Genetics

[Waruno Mahdi]

What has somewhat surprised me in the whole discussion, including
Ann Gibbons' Science article, is that no attention seems to be
diverted on evidence suggesting multiple Austronesian migrations
into Oceania, of which the one reflected by Lapita archaeological
distribution seems to be only the first one. Just to summarize:

No. 1: Involved in development and distribution of Lapita, speaking
       Proto-Oceanic, probably "melanesoids" refering to themselves
       as *qata and sailing on rafts;

No. 2: Linguistically assimilated themselves to earlier-arrived
       Oceanic speakers (Proto Central East Oceanic?), probably
       "mongoloids" refering to themselves as *Ca[]u and sailing on
       double canoes and/or single-outrigger canoes having augmented
       dugout hull ("five-segment hull"), apparently practicing long-
       distance navigation (boat used for it = *p[ea]DaHu), megalithism
       (particularly stone-paved platforms), boat-coffin burial, cult
       of willow-fig/banyan-type tree and of sacred serpent possibly
       modifying to sea eel (*tuNa) in snakeless environments of
       Polynesia
      (this may actually be two separate movements, one some time
       between 1500 and 1000 BC, and one between 700 and 500 BC, but
       I don't know how to keep them apart, except that the former
       apparently also involved Micronesia, whereas the boat coffin
       couldn't be earlier than the latter date);

No. 3: Sailors of outriggerless single-hulled luglashed longboats with
       keeled hull of planks, reaching as far as the Solomons, perhaps
       involved in Meso-Melanesian secondary encroachment on Central-East
       Oceanic distribution area, also linguistically assimilated to
       Oceanic language(s) of earlier-comers
      (dated shortly after No.2, but well before distribution of bronze
       kettledrums and spirit-of-ancestors-boat cult out of Indochina);

No. 4: Trading movements involving double-outrigger boats with
       rectangular sails, only as far eastwards as the Louisiades,
       perhaps carried the Mon-Khmer word for "bettle pepper"
       (*b[u]lung) till at least as far east as St-Vitiaz
      (probably not before 600 AD; first use of rectangular sail,
       by Malay-speakers, was probably inspired by Semitic shipping
       some time between 200 BC - earliest probable date of mutual
       encounter - and 800 AD - earliest depiction of sail-type on
       Borobudur temple reliefs; traditional sail-form in Austronesian
       shipping originally tended to be triangular).

I purposely use the ignorantist terms "melanesoids" and "mongoloids"
(apologies to horrified genetists) so as not to be more specific
than what my layman's knowledge of genetics justifies. What I mean
by "melanesoids" is some archetype or archetypes representing the
population of the Malayo-Philippine archipelago that was/were dispersed
to east and west (also to Taiwan?) by the rising seas between 12,000
and 8,000 BC around transition from Pleistocene to Holocene.
By "mongoloids" I mean some archetype(s) assignable to populations
coming out of the SE Chinese mainland in the subsequent period.

I think that No.1 and No. 2 alone would wonderfully account for the
"problems" which the genetic picture appears to pose. But, as I said,
I'm a hopeless layman in genetics.

Aloha,   Waruno