Far East Kingdoms

Early South-East Asia

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

South-East Asia is one of the five broad regions of Asia as a whole, including Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and Siberia (Northern Asia). The rarely used label of 'West Asia' refers to the Near East. The Near East aside, of those regions it would appear to be South Asia which witnessed the earliest presence of anatomically modern humans in the form of Homo sapiens - between about 70,000-60,000 BC. Other groups headed north to enter East Asia roughly around 60,000 BC (see the Hominid Chronology feature link for more).

South-East Asia incorporates all of the territory to the south of East Asia. It consists of two dissimilar sections which involve a continental projection (all of which is usually referred to as mainland South-East Asia), and a string of archipelagos to the south and east of the mainland (known as insular South-East Asia).

Modern countries included in this are Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and the small city-state of Singapore on the mainland, with the long peninsular nation of Malaysia acting as a bridge to connect to the insular nations of Brunei, Indonesia, and the Philippines. China and Tibet provide the regional border with South Asia and East Asia, while Oceania provides an eastern border.

The system which has evolved to catalogue the various archaeological expressions of human progress is one which involves cultures. For well over a century, archaeological cultures have remained the framework for global prehistory. The earliest cultures which emerge from Africa and the Near East are perhaps the easiest to catalogue, right up until human expansion reaches the Americas. The task of cataloguing that vast range of human cultures is covered in the related feature (see link, right).

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from Palaeo-Anthropology and Palaeolithic archaeology in the people's republic of China, Wu Rukang & John W Olsen (Left Coast Press, 2009), from Vietnam: A New History, Christopher Goscha, from Early Mainland Southeast Asia, C Higham (River Books Co, 2014), from Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopaedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor, Keat Gin Ooi (ABC-Clio, 2004), from The Macmillan Dictionary of Archaeology, Ruth D Whitehouse (Macmillan, 1983), and from External Links: Encyclopaedia Britannica, and East Asia Palaeolithic (Claire Smith, Ed, Encyclopaedia of Global Archaeology, 2014), and Stone Age Asia (Encyclopaedia Britannica).)

Palaeolithic South-East Asia
c.60,000 - 12,000 BC
Incorporating the Anyathian Complex, Fingnoian Culture, Ngandongian Complex, Patjitanian Industry, South-East Asian Upper Palaeolithic, & Tampanian Culture

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

Asia's Palaeolithic period is one of gradually encroaching human activity from the coastal regions towards the vast inland areas. India was reached around 70,000 BC, although that specific date is contested. Anatomically modern humans filtered from there into South-East Asia and Oceania by about 60,000 BC, reaching Australia at some point around or shortly after 50,000 BC (see feature link). The early history of modern human infiltration into and habitation of South-East Asia remains vague, although various southwards migrations are largely responsible. The initial arrivals came from Asian continental interior. Successive movements displaced these initial settlers and created a complex ethnic pattern.

When looking at specific countries, relatively little is known about Vietnamese origins. The Vietnamese people first appeared in history as the so-called 'Lac' peoples who lived in the Red River delta region in what is now northern Vietnam. Evidence of human habitation in caves in north-eastern Vietnam's Ba Be National Park have been dated to about 18,000 BC. This places them in the Palaeolithic Son Vi culture of Early Vietnam, the region's earliest.

Pebble tools, including choppers and chopping tools, are found in terrace deposits along the Irrawaddy river valley of northern Burma (Upper Burma). This complex is known as the Anyathian (circa 11,000-10,000 BC). It seemingly existed alongside the Hoabinhian which had a reach across Vietnam and into eastern Burma.

More pebble tools have been reported from deposits in western Thailand which were datable to the Middle Pleistocene. The name Fingnoian has been proposed for this culture. In northern Malaysia a large series of choppers and chopping tools which were made on quartzite pebbles and which were found in Middle Pleistocene tin-bearing gravels have been referred to collectively as the Tampanian, since they come from a place called Kota Tampan in Perak.

Another late Middle Pleistocene assemblage, one which has been referred to as the Patjitanian industry, is known from a very prolific site in southern-central Java. In both the Tampanian and Patjitanian the main types of implement consist of single-edged choppers and chopping tools which occur in association with flakes which have unprepared, high-angle striking platforms. Also both assemblages contain an interesting series of pointed, bifacial implements which have been described as hand axes. Since these tools are very rare in each instance and are absent in Burma, it is probable that they were developed in south-eastern Asia independently of influences from the west.

Several sites from the Upper Pleistocene in central Java have produced artefacts which were produced on small to medium-sized flakes and flake blades. Antler and bone implements belong to this complex, known as the Ngandongian, which has also been reported from the Celebes and from the Philippines.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Investigating Archaeological Cultures: Material Culture, Variability, and Transmission, Benjamin W Roberts & Marc Vander Linden (Eds), from Palaeo-Anthropology from Vietnam: A New History, Christopher Goscha, from Early Mainland Southeast Asia, C Higham (River Books Co, 2014), from Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopaedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor, Keat Gin Ooi (ABC-Clio, 2004), from The Macmillan Dictionary of Archaeology, Ruth D Whitehouse (Macmillan, 1983), and from External Links: Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Stone Age Asia (Encyclopaedia Britannica), and Ancient Chinese farmers sowed literal seeds of change in south-east Asia (Science News), and Traces of early humans found in Ba Be National Park (Vietnam Plus), and Vietnam (Countrystudies).)

c.18,000 BC

Evidence of human habitation in caves in north-eastern Vietnam's Ba Be National Park are announced in 2020. With these finds belonging to the Palaeolithic Son Vi culture - the first local culture in Early Vietnam - most of the finds are found in Tham Kit Cave.

They include stone tools, traces of an oven, and animal teeth and bones. Importantly, the cave is near a lake, so early humans there have access to water.

Tham Kit Cave in Vietnam yielded many tools which had been knapped from stones, and one single layer of culture which was fifty centimetres thick which had been formed by clay inside the cave and which contained ancient objects, bones, and the teeth of animals

Toalean Culture (Mesolithic) (Indonesia)
c.6000 BC - AD 500

Mesolithic & Neolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

In archaeological terms the period following the end of the Asian Mal'ta-Buret' and Afontova Gora cultures in Siberia seems to have been largely unremarkable. It was the European side of the Urals mountain range which seems to have progressed in more detail, during the Hamburg, Ahrensburg, and Swiderian cultures.

While East Asia was already experiencing its own Mesolithic and Neolithic in the form of China's Peiligang culture and Korea's Jeulmun pottery period, the next prominent archaeological culture to be noted in South-East Asia was the Toalean. This emerged at the same time as the Central Asian Kel'teminar culture, and directly following the end of the Vietnamese Quynh Van culture to which it was generally unrelated.

The hunter-gatherers of the regionally-unique Toalean culture (or Toalien in initial reports) inhabited southern areas of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The duration of this cultural period was incredibly long for such recent dates, covering more than six thousand years during the middle and late Holocene. It could be stretched even farther in time, as knowledge of the culture is still somewhat patchy. No preceding cultures are known other than the initial Palaeolithic habitation - the island's archaeological record requires a great deal of detailing.

The culture is characterised by backed blades, geometric microliths, and 'Maros points', small pressure-flaked projectiles with hollow bases and serrated margins. Its people preyed heavily on wild endemic warty pigs and harvested edible shellfish from creeks and estuaries. Unusually for the dating, it is indeed Mesolithic rather than Neolithic - it precedes the first, rather late appearance of Neolithic farmers on the island.

Bessé is the only-known skeleton from the Toalean (the name is pronounced bur-sek, with 'bur' as in 'bursary' while the 'k' is a strangulated stop in the throat, akin to the 't' in the Cockney 'bottle' which, in essence, is missing). DNA results revealed an ancient link to East Asia, which challenged previous knowledge about migration to the islands of the Wallacea group of which Sulawesi is a part (the greater number of islands belong to the Asian two-thirds of this group, with the rest in Oceania).

Asian ancestry in the region had previously been thought to date to about 1000 BC or later, but this find pushed that back by four millennia. The rest of Bessé's DNA is shared with today's indigenous Australians and the people of New Guinea and the Western Pacific, while a Denisovan presence is also noted (likely introduced via her East Asian ancestors - see feature link).

The Toalean people were related to the very earliest modern human populations in the Wallacea region from around 63,000 BC or earlier. These were the ancestors of Australians and Papuans. At some point they were joined by an East Asian influx. This seems to have taken place after the Australian/Papuan outwards migration and the initial peopling of the Pleistocene supercontinent of Sahul, but before general Austronesian expansion. The Toalean was eventually edged out a thousand years or so after the start of the spread of Austronesian Neolithic farmers from mainland Asia.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from External Links: Ancient woman's DNA (Big Think), Culture History of the Toalean of South Sulawesi, David Bulbeck, Monique Pasqua, & Adrian di Lello (Asian Perspectives Vol 39, No 1/2, University of Hawai'i Press, Spring-Autumn 2000, available as a PDF from JSTOR).)

c.5200 BC

Dated to this approximate date, Bessé is about seventeen or eighteen years of age when she is laid to rest in a limestone cave known as Leang Panninge ('Bat Cave') on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. While she is a genuine descendant of the earliest human inhabitants in the region, her DNA also reveals a link to East Asia, challenging previous ideas about East Asian migration into the region.

A migration of some extent must take place before this date. Today's Burgis people of Sulawesi use the name Bessé as a nickname for a new-born princess.

The skull of Bessé was able to yield DNA from the inner ear, the best place for its survival, which revealed a surprising East Asian addition to her Sahul-region ancestry, and a less surprising inclusion of Denisovan ancestry

c.AD 500

After roughly a millennium of intrusion onto Sulawesi by Austronesian Neolithic farmers who have been migrating outwards from mainland Asia, the Toalean culture finally fades out and its people are submerged by the culturally-dominant later arrivals.

By this stage local cultures in Early Vietnam have flourished into a formalise state structure. This is the first of a long line of Vietnamese kingdoms, one which is known as Van Lang. The Kha natives of today's Laos are gradually dominated by the principality of Muong Swa and then the kingdom of Lan Xang.