rd
 SOLHEIM: Reflections on New Data 149
millennium B.C. and earlier. All ethnic groups on Taiwan, previous to the relatively
late arrival of the Chinese, spoke Austronesian languages. It would be reasonable to
assume-though it is not necessarily true-that these earliest horticultural peoples
were ancestral to some of the present ethnic groups, and one or more were
Austronesian speakers. Two of these cultures have been C-14 dated back into the
late 3rd millennium B.C.; one of these, Kwang-chih Chang hypothesizes, was
descended from a Lungshanoid culture of southeastern China. The earliest of these
cultures in Taiwan was found stratigraphically below the earliest levels of the other
two cultures. Chang has called this the Corded Ware Culture and has suggested
that the most similar known mainland culture is found in southwestern China. The
generalized artifact inventory is similar to that from the top level in Spirit Cave in
Thailand. Chang hypothesizes that in Taiwan, people of this culture stopped living
at the two sites where they were found by about 3000 B.C., and first came to live on
these sites much earlier (Chang 1969). Some of the pottery made by these people
was decorated, and the patterns included some of those found on the Dongson
bronzes. [A recently announced C-14date for the Corded Ware Culture is
3695 ± 60 B.C. (Chang 1973: 525).]
The one artifact long associated with the spread of the Austronesian-speaking·
peoples is the rectangular, polished, stone adze. During the last fifteen years it has
been possible to add Sa-huynh-Kalanay and Lapita pottery as being associated
with the early Austronesian-speaking peoples. The Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery has
been found in scattered sites in the Philippines, from West Irian to Java with some
indications of its presence in Sumatra, inlowland and coastal Vietnam, on ishmds
in the Gulf of Siam, in eastern Malaysia with indications of presence in western
Malaysia, and possibly in Madagascar (Solheim 1959, 1967b). The Lapita pottery
has been found in scattered sites in Melanesia and western Polynesia, and is said to
have been made by the early ancestors of the Polynesians (Golson 1971a, 1971b).
When these pottery traditions were first identified and the considerable similarity
in designs of the two traditions was noted, several of us suggested that the Lapita
pottery had developed out of the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery. During the past
several years, however, little has been said about the obvious relationship.
The meaning of the relationship of the two pottery traditions is vital for the
understanding of the ,culture history of the Austronesian-speaking peoples. It has
; long been suggested that the ancestors of the Polynesians-and thus necessarily of
the Austronesian-speaking peoples-came from coastal South China. To my
knowledge the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery has not yet been reported from sites in
South China, but it is well known in North and South Vietnam.
The earliest C-14 dates for the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery are around 1200 to
1500 B.C. Sites with approximately this date, or for which this date has been inferred
from the sequence of dates for the site, are the Tabon Caves in Palawan, Philippines,
the Niah Caves in Sarawak, sites in Southwestern Sulawesi (Mulvaney and Soejono
1970) and Portuguese Timor (Glover 1971), and several sites in Melanesia, as far
south as New Caledonia. There is no good dating for this pottery from Mainland
Southeast Asia, but from what little is accurately known of the associated materials,
it does not seem to be as early. Many of the patterns on this pottery are variants
of the typically Southeast Asian patterns on the much earlier pottery from Taiwan
and northern Thailand. At both the Niah Cave and Tabon Cave sites there is
 Asian Perspectives, xvm(z); 1975

earlier, well-made pottery which is not typical of the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery

yet which in the local context does not seem to be out of line with what follows.
In the Melanesian sites, either the Lapita pottery is the earliest pottery present,
or (in two as yet unpublished sites) a pottery complex that is as early or earlier does
not appear to be related.

INTERPRETATION OF THE NEW DATA

I have written a number of papers interpreting the new data, and there is no need
. to repeat this discussion in any detail. Several of these papers are listed in the
bibliography. To encompass these new data I have suggested a new framework of
stages and periods for Southeast Asia. The framework of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic,
and Neolithic which was made for European prehistory is not appropriate. It is
worthwhile to repeat the new framework here.
The Lithic is the only universal stage and corresponds roughly to the Lower and
Middle Palaeolithic of western terminology. This would begin with man's first
appearance in Southeast Asia, something over two million years ago. Humans were
probably hunters and gatherers, living in small family groups and not using one
site for long. The stone tools made at the very beginning of this stage, often called
pebble tools, are similar whether they are found in Africa, Europe, India, or
Southeast Asia.
The Lignic period develops out of the Lithic stage with a hypothesized change
from stone to wood as the primary material for tools. In Southeast Asia there
was relatively little change in the stone-tool types. There was an apparent gradual
reduction in size of the stone tools and a gradual increase in the use of flakes,
particularly in what came to be Island Southeast Asia. In general there was little
bifacial flaking or retouching of the stone tools. Bamboo was probably the most
important wood used. There was a shift from hunting and gathering to hunting
and collecting of plants and water-living animals. Sites were probably used, or
even lived in, longer than before with some family groups probably becoming
virtually sedentary. The shift from the earlier stage was gradual, so there is no
recognizable boundary between the two. Arbitrarily I set the boundary at 40,000
B.C. This period would correspond roughly to the Upper Palaeolithic of western
terminology.
The Crystallitic period continues and carries further the changes started in the
Lignic period. Distinct cultures are beginning to crystallize out of what before was
a relatively homogeneous Early Hoabinhian Culture. The collecting of plant
products continues to grow in importance. This is the period of incipient agriculture
and early horticulture. Plant and probably animal domestication took place during
this period among those groups which were virtually sedentary within one or two
small, upland valleys. In Mainland Southeast Asia the Crystallitic would correspond
to the Middle and Late Hoabinhian Culture. I have suggested that the Middle
Hoabinhian began about 22,500 years ago at the end of the last warm intrastadial
of the last ice age. This is defined culturally by the beginning of edge grinding of a
few of the typical Hoabinhian stone tools. The Late Hoabinhian, I have suggested,
began about 15,000 years ago with the first domestication of plants and/or the
invention of pottery. I doubt that there was a nuclear area where these events took
 SOLHEIM: Reflections on New Data

place. However, given a cominon background of high utilization of plants through

most of mountainous Mainland Southeast Asia, different plants were no doubt
domesticated in different places, and one form or another of diffusion gradually
moved these plants, and pottery manufacture, around over a wide area.
The Extensionistic period began around 8000 B.C. or earlier, when the first
crystallizing culture became fully distinct from the Late Hoabinhian Culture. This
was a period of gradual population growth, population pressure probably forcing
movement out of the small valley nitch into other ecological nitches. The first
movement was probably to the foothills and sides of the larger valleys, then to
upland plateaus, and only much later into the large lowland valleys and deltas. Those
who could stayed in the high valleys and continued in their cultures, which were
well adapted to this ecological nitch. Though plants were domesticated before,
horticulture probably had not produced much of the food eaten. With movement
out of the lush, small valleys horticulture became more important, and slash-and-
burn treatment of fields no doubt began. Metallurgy was invented somewhere in
Southeast Asia around 4000 B.C. Whether there was an earlier development of
cold-worked copper is riot yet known. While metallurgy led to trade in copper, lead,
and tin, it did not lead to trade in manufactured products and to urbanization. Each
settlement apparently cast its own bronze tools and ornaments. Around 4000 B.C.
major movement probably began by water in Island Southeast Asia. I will deal with
this separately.
The period of Conflicting Empires began about 2200 years ago. While political
development beyond family and community levels did not take place internally in
most of Southeast Asia, it appears to have begun about 3500 years ago in North
Vietnam. Very little is as yet known about this early development except that it
came into conflict with the expanding Han Empire of China aroupd 200 B.C.
Elsewhere in Mainland Southeast Asia and western Island Southeast Asia,political
conflict developed on an Indian model. Much of this involved the Austronesian-
speaking peoples. It is time to look at them.

CONJECTURES ON THE ORIGIN AND EXPANSION OF THE AUSTRONESIANS

There has been relatively little recent discussion in print on Austronesian origins.
As I mentioned earlier, it has been widely assumed that southeastern coastal China
was the area in which these people originated and from which they spread. Isidore
Dyen, on the basis of linguistic studies, hypothesized that the area where the
Malayo-Polynesian languages developed was in the western island area of Melanesia.
Mter becoming better acquainted with the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Taiwan
and the Philippines, he has not been strongly promoting his earlier hypothesis, but
he has not presented a new one.
Artifacts made by early man have been found in sites dated to the Pleistocene
in Taiwan, the Philippines, several islands of Indonesia, New Guinea, a small
island near New Ireland in northern Melanesia, and Australia. For long periods of
time duting the Pleistocene, with the lowering of sea levels of the ice ages, New
Guinea and Australia we~e one continent. During these same times Sumatra, Java,
Lombok, Kalimantan, Palawan, and the western portion of Mindanao; as a part
of the Sunda shelf, were a part of the Southeast Asian continent. Other islands of
 Asian Perspectives, xvm(z), 1975

the Philippines were joined with Sulawesi and, briefly at least, with Taiwan and
the mainland of southern China. At no time was Australia-New Guineajoihed with
Sundaland, and it appears that there was always a considerable channel of water
between Timor and northern Australia, and between Sulawesi and New Guinea.
Man must have had some way to move across water before 30,000 B.C. (the earliest
dates for man in Australia are about this time), and this was probably some sort
of a raft.
A few large shellmounds have been found close to the coast in Sumatra, Malaya,
and North Vietnam. In these were typical Hoabinhian assemblages of stone tools
and animal remains, including cord-marked pottery (the kind of pottery found in
other Late Hoabinhian sites). These sites have not been dated but probably were
first used in early post Pleistocene times, as the seacoast was considerably farther
away· earlier with the lower sea level of the Late Pleistocene. I hypothesize th:;1t
these sites were used by people who had earlier been living on the now submerged
seacoast of Sundaland and who had been forced back to these now coastal areas
with the rise in sea level. In the west these people were probably at least partly
ancestral to the Austroasiatic-speaking peoples of the Malayan Peninsula. These
Hoabinhian shellmounds are the only evidence, indirect though it is, that the
Sundaland seacoasts, now over 100 m under water, were inhabited during the Late
Pleistocene. I strongly suspect that they were. It is on the assumption that people
were living along this seacoast, in relatively sedentary conditions like those indicated
by the Hoabinhian shellmounds, that I proceed.
The rise of the sea level toward the end of the Late Pleistocene was gradual. The
various sedentary, or close to sedentary, groups of people would have moved back
with the coastline, with the new shallow waters being as rich in seafood for collecting
as the earlier ones were. Opposing coasts on the opposite sides of rivers would
recede from each other, and high areas would become islands. The people who lived
on the shore were used to the water and may well have had rafts, but with or
without rafts they would probably have continued visiting the receding shorelines
on the other side as long as possible. Once the distance became too great, knowledge
of the distant shore or islands would be passed down through generations before it
became forgotten. Some islands would be drowned, and at some stage any people
living on such an island would have to move.
On the western side of the great river draining most of Sundaland, with the
Mekong as one of its tributaries, the people would have been forced to retreat to
the west and north, remaining with the mainland. On the eastern side of the river
they would have moved south and/or east. In an area of numerous small and
middle-sized islands, such as portions of the Lesser Sundas, Palawan and the Sulu
Archipelago, and the Kalimantan and Sulawesi coast, a certain amount of contact
was probably continued, allowing diffusion of cultural traits. I hypothesize that
in this general area of eastern Indonesia and the southern Philippine islands,
Austronesian evolved among the sea-oriented peoples living in the coastal areas.
As a corollary, I hypothesize that Austroasiatic evolved on the mainland among
Hoabinhian and descendant groups.
I strongly suspect that the early coastal Hoabinhian and the more flake-tool-
oriented peoples farther east had domesticated plants as well as the mountain
Hoabinhian. As groups enlarged and split up, no doubt a few people moved inland
 SOL H ElM: Reflections on New Data 153
along rivers and intermarried with the earlier, small, land-oriented population,
gradually developing a hybrid land-utilizing population which continued in contact
with the ocean-oriented people. Just what plants they grew before contact with the
mainland was reestablished by water we do not know, so we will have to look for
them with archaeological methods.
A possible evolution from large single logs used to move by water to logs with
one side flattened and then to dugout canoes would not be difficult to imagine.
Simple dugouts may have been in use before the end of the Late Pleistocene or
may have been independently invented in several areas. I suggest that in a multiple
island area there would be more reason to move some distance by water, and I
hypothesize that the outrigger and simple sail were invented somewhere in eastern
Island Southeast Asia, probably during the 5th millennium B.C. or earlier.
At this point I am using pure conjecture. Once the outrigger and sail were
invented, the advantages over the simple dugout for moving around at any distance
from protected water would have been obvious. Thus their use should have spread
rapidly among coastal people in intermittent contact. Not only improvements in
boat design but also language and elements of material culture would have spread.
Before long people would have been moving around considerably by boat. I feel
that with the generally shared information from earlier times of other islands and
land in virtually all directions, these people would have developed an adventurous
and exploring spirit.
To this point I have moved forward in time largely by conjecture. Now I jump
to the 2nd millennium B.C. to present the little bit of evidence I see for the
Austronesian homeland's being the area I have hypothesized. I mentioned before
that the Sa-huynh-Kalanay and Lapita pottery was associated with the early spread
of the Austronesian and that the earliest dates for sites with this pottery are the
second half of the 2nd millennium B.C. These early dates are from a wide area which
includes much of Melanesia and eastern Indonesia. There appear to be no antecedents
to this pottery in Melanesia, but in the Tabon and Niah caves of Palawan and
Sarawak there is earlier pottery that could be related. I hypothesize that the
Sa-huynh-Kalanay and the Lapita pottery traditions had a common origin some-
where in the Palawan-Sarawak-Sulu Sea-Sulawesi area and that it was at this point
in time and space that a second and main stage in the spread of the Austronesian
languages began. The first stage is much more difficult to reconstruct.
If it is true that theSa-huYnh-Kalanay and Lapita pottery moved with the first
Austronesians moving out into the· Pacific and west through Indonesia as far as
Madagascar, then we must explain why this pottery has not been found in South
China or Taiwan. The earliest historically known people in eastern and coastal
South China were Austronesian-speaking peoples (Eberhard 1971: 12). It would
appear that most of the ancestors of the Austronesian-speaking Taiwanese came
from this area. If the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery of coastal Vietnam goes back into
the first half of the 2nd millennium B.C. then the problem would be shifted.
Austronesian-speaking peoples would be present by 2000 B.C. from South China
along the coast of Vietnam, and the spread of these people throughout eastern
Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia down to New Caledonia within a two-hundred-
or three-hundred-year period would have been explosive. I find this hard to believe,
and until pre-1500 B.C. dates for this pottery are found in coastal Vietnam, I feel the
154 Asian Perspectives, xvm(z), 1975

Austronesian origin in eastern Indonesia-southern Philippines is the preferable

alternative. This would mean that the Cham' and other Austronesian-speaking
groups of Vietnam came there from the island area and that it was their ancestors
who were making the Sa-huynh Complex pottery along the Vietnam coast during
the 1st millennium B.C. This still leaves the Austronesians of South China and
Taiwan to be explained.
We know very little about the prehistoric archaeology of coastal China. Most of
the archaeological work done in China has been done by Chinese archaeologists.
Their interest is in the development of Chinese civilization. It is a part of their
recent historic tradition that the nuclear area of Chinese civilization was between
the Wei River and .the great bend of the Huang Ho of North China and that
Chinese civilization expanded from there. From this viewpoint the coast of China,
and particularly the coast of South China, is of little interest to the Chinese
archaeologists. Elsewhere I have recently expressed the belief that the prehistoric
peoples of South China, originally and still many of them Austroasiatic- and
Austronesian-speaking peoples, were equal if not greater contributors to the
foundation of Chinese civilization than the peoples of the north, but this is a different
story. Whatever the case, we know more about the prehistory of Taiwan at the
present than we do of South China.
Some years ago I expressed the opinion (Solheim 1963) that while the prehistory
of Taiwan showed many relationships with the prehistory of Island Southeast Asia,
these similarities did not indicate a direct relationship. I suggested that the relation-
ship was through ultimate common origins in Mainland Southeast Asia. (I have
included South China, from the Tsinling Mountains south, as a part of prehistoric
Mainland Southeast Asia.) Many new discoveries have been made in Taiwan since
I expressed the foregoing opinion, but I have seen no evidence that would suggest
a change. As was mentioned before, it is Chang's opinion, and mine also, that China
is the source of all Taiwanese, non-Chinese, ethnic groups, with most of the
evidence pointing to South China. Disregarding the Corded Ware Culture (which
may have been brought to Taiwan by Austroasiatic-speaking peoples), the later
cultures were probably primarily Austronesian-speaking peoples. The first of these
to arrive reached Taiwan sometime before 2000 B.C. Their pottery was not the
Sa-huy-nh-Kalanay pottery, though it does have a number of resemblances both in
form and in patterns of decoration.
Earlier I mentioned that the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery has not been found in
South China. I did not mention that the pottery of the different Lungshanoid sites
of southeastern China shares a number of forms and some elements of decoration
with the Sa-hu)Tfih-Kalanay pottery, and that fifteen years ago I felt that the
Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery had been developed out of the pottery of one or more
of these Lungshanoid cultures. The major difficulty with this hypothesis is that
hollow-legged tripods are common in the Lungshanoidsites, and no form of this
nature has ever been found in sites with Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery..
This suggests to me two alternative hypotheses for the first stage of Austronesian
expansion and, in effect, two alternative hypotheses for the origin of the Austro-
nesians. Austronesians may have originated in South China and northern Vietnam
and, in a first stage of expansion and movement by water, found their way to Taiwan
and some of them probably to southern Japan during the 4th millennium B.C., or
 SOLHEIM: Reflections on New Data ISS
at least early in the 3rd millennium B.C. By early in the 2nd millennium B.C. they
would have been moving into Palawan, western Borneo, and probably into the Sulu
Archipelago with the pre-Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery. The second stage would then
have developed in this general area as hypothesized above. If this were the case,
the contact with Taiwan would have been from South China with the hollow tripod
form of pottery coming to Taiwan, but the somewhat later movement to Palawan
and Borneo coming from farther south where the tripod form was not made. This
movement would have to have been well underway by 1500 B.C., as bronze artifacts
were being made in northern Vietnam by that date and there are also some indica-
tions of plow agriculture by this time. Neither of these culture complexes is indicated
in Island Southeast Asia until about 1000 years later.
The second alternative would have both the first and second stages of movement
originating in the southern Philippines-eastern Indonesian area. In this case either
the Austronesians would be making pottery by 4000 B.C. and the total evolution
leading to the Sa-huynh-Kalanay-Lapita pottery would be taking place in this area,
or movement would have to be made by the 4th millennium B.C. to the South
China area. This would establish an Austronesian population there from which
source the Taiwan Austronesians would come, and would allow an Austronesian
return to the home area to start pottery manufacture there. If pottery were already
being made in the area, the return movement would not be necessary. There is one
C-14 date of 4,500 ± 180 B.C. which may be later than the earliest pottery in a site
in the Sulu Archipelago (Spoehr 1973: 190), so this is a possibility. We need more
data before we can choose from among these alternatives, or several possible
combinations of them.
The second half of the 2nd millennium and the 1st millennium B.C. was the time
of very wide movement of the Austronesian-speaking peoples. Passing information
around by word of mouth, they must have developed a considerable store of
information about sailing conditions in the South China Sea, the various Indonesian
seas, the Gulf of Siam, the Bay of Bengal, and probably parts of the Indian Ocean.
During the second halfofthe 1st millennium B.C. a distinct group ofthe Austronesian-
speaking peoples started moving. These were the ancestors of the different Malay
ethnic groups, and they came out of southeastern China. They can be traced by the
pottery they made, which was distinct in both form and decoration from the
Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery. This pottery showed much less variation in form than
the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery, and had an impressed decoration done with a carved
paddle or stamp rather than the incised and impressed (of a different sort) or painted
decoration of the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery. The ancestral culture of these peoples
is known as the Geometric Pottery Culture from the geometric designs impressed
by carved paddles or stamps on their pottery. This culture developed out of one
of the Lungshanoid cultures of South China.
The first five hundred years of movement by these people, ancestral to the
different Malay groups, appears to have been primarily to Taiwan and probably
north to Korea and southern Japan. In these places they mixed with the people who
were there. They were the ones who probably brought the custom of jar burial and
the cultivation of paddy rice to Korea and Japan, and they became an important
component of the Korean and Japanese peoples. Around 2000 years ago they started
moving south into the Philippines and Indonesia, and possibly into Melanesia as
 Asian Perspectives, xvm(2), 1975

well, as simple carved paddle-impressed pottery shows up in numerous Melanesian

areas starting at about this time.
They found Island Southeast Asia already well inhabited. In many areas, if they
wished to settle on land they had to join their cousin Austronesians who had come
earlier. Evidence of this can be seen from around A.D. 500 and on, when varying
combinations of the geometric and the Sa-huynh-Kalanay pottery become evident.
It would appear that their predecessors did not care for swampy areas with brackish
water, as these seem to be the areas left vacant where the later Malay peoples were
able to settle. Examples of such areas are Brunei, the Santubong delta in Sarawak,
and coastal regions of Sumatra and Malaya. Some of these groups, such as the Iban
and Land Dyak of Kalimantan and Sarawak, managed to·· move inland with
relatively little mixing.
I would hypothesize that four varieties of Malay groups evolved in Island South-
east Asia. The first were those people who joined settlements of their predecessors.
This must have happened very commonly throughout Island and coastal Mainland
Southeast Asia and heiped to make the great variety of ethnic groups of Southeast
Asia, but with a common pattern. The second variety would be those who settled
in unfavorable areas and stayed there, making the best of somewhat unpleasant
conditions. The Land Dyakof Sarawak would be an example. The third would be
those such as the Iban who decided to fight their way into better land. The fourth
would be those who settled on poor land but continued their orientation primarily
to the sea for a considerable time. Examples of these would be the late-arriving
(around A.D. 1000) Malay of Sumatra, such as the Achinese, those who established
themselves in Malacca and then in Johore, the Malay of Kelantan and Trengganu
and southern Thailand, and the long-continuing boat people such as the Bajao
and the Samal (though the Samal could be a mixture group who went back to the
sea). I suspect that it was these late Malay groups who took most quickly to Islam
when it came on the scene, as it helped them to improve their status. They had had
to fight to maintain their foothold and they fit well into a militant Islamic philosophy,
adapting it to the more open and equal Southeast Asian style of life.

AUSTRONESIAN AND AUSTROASIATIC INTERACTIONS

If the area of origin of the Austronesians was in t;he eastern island area, it would
be much easier to explain its development separate from the Austroasiatic languages.
During the Late Pleistocene there were no natural boundaries in Southeast Asia
for evolving languages, so as you moved in anyone direction there probably would
have been just a gradual change in language. With the pulling away from each other
of the two groups of people, probably on either side of the great river draining
Sundaland, there would have developed an extremely wide natural boundary
between the two and the center of gravity, so to speak, of the two language areas
would have had languages distinct from each other as soon as contact between the
two peoples was lost. If the Austronesian languages evolved in South China-
northern Vietnam, contact with Austroasiatic-speaking peoples would have been
continuous with little reason for anything more than the old gradation. It is much
easier for me to think of Austroasiatic developing in Mainland Southeast Asia and
Austronesian in eastern Island Southeast Asia.
 SOLHEIM: Reflections on New Data 157
Whether Austronesian developed on the mainland or whether speakers came
there from the islands sometime in the 5th millennium B.C., there must have been a
considerable population of Austronesian-speaking peoples in the coastal and river'-
shore areas of South China and northern Vietnam by the middle of the 4th
millennium B.C. These peoples must have been in contact with Austroasiatic-
speaking groups of peoples, a contact with considerable cultural interchange.
People speaking proto-Vietnamese were probably in northern Vietnam by early in
the 3rd millennium B.C. as a result of some sort of a combination of the original
Austroasiatic-speaking inhabitants and the expanding Austronesians. I suspect that
the Lungshanoid cultures were made up to varying degrees of Austronesia.n- and
Austroasiatic-speaking peoples, those centered along rivers tending toward Austro-
nesian and those centered in the mountains and on the foothills toward Austro-
.asiatic. Wherever they originated, probably by 4000 B.C. one group of Austronesians
(proto-Austronesian?) was settled in the area around the mouth either of the
Yangtze or of the Hungshui (probably the former), forming the nucleus of the
Austro-Thai speaking peoples. Probably several of the Lungshanoid cultures
developed out of the culture of this early group of people.
On the assumption that the Cham and related groups had come to the mainland
from the islands, they would have settled on the coast and then gradually moved
inland at the expense of Austroasiatic-speaking peoples. Contact between these
peoples would have led to cultural and genetic exchange between them. For several
thousand years there was much opportunity for cultural diffusion to go in both
directions.
During the 1st millennium B.C., with the second stage of Austronesian expansion
to the west in Indonesia, into the Gulf of Siam, and probably into the Bay of Bengal
and the Indian Ocean, these people came into contact with Khmer- and Mon-
speaking peoples. They probably became well acquainted with the east coast of
India. They may well have been the people who brought at least the beginnings
of Indian influence back to Southeast Asia. It would not be unreasonable to think
that they had something to do with the Cholas becoming a sea power. We need
much more data before we can say with assurance anything concerning the contacts
of the Austronesians to the west of Southeast Asia.

CONCLUSIONS

Whether or not the hypotheses presented here prove to be correct, the new data
require a much more constructive and progressive position for Southeast Asian
culture within total world culture than heretofore believed. It is quite likely that
eastern Indian and Chinese cultures have derived a major portion of their founda-
tion from Southeast Asian peoples and cultures. Because of a lack of data, we can
only feel the tremendous importance of Southeast Asian sailing and trading from
the South China Sea to the Bay of Bengal and probably in much of the Indian Ocean
during the 1st millennium B.C. and well into the 1st millennium A.D. The Southeast
Asian sailors must have had a virtual monopoly on this water until the Arab traders
started coming in. The influence and contribution of Southeast Asian culture to
the world can be little more than guessed at until far more data have been recovered
(Solheim 1967a, 1968a).
 ·Asian Perspectives, xvm(z), 1975
POSTSCRIPT

The use of the word Austronesian and/or the compound Malayo-Polynesian for
a people and a culture is very awkward, and is incorrect as well. Both terms are for
a language family and should not be used for other purposes. Because these people
share both a basic culture and a language, it should not be difficult to coin a word
for the people and culture from reconstructed protoforms of the language. As these
are the people of the islands, I propose the term Nusantau for these people and
cultures. (I would like to thank George Grace for giving me the root words nusa
for island and tau for man or people.)

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Editor's note: On page 148 I mentioned that the bovine remains associated with early Non Nok
Tha burials had been identified as " . . . probably Bos indiJ:us, the zebu cattle of India." Charles
Higham, Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Otago University in New Zealand, who
made the original identification, told me recently that these are remains not of Bos indicus but
rather of the ancestor to the present-day cattle used for transport in northeastern Thailand (personal
oral communication).