Reconstruction of the Austronesian Diaspora in the Era of Genomics

The Austronesian Diaspora is a 5,000-year account of how a small group of Taiwanese farmers expanded to occupy territories reaching halfway around the world. Reconstructing their detailed history has spawned many academic contests across many disciplines. An outline orthodox version has eventually emerged but still leaves many unanswered questions. The remarkable power of whole-genome technology has now been applied to people across the entire region. This review gives an account of this era of genetic investigation and discusses its many achievements, including revelation in detail of many unexpected patterns of population movement and the significance of this information for medical genetics.