标题: Economist, Mar 24, 2012: No Map in Ancient India + Founding Madagascar [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 3-27-2012 15:00 标题: Economist, Mar 24, 2012: No Map in Ancient India + Founding Madagascar (1) India in maps | Lines of History; A visual chronicle of a sweeping—and often fraught—landscape http://www.economist.com/node/21550766
("But Indians did not create maps—this task fell largely to Europeans, says Manosi Lahiri in her richly illustrated book, 'Mapping India.' The first maps came from newly arrived traders in the early 16th century.
Note:
(a) Madagascar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar
(The name Madageiscar was first recorded in the memoirs of 13th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo as a corrupted form of the name Mogadishu, the Somali port with which Polo had confused the island; In dependence from France 1960; Official languages Malagasy, French)
(b) Malagasy language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_language
(a member of the Austronesian family of languages; not related to nearby African languages)
(c) Malay Archipelago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_Archipelago
(d) Sulawesi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulawesi
(The name 'Sulawesi' possibly comes from the words sula ('island') and besi ('iron') and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits)
(i) gamelan (n; Javanese; First Known Use 1817):
"an Indonesian orchestra made up especially of percussion instruments (as gongs, xylophones, and drums)" www.m-w.com
(ii) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan
(f) banana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana
(native to tropical South and Southeast Asia, and likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea)
(g) Cox MP et al, A Small Cohort of Island Southeast Asian Women Founded Madagascar.
Proceedings of Royal Society B, _: _ (online publication Mar 21, 2012). http://rspb.royalsocietypublishi ... .2012.0012.abstract
, whose full text can be read for free, by clicking links in the upper right box.
The Discussion session of the report states, "Our coalescent modelling suggests several answers to this question. First, although the observed pattern of genetic diversity is relatively uncommon, it occurs more frequently under certain demographic parameters. Coalescent simulations best support settlement of Madagascar beginning around AD 830. This date is consistent with evidence from linguistics, which links the colonization of Madagascar to the expansion of Indonesian trading networks during the Srivijaya Empire [where the founders supposed came from]. Srivijaya reached its peak in the ninth century, but remained a major maritime power in the Indian Ocean until well into the thirteenth century, consistent with the time frame suggested by our simulations. Our estimates also support a model in which Madagascar was settled by a small effective founding population—estimated at only approximately 30 women, most of whom had Indonesian ancestry (93%). Although this number of founding women might seem surprisingly small, it fits well with estimates of the small number of women (approx 70) who founded New Zealand, another island nation settled by related Austronesian speakers at around the same time period."
* Srivijaya http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srivijaya
(7th century-13th century; In Sanskrit, sri means "fortunate," "prosperous," or "happy" and vijaya means "victorious" or "excellence")