Economist, Mar 24, 2012: No Map in Ancient India + Founding Madagascar

choi

(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) This is a book review on Manosi Lahiri, Mapping India, Niyogi Books, 2012.
(b) early Chinese cartography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Chinese_cartography

(i) He Bo Xian Tu 河伯獻圖
(ii) Yu Ji Tu 禹跡圖 (simplified Chinese 禹迹图), or Map of the Tracks of Yu Gong
(c) Chinese geography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_geography

(2) The settlement of Madagascar  |  Thirty Lost Souls; How Africa’s largest island was colonised by Asians.
http://www.economist.com/node/21550759

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)

For "iron," the Javanese and Malay words are wesi and besi, respectively. See
Robert Blust, Borneo and Iron: Dempwolfe's *Besi Revisited*. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 25: 31-40 (2007)
http://ejournal.anu.edu.au/index.php/bippa/article/viewFile/81/72
(table at page 33)
(e) xylophone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylophone
(section 2 History)

(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")