Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement

TLDR

Debates about human prehistory focus on how population expansions shape biological and cultural diversity, with Austronesian origins debated between a recent pulse‑pause expansion from Taiwan and an older slow‑boat diffusion from Wallacea. The study constructed a phylogeny of 400 languages using lexical data and Bayesian phylogenetic methods. Language phylogenies place the Austronesian origin in Taiwan around 5,230 years ago, revealing settlement pauses and expansion pulses tied to technological and social innovations, and the results are robust to rooting and calibration assumptions, underscoring the power of linguistic data, database technologies, and Bayesian phylogenetics for resolving human prehistory.

Abstract

Debates about human prehistory often center on the role that population expansions play in shaping biological and cultural diversity. Hypotheses on the origin of the Austronesian settlers of the Pacific are divided between a recent "pulse-pause" expansion from Taiwan and an older "slow-boat" diffusion from Wallacea. We used lexical data and Bayesian phylogenetic methods to construct a phylogeny of 400 languages. In agreement with the pulse-pause scenario, the language trees place the Austronesian origin in Taiwan approximately 5230 years ago and reveal a series of settlement pauses and expansion pulses linked to technological and social innovations. These results are robust to assumptions about the rooting and calibration of the trees and demonstrate the combined power of linguistic scholarship, database technologies, and computational phylogenetic methods for resolving questions about human prehistory.