GGS - Chapter 17

Chapter 17 details the Austronesian expansion. One major question is: why are the polynesian islands so homogeneous and why don't people there look like dark-skinned islanders (with the exception of highland New Guinea)?

First, it can be reasonably assumed that the expansion started from China, spread first to Taiwan and then to Indonesia, Java, Borneo and smaller islands. This has been deduced from archaeological findings and linguistic differences. The earlier a language has spread to an area, the more differences accumulate there (another interesting note was comparative linguistics: words with common roots in different cultures can be used to track the development of technologies. For example, "sheep" as a common root in both Irish and Sanskrit, suggesting a common ancestor having sheep. "gun" on the other hand, has several different roots). The rapid expansion to islands was probably sparked by the advent of double-outrigger sailing. Combined, this evidence suggests that Austronesian farmers (which techniques perfected in China) quickly spread through Polynesian islands, replacing dark-skinned hunter-gatherers. It should be noted that Sino-Tibetan languages soon dominated over Austronesian languages in mainland China.

One hiccup in the Austronesian expansion has been New Guinea. Genetically, they stick out as being dark-skinned and curly haired, unlike everything else in the wake of the expansion. Austronesian cultures (as seen from their distinctive pottery) can be seen bordering New Guinea (as evidenced by genetic and cultural exchanges, especially exchange of language)...so why weren't these farmers able to conquer New Guinea has they did in places such as Indonesia? In short, Indonesia still had hunter-gatherers that the Austronesian farmers could easily supplant. Highland New Guinea had developed sedentary food production much earlier, making them impossible to displace.

The Austronesia expansion was also halted by food production by Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai food producers in tropical Southeast Asia.

A clarification from last chapter: South Chinese developed food production and technology and received writing and political structures from North China and went on to the Austronesian Expansion. I assume that North China went on the expand into much of the mainland, based on the current distribution of the Sino-Tibetian language family.