South East Asia

The modern kingdom of Thailand occupies much of the Indochinese peninsula in South-East Asia. The history of its predominant ethnic people, Thais, is open to a degree of interpretation and speculation while being backed by a few concrete dates and concepts.

The Thai people are also sometimes referred to as Tai, confusingly so because the Thais are classified as members of the Tai (Tay) language group, thereby confusing ethnic labelling with linguistic labelling. The Thais of the eleventh century AD upper Menam valley were known by their neighbours as Syāṃ.

During the thirteenth century the contemporary Chinese began to refer to Thais of Sukhothai as the Sien (or Hsien). Those same Thais began to refer to themselves as 'Thai', which means 'free'. Thai people, or people who bear a relationship to Thais, include the Lao (of today's Laos) and Shan.

The perspective on the general history of Early Thailand has been changed by archaeological excavations in the north-east of the country. Discoveries which have included bronze metallurgy seem to suggest, controversially, that the Thais may have originated in Thailand itself following the initial arrival of Homo sapiens in the region, later expanding outwards to various parts of Asia, including ancient China (see feature link for a fuller history of Homo sapiens).

No definite conclusion has been reached at the time of writing, and many more theories have been put forward with some suggesting that Thais were originally of Austronesian rather than Mongoloid origin.

The more readily-acceptable general theory has the Thai people (as a division of the older T'ai or Tai language group) originating in north-western Middle Zhou China, and migrating southwards into Thailand around 600 BC. Once there, they divided into two main groups, with one settling in the north and later founding the kingdom of Lan Na. The other group settled further to the south to found the kingdom of Sukhothai.

A more recent theory suggests that this migration took place in the opposite direction, from Thailand to China and elsewhere. Either way, an inwards Hindu migration followed around 300 BC which gave the country a diverse ethnic and cultural background, something which was shared across large southern areas of South-East Asia.

Most scholars now believe that the Tai originated in modern northern Vietnam, around the Dien Bien Phu area, about a thousand years ago. From there they spread northwards and westwards into southern and south-western China, northern modern Burma, and north-eastern India.

They also spread southwards into what are now Laos and Thailand, settling down to farm the land they found, while also domesticating water buffalo, pigs, and fowl. They organised themselves into muang, city-states or principalities which consisted of groups of villages and in which females enjoyed beneficial status.

These events and many lesser integrations produced a people who bore a highly mixed ethnic heritage, albeit one which was initially provided by Thai migrants as they pushed southwards into South-East Asia from the eighth century AD kingdom of Nanzhao in south-western China. That movement increased when the Mongols invaded China, entirely sidelining the collected native Akha people (an imposed name which means 'slaves').

By perhaps the third or fourth century AD, influence from India was reaching those people who lived in the Chao Phraya valley of today's Thailand. Buddhist sculptures and artwork which have been found in the region date back at least to the fourth century. It could have been mercantile activity which brought this impact into the region.

From the twelfth century AD onwards Thais expanded southwards, bringing with them their muang system, conquering the Mons of Dvāravatī, and reaching the Malay-Thai peninsula. Thais were also to be found in what are now central Burma and northern Thailand, outside of Mongol holdings of the late thirteenth century.

The modern Thai Rattanakosin kingdom is the main home of ethnic Thais. Great migratory change in recent years has altered the country's population make-up, however. Over ninety-seven percent of the population in 2015 was ethnic Thai. By the year 2000 that figure had dropped to thirty-five percent while other related groups, such as the Lao, contribute over forty-six percent.

Theravāda Buddhism is the religion of the overwhelming majority of Thais, the result of the aformentioned ancient contact with India and with the Mons. However, males no longer feel obliged to accept ordination as monks for limited periods of time as once was the case. Most Thais engage in agriculture although, as in many other places, urbanisation in Thailand received a boost following the conclusion of the Second World War.

Far East Kingdoms

South East Asia

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