3) The Beginning of the Seafarers
(2500 BC-1400 BC)
So where did these restless sea-people, the voyagers who sailed to Melanesia and made their temporary home there, originally come from?
The answer we get from nearly all those who have studied this question is Taiwan, an island just off the coast of China. Taiwan is generally regarded as the starting point: the place in which the Austronesian language family–the broad family that embraces nearly all the major Pacific Island languages–originated. It is also where the seafaring tradition, the navigational skills, and so many of the other cultural traits associated with early island societies were formed.
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