Solheim writes about the northern expansions: "I hypothesize that any time that maritime people in their explorations would come across the mouth of a large river, they would have moved up the river making contact with the local inhabitants and not have stayed totally along the coast." (Solheim 2000)
All indications point to the maritime Nusantao as expert seafarers. Often their sites had bones of sea mammals that could only be obtained after lengthy blue-water voyages. Their semi-permanent dwellings indicated that they moved seasonally over water as part of their lifestyle. Naturally they would settle on the coast, along river banks and lake shores.
In addition to the archaeological evidence, Solheim believes the Nusantao migrations help account for three sets of linguistics relationships that exist between Austronesian and other East Asian languages.
Others have suggested that these relationships are genetic links: Paul Benedict has postulated a family called Austro-Tai creating a link with Daic languages such as Thai and Laotian. He latter expanded Austro-Tai to include Japanese and Hmong-Mien. Schichiro Murayama had suggested Malayo-Polynesian influence but not genetic relationship with Japanese.
More recently, Laurent Sagart has proposed that Sino-Tibetan languages and Austronesian descend from a shared proto-language.
Solheim, however, believes that the first two links are the result of massive early borrowing with Nusantao traders. Firstly, contacts with Daic speakers near the Yangtze, and then with Korean and Japanese speakers during the transfer of Yayoi culture from Shandong and Korea to Japan.
We might add also this as a possible explanation for the Sino-Tibetan similarities. Certainly it does not seem that all these languages were related.
Proto-Sino-Tibetan, for example, was likely tonal and monosyllabic as this appears as a family trait of Sino-Tibetan languages. Most languages that have been in contact with Sino-Tibetan languages for some time tend to pick up some of these traits as in the example of Mon-Khmer languages.
Neither Austronesian, Korean or Japanese show anything roughly similar to this type of influence on their sound systems.
The Nusantao may have obtained their penchant for seafaring and trading from the earliest people in the region, many of whom doubtless were their ancestors. From very early dates in the Paleolithic, there are indications of settlement and trade that involved long sea voyages in the region of Australia and Melanesia (New Britain).
Some of the earliest evidence of long-range sea trade in the world is the regional exchange of the volcanic glass known as obsidian.
In mainland Southeast Asia, we first see evidence of trade in the presence of shell tools in highland areas far from the coast, and stone tools in coastal regions without stones. Solheim also believes at least two important agricultural products were traded -- rice and sugarcane -- and thus the common words for these products over much of this region.
The widest evidence for trade though comes from the presence of jade and nephrite in large quantities that seems quite likely to come in all cases from the Yangtze region. They occur in the Middle Neolithic culture of Shandong known as the Dawenkou and a bit north in the latter Hongshan culture.
Jade and nephrite have been found at neolithic sites in Batangas and Palawan in the Philippines. The presence of nephrite adzes indicates large quantities of this material in a location not known to have any natural sources.
Later, possibly by about 5500 years ago, particular types of jade/nephrite ornaments of the lingling-o and bicephalous (double-headed) type appear. Solheim sees these as strong evidence of the Nusantao trade.
The nature of these ornaments, as we will explore later, are clan-related.
Now at about this same time (pre-5000 BC), we see shell mounds popping up at Ubaid sites in the Persian Gulf. Oppenheimer has noted that the Ubaid sites contain pretty much the same inventory as those in the SE Asian Neolithic -- quadrangular stone adzes, stone hoes, clay sinkers and spindle whorls, beads, discs and painted pottery.
The Ubaid culture is thought to have given risen to the culture of the Sumerians some 5500 years ago.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
The Nusantao, continued
The Nusantao lived around shell mounds and sand dunes. Often they lived right on top of them. Later as they moved into colder regions in the north they began to build their homes partly within the mounds. This was an excellent adaptation to cold weather and was one of a number of factors that allowed the Nusantao to easily explore colder regions.
Another thing that helped was their habit of hunting sea mammals. The shell mounds show abundant evidence of this type of hunting including sea mammal bones. They used harpoon heads including some probably of the toggling type, which have survived until modern times in the Philippines and New Zealand. A toggling harpoon has a detachable head attached to a line or cord.
The people also supplemented their diet by hunting and by raising domestic animals. They had chickens, pigs and dogs.
Many of them practiced horticulture -- evidence of which goes back to at least 15,000 BC in this region. And there is also evidence of sugarcane and rice agriculture.
The dates on the start of rice agriculture are rather controversial. Oppenheimer has a good discussion on this in Eden in the East. The earliest dates go back to 12,000 years ago at Spirit Cave and 9260 years ago at Sakai Cave on the Malay Peninsula. It is difficult though to tell wild rice from domestic rice just by looking at it.
The domestication argument is strengthened by the fact that other plants found at Spirit and Sakai caves were among those later domesticated in Southeast Asia.
Whatever the earliest dates for rice, the Nusantao that had reached South China definitely were planting this crop.
These shell mound people used ground-edge tools of both shell and stone. And a new discovery at Balobok Cave in the southern Philippines dated to 5340 BC suggests they also used fully-polished neolithic tools.
One thing we should remember in studying Southeast Asia is that a Neolithic or Metal Age "revolution" does not mean the same thing here as in other places. There are cases of "Stone Age" people surviving in this region to the present-day. The controversial Tasaday are one well-known example, but there are many other less controversial ones. "Mesolithic" Hoabinhian sites have been discovered surviving in regions that appear to had already moved into the Metal Age. Keep this fact in mind.
Here's a good summary of the Nusantao:
The Yangtze and Shandong regions are important. They will become vital nodes in the Nusantao trade network.
Another thing that helped was their habit of hunting sea mammals. The shell mounds show abundant evidence of this type of hunting including sea mammal bones. They used harpoon heads including some probably of the toggling type, which have survived until modern times in the Philippines and New Zealand. A toggling harpoon has a detachable head attached to a line or cord.
The people also supplemented their diet by hunting and by raising domestic animals. They had chickens, pigs and dogs.
Many of them practiced horticulture -- evidence of which goes back to at least 15,000 BC in this region. And there is also evidence of sugarcane and rice agriculture.
The dates on the start of rice agriculture are rather controversial. Oppenheimer has a good discussion on this in Eden in the East. The earliest dates go back to 12,000 years ago at Spirit Cave and 9260 years ago at Sakai Cave on the Malay Peninsula. It is difficult though to tell wild rice from domestic rice just by looking at it.
The domestication argument is strengthened by the fact that other plants found at Spirit and Sakai caves were among those later domesticated in Southeast Asia.
Whatever the earliest dates for rice, the Nusantao that had reached South China definitely were planting this crop.
These shell mound people used ground-edge tools of both shell and stone. And a new discovery at Balobok Cave in the southern Philippines dated to 5340 BC suggests they also used fully-polished neolithic tools.
One thing we should remember in studying Southeast Asia is that a Neolithic or Metal Age "revolution" does not mean the same thing here as in other places. There are cases of "Stone Age" people surviving in this region to the present-day. The controversial Tasaday are one well-known example, but there are many other less controversial ones. "Mesolithic" Hoabinhian sites have been discovered surviving in regions that appear to had already moved into the Metal Age. Keep this fact in mind.
Here's a good summary of the Nusantao:
During the third and last rapid rise flood a Hoabinhian-like people that built shell mounds began migrating southward into insular Southeast Asia. These people certainly practiced horticulture and possibly agriculture. These people eventually settle in eastern Indonesia and the Philippines where they begin using shell tools. They also learn (or relearn) the art of edge grinding. They manufacture edge-ground shell and stone tools, and also make fully polished neolithic blades. One of the important tools made by these people was the celt, a groove-less axe. The blade industry is distinguished by the rectangular cross-section of the tools. The shell mound people appear on the South China coast with their shell tools, edge-grinding and roughly polished tools sometime before 5000 BC. They form a culture along the Yangtze River. And they quickly move northward into present-day Shandong. The cultural kit of these people came to include by 5000 BC: clay spindle whorls to make nets, clay net sinkers, disc-shaped earplug ornaments, stepped stone (socketed) adzes, stone hoes, stone knives and long-stemmed polished stone arrow/harpoon heads. They also made Hoabinhian-descended pottery.
The Yangtze and Shandong regions are important. They will become vital nodes in the Nusantao trade network.
The Nusantao
Think of a people living on boats or on houses built on piles in bays and estuaries. The type of people that still exist today all over Southeast Asia. Some of them like the Badjau, Samal and "Sea Gypsies" are semi-nomadic in lifestyle.
The Nusantao that began migrating north through the Philippines to China sometime before 5000 BC were just such a people. Sometime before the Nusantao, waves of long-range migrations may already have been occuring as per Oppenheimer. What makes the Nusantao important is that with them we see signs of the establishment of a long-distance trade network.
I will show evidence that competition arose in this network, largely clan-based, and this competition also had a spiritual component based on the Austronesian dual system. This resulted in types of global trade wars and global spiritual competition. The latter would not classify as "religious wars" as the "fighting" was mostly on a submerged level, and the belief systems probably were not what we think of as religions today.
In terms of material culture, the Nusantao feasted commonly on fish and shellfish. They discarded the latter into massive heaps known alternatively as shell mounds, shell middens and kitchen middens.
Shell mounds were quite common during the early Paleolithic period around 40,000 to 35,000 years ago when they could be found from Europe to Australia. However it was in Vietnam that these artifices continued into the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) of around 11,000 years ago.
Eventually, the Nusantao began burying their dead in the shell mounds usually in a seated position with the knees flexed. They also used the mounds as platforms on which to build houses or as religious platforms.
We will continue discussion on the Nusantao in the next post.
The Nusantao that began migrating north through the Philippines to China sometime before 5000 BC were just such a people. Sometime before the Nusantao, waves of long-range migrations may already have been occuring as per Oppenheimer. What makes the Nusantao important is that with them we see signs of the establishment of a long-distance trade network.
I will show evidence that competition arose in this network, largely clan-based, and this competition also had a spiritual component based on the Austronesian dual system. This resulted in types of global trade wars and global spiritual competition. The latter would not classify as "religious wars" as the "fighting" was mostly on a submerged level, and the belief systems probably were not what we think of as religions today.
In terms of material culture, the Nusantao feasted commonly on fish and shellfish. They discarded the latter into massive heaps known alternatively as shell mounds, shell middens and kitchen middens.
Shell mounds were quite common during the early Paleolithic period around 40,000 to 35,000 years ago when they could be found from Europe to Australia. However it was in Vietnam that these artifices continued into the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) of around 11,000 years ago.
Eventually, the Nusantao began burying their dead in the shell mounds usually in a seated position with the knees flexed. They also used the mounds as platforms on which to build houses or as religious platforms.
We will continue discussion on the Nusantao in the next post.
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