The three initial chapters in the volume examine the linguistic evidence for Austronesian origins and dispersal. Tryon gives an overview of the Austronesian language family and examines the evidence for current higher level Austronesian subgrouping hypotheses and the methodology employed in comparative-historical linguistics. Pawley and Ross examine the huge Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian, of which roughly half of all Austronesian languages are members. They give an account of the culture history of the Oceanic subgroup and discuss the dispersal of the constituent languages through Melanesia and across the Pacific, looking into the question of why some Oceanic languages have changed more than other Austronesian languages. Adelaar’s paper discusses the pivotal role of Borneo in terms of the original homeland and subsequent dispersal of some of the major Austronesian languages, especially Malagasy, the Malayic subgroup, the Tamanic and the Land Dayak languages.

The next three chapters deal with the archaeological record for early Austronesian dispersal. Bellwood examines questions of the ultimate homeland region for the Austronesians in southern China and Taiwan, regarding the Austronesians as a population, like many other major ethnolinguistic groups in the agricultural latitudes of the world, who began their expansion as a result of an early adoption of agriculture in a world predominantly populated by hunter-gatherers. He continues with an examination of possible reasons for the success and remarkable extent of the dispersal (reasons which clearly extended beyond a simple reliance on agriculture) and raises a number of issues about some of the early transformations which occurred as Austronesian colonists moved into new social and environmental landscapes.

The chapter by Spriggs then examines the archaeological evidence for the colonization of the Pacific Islands, focusing on the Lapita culture starting around 3500 years ago and discussing its relevance for the ancestry of the Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians. The Austronesians were not, of course, the first settlers of the western Pacific and they certainly did not colonize uncontested space; some of the results of the ensuing interactions are also discussed by Spriggs, as is some of the recent genetic evidence which is now becoming so important in any discussion of the origins of the actual people of the Austronesian world.

The early Austronesians were also advantaged in possessing an excellent sailing technology. Horridge, in his contribution to the volume, examines this Austronesian sailing technology and identifies its chief features. He concludes that early Austronesian sailing vessels consisted of a lashed-lug construction of sewn planks on a hollowed-out log base with a single outrigger and a triangular sail pushed up by a tilting pole. The nature of this sail and the way the vessel was steered made it a kind of early windsurfing craft. As Horridge makes clear, this windsurfing craft favoured sailing into the wind with a later downwind return.

In the final chapter in this section on origins and dispersal, Groves discusses the ancestors and origin regions for some of the major domestic animals of the Austronesians (water buffalo, cattle, pig and dog) and also some of the small commensal species which travelled with them. Except for Bali cattle and possibly pigs, the species discussed were all introduced into the Austronesian world from mainland Asia. Questions arise of when and how they were introduced and Groves also raises the important observation that some might ultimately have Indian homelands, a source which does not tie in well with geographical reconstructions of Austronesian prehistory prior to about 2000 years ago. The archaeological record for the species discussed, so far not a topic given much attention in the island regions of Southeast Asia, will doubtless have much to contribute to our knowledge of Austronesian dispersal in the future.