Archaeologists in Taiwan are hoping to get independent reviews of skeletal remains found in Liang Island, about 200 miles west of Taiwan, which is thought to date to 7,900 years ago.
Skeletal remains from Lian Island, Taiwan Today 20120403
Taiwan find may throw light on Pacific settlers
AFP, 03 April 2012
CCA seeks foreign review of Neolithic skeleton
Taiwan Today, 03 April 2012
Taiwanese archaeologists working on an islet off China have unearthed the remains of a Stone Age male who may provide clues about ancient people who eventually dispersed throughout the entire Pacific.
The man, who was about 35 when he died nearly eight thousand years ago, may be a remote relative of Taiwan’s aborigines who today make up about two percent of the island’s population, according to the head of the team, Chen Chung-yu.
“Judging from the way the body was buried, it could be a person from what we now call the Austronesia language family,” said Chen, a research fellow at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica institute.
Taiwan’s aborigines belong to the same language family, as do the people who migrated across the Pacific as far as Eastern Island off the coast of Chile in prehistoric times.
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