Abellera, Jennelyn M.

March 07, 2019

BILLWOOD AND SOLHEIM

“A HYPOTHESIS ABOUT AUSTRONESIANS ORIGINS

QUOTE

“I have been in disagreement with Peter Bellwood for some time on the movement of
Austronesian speakers from South China into Southern Island Southeast Asia and the
Pacific.”

(Solheim 2004, p. 279)

As the quote presented above, Wilhelm Solheim is pointing his disagreement about
Peter Bellwood’s Austronesians hypotheses. Therefore, I must start my argument on
how Peter Bellwood presented his studies about the origins of Austronesians people by
focusing about linguistics and to be next by Wilhem Solheim on how he presented his
hypothesis about Austronesians which he called “Nusantao”. This quote will be
explained further in the next paragraph.

ARGUMENT

Bellwood, proposed a hypothesis about Austronesians origins. He focused his studies in

linguistics which, he presented that Austronesians are not a clearly visible group in
terms of race or of ethnographic or archaeological culture in many areas of their
distribution, with the important exception of those Pacific Islands which only they settled
in prehistoric times. (Bellwood 1985, p. 105)

Bellwood presented some of his previous statements on the issue about the
Austronesian origins with the same articles of Meacham. But unfortunately, Bellwood is
not convinced about Meacham’s hypothesis. Therefore, Peter Bellwood presented ten
(10) hypothesis and here are the first five (5) hypothesis about the disagreement of
Bellwood to Meacham’s paper:

1. The Austronesians underwent an expansion and dispersal for which there is no

parallel in human history. Their descendants now number perhaps 250 million
people and occupy Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, parts of southern
Vietnam, Madagascar, and most of the Pacific Islands as far east as Easter
Island. (Bellwood 1984, p. 108)

2. Austronesians are derived first and foremost from linguistics. Thus,

hypotheses about the ultimate origins and early expansions of the Austronesian-
speaking population as a whole can only be supported by the data of biological
anthropology and archaeology and not generated from them. (Bellwood 1984, p.
108)

3. Austronesians cultural patterns have been affected by millennia of local

evolution. But languages, despite millennia of borrowing from unrelated tongues,
will generally preserve traces of family history and expansion which, in the case
of prehistoric tribal societies such as the Austronesians, can be assumed to
correlate fairly directly with the expansionary history of their human speakers.
(Bellwood 1984, p. 108)

4. Proto-Austoronesians (PAN), which appears to have been located in

Taiwan, may have shared a remorter common ancestry with some of the Thai
languages, and this suggests an ancestry for the (Pre-) Austronesians on the
South Chinese mainland even though no Austronesian languages are
spoken there today. (Bellwood 1984, p. 108)
 5. During the 5th and 4th millennia B.C. early Austronesians with a cereal-based
economy (rice and millet) expanded from southern China into Taiwan and
the northern Philippines. (Bellwood 1984, p. 108)

Only these first five (5) of hypothesis of Bellwood explained that Austronesians exists
but their language and location are not precisely explained. But when Meacham’s give
his hypothesis about this argument, Bellwood suddenly changed his point of view into
agreeing that Austronesians origins are true and even their language exists.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Wilhelm “Bill” G. Solheim, was a pioneer and influential leader in the field of Southeast
Asian archaeology. He studied and focuses in the field of Archaeology and considered a
founder of today’s Southeast Asian archaeology, and has, in fact, been called “Mr.
Southeast Asian Archaeology.” Bill Solheim was a founding fellow of the Philippine
Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science. In 2003, the Solheim Foundation was established to
promote archaeology in the Philippines.

Bill Solheim presented his hypothesis by changing the name of Austronesians to

Nusantao (which the root words “nusa” for island and “tau” for man or people). He
changed it to Nusantao because the use of the word Austronesians or the compound
Malayo-Polynesian for a people and a culture is very awkward, and is incorrect as well.
Both terms are for a language family and should not be used for other purposes.
Because these people share both basic culture and a language, it should not be difficult
to coin a word for the people and culture from reconstructed protoforms of the language.
As these are the people of the islands, I proposed the term Nusantau for these people
and cultures. (Solheim 2014, p. 123)

By now, Solheim used Nusantao instead of Austronesians. And now he defined

Nusantao as natives of Southeast Asia, and their descendants, a marine oriented
culture from their beginnings and those beginnings probably in southern island
Southeast Asia a bit before 5000 B.C.A majority of the people with this culture, at any
one time, probably spoke a Malayo-Polynesian language but there was no doubt a
varying sized minority of them, from time to time, who did not speak a related language.
(Solheim 2014, p. 274).

Bill Solheim hypothesize also that Malayo-Polynesians speakers living in the interior of
the larger islands who were not maritime oriented, and I would not consider these as
Nusantao. The Nusantao and the non-maritime Malayo-Polynesian speakers no doubt
were constantly mixing genetically, culturally and linguistically. (Solheim 2014, p. 274).

He explained also the Nusantao ethnic groups living today and the recent past. And the
examples of these are Badjao, Samal and Tausug of Malaysia, Indonesia and the
Philippines. These groups are living on the boats, which is no doubt evolved from their
early history as Nusantao. There is a lot in common among the people who lived their
lived on the water. However, almost no written documents concerning them exist.

Solheim hypothesized the relationship between Southern Asia, Korea and Japan. He
stated that the origins of the Japanese language are still controversial because it is an
Altaic language, probably related in some way to Korean. But Murayama stated that few
other Japanese linguists, has hypothesized that Japanese is related to Austronesian,
which he usually refers to as Malayo-Polynesian. And further suggests that the original
location in Japan where the language started was in the northern portion of Kyushu.
(Murayama 1976, p. 276)

Korean and Japanese was brought north by the Nusantao traders and that this involved
a long period of contact and intermarriage, from about 4000 B.C, of the Southeast Asian
traders with people living along the China and Western and Southern Korean cost. But
according to Paul Benedict, Japanese is an Austro-Thai language and further believing
that Japanese is an Austro-Thai language, and further believing that Japanese is not
directly related to Korean. (Benedict 1990, p. 278).
Bill Solheim mentioned the postulate that the Austronesian languages were probably
transmitted into insular Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands along the eastern coast
of the Southeast Asia mainland rather than through the island of Taiwan. (Solheim
2004, p. 279).

The conclusions of Bill Solheim explained further about his hypothesis. He had first
hypothesize that the early Nusantao Maritime Trading Network, after advancing from
south to north through the Philippines , reached the Southern Taiwan and coastal south
eastern China sometime shortly before 5000 B.C.

This Nusantao combination of land settlement and expanding maritime trading network
is to my knowledge, unique in the world, so there is no existing model which can be
looked to, except for the no doubt much evolved maritime cultures still in existence in
Asia and the Pacific. Bill Solheim agreed with Tsang that the movement of Austronesian
speakers, now Malayo-Polynesia speaking Nusantao, from south eastern China was
along the coast of Viet Nam.

INSIGHTS

As I read the two (2) hypotheses of Austronesians origins, Peter Bellwood and Bill
Solheim have a different hypothesis. Peter Bellwood focused in linguistics, however, Bill
Solheim focused in archaeology of Austronesians, somewhat, he called this Nusantao.
But only Bill Solheim explained further about the origins of Austronesians, not just about
the language but also the location where Nusantao located.

I can say that Peter Bellwood is disagreed with Meacham’s hypothesis, but after I read
the conclusions of Bellwood, I must say that his hypothesis are vague and the details he
presented are confusingly as a reader. Therefore, I agree with Bill Solheim because the
details of his arguments are clearly understandable and précised.