Austronesian Migration to Central Vietnam: Crossing over the Iron Age Southeast Asian Sea

Abstract

A focal point of Southeast Asian archaeology and anthropology has been the reconstruction of prehistoric maritime links. In prehistoric times, this area witnessed human migrations and movements that often involved major sea crossings. As Bellwood and Glover (2004: 5) described, ‘Southeast Asia did not witness any truly independent development of early agriculture, urban civilisation, or literacy, but it did witness the oldest recorded maritime voyages by humans’. Pleistocene seafarers could cross large expanses of open sea, as evidenced by the movement of early anatomically modern humans across Wallacea to Australia as far back as 50,000 years ago. Much later, Austronesian