Linguistic and genetic studies showed the hypothesis what Taiwan was a birth place of Austronesian populations and it has been accepted. However, we have to know that it is a result of studies on only the living populations. Austronesian populations are not in mainland China or mainland Southeast Asia at the present and we can only discuss the dispersal of Austronesian populations in their existing areas. On the other hand, Taiwan indigenous populations and mainland Southeast Asia populations have common and different features in their material cultures. Cultural diffusion or transmission, adaptation to ecological environment and innovation would be effective to changing of material culture among Austronesian and other neighboring populations.

I review the literature of cultural sequence on Austronesian populations and argue the formation process of material culture of them in Taiwan. I concretely overview and adjust Kano(1946) and Obayashi and et al.(1990) datasets of cultural elements and then show the result of information-theoretic analysis of them. Finally, I interpret the result of informatics analysis from a viewpoint of ethnography and ethnohistory and show some hypothetical scenarios of Austronesian populations formation process in Taiwan.

References

Kano, T.

1946 ‘Material Culture of the Formosan Aborigines and its Affinities: Formosa as a Contact Place of the Continental and Insular Cultures of Southeastern Asia.’ In Kano, T. “Studies in The Ethnology and Prehistory of Southeast Asia.” Tokyo: Yajima Shobo & Co. pp.218-253.

Obayashi, T., S. Sugita, and T. Akimichi,

1990 “Statistical Analysis of Cultures in Southeast Asia and Oceania (Bulletin of the National Museum of Ethnology, Special Issue no.11).”