AI Article Synopsis
- Hunter-gatherer societies in the Ryukyu Islands are unusual for small island prehistory, as most island settlements are linked to agriculture.
- The Ryukyu Islands have a unique case where they maintained hunter-gatherer lifestyles for a long time before agriculture appeared between the 8th and 13th centuries AD.
- The authors propose a model that combines archaeology and linguistics to explain how agriculture and Ryukyuan languages spread, influenced by population growth, trade, piracy, and nearby political entities.
Article Abstract
Hunter-gatherer occupations of small islands are rare in world prehistory and it is widely accepted that island settlement is facilitated by agriculture. The Ryukyu Islands contradict that understanding on two counts: not only did they have a long history of hunter-gatherer settlement, but they also have a very late date for the onset of agriculture, which only reached the archipelago between the eighth and thirteenth centuries AD. Here, we combine archaeology and linguistics to propose a tripartite model for the spread of agriculture and Ryukyuan languages to the Ryukyu Islands. Employing demographic growth, trade/piracy and the political influence of neighbouring states, this model provides a synthetic yet flexible understanding of farming/language dispersals in the Ryukyus within the complex historical background of medieval East Asia.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10426105 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.1 | DOI Listing |
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