nHowever,
this does not entirely explain a great deal of significant
cultural evidence for Austronesian presence on the
East African coast, some of it well before the settlement
of Madagascar proper
nPliny refers to the ‘men who come across the great
ocean on rafts [rati]’ in contrast to the
coastal traders. These could well be Austronesians, if rati is an
outrigger canoe
nThese Austronesians were almost certainly unconnected
with those who settled Madagascar and probably
came from somewhere in the Philippines; however,
linguistic evidence is slight