Mysteries of migration

In the 17th and 18th centuries, navigators exploring the Pacific and Indian oceans discovered that the languages spoken on many islands, spanning from Madagascar in the west to Polynesia in the east, were remarkably similar. This discovery launched studies of Austronesians, those who speak Austronesian languages and had sailed across the Pacific several thousand years ago.

Long before the Age of Exploration, these people had embarked on heroic voyages across the sea. The details of their encounters remain largely unknown. Over time, their descendants gradually forgot where they originated from. Migration began 6,000 years ago and lasted until around 1,000 years ago. Today, more than 400 million people speak Austronesian languages, spanning a wide area that covers more than one-third of the Pacific and Indian oceans.

For more than a century, the origins and migrations of Austronesian peoples have been a significant subject of international academic study. Linguists, anthropologists and archaeologists have gradually revealed their voyages across oceans over the past millennia.

Their journeys are featured in the ongoing exhibition Origin and Expansions: The Austronesians and Maritime Civilization at the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum. This exhibition is a cooperation between the Chongqing museum and the Fujian Museum, which displays cultural relics related to the Austronesian peoples.

Ding Qinghua, one of the exhibition's curators at the Fujian Museum, says the exhibition draws on prehistoric archaeological discoveries from southeastern China and traces the historical links between Chinese maritime civilization and Austronesian culture through more than 200 artifacts.

Initially, linguists were the first to research the Austronesian peoples, but archaeologists soon joined the studies, focusing on stone stepped adzes.

One of the stone stepped adzes unearthed from the Huangguashan site in Xiapu county, Fujian province, is on display, indicating the migration of the Austronesian peoples.

Qin Zonglin, a curator at the Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, says that although stone adzes have been widely found to be an important tool to obtain food and process wooden tools used by Neolithic people, stone stepped adzes were mostly discovered in coastal areas. Based on multidisciplinary studies, Austronesian peoples were a major group that used the stone stepped adzes.

"By checking its development and expansion, experts can gain clues to the origins and migrations of the peoples," says Ding, adding that such tools were especially helpful in cutting trees and making boats, which were important for people living in coastal areas who attempted to migrate.

By comparing the development of stone stepped adzes found in different regions, including China's southeast coast, Southeast Asian islands, and Pacific islands, scholars generally believe China's southeast coast was the birthplace of such tools, a conclusion reached as early as the 1930s, Ding says.

Some may doubt this conclusion — from China to the South Pacific islands takes more than a dozen hours to fly in modern times. Could Austronesian people sail so far so long ago?

The display shows an experiment conducted by Hiria Ottino, president of the Pacific China Friendship Association, who navigated from French Polynesia across the South Pacific with five other descendants of the Austronesian people in 2010.They made this journey in a self-built canoe, without using any modern devices or materials.

After 116 days out at sea and the numerous challenges of a typhoon and a shark attack alike, they reached a harbor in Fujian, proving a long-distance sea journey was possible without modern tools.