WI: Mauritius is occupied by Austronesian people during the Middle Ages

The Austronesian people who migrated from Indonesia to Madagascar during the early Middle Ages could have eventually also reached the Mascarene islands (in fact it is a bit strange they did not do it just by chance).

How could an Austronesian culture developed in Mauritius or Réunion? Would they domesticate native species like dodo for food or would they wipe out all of them years before any European contact?
 
The Austronesian people who migrated from Indonesia to Madagascar during the early Middle Ages could have eventually also reached the Mascarene islands (in fact it is a bit strange they did not do it just by chance).

For all we know, they did, and just did not bother to settle.
Regarding domestication of the dodo, by all accounts its meat tasted horrible. Not a very good prospect for domestication.
 
For all we know, they did, and just did not bother to settle.
Regarding domestication of the dodo, by all accounts its meat tasted horrible. Not a very good prospect for domestication.

I think there is no solid evidence for that. It could have happened, but why would they do not bother to settle? They already settled the Comoros, why not the Mascarenes? They had enough resources.
 
I think there is no solid evidence for that. It could have happened, but why would they do not bother to settle? They already settled the Comoros, why not the Mascarenes? They had enough resources.

Too much out of the way? I don't think anyone knows. The islands were apparently known to Indian Ocean sailors in the Middle Ages, but this does not mean the earlier Austronesians knew either.
 
The Maori wiped out the Moa, so I think that the Austronesians in Mauritius would wipe out the Dodo.

I guess the Moa were difficult to tame; otherwise the Maori domesticated the weka, which is more similar in size and ecology to the dodo (and also flightless).
 
The Austronesian people who migrated from Indonesia to Madagascar during the early Middle Ages could have eventually also reached the Mascarene islands (in fact it is a bit strange they did not do it just by chance).

How could an Austronesian culture developed in Mauritius or Réunion? Would they domesticate native species like dodo for food or would they wipe out all of them years before any European contact?

They did. I am one to believe with the evidence of austronesian boat building techniques found in Maldives that they moved down into Chagos and from there West.

Hornell (1920: 230) observes that constructional techniques in boatbuilding point unambiguously to early Austronesian [‘Indonesian’ in his terms] contact. Manguin (1993:265) notes ‘field work in the Maldives, …found evidence to prove that the shipbuilding tradition there used to be of the Southeast Asian sewn-plank and lashed-lug type (as opposed to an Indian Ocean sewn-plank tradition’4 . It seems increasingly likely that the absence of evidence for Austronesian landings is an artefact of the exiguous archaeology.

It was known in records earliest by Arabized Shirazi-Swahili and that knowledge spread to European cartographers

These Arabized Shirazi-Swahili have within them the earliest Southeast Asian geneflow and the Swahili themselves gained the technological innovation of deep ocean seafaring from Austronesian seafarers as seen via Malay and Malagasy sources as we see in numerous loan words.

Arguably their Austronesian ancestors before mixing had already gone through the islands and that knowledge was used by their mixed race descendants.

Anyways back to your main question:

Likelihood of domestication of dodo is slim 1. the are K-selected 2. single egg clutches 3. People preferred pigeon and other local game foods over dodo flesh 4. The Island was mostly utilized to restore provisions thus settling and intentionally trying domesticate such a low status and low yielding birds was of no use and would drain more resources than build.

I'd argue that the visiting sailors wouldn't need to focus on domesticating local birds instead focusing on hunting whale, turtle and dugong while also planting yams, coconuts and other plants that could repopulate on their own if and when they'd ever visit the island again in bad weather or refueling.
 
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I guess the Moa were difficult to tame; otherwise the Maori domesticated the weka, which is more similar in size and ecology to the dodo (and also flightless).
Unlikely: duck, parrot, seal, eel etc... were much easier to attain. Plus they had rat and dog for livestock and food.
 
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