The Austronesian expansion
Seafarers from Taiwan begin the largest maritime dispersal in human history.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1.5 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
From around 3000 BCE, populations from Taiwan carrying rice, pigs, dogs and outrigger canoe technology move south through the Philippines and Indonesia. The Austronesian language family they spread eventually stretches from Madagascar to Easter Island — over half the circumference of the Earth — making it geographically the most widespread language family before European colonisation.