Taiwan could be the place from which all Austronesian peoples originated, Academia Sinica vice-president Liu Tsui-jung (劉翠溶) said yesterday, citing the results of research conducted over the past decades.
Liu made the remark during a keynote speech at the opening of a conference on issues concerning indigenous peoples worldwide organized by the International Geographical Union.
The conference, which opened in Taipei yesterday, will continue through Saturday.
The Austronesian family refers to indigenous peoples found in a region that stretches "from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south, and from Easter Island in the east to Madagascar in the west," Liu said, adding that this excludes indigenous people in Australia.
For a long time, academics have attempted to trace the origin of Austronesian peoples through linguistic, anthropologist and archaeological research, and had raised several theories, Liu said.
Theories include the Indo-China Peninsula as the origin, southern China as well as the southeast coast of the Asian continent, Liu said.
Although Taiwan was first considered as a possible origin of the Austronesian peoples in 1965, it was not until 10 years later that the theory was taken seriously.
"In 1975, archeologist Richard Shutler and linguist Jeffrey Marck ... contended that archeological and linguistic evidence demonstrated that cord-marked pottery found in Taiwan from around 9000BC to 2500BC represented the earliest Austronesian community," Liu said. "Taiwan was thus the earliest homeland of the Austronesian people."
Advanced biotechnology allowed a team from New Zealand to conduct DNA tests on New Zealand Maoris in 1998.
"[The] finding reveals that Maori ancestors came originally from Taiwan and confirms Maori beliefs about their origins," Liu said.
DNA tests of 640 Taiwanese Aborigines by the Transfusion Medicine Laboratory at Mackay Memorial Hospital in 2005 also showed that "Taiwanese Aboriginal populations are more closely related to Southeast Asian island populations than to those from mainland East Asia," overturning earlier continental origin theories, Liu said.
In addition to Liu's keynote speech, relations between the state and its Aboriginal populations, as well as Taiwan's Aboriginal cultural and knowledge systems, were also explored by academics in essays presented at the conference.
Phase 2 clinical trial results of the Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday were published on the Web site of The Lancet: Respiratory Medicine, in an early preview before publication. The study paves the way for other nations to issue emergency use authorizations or produce the Medigen vaccine, given The Lancet’s credibility as a highly respected medical journal with a rigorous peer-review process, Medigen’s international affairs director Lien Chia-en (連加恩) said. Lien said that the study is important as it proposes methods for converting international units for efficacy comparisons. The methods have been used for correlating the efficacy of hepatitis B
LIABILITIES MULLED: New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi said Taipei would find out if the firm was legally registered, the guide was licensed and the weather was assessed The assets of Tian Da Local Nature Co are to be frozen after at least four people died after falling into the Beishi River (北勢溪) on an outing the company had organized on Saturday, the Taipei City Government said yesterday. Six people — two adults and four children — were washed away by a flash flood on the river in New Taipei City’s Hubaotan (虎豹潭) area. They were participating in a Nature Joy Camp outdoor activity with a group of 16 adults and 15 children led by a guide surnamed Su (蘇). As of 4:30pm yesterday, four of the missing had been
THREATS: Dismissing Beijing’s assertion that its military exercises only target Taiwanese separatists, Chiu Kuo-cheng said war has no regard for political affiliation In case Taiwan is attacked, the military will defend the nation and not stand by like “plastic toys,” Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Chiu was responding to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) asking him to clarify his remark last week that “the military holds to the principle that we will not fire the first shot.” Wang asked Chiu whether he meant what he said literally or that Taiwan would not start a war. “The Republic of China will not start a war,” Chiu
Taiwanese worked more hours than people in all but three other countries in the world last year, Ministry of Labor data showed. Singapore placed first in average hours worked among the 40 economies surveyed, with an average of 2,288 hours per worker last year, the data showed. The city-state was followed by Colombia with 2,172 hours — based on 2019 data — and Mexico with 2,124 hours, it showed. Taiwan came in fourth, with 2,021 hours, it showed. South Korean workers clocked the third-most hours in Asia, with 1,908 hours, followed by Japan with 1,598 hours, it showed. However, compared with 2019, the survey found
RSS