Some Southeast Asian history from 4000-2000BC

Mountains in Yunnan Province in southern China

This is a post about Southeast Asian history from 4000-2000BC. The reason I am covering two millennia rather than one is that the history of this area, while still interesting, has comparatively less happening than in Africa or Europe for example. I am not an expert on this time period at all and there is much that is still unknown and being discovered by archaeologists, but the broad outlines of what I will describe here will hopefully be mostly correct. The dates presented here will be very broad estimates and may well be wildly off. This is a time before writing in this part of the world so the main sources will be entirely archaeological, but I may make some references to later myths and legends.

For the purposes of this blog, Southeast Asia will be held to comprise the lands of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, the archipelago of Indonesia and East Timor. There are strong reasons for including Taiwan and southern China within the remit of this piece, but these will be covered elsewhere I think.

Prior to the year 4000BC nearly all of Southeast Asia was inhabited by modern humans, with the possible exception of some small islands in the archipelago. It is thus likely that the inhabitants of these regions were quite comfortable with seafaring. The inhabitants may have been the ancestors of the groups such as the Ati and Aeta peoples of the Philippines, who appear to have been in the region before the later waves of migration occurred. While the entire area was inhabited there is less evidence for this habitation. The reason for this would seem to be that the climate is hot, damp and humid and would quickly consume any evidence of wooden structures. The actual footprint of these structures was also reduced, as in many cases the buildings would have been raised on stilts, meaning that that a large settlement might only leave a few hundred post holes, which could easily be missed by archaeologists and would leave no mark on the landscape to indicate where to dig.

Sunset on the coast of Sulawesi

Before 4000 rice and millet agriculture had begun to be adopted in southern China, from where they would eventually spread across the mountains of what is now Yunnan province and into southeast-Asia. In Vietnam red slip pottery was being produced near the Red River Delta, but it does not appear that the inhabitants were fully using agriculture at this point. In Thailand there is a long history of occupation at a cave referred to as Spirit Cave, which shows occupation levels around this time. The primary artefacts found in Southeast Asia at this time are known as Hoabinhian, which refers to a type of flaked stone implements that were used by the peoples of the region. It is named after a type site called Hoa Binh in Vietnam. It was used for so long and over so wide an area that it was probably not a culture per se, but rather it was a very persistent tool-making method that was retained by many cultures over a long time.

From a linguistic perspective, the mainland of Southeast Asia was probably populated by speakers of Proto-Austroasiatic languages, which would later diverge to form language groups such as the Khmer and Vietic languages. The speakers of Austronesia languages were situated in the island of Taiwan at this point in history and had not yet begun their epic migrations that would see their language family stretch from Madagascar to Easter Island. Other languages such as Tai languages group or the Lolo-Burmese portion of Sino-Tibetan were not yet much spoken in the region, as the speakers of these languages came in later migrations to the region.

At some point after the year 4000BC some speakers of Austronesia languages began to migrate from Taiwan to the island of Luzon and from there to the rest of the Philippines. The migration is unlikely to have started much before 4000, but was probably not later than 2000, so now is as good a time as any to mention it.

While much may well have been happening in the region there is little that can be said with certainty for the next thousand years. The nature of the region simply does not permit much to be said. There are forest clearances in Java around 3000BC that would suggest that agriculture or proto-agriculture was beginning to spread through the region but it is hard to pinpoint this for definite. The supposedly very early dates for agriculture given by some archaeologists working in Thailand is almost certainly incorrect.

Red River Delta in northern Vietnam

Later Vietnamese writers of history identified a legendary dynasty beginning around 2800BC. This is extremely ancient and there is no real evidence to support this. The dynasty was referred to as the Hồng Bàng dynasty and was supposed to have ruled in what is now northern Vietnam, near the Red River Delta. This dynasty reigned over a kingdom that was supposedly called Văn Lang. It should be noted that the history of Vietnam, while undoubtedly ancient, was also affected by a number of destructive wars fought with the Chinese, which seems to have destroyed a certain amount of records. As this dynasty is only really referred to by later writers from the 15th Century AD and there is no archaeological evidence for it, we should probably relegate this kingdom to the realms of legend. However, it would be correct to state that the Red River Delta would be important to the later history of the region.

Around the year 2500BC pigs were introduced to Timor, suggesting that farming practices were beginning to spread through the region. By this time the speakers of Austronesian languages seem to have spread throughout most of the Philippine archipelago. They did not wipe out the original inhabitants of the land but they did occupy most of the coastal areas and the peoples such as the Ati moved inland to become forest dwellers. These forest dwellers eventually abandoned their own languages and spoke Austronesian languages as well.

Around this time the speakers of Austronesian languages seem to have reached the coastlands of Borneo, Sulawesi, and possibly Timor. If this is the case then they were bringing agriculture with them. Interestingly, the Austronesia peoples had no success in spreading to the island of New Guinea, as the inhabitants there had already developed their own indigenous form of agriculture and had a sufficient population density to absorb the newcomers instead of being absorbed by them.

Around the year 2100 the site of Ban Chiang in Thailand was occupied, although this date is contested and it might be some centuries later. This site would later produce some spectacular pottery and impressive bronze works, but the earliest layers of the site were still Neolithic. The people who lived here buried their dead near to their homes and had established a permanent settlement. This either meant that they had reached a fully agricultural phase or had managed to attain a stable hunter-gathering state such as the Jomon of Japan had reached around this time.

Nephrite Jade such as that traded between
Taiwan and the Philippine islands

Around the year 2000, as the period which we are examining draws to a close, regular trade contacts begin to appear between Taiwan and the Philippines. Both island groups spoke mostly Austronesian languages at this point and may have shared vaguely similar cultures. The mainland cultures in China prized jade highly and the Taiwanese islanders also became enamoured of the beautiful stone. Jade items began to be traded between the islands of the Philippines and Taiwan. In some ways this high status good had similarities to the lapis lazuli trade in the Middle East at that time. It is one of the earliest well-defined trade routes in the region.

By the closing of the period we are certain that wet-rice agriculture and millet farming had been introduced to areas such as Laos and northern Thailand. Around this time, the Hoabinhian methods of making stone tools seem to be gradually phased out across southeast Asia, as the inhabitants of the region shifted their tool production to match their increased use of agriculture.

In northern Vietnam the Phung Nguyen culture began to flourish. Here as well, we begin to see definite evidence of farming in a recognisable fashion. In southern Thailand the Khok Phanom Di site began to be occupied. It comprises a series of burials near habitations from the late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The inhabitants of Khok Phanom Di may not have been full agriculturalists at the beginning of the settlement however, as they seem to have eaten a great deal of fish, suggesting a more hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Reconstruction of hunter-gatherers in Ban Chiang

Thus the period draws to a close. Sadly we can say far less than we would wish to say. I suspect that much of the history of the region has simply been swallowed by the region’s environment but I also hope that the years to come will shed much light on what the patterns of growth and change in Southeast Asia.

Before ending the blog I would like to address a few historical inaccuracies that I have seen while researching this blog. I have noted that a number of countries tend to extend their history further back than is justified. I suspect that there are nationalist reasons for this but for whatever reason, it is inimical to history and should be avoided.

The site of Gunung Padang

A rather more specific flaw is Gunung Padang. Gunung Padang is an archaeological site in Indonesia near an extinct volcano. It is believed to be a pyramid of huge size and extraordinarily ancient date. While I don’t want to be too sceptical I am deeply unconvinced by this site. The entire area looks like it is natural. Sure, there are orderly and regular formations but volcanic rocks like basalt are often regular. The local inhabitants have shaped some of the stones into something resembling temples and such like but this does not change the fact that the rocks and structure are almost certainly a natural phenomenon. Perhaps I am wrong but I have seen nothing to suggest that this is anything more than a natural site. I don’t think that the archaeologists are deliberately lying but I do think that they are badly mistaken. Perhaps I am wrong. Time will tell.

Related Blog Posts:
Some Southeast Asian history from 4000-2000BC
Some Southeast Asia history from 2000-1000BC
Some Southeast Asian history from 1000-500BC