Ancient Civilization In Southeast Asia

[Raina Giorno]

Thehistory of Southeast Asia covers the people of Southeast Asia from prehistory to the present in two distinct sub-regions: Mainland Southeast Asia (or Indochina) and Maritime Southeast Asia (or Insular Southeast Asia). Mainland Southeast Asia comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (or Burma), Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam whereas Maritime Southeast Asia comprises Brunei, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, East Malaysia, East Timor, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.[1][2]

The earliest Homo sapiens presence in Mainland Southeast Asia can be traced back to 70,000 years ago and to at least 50,000 years ago in Maritime Southeast Asia. Since 25,000 years ago, East Asian-related (Basal East Asian) groups expanded southwards into Maritime Southeast Asia from Mainland Southeast Asia.[3][4] As early as 10,000 years ago, Hoabinhian settlers from Mainland Southeast Asia had developed a tradition and culture of distinct artefact and tool production. During the Neolithic, Austroasiatic peoples populated Indochina via land routes, and sea-borne Austronesian immigrants preferably settled in Maritime Southeast Asia. The earliest agricultural societies that cultivated millet and wet-rice emerged around 1700 BCE in the lowlands and river floodplains of Indochina.[5]

The Phung Nguyen culture (modern northern Vietnam) and the Ban Chiang site (modern Thailand) account for the earliest use of copper by around 2,000 BCE, followed by the Dong Son culture, which by around 500 BCE had developed a highly sophisticated industry of bronze production and processing. Around the same time, the first Agrarian Kingdoms emerged where territory was abundant and favourable, such as Funan at the lower Mekong and Van Lang in the Red River Delta.[6] Smaller and insular principalities increasingly engaged in and contributed to the rapidly expanding sea trade.

The wide topographical diversity of Southeast Asia has greatly influenced its history. For instance, Mainland Southeast Asia with its continuous but rugged and difficult terrain provided the basis for the early Cham, Khmer, and Mon civilizations. The sub-region's extensive coastline and major river systems of the Irrawaddy, Salween, Chao Phraya, Mekong and Red River have directed socio-cultural and economic activities towards the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.[7][8]

In Maritime Southeast Asia, apart from exceptions such as Borneo and Sumatra, the patchwork of recurring land-sea patterns on widely dispersed islands and archipelagos admitted moderately sized thalassocratic states indifferent to territorial ambitions, where growth and prosperity were associated with sea trade.[9] Since around 100 BCE, Maritime Southeast Asia has occupied a central position at the crossroads of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea trading routes, immensely stimulating its economy and influencing its culture and society. Most local trading polities selectively adopted Indian Hindu elements of statecraft, religion, culture and administration during the early centuries of the common era, which marked the beginning of recorded history in the area and the continuation of a characteristic cultural development. Chinese culture diffused into the region more indirectly and sporadically, as trade was mostly based on land routes like the Silk Road. Long periods of Chinese isolationism and political relations that were confined to ritualistic tribute procedures prevented deep acculturation.[10]

Buddhism, particularly in Indochina, began to affect political structures beginning in the 8th to 9th centuries CE. Islamic ideas arrived in insular Southeast Asia as early as the 8th century, and the first Muslim societies in the area emerged by the 13th century.[11][12][13] The era of European colonialism, early Modernity and the Cold War era revealed the reality of limited political significance for the various Southeast Asian polities. Post-World War II national survival and progress required a modern state and a strong national identity.[14] Most modern Southeast Asian countries enjoy a historically unprecedented degree of political freedom and self-determination and have embraced the practical concept of intergovernmental co-operation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).[15][16]

The term "Southeast Asia" was first used in 1839 by American pastor Howard Malcolm in his book Travels in South-Eastern Asia. Malcolm only included the Mainland section and excluded the Maritime section in his definition of Southeast Asia.[20] The term was officially used to designate the area of operation (the South East Asia Command, SEAC) for Anglo-American forces in the Pacific Theater of World War II from 1941 to 1945.[21]

The region was already inhabited by Homo erectus from approximately 1,500,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene age.[22] Data analysis of stone tool assemblages and fossil discoveries from Indonesia, Southern China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and more recently Cambodia[23] and Malaysia[24] has established Homo erectus migration routes and episodes of presence as early as 120,000 years ago, with even older isolated finds dating back to 1.8 million years ago.[25][26] Java Man (Homo erectus erectus) and Homo floresiensis attest to a sustained regional presence and isolation, long enough for notable diversification of the species' specifics. Rock art (parietal art) dating from 40,000 years ago (which is currently the world's oldest) has been discovered in the caves of Borneo.[27] Homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until at least 50,000 years ago, after which they became extinct.[28] Distinct Homo sapiens groups, ancestral to East-Eurasian (East Asian-related) populations, and South-Eurasian (Papuan-related) populations, reached the region by 50,000 BCE to 70,000 BCE, with some arguing earlier.[3][29][30] These immigrants might have, to some extent, merged and reproduced with members of the archaic population of Homo erectus, as the fossil discoveries in the Tam Pa Ling Cave suggest.[31] During much of this time the present-day islands of western Indonesia were joined into a single landmass known as Sundaland due to lower sea levels.

Ancient remains of hunter-gatherers in Maritime Southeast Asia, such as one Holocene hunter-gatherer from cave of Leang Panninge in South Sulawesi, had ancestry from both the South-Eurasian lineage (represented by Papuans and Aboriginal Australians), and the East-Eurasian lineage (represented by East Asians). The hunter-gatherer individual had approximately 50% "Basal-East Asian" ancestry and was positioned in between modern East Asians and Papuans of Oceania. The authors writing about the individual concluded that East Asian-related ancestry expanded from Mainland Southeast Asia into Maritime Southeast Asia much earlier than previously suggested, as early as 25,000 BCE, long before the expansion of Austroasiatic and Austronesian groups.[33]

Ocean drops of up to 120 m (393.70 ft) below the present level during Pleistocene glacial periods revealed the vast lowlands known as Sundaland, enabling hunter-gatherer populations to freely access insular Southeast Asia via extensive terrestrial corridors. Modern human presence in the Niah cave on East Malaysia dates back to 40,000 years BP, although archaeological documentation of the early settlement period suggests only brief occupation phases.[34] However, author Charles Higham argues that despite glacial periods, modern humans were able to cross the sea barrier beyond Java and Timor, who around 45,000 years ago left traces in the Ivane Valley in eastern New Guinea "at an altitude of 2,000 m (6,561.68 ft) exploiting yams and pandanus, hunting and making stone tools between 43,000 and 49,000 years ago."[35]

The oldest habitation discovered in the Philippines is located at the Tabon Caves and dates back to approximately 50,000 years BP. Items found there such as burial jars, earthenware, jade ornaments and other jewellery, stone tools, animal bones and human fossils date back to 47,000 years BP. Unearthed human remains are approximately 24,000 years old.[36]

Signs of an early tradition are discernible in the Hoabinhian, the name given to an industry and cultural continuity of stone tools and flaked cobble artefacts that appear around 10,000 BP in caves and rock shelters first described in Ha Bnh, Vietnam, and later documented in Terengganu, Malaysia, Sumatra, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Yunnan, southern China. Research emphasises considerable variations in quality and nature of the artefacts, influenced by region-specific environmental conditions and proximity and access to local resources. The Hoabinhian culture accounts for the first verified ritual burials in Southeast Asia.[37][38]

The most widespread migration event was the Austronesian expansion, which began around 5,500 BP (3,500 BCE) from Taiwan and coastal southern China. Due to their early invention of ocean-going outrigger boats and voyaging catamarans, Austronesians rapidly colonized Island Southeast Asia, before spreading further into Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Madagascar and the Comoros. They dominated the lowlands and coasts of Island Southeast Asia, intermarrying with the indigenous Negrito and Papuan peoples to varying degrees, giving rise to modern Islander Southeast Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians, Melanesians and Malagasy.[42][43][44][45]

Territorial principalities in both Insular and Mainland Southeast Asia, characterised as Agrarian kingdoms,[48] developed an economy by around 500 BCE based on surplus crop cultivation and moderate coastal trade of domestic natural products. Several states of the Malayan-Indonesian "thalassian" zone[49] shared these characteristics with Indochinese polities like the Pyu city-states in the Irrawaddy River valley, the Văn Lang kingdom in the Red River Delta and Funan around the lower Mekong.[6] Văn Lang, founded in the 7th century BCE, endured until 258 BCE under the Hồng Bng dynasty, as part of the Đng Sơn culture that sustained a dense and organised population that produced an elaborate Bronze Age industry.[50][51]

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