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This article proposes that the more complex and highly differentiated Australian Aboriginal kin terminologies such as those belonging to the Arrernte, Ngarinyin, and Yolngu languages evolved from simpler, less differentiated terminologies similar in form to those classified by Radcliffe-Brown as the Kariera type. The article offers models of that evolution and discusses when these developments may have occurred, as well as some of the implications for the diversity of Aboriginal societies. Along the way, it reconsiders the classification of Australian kin terminologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the article by John Edward Terrell, Kevin M. Kelly, and Paul Rainbird on the human diversity and prehistory of the Pacific Islands, and the anthropology of the region. It was stated that the researchers mentioned only the Polynesian influences to indicate the complexity of human diversity in Micronesia and used linguistic evidence concerning kava to demonstrate the link with Polynesia.

The author comments on the article by John Edward Terrell, Kevin M. Kelly, and Paul Rainbird on the human diversity and prehistory of the Pacific Islands, and the anthropology of the region. Rather than seeing the two-peoples and entangled-bank models as mutually exclusive, it has been argued that they are best characterized as two ends of a continuum of modes of human prehistory.