No austronesians

Wouldn't Austro-Asiatic people, related to Khmers, just expand south into Malaysian Peninsula and Island Southeast Asia if there are no Austronesians? Or ancestors of Thai people?
 
Frankly, European culture might not even arise as per OTL. Europe already had major brushes with societal collapse during bitter winters. With far more trees throughout Indonesia and other areas, the climate may inch colder, which could lead to Europe not being able to develop the edge needed to colonize the world.

The issue with Negrito groups is that, in a sense, they were "black people's black people" to the Europeans, and thus were extremely discriminated against under colonial regimes and etc. We actually have very little grasp on the histories and identities of Negrito people to this day as well. For one, Negritos are not one homogenous group. Thus, we can't simply say that they are a blanket group of people who lived in Asia before the arrival of groups like the Dravidians and Sino-Tibetans and more recognizable "asians" to today. If I had a dollar for every shattered memory of a group who lived in an area before a more recognizable population showed up, I could pay for college. And unfortunately, as you can read in my mental breakdown here, most of these groups have had major parts slip from recollection. Unfortunately, once you start getting too deep down the rabbit hole trying to find more information, people start talking about cranium sizes and shit like that and all of your sources turn to Nazi horseshit about how the untermensch once ruled the world.

To try to give a more coherent answer: A lot of the small islands, along with New Zealand, are empty. As for the population of Indonesia, the Philippines, and other areas, you have... options. Lots of options. You could have Dravidians, several groups of Australian Aboriginals or even more ancient Tasmanians, Papuans who make up at least 23 language families, Andamanese, a few options for Negritos, the seldom mentioned Orangs, Austroasiantic peoples, or you could just full on make some shit up because trying to figure out native Oceanian language families is the kind of thing that gives linguists and anthropologists night terrors and like 99% of the time your guess is as good as theirs. These groups would be divided into small kingdoms, with the general trend of more ancient peoples being pushed into the hinterlands while newer people take more coastal areas. As time went on, a naval culture could emerge, especially if contact is established with India. My advice is to not play the guessing game of "ooo when did we reach M E N T A L M O D E R N I T Y" because unfortunately that argument is rather tainted by folks who like to rag on how Australian Aboriginals are less evolved than "modern people." (Seriously, go to any Australian forum and type in "aboriginals" and take a shot every time you read something that makes you question humanity's future. You'll be blackout drunk in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory).

TL;DR: Most of the areas would be empty or filled with a diverse cast of peoples who only survive in small remnant populations to this day, and Aqua really needs to go to bed and stop angerposting on the internet.
 
Actually, it is said that the preaustronesian inhabitants of Luzon are related to Ainus and Australoids aside from negritos, TTL they will not change languages.
 
Wouldn't Austro-Asiatic people, related to Khmers, just expand south into Malaysian Peninsula and Island Southeast Asia if there are no Austronesians? Or ancestors of Thai people?
That would be certain actually.

And for the Tai-Kadai, well, if the Austro-Tai hypothesis is beyond reasonable doubt, they could stay alongside the Austronesians in southeastern China
 
Frankly, European culture might not even arise as per OTL. Europe already had major brushes with societal collapse during bitter winters. With far more trees throughout Indonesia and other areas, the climate may inch colder, which could lead to Europe not being able to develop the edge needed to colonize the world.

The issue with Negrito groups is that, in a sense, they were "black people's black people" to the Europeans, and thus were extremely discriminated against under colonial regimes and etc. We actually have very little grasp on the histories and identities of Negrito people to this day as well. For one, Negritos are not one homogenous group. Thus, we can't simply say that they are a blanket group of people who lived in Asia before the arrival of groups like the Dravidians and Sino-Tibetans and more recognizable "asians" to today. If I had a dollar for every shattered memory of a group who lived in an area before a more recognizable population showed up, I could pay for college. And unfortunately, as you can read in my mental breakdown here, most of these groups have had major parts slip from recollection. Unfortunately, once you start getting too deep down the rabbit hole trying to find more information, people start talking about cranium sizes and shit like that and all of your sources turn to Nazi horseshit about how the untermensch once ruled the world.

To try to give a more coherent answer: A lot of the small islands, along with New Zealand, are empty. As for the population of Indonesia, the Philippines, and other areas, you have... options. Lots of options. You could have Dravidians, several groups of Australian Aboriginals or even more ancient Tasmanians, Papuans who make up at least 23 language families, Andamanese, a few options for Negritos, the seldom mentioned Orangs, Austroasiantic peoples, or you could just full on make some shit up because trying to figure out native Oceanian language families is the kind of thing that gives linguists and anthropologists night terrors and like 99% of the time your guess is as good as theirs. These groups would be divided into small kingdoms, with the general trend of more ancient peoples being pushed into the hinterlands while newer people take more coastal areas. As time went on, a naval culture could emerge, especially if contact is established with India. My advice is to not play the guessing game of "ooo when did we reach M E N T A L M O D E R N I T Y" because unfortunately that argument is rather tainted by folks who like to rag on how Australian Aboriginals are less evolved than "modern people." (Seriously, go to any Australian forum and type in "aboriginals" and take a shot every time you read something that makes you question humanity's future. You'll be blackout drunk in less time than it takes to watch an episode of the Big Bang Theory).

TL;DR: Most of the areas would be empty or filled with a diverse cast of peoples who only survive in small remnant populations to this day, and Aqua really needs to go to bed and stop angerposting on the internet.
There’s also the possibly of Sino-Tibetan’s or even Indo-Aryans due to cultural influence and proximity.
 
There’s also the possibly of Sino-Tibetan’s or even Indo-Aryans due to cultural influence and proximity.
Depends. Sino-Tibetans otl never really went south of Vietnam. Youd either need to have a colonial Chinese empire do similar things to OTL (Chinese colonies run my chinese citizens with the poorest mixing with local populations) or move the Austroasiantic/Tai-Kadai and have, say, the Dené-Yenisinians push out the Sino-Tibetans from China proper. The thing is, settlement by indo-aryans or sino-tibetans is just gonna most likely be colonialism no matter who lives in the Islands.
 
Depends. Sino-Tibetans otl never really went south of Vietnam. Youd either need to have a colonial Chinese empire do similar things to OTL (Chinese colonies run my chinese citizens with the poorest mixing with local populations) or move the Austroasiantic/Tai-Kadai and have, say, the Dené-Yenisinians push out the Sino-Tibetans from China proper. The thing is, settlement by indo-aryans or sino-tibetans is just gonna most likely be colonialism no matter who lives in the Islands.
Yes, but what about the Indo-Aryans?
 
one issue that has not been addressed (partly in fun) is what could have existed on the islands during the ice age when they were much larger. there was a crazy documentary that I watched showing megalithic monuments that were partly flooded and would only have been above water during the 10,000-6000BC (so meaning that hierarchical settled societies might have existed on some island chains) mark these societies could have been invaded and adsorbed by the OTL migrations over the pacific, if they did not happen they could have grown into an ocean spanning society of Stone Age monument builders ala Easter island. or in another silly thought what if there was a early migration but it was of a super homo florensis (hobbit time!) species, imagine the pacific islands being visited by European sailors seeing hobbits wearing grass dresses and riding their midget elephants like pit ponies.....
 
Modern-day DNA studies have uncovered strong evidence that Austro-Asiatic peoples settled Western Indonesia before the Austronesians in the form of a genetic "substrate" which is closely related to continental SE Asian populations missing in Eastern Indonesians and Taiwanese aboriginals. There's some linguistic evidence of this as well. In the Malayan peninsula, the various Orang Asli people (viewed by the Malays as being the original inhabitants) do not speak Austronesian, but instead speak a branch of Austro-Asiatic. This is even true for the Semang, who are "negrito" in terms of their appearance. It does not appear, however, that this Astro-Asiatic migration traveled east the island chain. They were thickest on the ground in Java (where the highest genetic "echo" remains) although probably settled to a lesser extent in Borneo and Sumatra (as well as Peninsular Malaya) as well.

Early Austro-Asiatics were farmers, unlike the hunter-gatherer negritos. Indeed, they seem to have been the first rice farmers who moved south out of China (probably the Yangtze River Valley area originally) into Southeast Asia, predating the Austronesian, Thai, and Burmese (Sino-Tibetan) migrations. However, there's evidence their form of rice farming was not as effective at extracting maximum calories out of the land as later groups, as they tended to be marginalized and pushed into the uplands. The only two exceptions to this are the Vietnamese and the Cambodians, for rather different reasons. The Vietnamese are apparently - genetically speaking - not Austro-Asiatic. What seems to have happened there is generations of various peoples from Southern China married into the local culture, effectively "taking it over" without language shift ever happening. The Cambodians were arguably saved by European colonization, as the expanding Thai state was encroaching on Khmer lands steadily until the French arrived.

Anyway, on the other side of the Indonesian archipelago, it's important to remember that the Papuans independently developed agriculture and were engaging in their own expansion during roughly the same time period as the Austronesians. Yam, taro, and banana are absolutely crops which were developed by the Papuans, for example. However, Papuan agriculture only worked well at elevation - they lacked the agricultural toolkit needed to intensely cultivate the lowlands. Nonetheless, they ultimately did expand out of the island, not only to the east, but also at least as far west as Timor.

Without the Austronesians, the Austro-Asiatic and Papuan expansions would ultimately meet at some point. At the contact point between the two agricultural traditions crops would be exchanged, and it is likely that a new "hybrid" agricultural package, with advantages over both, would develop. However, neither group really had the intense wetland cultivation systems of the Austronesians, so population density would be be lower. It may not be until traders coming from China or South India explore the region that more advanced agricultural practices would be introduced. Or perhaps there would be some sort of home-grown adaptation.
 
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