A sun ray motif was found in Wetar, Indonesia, used 4,000 years ago, and in Malagasy Aloalo. Published on August 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a study led by Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University, with Shimona Kealy, Kaharudin and Ceri Shipton, in partnership with the Indonesian agency Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, presents a painted stone plaque discovered in 2024 on the island of Wetar. Radiocarbon-dated to 4,090-3,900 years ago, it bears the characteristic red solar motif of the "Austronesian Pictorial Tradition." Found in a layer without ceramics but with Austronesian beads, it suggests that ideology, rather than mere economic baggage, was at the forefront of Austronesian dispersal. The largest human migration of prehistory, whose descendants reached the islands of Rapa Nui as far as Madagascar. In fact, Wetar has no direct geographical link with Taiwan (the Out of Taiwan), but it constitutes a key stage on the route taken by descendants of original Taiwanese populations, reached only a few centuries after their departure. This symbolic network eventually reached Madagascar. Cultural baggage was already present in the earliest stages of expansion toward the Southwest, even before these populations continued their journey to Madagascar or the Pacific. The sun painted on vessels thus guided sailors far beyond Indonesia, to the shores of Madagascar. Collected by Maminirina Rado