TAIWAN: Pacific migration and the paperbark tree

'New evidence gleaned from the study of a common plant species lends further credence to the theory that Taiwan is the ancestral homeland of the Austronesian-speaking peoples,' says this 2015 article in Taiwan Today reporting on research that links Taiwan to a tree now found across the Pacific, the paper mulberry, used to make tapa cloth.



So on their skilled and dangerous voyages across the ocean, the Austronesian migrants must have taken not just food, tools and domestic animals but seeds and cuttings of the precious tree.

Photo taken from https://raskisimani.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/broussonetia-paper-mulberry.pdf

An interesting article on the tree, its history and uses can be found here:
https://raskisimani.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/broussonetia-paper-mulberry.pdf