ABSTRACT
Admiralty Islands Austronesian Central Malayo-Polynesian Central Pacific (Fijian, Polynesian, Rotuman) Eastern Malayo-Polynesian Fijian Formosan Nuclear Micronesian Meso-Melanesian (c. and E. New Britain, New Ireland,
Britain) Proto-Austronesian Proto-Central Eastern Oceanic Proto-Central Pacific Proto-Central Polynesian Proto-Eastern Oceanic Proto-Eastern Polynesian Proto-Malayo Polynesian Proto-Nuclear Polynesian Polynesian Proto-Oceanic Proto-Polynesian Papuan Tip (S.E. Papua and Central Province of Papua New
Guinea)
Proto-Western Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Western Oceanic (comprising MM, NNG and PT) South-east Solomonic (Guadalcanal, Nggela, Bugotu) South Halmahera-West New Guinea Southern Vanuatu Western Malayo-Polynesian
At least three distinct disciplines - historical linguistics, archaeology and comparative ethnology - are used to do culture history. Each discipline has particular strengths and limitations. Blust (1976) points out ways in which archaeological and linguistic evidence can be complementary, corroboratory or contradictory. Although their combined testimonies are likely to reveal a fuller picture than any yielded by a single discipline, synthesising evidence from diverse disciplines and methods is not a straightforward matter. A synthesiser can accept the testimony of different disciplines, but it is not easy to know when the witnesses are talking about the same historical events: a situation that recalls the story of the six blind philosophers, each of whom touched a different part of an elephant, who then equated the parts with six unrelated objects.
