The Spread of Austronesian Culture

This article from World Archaeology offers some real gems of insight into the spread of cultures - in this case, in Australia and Indonesia - throughout time.  There are two pieces of information that really stood out to me:

1) Australia and parts of Indonesia were populated and settled remarkably early in human history - around 40,000 B.C., according to archaeological dating methods.

2) The Austronesian languages are spoken from Easter Island in the Pacific, all the way to Madagascar off the coast of Africa.  It has over 500 variations, and is "one of the world's largest language groups."

This brings up some interesting observations.  I want to make it clear that these observations fly in the face of modern archaeology and geology, and, as I am neither an archaeologist nor a geologist, I do not claim my observations to be 100% accurate.  However, the spread of ancient cultures over such a large area does create a mystery:  how did these cultures spread so far - and so early - with only outrigger canoes (as the going theory states)?  Outriggers are remarkably stable - in mild thunder storms.  Crossing vast amounts of ocean and being subject to severe thunder storms and hurricanes does leave even an outrigger canoe vulnerable to capsizing.

So this leaves us with two possibilities.  The first possibility is that Pangaea, which geologists tell us broke up some 200 million years ago, was actually a much more recent event.  Afte rall, the continents don't come with dates and labels informing us as to when they broke apart.  In fact, the breaking of fault lines, the collision of plates, the volcanic upheaval that would be caused by a massive movement, and the subduction of the mantel would all lead to a catastrophic event similar to the Deluge.  As I mentioned, however, I am not a geologist, so I cannot rightly argue against the geology.  Nonetheless, based on the actual spread of cultures, language, and literature, I feel the need to leave this open as a possibility.

The second is that ocean travel was far more sophisticated than we believe. We know that architecture was remarkably advanced at an early stage, and there are several ancient cultures that speak of various types of flying machines. Though it seems impossible to our modern way of thinking - which asserts that mankind has developed from primitive to technologically advanced - perhaps history is cyclical: technological advancement, followed by a "forgetting" of sorts, which is then followed by a rediscovery. Perhaps, as King Solomon of Israel put it, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Though I don't quite feel the push to believe in ancient astronauts coming from distant planets, the repeated discovery of new technology, coupled with the discoveries of earlier and earlier civilizations, all point to one solid conclusion:  man has been far more advanced at far earlier in his history than previously thought.  And now, with the more recent discoveries of underwater cities around the globe, the date for civilization is being pushed back even further. 

Many religions and mythologies have been asserting that mankind started out advanced and lost technology as he developed.  Perhaps science needs to catch up with the literature.