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This article aims to investigate the development of undergoer voice construction in Javanese from 10th century to 21st century. This research discusses the development of undergoer voice constructions by focusing on affix markers and the presence of agent arguments, especially agents in the form of first-person personal pronouns. The method employed in this research is a qualitative approach by utilizing corpus linguistic methods for data collection. The data sources used are taken from literary texts written include prose and poetry from the 10th to the 21st century. There are 12 texts that are used as data sources in this research. The literary works vary both temporally and regionally. The results claim that Javanese does not have completely the same type of construction as Filipino has the same type as Indonesian in respect to the presence of proclitic in the undergoer voice construction. The findings indicate that agents in the form of first and second-person personal pronouns are crucial in the study of undergoer voice construction in Austronesian languages as they determine the development of undergoer voice constructions. This study provides opportunities for similar research with data sources other than literary works to further strengthen conclusions regarding the disappearance of intransitive undergoer constructions in the Javanese language.

Headhunting – the practice of acquiring human heads for ritual purposes – was historically widespread around the world. We hypothesize that headhunting represented a cultural response to frequent inter-tribal warfare and served as a mechanism to train warriors ready to defend their community. The practice was effective since, first, it allowed verification of warrior quality based on performance in headhunting raids and, second, it offered a system of rewards for men to develop and refine warfare skills. We use phylogenetic comparative methods and ethnographic data to empirically investigate this hypothesis in a sample of preindustrial Austronesian societies. Headhunting turns out to be substantially more prevalent in societies exposed to frequent warfare, accounting for shared cultural ancestry and a host of potentially confounding characteristics. Furthermore, Bayesian estimation of correlated evolution models suggests that, consistent with our hypothesis, the adoption of headhunting typically followed increases in warfare frequency and the decline of this practice was preceded by reduced intergroup conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of lively debate about Taiwan's role in the spread of early agriculture, crops and cultivation practices to the Indo-Pacific region, there is little archaeobotanical data from the island. Here we present the first directly dated and systematically analysed macrobotanical records from Taiwan obtained by flotation at the archaeological site Sanbaopi 5 (23°07′03′′N, 120°15′32′′E), representing the Dahu (1400 BCE–100 CE) and Niaosong (100–1400 CE) culture periods. The results suggest that Middle Dahu (900–100 BCE) communities in the study area practiced rainfed crop cultivation with mainly foxtail (Setaria italica) and broomcorn (Panicum miliaceum) millet and rice (Oryza sativa). Pulses (Vigna angularis, Glycine soja / max) were also part of the subsistence of local farmers and used as supplementary food and/or green manure. The archaeobotanical record together with archaeological site data for prehistoric China substantiates evidence that the Dahu culture originates in the Lower Yellow River region and migrated to Taiwan along the East China Sea coast. The emergence of the Dahu culture coincided with the spread of mixed millet-rice farming to the Korean Peninsula and Japan and was possibly related to enhanced economic and political expansion of the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties and the long-term weakening of summer monsoon precipitation. Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) and mung bean (V. radiata var. radiata) assemblages from the sixth century CE Niaosong period highlight the influx of goods, crops, knowledge and people from South and Southeast Asia via southern routes in the context of enhanced exchange across the South China Sea region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ornament and decorative arts of Nusantara traditional architecture are works of art originating from Austronesian culture. Besides functioning as decoration, it is also as a bearer of meaningful traditional messages in a sign system. How its existence and development as a visual language from the point of view of semiotics is interesting to study. This paper examines the relationships between signs in the system of sign contained in the ornament and decorative arts of Nusantara traditional architecture. The discussion includes; (1) analysis of the triadic relation from sign systems of the ornaments and decorative arts, (2) analysis of the pragmatic relations of the visual works and the way they work in the system of sign as visual language, and (3) diachronic analysis of the form and function of the ornaments and decorative arts in the system of sign. The result obtained is a form of appreciation of the art tradition which revealed the existence of the Nusantara traditional architectural ornament and decorative art as a sign of cultural evolution and the media for conveying messages from traditional customs.

Theories of early cooperation in human society often draw from a small sample of ethnographic studies of surviving populations of hunter–gatherers, most of which are now sedentary. Borneo hunter–gatherers (Punan, Penan) have seldom figured in comparative research because of a decades-old controversy about whether they are the descendants of farmers who adopted a hunting and gathering way of life. In 2018 we began an ethnographic study of a group of still-nomadic hunter–gatherers who call themselves Punan Batu (Cave Punan). Our genetic analysis clearly indicates that they are very unlikely to be the descendants of neighbouring agriculturalists. They also preserve a song language that is unrelated to other languages of Borneo. Dispersed travelling groups of Punan Batu with fluid membership use message sticks to stay in contact, co-operate and share resources as they journey between rock shelters and forest camps. Message sticks were once widespread among nomadic Punan in Borneo, but have largely disappeared in sedentary Punan villages. Thus the small community of Punan Batu offers a rare glimpse of a hunting and gathering way of life that was once widespread in the forests of Borneo, where prosocial behaviour extended beyond the face-to-face community, facilitating successful collective adaptation to the diverse resources of Borneo's forests.

Filipinos are the second largest Asian migrant group in the contemporary Pacific behind Indians and ahead of Chinese. While Filipinos are prominent in local histories of Guam and Hawai'i, where their populations are concentrated, little is written or known about their presence elsewhere. Pacific connections are similarly neglected by Filipino scholars. This may largely be due to the unobtrusive nature of most Filipino integration into Pacific Island communities. Nor were Filipino Austronesians as isolated from their Micronesian neighbours as is commonly assumed. During the Spanish era, Filipinos travelled all over the Pacific as ships' crew, pearl divers and Catholic missionaries. The United States' takeover of the Spanish Pacific in the 1890s ushered in a century of American domination and provided employment and migration opportunities for Filipino workers across the American Pacific. Today Filipino professionals are increasingly common in nations of the Western Pacific and this trend seems set to continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current collection of articles includes a discussion of Austronesian peoples living in modern nations situated in East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and Melanesia. It thus crosses many long-established boundaries in area studies which tend to develop their own theoretical dialects. While there are many valid reasons for these theoretical discussions, a shift in focus from geographically defined areas to what might be called 'Greater Austronesia' brings to light new sets of theoretical problems. Our central concern is the extent to which Austronesian societies value social hierarchy over egalitarianism, and the extent to which political leadership is determined through a rule of succession or other form of status ascription, through the competitive achievements of individuals, or actively resisted in the first place through various mechanisms such as the mandatory sharing of wealth, the denigration of ambition, or the dispersal of populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchy is often discussed in anthropology in terms of models that are specific to, and to an extent determinant of particular cultures. For example, the contrast between Big Man and Chief drawn by Sahlins not only appears as an emanation of distinction between two cultural orders in his account, but also as being a fundamental determinant of that cultural distinction. Likewise, the Dumontian conception of hierarchy that has been applied to a number of recent analyses of Oceanic societies is also one that emanates from and is foundational to the establishment of a distinction between Western and Indian societies. In this paper, I explore an alternative conception of emerging hierarchies in the South Pacific, that do not fit so easily into such schema. Based on fieldwork in East New Britain, I argue whilst such issues are sometimes locally glossed in terms of an ideal-type opposition between Western and local cultures, that often an understanding of these different hierarchies is not so easily contained within such a perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the possibility of using family as an analytical tool for understanding large-scale historical processes. The case in point is Austronesian expansion which is conceived of here within the largest possible geographical and chronological contexts to include the prehistoric spread of Austronesian speakers from Madagascar to Hawaii and twenty-first-century migration patterns and transnational lifestyles. It explores the possibility of using family relations as an analytical tool for making sense of this exceptionally vast subject. It also argues that an understanding of Austronesian expansion is essential to an understanding of world history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correlation between language spread and the existence of archaeological remains is often debated when trying to prove prehistoric human migration in various locations. Numerous experts argue that language spread cannot always serve as evidence of human migration, as language and artifacts can diffuse without necessitating migration. This process may have taken place in Western New Guinea which is now part of Indonesian territory. In this area, known as Indonesian Papua, the influence of Austronesian culture has been significant for thousands of years. This paper aims to investigate whether there are any parallels between the presence of Austronesian material culture and the distribution of Austronesian languages in Papua, Indonesia. The method employed involves overlaying the locations of archaeological sites containing Austronesian material culture with the distribution of Austronesian languages in the region. The results indicate that while there is some overlap between language distribution and Austronesian cultural remains in the Papua region, particularly in parts of coastal areas and surrounding island, there are also coastal areas with high Austronesian archaeological potential that lack Austronesian language presence. This is especially true in the central highlands which are predominantly Australo-Papuan areas, where Austronesian cultural influence exists but is not accompanied by the language. This demonstrates that the presence of Austronesian cultural influences in the Papua region does not always have to be associated with Austronesian migration or the language, it is possible that the culture was adopted as a result of contacts that took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land restitution carries implicit recognition of some previous claim to ownership, but when are first claims recognized? The concepts of first possession and original acquisition have long been used as entry points to Western concepts of property. For Austronesia, the concept of precedence is used in customary systems to justify and describe land claims and Indigenous authority. Conflict and political change in Timor-Leste have highlighted the co-existence of multiple understandings of land claims and their legitimacy. Considering customary principles of precedence brings into relief important elements of first possession important in land restitution processes. This paper juxtaposes the concept of original acquisition in property theory to two different examples of original claims from Timor-Leste: a two-part customary origin narrative from Oecusse and the development of a national land law for the new state. In these three narratives, we identify three different establishment events from which land authority develops. The article then uses this idea of the establishment event to explore five points of customary-statutory intersection evident from the land restitution process: (1) legitimate sources of land authority; (2) arbitrary establishment dates; (3) privileging of social order; (4) recognition of spiritual ties to land; and (5) the possibility for reversal.

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In 2013, it was announced that Timor-Leste's Oecussi enclave would become the site of a special economic zone. Arid, and inhabited mostly by semi-subsistence farmers from West Timor's Meto ethno-linguistic group, the plan entails remaking the enclave as an industrial, transport and tourism hub. To facilitate this, in mid-2015 the authorities began the process of clearing hundreds of indigenous gardens and homes from land slated for mega-projects intended to make the region attractive to foreign investors. In this paper, I describe how, for many Meto, land tends to be experienced as a spiritually mediated 'geography of affect' (Lea & Woodward, 2010) in which questions of place, belonging, spirituality and personal fortune cannot easily be divided, a reality that raises questions about the suitability of the plan's vision of globalized and investment driven 'development'. Drawing on Scott, I argue that in Oecussi, spirits associated with the land are not apolitical, but are sometimes perceived as acting to protect locals against powerful outsiders - a characteristically Meto 'weapon of the weak' that is in keeping with their previous encounters with colonial regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant ideological and cultural role of public museums in shaping national identity is widely acknowledged. This paper focuses on the roles of Taiwan's public art museums in generating nationalist narratives that privilege notions of cultural distinctiveness and authenticity in the visual representation of art from Taiwan. Two exhibitions of contemporary Indigenous art provide a platform for critical analysis of the impact of identity politics on the selection, display, and promotion of Taiwanese Indigenous art. Questions of artistic agency are also explored in this paper, demonstrating how Indigenous artists in Taiwan are increasingly interrogating and contesting systems of museological representation which seek to locate or "frame" Indigenous art within an Austronesian nationalist identity narrative. These exhibitions and the artists' works and observations offer an insight into the complex and shifting interrelationship between national identity politics and the museological representation of art in Taiwan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austronesian diaspora shows that around 60% of Austronesian-speaking people live in Indonesia. Among the locations with traces of Austronesian cultural remains is the information about the diaspora of Research reveals that the continuing megalithic tradition. The problem is: if megalithic culture was brought by migrants in which Austronesian period did the menhirs should be placed, the proto-historic or recent Austronesian; how is the dispersal pattern of the menhirs; and who were the bearers of the culture. Therefore we have to reveal the form and dispersal of the megalithic culture and Austronesian migration in Lima Puluh Koto Area. The aim of this research is revealing cultural history through the migrant's adaptation within the perspective of Austronesian diaspora. Thus information about the diaspora of the Austronesians and the ethnogenesis of Indoneisan nation can be recognized. Research reveals that the continuing megalithic tradition which is used the qualitative method and assumed base on archaeological remains at Lima Puluh Koto area is a distribution of menhirs, that forms clusters in accordance with nagari (state) at certain area, and they are dispersed up to the hilly area. Some of these menhirs have sacred function but there are also those with profane functions like marks of village, house yard, or street boundaries, as well as the marker of village or hamlet roads. Diaspora Austronesia menunjukkan kurang lebih 60% penutur tinggal di Indonesia. Salah satu lokasi jejak Austronesia adalah di Kabupaten Lima Puluh Koto, Sumatera Barat, yaitu sebaran menhir yang mencapai ratusan jumlahnya. Bentuk budaya Austronesia dikenal sebagai budaya yang meneruskan tradisi-tradisi masa prasejarah dan berlanjut pada masa sejarah, seperti tradisi megalitik. Permasalahannya adalah, apabila budaya megalitik dibawa oleh para migran, pada periode Austronesia protosejarah ataukah Austronesia masa kini menhir-menhir tersebut berada?, bagaimana pola sebaran menhir-menhir tersebut? dan siapa pendukungnya?. Penelitian ini berusaha mengungkapkan bentuk dan persebaran budaya megalitik dan migrasi Austronesia di Kawasan Lima Puluh Koto. Maksud dan tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengungkapkan sejarah kebudayaan dan adaptasi kaum migran dalam perpekstif diaspora Austronesia, sehingga memperkaya informasi tentang diaspora Austronesia dan asal-usul etnogenesis bangsa Indoensia. Hasil penelitian yang dilakukan dengan metode kualitatif ini menunjukkan bahwa tradisi megalitik di kawasan Lima Puluh Koto adalah sebaran menhir yang membentuk kelompok-kelompok berdasarkan nagari pada area tertentu. Sebaran menhir ini selain mempunyai fungsi sakral juga mempunyai fungsi profan antara lain sebagai batas kampung, batas halaman, maupun batas jalan raya desa, atau jalan-jalan di kampung.

Originally from Pennsylvania, Father Richard Daschbach has lived among the Atoni Pah Meto of West Timor since 1967. In this paper I consider Richard's ministry in the context of the literature on Austronesian cosmological systems, focusing on how his work, though defined by characteristically Meto notions of authority, spirituality and precedence, is also what Collier and Ong have described as a ‘global assemblage’. Tsing's concept of ‘friction’ is used as a way of understanding how both local and notionally universal forces within this encounter have been energised and transformed through their accidental and sometimes uneasy proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Austronesia, one of the largest language families in the world, covers a vast area from Madagascar in the extreme west to Easter Island in the far east, Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. The languages are spoken by the people of insular southeast Asia, Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia in the Pacific, as well as certain parts of the Asia mainland. The vernacular architecture of the people that belong to this language family shows certain shared characteristics that seem to indicate a common origin in the distant past. The Grand Shrines at Ise, Japan pose an intriguing phenomenon because they possess striking architectural features that are reminiscent of Austronesian vernacular architecture. This paper is an attempt to investigate the phenomenon using the findings of studies by experts from other disciplines such as historians, anthropologists, linguists and others, based on the link between culture, language and architecture.1 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Preliminary research in Lasem, Sluke and Kragan Districts, Rembang Regency, Central Java has been conducted in late 2012. The first problem in this study is to reviewing the Prehistoric Burials Site at North Beach area (PANTURA) of Rembang Regency. The objective is to seek possibility of discovering several prehistoric grave sites along the coast between Kragan and Lasem Districts. By surveying the surface along the coast, was found a few locations that are identified as prehistoric grave site such in the village of Leran, Sluke District and village of Binangun, Lasem District. Based on the survey results followed by excavation to learn more about the grave sites, especially the skeleton that was buried as the main data of this research. The skeleton findings those are typical of the Austronesian culture. This finding is significant data. Even in terms of paleoanthropological study known about tooth modification in some individuals, both of which are found on Binangun and Leran. Modified forms of the teeth look likes jasmine flower buds have never been found anywhere else in Indonesia.

This paper covers work using historical geographic information systems (GIS) by the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI)2 to trace early navigation in Monsoon Asia. To open a scholarly Web-based platform to a broader audience, the ECAI Austronesia Team is collaborating with the Maritime Buddhism project conceived by Lewis Lancaster. The Maritime Buddhism project is being developed to reach general audiences with a high level of interactivity and 3D visualizations featuring historic timelines, ships, trade routes and trade winds, travelling monks, life at ports, and stories. To allow the information to be more accessible, mobile phone apps and multi-media museum displays are being developed. Austronesian speaking peoples made navigation a way of life across the Indian and Pacific oceans spanning thousands of years. The goal of this integration of content and technology is to enable our understanding of Monsoon Asia, its diffusion of culture, and oceanic navigation to become alive and accessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]