Aboriginal Taiwan
Taiwan was joined to the Asian mainland in the Late Pleistocene, until sea levels rose about 10,000 years ago. Fragmentary human remains have been found on the island, dated 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, as well as later artifacts of a Paleolithic culture.
More than 4,000 years ago farmers from mainland China, believed to be the ancestors of current Taiwanese aborigines, settled on Taiwan. Their languages belong to the Austronesian language family, which also includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages spanning a huge area from Madagascar to Easter Island. The aboriginal languages on Taiwan show much greater diversity than the rest of Austronesian put together, leading linguists to propose Taiwan as the Urheimat of the family, from which seafaring peoples dispersed across southeast Asia and the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Han Chinese began settling in the Penghu islands in the 13th century, but Taiwan's hostile tribes and its lack of trade resources valued in that era rendered it unattractive to all but "occasional adventurers or fishermen engaging in barter" until the 16th century.
Opening in the 17th century
The Dutch East India Company attempted to establish a trading outpost on the Penghu Islands (Pescadores) in 1622, but were driven off by the Ming authorities. In 1624, the Company established a stronghold called Fort Zeelandia on an coastal islet of Tayouan, which is now part of the main island at Anping, Tainan. David Wright, a Scottish agent of the Company who lived on the island in the 1650s, described the lowland areas of the island as being divided among 11 chiefdoms ranging in size from two settlements to 72. Some of these fell under Dutch control while others remained independent. The Company began to import laborers from Fujian and Penghu (Pescadores), many of whom settled.
In 1626, the Spanish landed on and occupied northern Taiwan, at the ports of Keelung and Tamsui, as a base to
