Sundas" redirects here. For the Greater Sundas, see Greater Sunda Islands.

For t
he Lesser Sundas, see Lesser Sunda Islands.
The Sahul Shelf and the Sunda Shelf today. The area in between is called "Wallac
ea".
Sundaland (also called the Sundaic region) is a biogeographical region of Southe
astern Asia which encompasses the Sunda shelf, the part of the Asian continental
shelf that was exposed during the last ice age. The last glacial period, popula
rly known as the Ice Age, was the most recent glacial period within the current
ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 1
10,000 to 12,000 years ago. It included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainlan
d, as well as the large islands of Borneo, Java, and Sumatra and their surroundi
ng islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line, identified by
Alfred Russel Wallace as the eastern boundary of the range of Asia's land mamma
l fauna, and thus the boundary of the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones. The i
slands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea, and are considered part o
f Australasia.
Contents
1 History
2 Human migrations
3 Ecology
3.1 Ecoregions of Sundaland
4 See also
5 Notes and references
5.1 Further reading
5.2 Selected faunal references in Borneo
6 External links
History
The South China Sea and adjoining landmasses had been investigated by scientists
such as Molengraaff and Umbgrove, who had postulated ancient, now submerged, dr
ainage systems. These were mapped by Tjia in 1980 and described in greater detai
l by Emmel and Curray in 1982 complete with river deltas, floodplains and backsw
amps.[1] The ecology of the exposed Sunda shelf has been investigated by analyzi
ng cores drilled into the ocean bed. The pollens found in the cores have reveale
d a complex ecosystem that changed over time.[2] The flooding of Sundaland separ
ated species that had once shared the same environment such as the river threadf
in (Polydactylus macrophthalmus, Bleeker 1858), that had once thrived in a river
system now called "North Sunda River" or "Molengraaff river". The fish is now f
ound in the Kapuas River on the island of Borneo, and in the Musi and Batanghari
rivers in Sumatra.[3]
Human migrations
Previously, humans
mainland to Taiwan
ent findings point
pulation: thus the

were believed to have migrated southward, from the East Asia

and then to the rest of Maritime Southeast Asia. However, rec
to the submerged Sundaland as the probable cradle of Asian po
"Out of Sundaland" theory.

A study from Leeds University and published in Molecular Biology and Evolution,
examining mitochondrial DNA lineages, suggested that humans had been occupying t
he islands of Southeast Asia for a longer period than previously believed. Popul
ation dispersals seem to have occurred at the same time as sea levels rose, whic
h may have resulted in migrations from the Philippine Islands to as far north as
Taiwan within the last 10,000 years.[4] The population migrations were most lik
the effects of the drowning of an anci
ely to have been driven by climate change
ent continent. Rising sea levels in three massive pulses may have caused floodin
g and the submerging of the Sunda continent, creating the Java and South China S

eas and the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia and the Philippines toda
y. The changing sea levels would have caused the first humans to move away from
their coastal homes and culture, and farther inland throughout southeast Asia. T
his forced migration would have caused the first humans to adapt to the new fore
st and mountainous environments, developing farms and domestication, and becomin
g the predecessors to future human populations.[5]
A 2009 genetic study published by the 2009 Human Genome Organization Pan-Asian S
NP Consortium found that Asia was originally settled by humans via a single sout
hern route. The migration came from Africa via India, into Southeast Asia and wh
at are now islands in the Pacific, and then later up to the eastern and northern
Asian mainland.[6]
Genetic similarities were found between populations throughout Asia and an incre
ase in genetic diversity from northern to southern latitudes. Although the Chine
se population is very large, it has less variation than the smaller number of in
dividuals living in Southeast Asia, because the Chinese expansion occurred very
recently, within only the last 2,000 to 3,000 years, following the perfection of
rice agriculture.
Oppenheimer locates the origin of the Austronesians in Sundaland and its upper r
egions.[7] Genetic research reported in 2008 indicates that the islands which ar
e the remnants of Sundaland were likely populated as early as 50,000 years ago,
contrary to a previous hypothesis{Bellwood and Dizon 2005} that they were popula
ted as late as 10,000 years ago from Taiwan.[8][dubious
discuss]
From the standpoint of historical linguistics, the home of the Austronesian lang
uages is the main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa; on this island the de
epest divisions in Austronesian are found, among the fa