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Revachah, it should be noted that Pearce's hypothesis is not the most widely accepted explanation of Oceanian settlement. In particular, I'm interested how you would justify the statement that
Spice trading was probably an early driving factor [in overseas settlement]. We have suggested that a trading route to Japan may have been earliest, the settlement of Palau nearly 6,000 years ago a conceivable indicator for the establishment of such a route.
When we have no archaeological evidence of major trade in Maluku (i.e. foreign manufactured goods; there are virtually no Indian artifacts in Maluku, and there are no pre-Tang Chinese goods) until less than 2,000 years ago, much later than in western Indonesia. In fact, the spice trade was negligible enough that the clove islands (Ternate and Tidore, for instance) were uninhabited until c. 1250, and even then we have a contemporaneous source suggesting that maritime trade was unimportant early in Ternaten history.
In the beginning the island [of Ternate] was undeveloped and only very lightly populated. The earliest settlement was Tobona, which was located on top of the mountain and founded by a headsman named Guna. One day as Guna went to the forests to tap the sugar palm to make toddy, he came across a golden mortar and pestle. [...] [It was given] to Cico, head of the coastal village of Sampalu.
Tobona is an inland town, not a port like historical Ternaten capitals were. This tale, collected in the 1720s, would seem to suggest that early settlement in Ternate was not maritime oriented.
Although cloves and other Malukan spices were certainly known in the wider Eurasian world as early as the second millennium BC, archaeology and oral history in Maluku itself strongly suggests that they were only rarely and indirectly traded until c. 1400. It is very unlikely the spice trade could have been a major "early driving factor" in much of anything.