History of Southeast Asia
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Southeast Asia.
Detail of Asia in Ptolemy's world map. Gulf of the Ganges left, Southeast Asian peninsula in the centre, China Sea right, with "Sinae" (China).
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The history of Southeast Asia has been characterised as interaction between regional players and foreign powers. Each country was intertwined with all the others as depicted in the Southeast Asian political model. For instance, the Malay empires of Srivijaya and Malacca covered modern day Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore while the Burmese, Vietnamese and Khmer peoples governed much of Indochina.
At the same time, opportunities and threats from the east and the west shaped the direction of Southeast Asia. The history of the countries within the region only started to develop independently of each other after European colonialisation was at full steam between the 17th and the 20th centuries.[note 1]
Contents [hide]
1 Prehistory
1.1 Paleolithic
1.2 Mesolithic and early agricultural societies
1.3 Early metal phases in Southeast Asia
2 Ancient, classical and postclassical kingdoms
3 European colonisation
4 Japanese invasion and occupations
5 Post-war decolonisation
6 Contemporary Southeast Asia
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Further reading
11 External links
Prehistory[edit]
Paleolithic[edit]
Archaeologists have found stone tools in Malaysia which have been dated to be 1.83 million years old.[1] With other evidence found across the Mainland of South east Asia, which include Hominid skeletal and teeth remains, Hominid stone artefacts such as chopper-chopping tools and stone blades, contemporaneous faunal bone remains and palaeo-environment analyses, the occupation of Hominids into South East Asia is believed to occur between 1.5 to 1 Ma. The occupation was firstly taken place in the upland region in the northern part of the Mainland South East Asia where the climate was stable and the natural resource was richer. During the cooler periods occurred intermittently between warm and humid conditions, which prevailed from 240 to180 ka and again between 130 and 100 ka, many warm-adapted species such as primates moved southward.[2]
Before the latest ice period, much of the archipelago was not under water. Sometime around the Pleistocene period, the Sunda Shelf was flooded as thawing occurred and thus revealing current geographical features. The area's first known human-like inhabitant some 500,000 years ago was "Java Man" (first classified as Pithecanthropus erectus, then subsequently named a part of the species Homo erectus). Recently discovered was a species of human, dubbed "Flores Man" (Homo floresiensis), a miniature hominid that grew only three feet tall. Flores Man seems to have shared some islands with Java Man until only 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Extensive archaeological work has been done at Sangiran in Central Java where a museum and visitors' centre has been established.
The oldest human settlement in Malaysia has been discovered in Niah Caves. The human remains found there have been dated back to 40,000 BC. Another remain dated back to 9000 BC dubbed the "Perak Man" and tools as old as 75,000 years have been discovered in Lenggong, Malaysia.
The oldest habitation discovered in the Philippines is located at the Tabon Caves and dates back to approximately 50,000 years; while items there found such as burial jars, earthenware, jade ornaments and other jewellery, stone tools, animal bones, and human fossils dating back to 47,000 years ago. Human remains are from approximately 24,000 years ago.
Mesolithic and early agricultural societies[edit]
Agriculture was a development based on necessity. Before agriculture, hunting and gathering sufficed to provide food. The chicken and pig were domesticated here, millennia ago. So much food was available that people could gain status by giving food away in feasts and festivals, where all could eat their fill. These big men (Malay: orang kaya) would work for years, accumulating the food (wealth) needed for the festivals provided by the orang kaya. These individual acts of generosity or kindness are remembered by the people in their oral histories, which serves to provide credit in more dire times.
These customs ranged throughout Southeast Asia, stretching, for example, to the island of New Guinea. The agricultural technology was exploited after population pressures increased to the point that systematic intensive farming was required for mere survival, say of yams (in Papua) or rice (in Indonesia). Rice paddies are well-suited for the monsoons of Southeast Asia. The rice paddies of Southeast Asia have existed for millennia, with evidence for their existence coeval with the rise of agriculture in other parts of the globe.
Yam cultivation in Papua, for example, consists of placing the tubers in prepared ground, heaping vegetation on them, waiting for them to propagate, and harvesting them. This work sequence is still performed by the women in the traditional societies of Southeast Asia; the men might perform the heavier duties of preparing the ground, or of fencing the area to prevent predation by pigs.
Though cultivation emerged in the beginning of Holocene, hunting and gathering was not replaced but co-existed with farming. Early inhabitant groups might led a life mixed with cultivation and foraging that lasted for a rather long period, and they might as well relied on wild plant food production.[3]
From Burma around 1500 BC, the Mon and ancestors of the Khmer people started to move in into the mainland while the Tai people later came from southern China to reside there in the 1st millennium AD.
Early metal phases in Southeast Asia[edit]
It was around 2500 BC that the Austronesian people started to populate the archipelago and introduced primitive ironworks technology that they had mastered to the region.[citation needed]
By around the 5th century BC, people of the Dong Son culture, who lived in what is now Vietnam, had mastered basic metal working. Their works are the earliest known metal object to be found by archaeologists in Southeast Asia.
Ancient, classical and postclassical kingdoms[edit]
Further information: Greater India
Kingdoms of Southeast Asia in the 5th century.
The communities in the region evolved to form complex cultures with varying degrees of influence from India and China.
The ancient kingdoms can be grouped into two distinct categories. The first is agrarian kingdoms. Agrarian kingdoms had agriculture as the main economic activity. Most agrarian states were located in mainland Southeast Asia. Examples are the Van Lang, based on the Red River delta and the Khmer Empire around the Tonle Sap. The second type is maritime states. Maritime states were dependent on sea trade. Srivijaya and Malacca were maritime states.
Văn Lang was the first nation of the ancient Vietnamese people, founded in 2879 BC and existing until 258 BC. It was ruled by the Hùng Kings of the Hồng Bàng Dynasty. There is, however, little reliable historical information available.
The Banaue Rice Terraces.
A succession of trading systems dominated the trade between China and India. First, goods were shipped through Funan centred in Mekong delta to the Isthmus of Kra, portaged across the narrow, and then transhipped for India and points west. This trading link allowed the development of polities around the Mekong delta in today Southern Vietnam and Cambodia, such as Funan and its successor Chenla. Funan was started around the 1st century CE and replaced by Chenla that existed in the 6th to 8th centuries. The trade via Isthmus of Kra also spurred the development of trading polities on Malay peninsula near the isthmus (today southern Thailand and northern Malaysia), such as Langkasuka on eastern coast and Kedah on western coast.
Numbers of port towns in maritime Southeast Asia also began to receive Hindu and Buddhist influences from India, and developed to be a Hindu or Buddhist kingdoms ruled by native dynasties. Early Hindu kingdoms in Indonesia are 4th century Kutai that rose in East Kalimantan, Tarumanagara in West Java and Kalingga in Central Java.
Around the 6th century CE, merchants began sailing to Srivijaya where goods were transhipped directly on Sumatran port. The limits of technology and contrary winds during parts of the year made it difficult for the ships of the time to proceed directly from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. The third system involved direct trade between the Indian and Chinese coasts.
In the 7th century CE on central coast of today Vietnam, a Hindu kingdom of Champa flourished. Just like Funan, benefited from the lucrative trading between China, Southeast Asia and India.
Very little is known about Southeast Asian religious beliefs and practices before the advent of Indian merchants and religious influences from the 2nd century BC onwards. It is believed that prior to the advent of Hinduism and Buddhism, native Southeast Asian are tribal animist. Prior to the 13th century, Buddhism and Hinduism were the main religions in Southeast Asia.
The first dominant power to arise in the archipelago was Srivijaya in Sumatra. From the 5th century, the capital, Palembang, became a major seaport and functioned as an entrepot on the Spice Route between India and China. Srivijaya was also a notable centre of Vajrayana Buddhist learning and influence. Srivijaya's wealth and influence faded when changes in nautical technology in the 10th century enabled Chinese and Indian merchants to ship cargo directly between their countries and also enabled the Chola state in