Bob

THE RACE ELEMENTS OF THE PEUPLES OF

MADAGASCAR.

THE ANTANANARIVO Annual for Christmas 1883 contains
an article by the Rev. L. Dahle on which I propose to
make some observations. Mr. Dahle’s conclusions, which he
modestly terms his “hypothesis with regard to the origin of
the Malagasy race éléments,” are as follows :— (i) The island,
or more probably only the coasts of it, was first occupied by
East African tribes (i.e. by the VazîmbaX’and others related to
them). (2) There was a séries of émigrations “from the island
world in the east,” peoples from which “took possession of the
coasts of Madagascar, conquering the African natives, and
afterwards intermarrying and mixing with them to such an
extent as to become gradually one people with them, — a mixture
of African and Malayo-Polynesian éléments.” (3) The interîor
of the island was now first inhabited by the African Vazimba,
not very strong in number, who broke through the forests and
took possession of the interior, especially Imèrina. (4) The
Hova came from the east, and finding the coasts already
occupied by a people partly of their own race, and being either
unable or unwilling to fight with them, proceeded to the interior.
There they settled in Imerina, not mixing with the people of
African blood, and as they grew in strength, “the Vazimba, X
who found themselves too weak to resist them, and were too
fond of independence to submit to them, quietly retired towards
the west.”

if you want to sharpen your understanding of the history of the Malagasy people…

History and Memory in the Age of Enslavement: Becoming Merina in Highland Madagascar, 1770-1822 (Social History of Africa) – Pier Martin Larson 2000

Madagascar: A Short History – Solofo Randrianja and Stephen Ellis 2009

There are also dozens of articles by British missionaries, military men and journalists written in the 19th century that are public domain and freely available. There are scores more if you read French.

yes, besides the point.

thanks for the link. i have academic access to most journals, so don’t worry about that. would appreciate more pointers.

Anyways thats besides the point.

The study to the previous link…

“On the Origins and Admixture of Malagasy: New Evidence from High-Resolution Analyses of Paternal and Maternal Lineages”

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/9/2109.long#ref-24

only verifies my previous points (that are based on various anthropological studies regarding Madagascar).

“A recent layer of southeastern-like Y haplotypes would have superimposed onto an early background formed by haplotypes typical of populations currently living near the roots of Bantu dispersal, with a larger impact on coastal groups.”

The results from this study confirms that both Bantu and Austronesian speakers expanded into Madagascar during the same general time period some 2,000 years ago; with Bantu speakers entering Madagascar shortly after their arrival in SE Africa proper and prior to their southern expansion into southern Africa (probably when they introduced the Zebu into Madagscar). This was then followed by a migration from Mozambique, which primarily affected the coastal region.

Other studies:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3242992
http://www.amazon.com/African-Connections-Archaeological-Perspectives-Archaeology/dp/0759102597^ you can access the journal through other channelsI’ll make sure to update this post with more sources when possible.

Thank you,

what’s your source on this? if people keep making assertions as if they are awesome anonymous authorities on malagasy history i’m going to close this thread.

NO! i’m not some random commenter, i take a lot of time posting a lot of stuff. you know my background or lack thereof on any given topic. a lot of my assertions are derived from stuff you can find in my posts over 9 years of blogging. you’re just some random commenter on the internet who goes by the handle “unknown” (i know your name, but no one else does).

Would you like me to post all of them? But surely that’s an unreasonable task?

post the most important ones. why is it unreasonable? i get a lot of my information from links posted by commenters. i’m not interested in your opinions, i’m interested in the sources you draw upon to come to those opinions.* i actually follow up and read papers/books when i have time. i’m familiar with that paper you posted. i’ve blogged it, as well as others on malagasy genetics.

* the main exception to this rule are those people who are scholars in the areas which they opine on. since they generate the primary research i don’t expect them to offer any citations to their opinions, since they opinions have a heavy weight.

The same criticism is equally applicable to your initial statements, is it not?

My earlier post is based on various genetic, linguistic, and archaeological sources regarding the history of Madagascar. Would you like me to post all of them? But surely that’s an unreasonable task?

I posted the link to the study confirming my statement regarding the even distribution of African and SE Asian ancestry though out the country in the above post.

While I appreciate your work, your results from these two Malagasy samples isn’t numerically significant enough to make a final conclusion regarding the autosomal ancestry diversity in Madagascar.

Anyways, given that these two samples from the two most Austronesian groups in Madagascar are 1/3 and 1/2 African, I would expect coastal dwellers to be significantly more African.

Highlanders are 38% and 50% African maternally and paternally respectively, in contrast to coastal dwellers who are ~40% and 75% African. “Eurasian” y-dna is on avg 4-11% among the entire population.

Only slightly more “SE Asian” according to the study your talking about.

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/9/2109.abstract

A possible scenario is that Bantu migrants who had just begin to move into southern Africa from SE African also expanded into Madagascar, where Austronesian immigrants had just recently settled, where they would eventually exchange gene-flow with the Austronesian speaking peoples. While Bantu ancestry quickly dominated coastal Madagascar, the highlands acted as a Refugium for elevated Austronesian ancestry (reason for why highlanders are more Austronesian than their coastal counterparts). The significant African ancestry among the Highlander communities is likely due to either admixture prior to the escape to the highlands and/or bi-directional gene-flow between highlanders and coastal dwellers. This would explain the relatively high frequency of African y-dna in both groups, given that the Bantu migrants would have been “expansionist”.

The introduction of the Zebu and other Bantu affiliations in Madagascar overlaps with the southward expansion of Bantu speakers from SE Africa into southern Africa.

The fact that both East African and SE Asian ancestry are almost evenly distributed throughout the entire country suggests a more ancient arrival for both components.

this isn’t true from what i’ve seen at all. what is your citation?

and please don’t just repeat yourself, i’m curious about the academic literature on this.

I’ve yet to come across any research regarding Madagascar that has suggested that Bantu speakers first reached Madagascar via the slave trade. There’s evidence that Madagascar was settled by both Bantu and Malay speakers at roughly the same time period, i.e. at about 500 B.C. give or take. Explaining the likely west-east cline of African ancestry in Madagascar and vise-versa with regard to SE Asian ancestry (a coastal vs. highland scenario is also possible); with coastal groups in western Madagascar being the most African and highlander groups in eastern Madagascar being the most SE Asian.

There is also no evidence that Austronesians ever reached mainland Africa (that scenario mentioned by yourself is faulty at best); SE Asian derived crops in mainland Africa were likely first introduced during the Indian ocean trade by Swahili intermediates.

Malagasy likely experienced a relatively recent linguistic expansion, that probably absorbed other languages spoken on the island… some of whom were likely predominantly Bantu. Malagasy was probably the language of the Merina, who with time established their linguistic dominance over the entire island; if would make sense then that Malagasy would be predominantly Austronesian given the fact that the Merina are as such predominantly SE Asian. Lastly, the native Malagasy dialects found outside the Madagascar highlands possesses distinct linguistic elements indicating stronger past influences from SE Africa that were latter overshadowed by the more Austronesian Malagasy language; btw all Malagasy dialects have a Bantu linguistic element.

The slave trade in Madagascar was largely based on slaves from Madagascar being deported to countries elsewhere, in particular South Africa and the Middle East, not the other way around.

Last but not least, the genetic results of the Malagasy do not indicate the introduction of recent African ancestry via the slave trade. The fact that both East African and SE Asian ancestry are almost evenly distributed throughout the entire country suggests a more ancient arrival for both components.

it seems only one. the malagasy language is very close to east barito.

Curious to learn more about that.