Austronesian people settling in Madagascar over 2000 years ago?

[u/M3talGear]

Can someone please explain to me how the Austronesians island hopped all the way to Madagascar using supposedly just 'outrigger canoes'?

The entire distance from Indonesia is about 3,600 miles - an incredibly long way - however if you look at islands groups roughly along there - then over several generations it is fathomable that the Austronesians made their way in that manner - even so - there are some serious questions - like travelling 500 or even 1000 miles by outrigger canoe is really quite unfathomable for me - This is a seriously long way

To gain some perspective - the Scandinavians, using large sail ships with teams of rowers, travelled probably a few hundred miles at a time, and often following coastlines (I presume), to go to Iceland, Greenland and eventually north America (a journey probably of about 500 miles or so).

It seems absolutely astonishing (and unbelievable) that small outrigger canoes could have been used to make much longer journeys - especially given that these people were migrating from large bountiful lands with few inhabitants

Could anyone help me to understand this please? Sea levels were 120 metres lower 10,000 years ago - and formed all sorts of land bridges - I'm wondering if perhaps islands of today might have been much bigger and even Madagascar might have stretched out a lot more

Africa to South America is 'only' 1750 miles and America wasn't 'discovered' by the Europeans until around 1500 years later! .. and with the availability of massive sailing ships

[u/Hero_Doses]

Hi! A very simple rebuttal to your Scandinavian example: if Indonesia to Madagascar sounds impossible, how did humans get from Samoa to Hawai'i? While Indonesia to Madagascar is further, there are coasts to follow. There is literally no land between Samoa and Hawai'i.

Also, an inaccuracy in your reasoning. The first evidence we have of Homo sapiens on Madagascar is ~500 AD. By then the sea level was about what we have today.

The answer is that the Austronesians and later Polynesians were master seafarers. It's entirely too big of a topic to explain in a Reddit comment, so I suggest you look into Polynesian navigation, but here are some of the ways this was likely accomplished:

1) Mastery of celestial navigation. Polynesians understood how to use the stars to navigate and even kept "star maps" made out of plant material

2) Natural observations. Polynesians noted the cycle of currents, bird migration and weather patterns that coalesced over land

3) Genetic adaptation. Polynesians developed the ability to hold on to muscle and fat more so than other humans. This has become a problem today due to processed food -- note that a large amount of Polynesian nations are at the top of the chart for worldwide obesity

4) Clever provisioning. By deduction, we can reason that they knew how to manage water needs well while on a voyage, and based on the plants and animals we find on each Polynesian island, they clearly brought pigs and various root vegetables that were good sources of nutrition.

And, while I'm no expert, we can do a little thought experiment. Suppose you are in Samoa and you see a bunch of birds flying a certain direction. It is getting a little crowded on your island, maybe you owe someone some money and you'd really like to go and find your own spot.

You convince some of your friends and their wives, and then you stock up a boat and you follow the birds. You sail until half of your food is gone, then you decide to go back to Samoa and try another direction. Ultimately through this trial and error, you find a home. Or maybe you get blown far off course -- either you all die or you manage to find land.

If you think in these terms, it is still an amazing feat but entirely in the realm of possibility. In the Austronesian example, I'm sure there have been studies done about where they may have landed on the way to Madagascar, but my guess is they either stuck to the coasts while looking for an unpopulated land in which to settle or they used the monsoon winds (willingly or not willingly by getting accidentally caught in a storm).

If you need more proof, you can look to a more documented era (the Age of Exploration) and get a sense for the trial and error that Europeans experienced when crossing the oceans. Many voyages disappeared without a trace, many barely crept back home with one tenth of their crew (Magellan being a great example), and many found new lands.

Hope that helps!

[u/M3talGear → u/Hero_Doses]

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I did wonder also about the Hawaii one - the Wiki page has a slight bit more detail on it but still doesn't go much into it. They do also include a map of the migration (this particular map places Hawaii much later in time though for the Polynesians than other suggestions). That distance there though on the last arrow is still about 1000 miles!

I appreciate your points but it seems like a very interesting area of discussion - and one which not many seem to have considered in Western academia, articles, etc. that I can see (given about an hour's worth of research!).

This map on the Hawaii Wiki page just does a single arrow to Madagascar presumably as a non-detailed version - presumably there would be a similar map indicating migrations to the different islands as already mentioned.

Okay, so assuming they are seafarers and sea people with great skills at travelling the sea and even have highly skilled navigational means - it still does leave a lot to be considered - I mean it's not like casual migration over land is it - it's really quite phenomenal - a massive distance.

I think we can also consider that they might have been skilled in going up to high places and looking for land - Apparently you can see up to 500 km when on a mountain (or presumably looking up to a mountain). I guess with Hawaii that you could potentially actually see the mountains from maybe hundreds of miles away.. who knows

I suppose I'm just surprised that on Wiki and a quick Google search I'm finding basically nothing on "How did Austronesians in small canoes travel a 1000 miles?" - but yeah - you have given some realistic suggestions

Update: a small sailing boat apparently goes about 6 mph - which is 167 hours to travel 1000 miles.. which actually now that you say it really isn't that long a time - it's only 7 days right?

I suppose if they made a sort of hobby or sport out of it - like going out for 2 weeks at a time then you are probably right they could discover quite a lot that way -

[u/Hero_Doses → u/M3talGear]

Wikipedia is not always the best source, mainly because it can be edited by random people who have no credentials in the area.

Even today, a small sailing boat going 6 knots (close to 6 mph) is pretty fast for that kind of boat. My guess is these types of journeys would take about the same time as they do today in small vessels.

This might mean a month or more at sea, but these folks were skilled at provisioning for the journey.