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Misrepresentation of references

I have been taking a look at the extent to which the article text is supported by the cited references. It is a slow job, but I have found three instances where not only is article text unsupported by the cited references but at times, it is largely contradicted by them. The third example has three references – all of which fail to support the article text.

I started with the first two paragraphs of the section headed "Paleolithic".

The first paragraph, first sentence, has two cited references: Jett, Ancient Ocean Crossings and Jinam et al, Discerning the Origins of the Negritos. The facts in that first sentence that you might expect to be confirmed by references are

  • the method by which modern humans spread out of Africa to ISEA ("coastal migration")
  • the date that ISEA was settled by these first settlers ("70,000 BP")

Neither of these facts are confirmed by the two cited references. Jett mentions "eastern Asia" being reached by 70,000 years ago - but he is not discussing ISEA there. Jinam et al open their paper with a date of at least 40,000 BP for human presence in Southeast Asia. Neither of these sources specifically discuss the coastal migration routes mentioned in the article. The nearest Jett comes to this is the coastal migration into North America, in a completely different part of his book. If these sources do not confirm anything in the preceding part of the paragraph, what are they doing there?

The second paragraph refers to "these early populations" – which is rather a woolly term for a period of c. 50,000 years). The suggestion is made that some crossings were accidental. Mention is made of the major barriers to migration (Wallace Line, etc.) and then the article says that settlement in what are now islands was "mostly through land migration".

Jett, the cited source, gives a very much different account. First, it should be made clear that Jett does make a number of self-contradictory statements in his book. However, reading it as a whole, he is clear that the crossing of the Wallace Line would have involved watercraft:
"The depauperate faunas to the east of Wallace’s Line argue against the efficacy of natural rafting, and neither were modern humans’ premodern predecessors rafted to the east of Flores as one would expect had natural rafting been a viable mechanism in the region."
He mentions pelagic fishing 43,400 BP in East Timor. He also discusses the New Britain obsidian trade, 24,000 BP and involving water transport. There are a number of statements by Jett that present a picture of a population with effective maritime technology, for instance:
"Again, watercraft would have been the only feasible means for colonizing these lands, and deep-sea fishing is evidenced in New Ireland at some 35,000 years ago. Most of these islands are intervisible, but to reach Buka from New Ireland required an 87-mile ocean voyage, one-third of which was out of sight of land."
I cannot reasonably quote them all, but Jett makes other remarks along the same lines. I suggest that the reader of this part of the Wikipedia article would take away a very different picture [than (missing word added 23 May 2024)]from the source: mostly migration on land, with some by water, much of which was accidental.

Looking elsewhere in the article, the last paragraph in the section titled "Migration from Taiwan" starts with: "In the Indian Ocean, they sailed west from Maritime Southeast Asia; the Austronesian peoples reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 CE." The key fact in the sentence is the date (the article has already mentioned Madagascar as having received Austronesian settlers). Three sources are cited to support this. None of them mention the date in the article as a date for Austronesian settlement in Madagascar, nor do they reach a conclusion of any date for this.

The first reference is titled Genetic evidence and historical theories of the Asian and African origins of the present Malagasy population. The main emphasis is on the proportions of African, Austronesian and other components in the genetic makeup of the Malagasy people. It handles the date of the arrival of Austronesians only in passing, and with not much precision:
"Dating based on linguistic borrowings suggest a recent split of a proto-Malagasy population from other Indonesian populations within the first millennium of the Christian era";
"...it was possible to date their admixture with Austronesian-speaking population in the last two millennia".
There is no way that this reference can support the date given in the article.

The second reference is The Culture History of Madagascar. The closest statement to dating Austronesian arrival in the island is
"Dahl (1951) proposed A.D. 400 as an estimated date of departure of proto-Malagasy speakers from Indonesia, based on the limited number of Sanskrit loan words in Malagasy. Adelaar (1989) has argued in response that most of these Sanskrit loans were probably borrowed via Old Malay or Old Javanese, and not directly from an Indian language. He prefers to date the migration as seventh century or later."
Otherwise the paper lists a number of archaeological finds in the first millenium AD, but makes no association between any of them and Austronesian settlers. The closest is mention of a site with pottery similar to that found in modern Vezo villages (dated A.D. 650 with a range of A.D. 440-780) but discusses the inability to confirm that with additional work as the site was lost in a cyclone. The paper's conclusion focuses on the further work that needs to be done to understand the overall subject.

The third reference is A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. At an early stage it says:
"We do not even know for sure whether the earliest visitors to the island were Asians or Africans."
Dates of evidence of settlement are discussed, but none have any suggestion of who the settlers might be.

I find it particularly disturbing that an initial look at the references which supposedly support the text has found so many discrepancies between sources and article. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 21:37, 5 February 2023 (UTC) reply

I have fixed the Madagascar issue with a source by Alexander Adelaar, the expert on the linguistic history of Madagascar. The date 50–500 CE was indeed unsupported and also way too early. I will supplement this information later with sources from other disciplines (geneticists arrive at similar dates as Adelaar). – Austronesier ( talk) 19:46, 19 February 2023 (UTC) reply

The issue of the date of Austronesian settlement of Madagascar has crept back into the article again. There are two mentions:

  • Estimates for when this occurred vary from the 1st century CE,[153] to as late as the 6th to 7th centuries CE.[154][155]
    and
  • the Austronesian peoples reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 CE

The only reference that supports the 1st century date is Herrera et al: East African origins for Madagascan chickens as indicated by mitochondrial DNA. The only mention of an early date is in the introduction to the paper. It says:

  • "Beginning in the first few centuries AD, Austronesian speakers from Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) established trade links with India and eventually colonized Madagascar during ca AD 50–500".

The cited sources in this paper (Herrera et al) are Dewar & Wright 1993: The culture history of Madagascar and Burney et al. 2004: A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar. These are the two references discussed above and are used in the Wikipedia article. As discussed above, neither paper supports these early dates. Since the Herrera et al is all about the using genetics to determine the origin of chickens in Madagascar, the date of Austronesian settlement is almost a reference in passing. What is worrying is that the authors of this paper may have taken the date of settlement from an earlier version of this article, together with the references (which we can see from the earlier discussion, were supporting the incorrect date). If so, this is Wikipedia recycling its own error. At a minimum, Herrera et al provide a date that is not supported by the sources they cite.

The second mention in the article provides an extra reference: Gunn et al, 2011: Independent Origins of Cultivated Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) in the Old World Tropics. This states:
Historical records suggest that 14–16 centuries ago, Austronesians and Arabs were trading along the oceanic route connecting Southeast Asia to southern coastal east Africa
So, this is not settlement, but trade to East Africa. Gunn et al support this with a reference, Allibert C. Austronesian migration and the establishment of the Malagasy civilisation: Contrasted readings in linguistics, archaeology, genetics and cultural anthropology. 2008. I don't have access to the full text of Allibert, but it says:
...leading to conclusions broadly supporting the thesis of Austronesian migrations directly to Madagascar from Kalimantan and Sulawesi around the 5th and 7th centuries CE. So in this instance, the Wikipedia article is supported by an additional reference (Gunn et al) that does not support reached Madagascar by ca. 50–500 CE (because by my maths, 14 centuries ago does not take us back to 50 CE, even if they were specifically talking about settlement) and tracing where Gunn source their numbers (Allibert) we get the 5th to 7th centuries AD range that is pretty much what User:Austronesier corrected the article to beforehand. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 19:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Dates for domestic pigs, dogs and chickens as part of the "Austronesian package"

This is just a note on the more complex inclusion of domesticated pigs, dogs and chickens in the "Austronesian package" – more complex that the view one could get from reading the article. These species did not travel continuously, from the outset (in Taiwan), with the migration front of the Austronesian dispersal. See, for instance, The Origins and Arrival of the Earliest Domestic Animals in Mainland and Island Southeast Asia: A Developing Story of Complexity Philip J. Piper (2017) in New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory Edited by Philip J. Piper, Hirofumi Matsumura and David Bulbeck [1]

Is this something that other editors in the subject have picked up on in other sources? ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 19:55, 16 October 2023 (UTC) reply

New sub-topic needed.

It would seem obvious to me that a new sub-topic is needed: fauna and flora links. The genetics of the paper mulberry, for example, lead straight back to TAIWAN, Polynesian pig are genetically linked to Yunnan Province, China (' northern peninsular Southeast Asia', specifically southern China’s Yunnan Province.) The 'kura' dog is linked to middle Indonesia via China, the Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asia, the chicken is from the Philippines, etc. 2001:8003:1D9E:9400:F564:E8C3:BB2E:1716 ( talk) 08:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC) reply

It's all here: Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia, User:Obsidian Soul did an incredible job with it. The link to that page is somewhat hard to find in the hatnotes of §Evidence from agriculture. – Austronesier ( talk) 10:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Linking the crops

I have no idea where you all got the idea that we should only link terms that readers do not understand. See MOS:UNDERLINK. Do I need to discuss the individual histories of the crops here to make it obvious why they need to be linked? They are relevant to the article. Not a random word that just happened to be there.

The previous section in this talk page is literally complaining about the inadequate coverage of Austronesian domesticates.   OBSIDIAN† SOUL 15:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Hi @ OBSIDIAN, this will be a productive discussion if and only if you approach it with a collegial attitude, minus the snark.
I get where you're coming from, and I'm not certain that my position is correct, but I am leaning toward not linking basic terms like "chicken" and "coconut". Besides the fact that their respective pages, when linked, provide an overly broad description of each term, which may only have limited contextual connection to the topic at hand, it seems to me that in the interest of not overlinking, we should let readers look them up on their own if they are interested to learn more about each one. Revirvlkodlaku ( talk) 15:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC) reply
Revirvlkodlaku Because it's a frustratingly nonsensical objection. I've literally linked them to the relevant subsections, how is that "broad"? Are they "basic" if the vast majority of people do not know their relevance to the Austronesian migrations? That's the context on why it should be linked. Just because it's an everyday object doesn't make everything about it known to an average reader. I doubt both of you even know about them. These are two of the relevant criteria in MOS:UL:
  • Relevant connections to the subject of another article that will help readers understand the article more fully. This can include people, events, and topics that already have an article or that clearly deserve one, as long as the link is relevant to the article in question.
  • Articles with relevant information
Nowhere does it say that we should only link terms that readers are unfamiliar with. Bluelinks are not for dictionary purposes. If that was the case, articles like "banana", "chicken", and "coconut" should be orphans. They're not. MOS:OL:
A good question to ask yourself is whether reading the article you're about to link to would help someone understand the article you are linking from.
And the answer to that is yes. That list is specifically to topics which contain more discussions on their relevance to this article. Try it. Follow where the links lead to. --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 16:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC) reply
@ OBSIDIAN, I'm not quite sold on your argument, but let's see what others think: @ User:Remsense and @ User:ThoughtIdRetired, what are your thoughts on all this? Revirvlkodlaku ( talk) 23:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC) reply
I've lost interest. Hide the links. Make it more difficult for readers to read about the history of the crops in question. --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 04:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC) reply

These don't all need to be wikilinks in the lead section. I think the WP:Easter egg links from "rice" to History of rice cultivation should also be removed from the lead. Walsh90210 ( talk) 02:48, 27 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Over-confident assertions

User:Revirvlkodlaku, more important than the presentational point of whether or not to link (topic above) is whether the article makes too-confident assertions about Austronesians being involved in the translocation of all the plant and animal species discussed in the article. The supporting references contain a substantial amount of hesitancy over who exactly was responsible for the entire journey of the species mentioned. For instance, the language used by Fuller et al in The archaeobiology of Indian Ocean translocations: Current outlines of cultural exchanges by proto-historic seafarers is much more guarded than this Wikipedia article: [referring to transfer of the banana] "...could indicate an early westward diffusion of bananas by sea from insular Southeast Asia to the Indus as early as 2000 BC"; [in a later part of the discussion] "...which might have involved seafarers speaking Austronesian languages" [bold added in each case]. Fuller goes on to discuss the evidence of the arrival of the banana in Africa being associated with the Austronesian settlement of Madagascar but then points out recent evidence of phytoliths dated to 500 BC in West Africa – so pretty much torpedoing that idea. The discussion then goes on to mention Blench's "daring continental circumnavigation hypothesis". There is no conclusion on the matter.

It is a lengthy process reading the supporting references for each of the species involved, but if (1) the banana is the best studied example (Fuller et al) and (2) reading his work on this, the reasonable conclusion is that we do not even approach any certainty as to what happened, then one has to worry whether all the other translocations that are boldly attributed to Austronesians are actually clearly supported by the cited sources. It would be entirely wrong for a reader of the article to take away the absoluteness of the claims as they are currently made. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 21:11, 19 June 2024 (UTC) reply

Ah. Yes. Was wondering when you'd show up. The guy who went around articles saying that Papuans sailed to Africa and introduced bananas (without any sources) because he still couldn't accept Austronesian seafaring even after thousands of references thrown at his face. This started on square sails like 3 years ago. And now here you are with bananas. WP:Wikihounding at its most dedicated. The sentence states "indirect evidence". How is that "too-confident"?
You don't even really understand the situation with the banana phytoliths in Cameroon, given how you tried to claim Papuans introduced it in your other edits on other articles. Fuller et al. doesn't "torpedo" Austronesian translocation in the slightest. The only thing they're not clear about is HOW. They, like the other authors they cite, move the possible introduction earlier (1st millennium BCE) than the colonization of Madagascar (1st millennium CE), and dissociates the introduction with it. You don't seem to be aware that Madagascar was not the first time Austronesians reached Africa.
Recent archaeobotanical evidence, however, in the form of phytoliths in Iron Age pits in Cameroon, imply that bananas had arrived and reached western Africa prior to the colonisation of Madagascar, perhaps by c. 500 BC
Although they differ from other authors in also hypothesizing that Sri Lanka MAY have played a role (let me be clear that they're the only one that says this), i.e. Austronesians bring bananas from SE Asia to Sri Lanka by sea from at least the 2nd millennium BCE (which ties in with other Austronesian introductions to South Asia like white sandalwood and betel chewing), Sri Lanka brings bananas to Africa by the 1st millennium BCE, Austronesians colonize Madagascar by the 1st millennium CE. They discuss the introduction and transfer of maritime technology from Austronesians to South Asia fairly lengthily.
The other authors that they mention, instead attributes it to Austronesians fully sailing around South Africa to West Africa (Blench) or bananas being carried overland to West Africa from a maritime introduction in East Africa (De Langhe). The common denominator (i.e. the consensus) between all authors is that it was introduced from Southeast Asia by Austronesians. Nowhere do they, or any of the other authors, question the fact that bananas come from Southeast Asia and were spread by Austronesians in their migrations and trade. It's not only Africa, as you seem to believe with your limited knowledge of the topic. Bananas (and other Austronesian domesticated crops) were also spread eastward to Polynesia by Austronesians.
Here. Have another source:
Beaujard, 2013: No large movements of Austronesians similar to that of the Lapita culture expansion in the Pacific are to be found in the Indian Ocean. However, Austronesian migrations towards the western Indian Ocean did occur in ancient periods. The discovery of phytoliths of Musa (plantains of genome AAB. A is for Musa acuminata Colla, B for Musa balbisiana Colla, the main two species at the origin of the domesticated banana cultivars) in Cameroon dated c.500/400 BCE (Mbida et al. 2001) constitutes evidence for the arrival of Austronesians on the East African coast probably at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, where they may have also introduced the taro and the water yam (Blench 2009). Moreover, the East African highlands are a place of great genetic diversity for triploids AAA, the genome of which derives from a source between Java and New-Guinea (Perrier et al. 2009). The East African coast also reveals a large variety of cultivars that were probably introduced more recently (AA, AAA, AB, AAB, ABB), partly in the first millennium of the Christian era (CE). The presence of a wild diploid (AA) banana on Pemba Island provides another clue of an early Austronesian presence, although it is impossible to date its arrival (a wild banana of insular Southeast Asian origin has also been found in northeast Madagascar).
I question the sanity of even trying to engage with you again. Knowing how you move goalposts. I predict you'll be questioning author credentials soon. --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 03:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC) reply
P.S. "the banana is the best studied example (Fuller et al)... of the three tropical crop plants transferred from Southeast Asia to Africa." They were comparing it with yam and taro, both part of the Austronesian agricultural package which also entered Africa at the same time period. Yet you're making it seem like they were referring to all of the Austronesian crop translocations by conveniently cutting out the rest of the context.
It really is becoming grating how I must stoop down to your level of understanding, given how patchy your own research into this topic is. You can't even read that single source right. But you still insist on generalizing in your years-long crusade now at undermining Austronesian seafaring. I know other editors will think this is unnecessarily hostile. But we have a very long history of him chasing my every contribution (see the sheer amount of older challenges he started in this talk for instance, there's a lot more in other related articles). And I'm done with it. --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 05:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC) reply
There are some real issues here, so I will ignore the unfriendly tone. First let's get rid of the easy stuff. The banana clearly got to Africa a long time (500 BCE at least, possibly a lot more) before the demonstrable date that Austronesians settled in Madagascar (7th or 8th century CE). These words are carefully chosen. Nothing rules out an earlier Austronesian presence in Africa, but the only evidence anyone offers for that is translocated species. It is only suggestive evidence, because other mechanisms might apply. (Consider the African food crops travelling in the opposite direction.)
The key point is that of the various articles quoted, many are research papers, whilst others are review papers. The former are primary sources and the latter secondary sources. Fuller et al 2015 is a review paper/secondary source, and this is where you find the guarded language. If we find a secondary source doing this, the Wikipedia article should carefully follow that guide. At present, it seems to need a rewrite to make that crystal clear to the reader. We all know that most consultations of Wikipedia do not involve reading a complete article – which is why careful writing is needed. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 22:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC) reply
No. You're still not a peer reviewer. It's funny how somewhere along the way you somehow decided that peer-reviewed papers you do not like are "primary sources". How long have you been in Wikipedia again? You literally changed our policy. That's scary that anyone can do that unilaterally but displays this level of ignorance at what constitutes a reliable source. Have you read that guideline? Take a look at the list of what are considered the most reliable sources. --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 02:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC) reply
"Consider the African food crops traveling in the opposite direction", now here we go. Your own personal theories that do not come from any paper. Just like all the other discussions before. That bananas come from Southeast Asia/New Guinea is a biological fact, that's supported by genetic evidence. Do you expect me to rehash the entire body of research here just so we can talk as equals on this topic? Maybe spend a week with you in here going over everything? --  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 02:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC) reply
I've opened an AN/I. I'll probably get banned given how Wikipedia "resolves" disputes. But congratulations, you've done it.--  OBSIDIAN† SOUL 04:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC) reply
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