Ancient crops provide first archaeological signature of the westward Austronesian expansion
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Significance: The prehistoric settlement of Madagascar by people from distant Southeast Asia has long captured both scholarly and public imagination, but on the ground evidence for this colonization has eluded archaeologists for decades. Our study provides the first, to our knowledge, archaeological evidence for an early Southeast Asian presence in Madagascar and reveals that this settlement extended to the Comoros. Our findings point to a complex Malagasy settlement history and open new research avenues for linguists, geneticists, and archaeologists to further study the timing and process of this population movement. They also provide insight into early processes of Indian Ocean biological exchange and in particular, Madagascar’s floral introductions, which account for one-tenth of its current vascular plant species diversity.
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The translocation of chickens to coastal Southeast Africa and the Indian Ocean islands in the eighth/ninth centuries CE coincides with the introduction of Asian crops, such as rice, tree cotton, and mung bean.
“The translocation of chickens to coastal Southeast Africa and the Indian Ocean islands in the eighth/ninth centuries CE coincides with the introduction of Asian crops, such as rice, tree cotton, and mung bean (113).”
From The biocultural origins and dispersal of domestic chickens (2022) · cites this paper as [113]
The Significance section (page not provided) reports rice, mung bean, and cotton in eighth- to tenth-century Comoros assemblages; Materials and Methods says the cotton was most likely Asian tree cotton, though the species cannot be identified from the seeds. The paper does not address chicken translocation, so it does not establish that chickens arrived at the same time as these crops. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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“Asian crops, such as rice, tree cotton, and mung bean (113).”
BackgroundSelf-citation
- Authors
- Crowther, A., Lucas, L., Helm, R., Horton, M., Shipton, C., Wright, H. T., Walshaw, S., Pawlowicz, M., Radimilahy, C., Douka, K., Picornell-Gelabert, L., Fuller, D. Q., & Boivin, N. L.
- Affiliations
- The University of Queensland (AU)
- University College London (GB)
- Canterbury Archaeological Trust (GB)
- University of Bristol (GB)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- Santa Fe Institute (US)
- Simon Fraser University (CA)
- Virginia Commonwealth University (US)
- University of Antananarivo (MG)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Universitat de les Illes Balears (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Crowther, Alison
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2016-05-31
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 6635-6640
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4914162
- OpenAlex
- W2414564212
- Cited by
- 288
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 70 · 2023: 24 · 2022: 26 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 44 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 4 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 159.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Royal Agricultural University Repository (Royal Agricultural University) (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion)
- Apollo (University of Cambridge) (submittedVersion)
- Apollo
- Funders
- EC | European Research Council (206148, 323842)
- Natural Environment Research Council (NF/2011/2/3, NF/2012/2/4, NF/2013/2/1)
- British Academy (PF100114)
- National Science Foundation (0431137)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Geography, Planning and Development › Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Global Maritime and Colonial Histories
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Keywords
- Austronesian expansion, archaeobotany, ancient crops, Comoros, Austronesian migration, East Africa, prehistoric settlement
- MeSH terms
- Archaeology, Asia, Southeastern, Humans, Madagascar, Crops, Agricultural
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