However, we know that late prehistoric settlements of the second and early first
millennia BC in Mainland Southeast Asia regularly occur in small stream valleys which
feed the major river systems. These, perhaps quite isolated, villages were linked by
far-reaching exchange networks which saw marine shell ornaments being taken over
1,000 km from the coast, and copper and tin ingots and artefacts entering communities
far removed from the ore sources. Marble, marine shell, serpentine and other rare stone
material, ceramics and doubtless many perishable items exchanged hands along the river
systems. As Higham in chapter 3 makes clear, the middle of the first millennium BC in
EARLY CONTACT WITH INDIA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Southeast Asia was a period of profound economic, social and political change. The Iron
Age in Southeast Asia was marked by increases in wealth and social complexity leading to
powerful territorial polities. Large or valuable objects, such as Dong Son bronze drums
and nephrite ornaments from Vietnam, arrived by sea to enter long-established exchange
routes along the rivers. Thus, it is evident that intra and inter-regional exchange routes
were well developed before they were linked to the more developed South Asian trading
systems.