Genetic, Linguistic and Molecular Anthropological Study of theIndian Ocean Littoral in Austronesian Dispersal Across the Pacific

Abstract

The Indian Ocean region is a critical route/corridor/barrier for the migration and settlement of people whose social, linguistic and genetic ancestry is of interest to anthropologists worldwide. Varying from the ‘little tradition’ of small isolated populations to the ‘great tradition’ of global and admixed heritage, in the field of collating evidences from culture, language and anthropological genetics this paper will examine the ‘Austronesian dispersal’ within the boundaries of the Indian ocean sporadically sprinkled across Pacific islanders. Littoral or near shore settlements may have simply act as ‘gateways’ as would have been the case with pre-historic settlements somewhere near a fresh water source or river bank. Physical environmental changes such as those driven by drastic ecological catastrophes including severe and acute adaptations to climatic and nutritional stressors can leave signatures providing vital clues for the dispersal of humankind.
During the last two decades or more, a plethora of genomic information has surfaced tracing the genetic history of an archaic hominin group from ancient DNA. In the light of ensuing works by palaeoanthropologists and evolutionary biologists, the dispersal and migration of people, genes and languages studying human history either directly through their remains or indirectly through tools, pottery or other cultural items have provided concerns over interpretation of archaeological dates. Similarly assessing the reliability of linguistic data which may favour a close correlation between genes and languages, yet at times appear to conflict with genetic evidence.
Despite these limitations, several ideas has been put forth concerning the dispersal of modern humans from Africa via the southern route, along the coast of India, eventually reaching Sahul the landmass consisting of Australia and New Guinea, which were connected until rising sea levels separated them about 8000 years ago. This putative “early southern dispersal”, as it came to be known, would now be underwater. From single versus multiple dispersal models molecular anthropologists have re-examined hypotheses about the colonization of the Pacific with different pliable approaches to understand population histories in the context of the ‘Austronesian dispersal’ across the Pacific.