The study of the prehistory of East Asia is developing very rapidly. In uncovering the story of the flows of human migration that constituted the peopling of East Asia there exists widespread debate about the nature of evidence and the tools for correlating results from different disciplines.

Drawing upon the latest evidence in genetics, linguistics and archaeology, this exciting new book examines the history of the peopling of East Asia, and investigates the ways in which we can detect migration, and its different markers in these fields of inquiry. Results from different academic disciplines are compared and reinterpreted in the light of evidence from others to attempt to try and generate consensus on methodology. Taking a broad geographical focus, the book also draws attention to the roles of minority peoples – hitherto underplayed in accounts of the region’s prehistory – such as the Austronesian, Tai-Kadai and Altaic speakers, whose contribution to the regional culture is now becoming accepted.

Past Human Migrations in East Asia presents a full picture of the latest research on the peopling of East Asia, and will be of interest to scholars of all disciplines working on the reconstruction of the peopling of East and North East Asia.

Contents

List of plates List of figures List of maps List of tables List of contributors Obituaries Preface Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION Methodological issues: linking genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence Roger Blench, Malcolm Ross, Alicia Sanchez-Mazas PART I: ARCHAEOLOGY AND PREHISTORY 1. Austronesian cultural origins: Out of Taiwan, via the Batanes Islands, and onwards to Western Polynesia Peter Bellwood, Eusebio Dizon 2. Evidence for a late onset of agriculture in the Lower Yangzi region and challenges for an archaeobotany of rice Dorian Q Fuller, Ling Qin, Emma Harvey 3. Livestock in ancient China: an archaeozoological perspective Jing Yuan 4. Stratification in the peopling of China: how fare linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology? Roger Blench 5. The expansion of Setaria farmers in East Asia: a linguistic and archaeological model Laurent Sagart PART II: LINGUISTICS 6. The integrity of the Austronesian language family: from Taiwan to Oceania Malcolm Ross 7. The Formosan language family Ilia Peiros 8. Time Perspective of Formosan Aborigines Paul Jen-Kuei Li 9. To which language family does Chinese belong, or what’s in a name? George van Driem 10. Altaic loans in Old Chinese Sergei Starostin (Ilia Peiros introduction) 11. Comparing Japanese and Korean Roy Andrew Miller 12. The speed of language change, typology and history. Languages, speakers and demography in North-East India Francois Jacquesson PART III: GENETICS 13. The GM genetic polymorphism in Taiwan aborigines: new data revealing remarkable differentiation patterns Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, Ludmila Osipova, Jean-Michel Dugoujon, Laurent Sagart, Estella S. Poloni 14. Maternal lineages trace the origin of Polyn...