The Austronesians in Japan I

  Austronesian speakers must once have occupied all of the island of Taiwan and their retreat into the montane areas only dates from the 16th century.  However, the Yaeyama islands are extremely close to Taiwan and it is not hard to imagine that  it was reached from Taiwan. The archaeologist Glen Summerhayes reports ‘pre-Japanese’ archaeological cultures with apparent Austronesian affinities