Althouse: "The island of Timor was populated as part of the human migrations that have shaped Australasia more generally."

March 7, 2013

"The island of Timor was populated as part of the human migrations that have shaped Australasia more generally."

"It is believed that survivors from three waves of migration still live in the country. The first is described by anthropologists as people of the Veddo-Australoid type, who arrived from the north and west at least 42,000 years ago.... Around 3000 BC, a second migration brought Melanesians. The earlier Veddo-Australoid peoples withdrew at this time to the mountainous interior. Finally, proto-Malays arrived from south China and north Indochina...."

East Timor, today's "History of" country.

13 comments:

Chip Ahoy said...: Finally, the two-brained, aerobic, bipedal, one-heart, Demi-Veddo-Australoid types developed that are known to us today as Joe, Larry, and Margaret, Alice, Bennie and David.; 3/7/13, 7:02 PM
rhhardin said...: William Dunbar Timor Mortis; 3/7/13, 7:05 PM
edutcher said...: Funny how all the Lefties that howled when Dubya talked of the plight of the East Timoreans, never said a word when I-am-not-a-Dictator Zero sent condolences to the english embassy.; 3/7/13, 7:19 PM
Known Unknown said...: If everyone on East Timor quickly ran to the other side of the island, would Regular Timor be sunk?; 3/7/13, 7:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Temperatures on the summit of 9,700-foot Mount Ramelau sometime get close to freezing, but as far as can be determined no snow has ever fallen there. Or, obviously, anywhere else in the country.

Trivia: there may be no snow at the summit, but there is a life sized statue of Mary.

Peter; 3/7/13, 8:20 PM
The Godfather said...: What's exciting is that 40,000 years ago, humans crossed the sea to this island. Even doing this 3,000 years ago is exciting.

The first part of Michener's "Hawaii" describes Polynesians voyaging to the Hawaiian islands much much later, and even that's almost impossible to believe.

Humans really are capable of incredible things. When we settle for the easy and mundane, we have no excuse.; 3/7/13, 8:45 PM
Craig said...: It's where Captain Bligh docked his lifeboat and reported the mutiny on the Bounty.; 3/7/13, 9:02 PM
AllenS said...: I would imagine that early humans knew that an island, or land mass was over the horizon of the ocean because of the smell of smoke when the wind was from that direction. That's how I would have figured it out.; 3/8/13, 6:24 AM
AllenS said...: Us knuckledraggers aren't that dumb.; 3/8/13, 6:24 AM
David said...: I'm with you about the early voyagers, Godfather. It's also fascinating to consider how recently most of the world went on quite well without any humans whatsoever.; 3/8/13, 7:00 AM
kcom said...: "It is believed that survivors from three waves of migration still live in the country"

I find it hard to believe that survivors from a migration 40,000 years ago still live in the country. Has anybody notified the Guinness Book? That will blow away those purported 125-year-olds.; 3/8/13, 7:13 AM
Craig said...: It's actually in the middle of a narrow strait between two large land masses separating two large oceans.; 3/8/13, 7:58 AM
Mitch H. said...: So East Timor was another Portuguese imperial remnant? It's faintly astounding how these remote, isolated fragments of Portuguese authority - Goa, Macau, and, apparently, East Timor - survived for four centuries after Portugal's brief day in the imperial sun.

It sounds like the Ford Administration was the end of the anti-colonial moment, at the same time it was its culmination. The invasions of East Timor and Northern Cyprus, the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, the fall of Saigon and the fall of the monarchy of Ethiopia - like a spasm, a death-rattle of the last remnants of European empire, and the anti-colonialists turning on one another almost instantaneously.; 3/8/13, 10:26 AM