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Austronesia explorers from what is now Taiwan may have leapfrogged to centers of influence, rather than simply advancing to the next nearest island.
This painting of a sunburst may explain why ancient people in Taiwan sailed thousands of kilometers into the unknown.
Some 4,200 years ago, people started to leave what is now Taiwan to migrate to the thousands of islands to the south, spanning as far west as Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean and as far east as Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
We can trace this migration through the way language spread, creating the largest-scale language dispersal in prehistory.
