© Brill, Leiden 2002 JEAA 3, 1–2 MARITIME ADAPTATIONS IN PREHISTORIC SOUTHEAS CHINA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROBLEM OF AUSTRONESIAN EXPANSION BY TSANG CHENG-H’A 臧振華 (National Museum of Prehistory, Taidong, Taiwan) Abstract The movement of the Austronesian peoples from their homelands in the coastal areas of the East Asian mainland is an extremely complicated problem, and it is still in need of further discussion. In order to address this issue, we must endeavor to understand more clearly the prehistoric cultures of the southeastern coast of the Chinese mainland, and especially changes in settlement and subsistence patterns. In recent years, the great increase of available archaeological materials concerning the prehistoric cultures in the southeastern coastal regions of China, including Taiwan, has begun to present a favor- able opportunity to re-examine the problem here raised. This article therefore aims to present a new synthesis of the archaeological materials in that area, in the hope to better comprehend the motivation and reason for the spread of the Austronesian ancestors. Introduction In the archipelagos of the Pacific and Indian Oceans south of the Asian mainland, extending over about one-third of the surface of the globe, about two hundred and seventy million speakers of Austronesian languages are living today. They inhabit the areas of Polynesia, Micro- nesia, and Melanesia in the Pacific; in Southeast Asia, they are found in Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula and archipelago, the Philippines, Taiwan, and the southeastern part of Indochina; and in Africa, on the island of Madagascar. Racially, these populations pertain to the Oceanic Mongoloid stock; and culturally, they exhibit many characteristics in common, indicating that their dispersal over their present living areas cannot have occurred very long ago (Chang 1959; Bellwood 1979).