In response to CK Tan's letter, [#1] Greatness of Malay civilisation [/#] (Feb 14), I call attention to an inaccurate statement: "I would like to point out that pursuant to the latest anthropological report, Malays were on this land since time immemorial. They certainly did not migrate here hundreds of thousands of years ago, but very much earlier. Although they may share a strong genetic ties to the people of northern Asia, i.e. at Yunan in China."

I would like to have a citation for this "latest anthropological report" as I have not heard of any such report in the scientific journals.

Archaeological records show that homo sapiens have been in the Malay peninsula for only up to 90,000 years, and the first settlers would be Austronesians from Indochina. There are several waves of settlers from Indochina and the ancestors of modern Malays came along the third or fourth wave, which is located anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. The remnants of the first wave are the aboriginal tribes known in academic circles as Austronesians which the Sakai best exemplify on the peninsula.

This is supported by three distinct techniques:

1) Linguistic studies indicate that the closest cousins of the Malay language of Malaysia and Indonesia, are amongst the natives of Taiwan (i.e. the non-Han Chinese). There is no evidence of any linguistic linkage with the languages of northern China. There is no time frame, however, for linguistic studies.

2) According to genetic studies, the mutation rate of genetic markers show that Malays arrived in Southeast Asia, and place Malay arrival in the Malay archipelago at about 10,000 years. Admittedly, this study is not without its critics as it assumes a constant rate of mutation but gives a good ball-park figure.

3) The earliest homo sapien fossil is no older than 75,000 years, found in Gua Niah. Other hominid fossils like the homo erectus certainly go back many hundreds of thousands of years, but they cannot be called humans in anyway.

All this is moot whatever the case since lordship over land should not be based on age but should be about current-day demographics.