Abstract
There are two major hypotheses on the Austronesian origin and dispersal, which are "Out of Taiwan" and "Nusantao Maritime Trade and Communication Network ", and the former seems to become the mainstream theory. However, in recent years, there has been a new discussion on the “Sa-Huynh Kalanay Pottery Tradition”，，which is the basis of the “Nusantao Maritime Trade and Communication Network”. The purpose of this thesis is to examine this hypothesis by using the network analysis. Network analysis is a research method that has been widely used in archaeological research in the recent decade. It has been applied to many research fields including ancient maritime exchange, road network, religious diffusion, state origin and population migration, and so forth. The Ariadne model used in this study was originally developed for the island network of the Middle Aegean Bronze Age, whose function is to explore the relationships of the sites through the geographical space. In this study, 53 Southeast Asian archaeological sites, which are recognized as belonging to the “Sa Huynh Kalanay Pottery Tradition”, were used as the research materials. The data input into the Ariadne model includes the physical distance between the sites, the distance scale which was determined according to the navigational record of the Balangay ( known also as Balanghai or Butuan Boat) of the Philippines, and the size of the archaeological sites which was determined by referring the nature of their contents. And then I use the network visualization yielded from the Ariadne model for analysis. Finally, through the results of Proximal Point Analysis, diachronic spatial analysis and so on, my conclusion is that the Sa-Huynh Kalanay Pottery may have experienced a cross-regional flow, but their travel costs seem to be much higher than the benefit gained. Therefore, the “Nusantao Maritime Trade and Communication Network” hypothesis proposed by Wilhelm G. Solheim II seems to be not so much related to trade activities, but more likely a network for information-sharing.