History of Southeast Asia

File:Ptolemy Asia detail.jpg's world map. Gulf of the Ganges left, Southeast Asian peninsula in the centre written as Avrea Chersonesvs, China Sea right, with "Sinae" (China).]]

Though there are numerous ancient historic Asian designations for Southeast Asia, none are geographically consistent with each other. Names referring to Southeast Asia include Suvarnabhumi or Sovannah Phoum (Golden Land) and Suvarnadvipa (Golden Islands) in Indian tradition, the Lands below the Winds{{cite web |url=http://www.library.ucla.edu/events/revisiting-lands-below-winds |title=Revisiting the "Lands Below the Winds" |publisher=Library.ucla.edu |access-date=8 February 2017 |archive-date=11 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170211083755/http://www.library.ucla.edu/events/revisiting-lands-below-winds |url-status=dead }} in Arabia and Persia, Nanyang (Chinese: 南洋; {{Literal translation|South Ocean}}) in China and Nan’yō (南洋) in Japan.{{cite book|author1=Kapur|author2=Kamlesh|title=History of Ancient India (portraits of a Nation), 1/e|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ic4BjWFmNIC&pg=PA465|year=2010|publisher=Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd|isbn=978-81-207-4910-8|page=465}} A 2nd-century world map created by Ptolemy of Alexandria names the Malay Peninsula as Chersonesus Aurea ({{Literal translation|Golden Peninsula}}).{{cite journal |url=http://archeosciences.revues.org/2072 | title =Gold in early Southeast Asia | journal =ArchéoSciences | issue =33 | pages =99–107 |author= Anna T. N. Bennett |access-date= 9 March 2018 | doi =10.4000/archeosciences.2072 | year =2009 | volume =33 | doi-access =free }}

The term "Southeast Asia" was first used in 1839 by American pastor Howard Malcolm in his book Travels in South-Eastern Asia. Malcolm only included the Mainland section and excluded the Maritime section in his definition of Southeast Asia.{{cite book | date=1996 | first1=Joshua | last1=Eliot | title=Indonesia, Malaysia & Singapore Handbook | publisher=Trade & Trade & Travel Publications | location=New York City | first2=Jane | first3=Sebastian | last2=Bickersteth | last3=Ballard}} The term was officially used to designate the area of operation (the South East Asia Command, SEAC) for Anglo-American forces in the Pacific Theater of World War II from 1941 to 1945.{{cite web |url=http://www.univpgri-palembang.ac.id/perpus-fkip/Perpustakaan/East%20Phylosopy/Economic%20Geography/Enclycopedia%20Asia%20Tenggara.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.univpgri-palembang.ac.id/perpus-fkip/Perpustakaan/East%20Phylosopy/Economic%20Geography/Enclycopedia%20Asia%20Tenggara.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=SOUTHEAST ASIA a Historical Encyclopedia, from Angkor Wat to East Timor 2004 |publisher=Library of Congress |author=OOI KEAT GIN |access-date=8 February 2017}}{{Human history}}

{{further|Genetic history of Southeast Asia}}

{{See also|Archaic humans in Southeast Asia|Peopling of Southeast Asia|Negrito}}

File:The main entrance to the Niah Caves at sunset..jpg entrance at sunset]]

The region was already inhabited by Homo erectus from approximately 1,500,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene age.{{Cite book|last=Bellwood|first=Peter|title=First Islanders: Prehistory and Human Migration in Island Southeast Asia|date=2017-04-10|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=978-1-119-25154-5|edition=1|language=en}} Data analysis of stone tool assemblages and fossil discoveries from Indonesia, Southern China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and more recently Cambodia{{cite web |url=http://www.d.dccam.org/Projects/Genocide/pdf/Speaker_Series_(5).pdf |title=Results of New Research at La-ang Spean Prehistoric Site |publisher=dccam org |access-date=2 January 2017}} and Malaysia{{cite news|url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j4NR2q7FWeVMwDjWVzYcF_R4qXEg |title=Malaysian scientists find stone tools 'oldest in Southeast Asia' |agency=Agence France-Presse |date=31 January 2009 |access-date=2 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140218222617/http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j4NR2q7FWeVMwDjWVzYcF_R4qXEg |archive-date=18 February 2014}} has established Homo erectus migration routes and episodes of presence as early as 120,000 years ago, with even older isolated finds dating back to 1.8 million years ago.{{sfnm|1a1=Swisher|1y=1994|2a1=Dennell|2y=2010|2p=262}}{{sfn|Dennell|2010|p=266|ps=, citing {{harvnb|Morwood|2003}}}} Java Man (Homo erectus erectus) and Homo floresiensis both discovered on Indonesia’s islands, attest to a sustained regional presence and isolation, long enough for notable diversification of the species' specifics. Rock art (parietal art) dating from 40,000 to 60,000 years ago (which is currently the world's oldest) has been discovered in the caves of Sulawesi and Borneo (Kalimantan).{{Cite journal |last=Aubert |first=M. |display-authors=et al. |date=11 December 2019 |title=Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art. |journal=Nature |volume=576 |issue=7787 |pages=442–445 |bibcode=2019Natur.576..442A |doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1806-y |pmid=31827284 |s2cid=209311825}}[https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/the-worlds-oldest-figurative-drawing-depicts-a-wounded-animal/ Kiona N. Smith (11/9/2018) What the world’s oldest figurative drawing reveals about human migration] Homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until at least 50,000 years ago, after which they became extinct.{{cite journal|author=Morwood, M. J.|author2=Brown, P.|author3=Jatmiko|author4=Sutikna, T.|author5=Wahyu Saptomo, E.|author6=Westaway, K. E.|author7=Rokus Awe Due|author8=Roberts, R. G.|author9=Maeda, T.|author10=Wasisto, S.|author11=Djubiantono, T.|date=13 October 2005|title=Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia|journal=Nature|volume=437|issue=7061|pages=1012–1017|bibcode=2005Natur.437.1012M|doi=10.1038/nature04022|pmid=16229067|s2cid=4302539}} Distinct Homo sapiens groups, ancestral to East-Eurasian (East Asian-related) populations, and South-Eurasian (Papuan-related) populations, reached the region by 50,000{{Nbsp}}BCE to 70,000{{Nbsp}}BCE, with some arguing earlier.{{Cite journal |last1=Lipson |first1=Mark |last2=Reich |first2=David |date=April 2017 |title=A Working Model of the Deep Relationships of Diverse Modern Human Genetic Lineages Outside of Africa |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=889–902 |doi=10.1093/molbev/msw293 |issn=0737-4038 |pmc=5400393 |pmid=28074030}}{{cite web |date=20 August 2012 |title=Oldest bones from modern humans in Asia discovered |url=http://www.cbsnews.com/news/oldest-bones-from-modern-humans-in-asia-discovered/ |access-date=21 August 2016 |publisher=CBSNews}} These immigrants might have, to some extent, merged and reproduced with members of the archaic population of Homo erectus, as the fossil discoveries in the Tam Pa Ling Cave suggest.{{cite journal |last1=Demeter |first1=Fabrice |last2=Shackelford |first2=Laura |last3=Westaway |first3=Kira |last4=Duringer |first4=Philippe |last5=Bacon |first5=Anne-Marie |last6=Ponche |first6=Jean-Luc |last7=Wu |first7=Xiujie |last8=Sayavongkhamdy |first8=Thongsa |last9=Zhao |first9=Jian-Xin |last10=Barnes |first10=Lani |last11=Boyon |first11=Marc |last12=Sichanthongtip |first12=Phonephanh |last13=Sénégas |first13=Frank |last14=Karpoff |first14=Anne-Marie |last15=Patole-Edoumba |first15=Elise |date=7 April 2015 |title=Early Modern Humans and Morphological Variation in Southeast Asia: Fossil Evidence from Tam Pa Ling, Laos |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=e0121193 |bibcode=2015PLoSO..1021193D |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0121193 |pmc=4388508 |pmid=25849125 |doi-access=free |last16=Coppens |first16=Yves |last17=Braga |first17=José |last18=Macchiarelli |first18=Roberto}} During much of this time the present-day islands of western Indonesia were joined into a single landmass known as Sundaland due to lower sea levels.

File:Leang Panninge genetic.png hunter-gatherer in Maritime Southeast Asia) and East and southeast Asian and Near Oceanian groups.{{Cite journal|last1=Carlhoff|first1=Selina|last2=Duli|first2=Akin|last3=Nägele|first3=Kathrin|last4=Nur|first4=Muhammad|last5=Skov|first5=Laurits|last6=Sumantri|first6=Iwan|last7=Oktaviana|first7=Adhi Agus|last8=Hakim|first8=Budianto|last9=Burhan|first9=Basran|last10=Syahdar|first10=Fardi Ali|last11=McGahan|first11=David P.|date=August 2021|title=Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=596|issue=7873|pages=543–547|doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03823-6|issn=1476-4687|pmid=34433944|pmc=8387238|bibcode=2021Natur.596..543C|hdl-access=free|hdl=10072/407535}}]]

Ancient remains of hunter-gatherers in Maritime Southeast Asia, such as one Holocene hunter-gatherer from cave of Leang Panninge in South Sulawesi, had ancestry from both the South-Eurasian lineage (represented by Papuans and Aboriginal Australians), and the East-Eurasian lineage (represented by East Asians). The hunter-gatherer individual had approximately 50% "Basal-East Asian" ancestry and was positioned in between modern East Asians and Papuans of Oceania. The authors writing about the individual concluded that East Asian-related ancestry expanded from Mainland Southeast Asia into Maritime Southeast Asia much earlier than previously suggested, as early as 25,000{{Nbsp}}BCE, long before the expansion of Austroasiatic and Austronesian groups.{{Cite journal|last1=Carlhoff|first1=Selina|last2=Duli|first2=Akin|last3=Nägele|first3=Kathrin|last4=Nur|first4=Muhammad|last5=Skov|first5=Laurits|last6=Sumantri|first6=Iwan|last7=Oktaviana|first7=Adhi Agus|last8=Hakim|first8=Budianto|last9=Burhan|first9=Basran|last10=Syahdar|first10=Fardi Ali|last11=McGahan|first11=David P.|date=August 2021|title=Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=596|issue=7873|pages=543–547|doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03823-6 |pmc=8387238 |issn=1476-4687|pmid=34433944|bibcode=2021Natur.596..543C|quote=The qpGraph analysis confirmed this branching pattern, with the Leang Panninge individual branching off from the Near Oceanian clade after the Denisovan gene flow, although with the most supported topology indicating around 50% of a basal East Asian component contributing to the Leang Panninge genome (Fig. 3c, Supplementary Figs. 7–11).|hdl-access=free|hdl=10072/407535|s2cid=237305537}}

Distinctive Basal-East Asian (East-Eurasian) ancestry was recently found to have originated in Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000{{Nbsp}}BCE, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards respectively. Geneflow of East-Eurasian ancestry into Maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania is estimated to ~25,000{{Nbsp}}BCE (possibly as early as 50,000{{Nbsp}}BCE). The pre-Neolithic South-Eurasian populations of Maritime Southeast Asia were largely replaced by the expansion of various East-Eurasian populations, beginning about 25,000{{Nbsp}}BCE from Mainland Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia was dominated by East Asian-related ancestry already in 15,000{{Nbsp}}BCE, predating the expansion of Austroasiatic and Austronesian peoples.

File:Peopling of eurasia.jpg, with the indication of the later development of mitochondrial haplogroups]]

Ocean drops of up to {{convert|120|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} below the present level during Pleistocene glacial periods revealed the vast lowlands known as Sundaland, enabling hunter-gatherer populations to freely access insular Southeast Asia via extensive terrestrial corridors. Modern human presence in the Niah cave on East Malaysia dates back to 40,000 years BP, although archaeological documentation of the early settlement period suggests only brief occupation phases.{{cite journal|last1=Barker|first1=Graeme|last2=Barton|first2=Huw|last3=Bird|first3=Michael|last4=Daly|first4=Patrick|last5=Datan|first5=Ipoi|last6=Dykes|first6=Alan|last7=Farr|first7=Lucy|last8=Gilbertson|first8=David|last9=Harrisson|first9=Barbara|last10=Hunt|first10=Chris|last11=Higham|first11=Tom|last12=Kealhofer|first12=Lisa|last13=Krigbaum|first13=John|last14=Lewis|first14=Helen|last15=McLaren|first15=Sue|last16=Paz|first16=Victor|last17=Pike|first17=Alistair|last18=Piper|first18=Phil|last19=Pyatt|first19=Brian|last20=Rabett|first20=Ryan|last21=Reynolds|first21=Tim|last22=Rose|first22=Jim|last23=Rushworth|first23=Garry|last24=Stephens|first24=Mark|last25=Stringer|first25=Chris|last26=Thompson|first26=Jill|last27=Turney|first27=Chris|title=The 'human revolution' in lowland tropical Southeast Asia: the antiquity and behavior of anatomically modern humans at Niah Cave (Sarawak, Borneo)|journal=Journal of Human Evolution|date=March 2007|volume=52|issue=3|pages=243–261|doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.08.011|pmid=17161859|bibcode=2007JHumE..52..243B }} However, author Charles Higham argues that despite glacial periods, modern humans were able to cross the sea barrier beyond Java and Timor, who around 45,000 years ago left traces in the Ivane Valley in eastern New Guinea "at an altitude of {{convert|2000|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} exploiting yams and pandanus, hunting and making stone tools between 43,000 and 49,000 years ago."{{cite web|author=Charles Higham|title=Hunter-Gatherers in Southeast Asia: From Prehistory to the Present|url=http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2050&context=humbiol|access-date=2 January 2017|newspaper=Digitalcommons}}

The oldest habitation discovered in the Philippines is located at the Tabon Caves and dates back to approximately 50,000 years BP. Items found there such as burial jars, earthenware, jade ornaments and other jewellery, stone tools, animal bones and human fossils date back to 47,000 years BP. Unearthed human remains are approximately 24,000 years old.{{cite web |url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/1860/ |title=The Tabon Cave Complex and all of Lipuun – UNESCO World Heritage Centre |newspaper=Whc.unesco.org |access-date= 22 February 2017}}

Signs of an early tradition are discernible in the Hoabinhian, the name given to an industry and cultural continuity of stone tools and flaked cobble artefacts that appear around 10,000 BP in caves and rock shelters first described in Hòa Bình, Vietnam, and later documented in Terengganu, Malaysia, Sumatra, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Yunnan, southern China. Research emphasises considerable variations in quality and nature of the artefacts, influenced by region-specific environmental conditions and proximity and access to local resources. The Hoabinhian culture accounts for the first verified ritual burials in Southeast Asia.{{cite journal|last=Marwick|first=B.|title=Multiple Optima in Hoabinhian flaked stone artifact palaeoeconomics and palaeoecology at two archaeological sites in Northwest Thailand |journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology|date=2013 |volume=32|issue=4|pages=553–564|doi=10.1016/j.jaa.2013.08.004|doi-access=free}}{{cite journal|last1=Ji|first1=Xueping|last2=Kuman|first2=Kathleen|last3=Clarke|first3=R.J.|last4=Forestier|first4=Hubert|last5=Li|first5=Yinghua|last6=Ma|first6=Juan|last7=Qiu|first7=Kaiwei|last8=Li|first8=Hao|last9=Wu|first9=Yun|title=The oldest Hoabinhian technocomplex in Asia (43.5 ka) at Xiaodong rockshelter, Yunnan Province, southwest China|journal=Quaternary International|date=1 December 2015|volume=400|pages=166–174|doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2015.09.080|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287966708|access-date=2 January 2017|bibcode=2016QuInt.400..166J}}

File:The proposed route of Austroasiatic and Austronesian migration into Indonesia and the geographic distribution of sites that have produced red-slipped and cord-marked pottery.png and Austronesian migrations into Indonesia{{cite book|first1=Truman|last1=Simanjuntak|authorlink=Harry Truman Simanjuntak|editor1-first= Philip J.|editor1-last= Piper, Hirofumi Matsumura and David Bulbeck|editor2-first= Hirofumi |editor2-last=Matsumura |editor3-first= David |editor3-last=Bulbeck|title =New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory|chapter =The Western Route Migration: A Second Probable Neolithic Diffusion to Indonesia|publisher =ANU Press|series =terra australis|volume=45|year =2017|isbn =9781760460952|chapter-url =http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2320/html/ch11.xhtml?referer=&page=18}}]]

The Neolithic was characterized by several migrations into Mainland and Island Southeast Asia from southern China by Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Kra-Dai and Hmong–Mien speakers.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0b-6wpalR40C&pg=PA102|page=102|title=The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Volume One, Part One |publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-66369-4 |last1=Tarling |first1=Nicholas |year=1999 }}

File:Chronological dispersal of Austronesian people across the Pacific.svg
(3500 BCE{{En dash}}1200 CE){{cite book |last1=Chambers |first1=Geoffrey K. |title=eLS |date=2013 |publisher=American Cancer Society |isbn=978-0-470-01590-2 |doi=10.1002/9780470015902.a0020808.pub2 |language=en |chapter=Genetics and the Origins of the Polynesians}}]]

The most widespread migration event was the Austronesian expansion, which began around 5,500 BP (3,500 BCE) from Taiwan and coastal southern China. Due to their early invention of ocean-going outrigger boats and voyaging catamarans, Austronesians rapidly colonized Island Southeast Asia, before spreading further into Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, Madagascar and the Comoros. They dominated the lowlands and coasts of Island Southeast Asia, intermarrying with the indigenous Negrito and Papuan peoples to varying degrees, giving rise to modern Islander Southeast Asians, Micronesians, Polynesians, Melanesians and Malagasy.{{cite web |url=http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf4/blust1992austronesian.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf4/blust1992austronesian.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=THE AUSTRONESIAN SETTLEMENT OF MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA |publisher=Sealang |access-date=2 January 2017}}{{cite journal|last1=Lipson|first1=Mark|last2=Loh|first2=Po-Ru|last3=Patterson|first3=Nick|last4=Moorjani|first4=Priya|last5=Ko|first5=Ying-Chin|last6=Stoneking|first6=Mark|last7=Berger|first7=Bonnie|last8=Reich|first8=David|title=Reconstructing Austronesian population history in Island Southeast Asia|journal=Nature Communications|date=19 August 2014|volume=5|article-number=4689|doi=10.1038/ncomms5689|pmid=25137359|pmc=4143916|bibcode=2014NatCo...5.4689L}}{{cite web |url=http://www.omnivoyage.org/Austronesian_SE_Asia.htm |title=Austronesian Southeast Asia: An outline of contemporary issues |publisher=Omnivoyage |access-date=2 January 2017 |archive-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160925123531/http://www.omnivoyage.org/Austronesian_SE_Asia.htm |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/Blench%20Springer%20Handbook%20chapter%20final%20Dec%202014.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/Blench%20Springer%20Handbook%20chapter%20final%20Dec%202014.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Origins of Ethnolinguistic Identity in Southeast Asia |publisher=Roger Blench |access-date=2 January 2017}}

The Austroasiatic migration wave involved the Mon and Khmer peoples and migrated to the broad riverine floodplains of Burma, Indochina and Malaysia.{{cite book |last1=Sidwell |first1=Paul |last2=Blench |first2=Roger |chapter-url=http://rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/SR09/Sidwell%20Blench%20offprint.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://rogerblench.info/Archaeology/SE%20Asia/SR09/Sidwell%20Blench%20offprint.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |chapter=The Austroasiatic Urheimat: the Southeastern Riverine Hypothesis |editor-last=Enfield |editor-first=N.J. |title=Dynamics of Human Diversity |pages=317–345 |place=Canberra |publisher=Pacific Linguistics |date=2011 |isbn=9780858836389 }}{{Failed verification|reason=This article actually proposes a dispersal from within Southeast Asia circa 3800 BP.|date=August 2022}}

{{See also|Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia|Domestication of rice}}

File:Likely routes of early rice transfer, and possible language family homelands (archaeological sites in China and SE Asia shown).png and likely routes of early rice transfer ({{Circa|3500{{en dash}}500{{nbsp}}BCE}}). The approximate coastlines during the early Holocene are shown in lighter blue.{{cite journal |last1=Bellwood |first1=Peter |title=The Checkered Prehistory of Rice Movement Southwards as a Domesticated Cereal—from the Yangzi to the Equator |journal=Rice |date=9 December 2011 |volume=4 |issue=3–4 |pages=93–103 |doi=10.1007/s12284-011-9068-9 |s2cid=44675525 |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81529950.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81529950.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|doi-access=free |bibcode=2011Rice....4...93B }}]]

Territorial principalities in both Insular and Mainland Southeast Asia, characterised as Agrarian kingdoms,{{cite book|author=J. Stephen Lansing|title=Perfect Order: Recognizing Complexity in Bali|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f6H-kCvCCwgC&pg=PA22|year=2012|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-15626-2|page=22}} developed an economy by around 500 BCE based on surplus crop cultivation and moderate coastal trade of domestic natural products. Several states of the Malayan-Indonesian "thalassian" zone shared these characteristics with Indochinese polities like the Pyu city-states in the Irrawaddy River valley, the Văn Lang kingdom in the Red River Delta and Funan around the lower Mekong. Văn Lang, founded in the 7th century BCE, endured until 258 BCE under the Hồng Bàng dynasty, as part of the Đông Sơn culture that sustained a dense and organised population that produced an elaborate Bronze Age industry.{{cite web |url=http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/stark/pdfs/Stark_06_IPPA.pdf |title=Pre-Angkorian Settlement Trends in Cambodia's Mekong Delta and the Lower Mekong |publisher=Anthropology.hawaii.edu |access-date=11 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923172512/http://www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/people/faculty/stark/pdfs/Stark_06_IPPA.pdf |archive-date=23 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Stark/pdfs/annual_review_06.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://anthropology.hawaii.edu/People/Faculty/Stark/pdfs/annual_review_06.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Early Mainland Southeast Asian Landscapes in the First Millennium |publisher=Anthropology.hawaii.edu |access-date=12 February 2017}}

Intensive wet-rice cultivation in an ideal climate enabled the farming communities to produce a regular crop surplus that was used by the ruling elite to raise, command and pay work forces for public construction and maintenance projects such as canals and fortifications.{{cite book|author=F. Tichelman|title=The Social Evolution of Indonesia: The Asiatic Mode of Production and Its Legacy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IGEyBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41|year=2012|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-94-009-8896-5|page=41}}

Though millet and rice cultivation was introduced around 2000 BCE, hunting and gathering remained an important aspect of food provision, in particular in forested and mountainous inland areas. Many tribal communities of the aboriginal Australo-Melanesian settlers continued a lifestyle of mixed sustenance until the modern era.{{cite journal|last1=Hunt|first1=C.O.|last2=Rabett|first2=R.J.|title=Holocene landscape intervention and plant food production strategies in island and mainland Southeast Asia|journal=Journal of Archaeological Science|date=November 2014|volume=51|pages=22–33|doi=10.1016/j.jas.2013.12.011|doi-access=free|bibcode=2014JArSc..51...22H }} Many areas in Southeast Asia participated in the Maritime Jade Road, a diverse sea-based trade network which functioned for 3,000 years, mostly in Southeast Asia, between 2000 BCE to 1000 CE.Tsang, Cheng-hwa (2000), "Recent advances in the Iron Age archaeology of Taiwan", Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, 20: 153–158, doi:10.7152/bippa.v20i0.11751Turton, M. (2021). Notes from central Taiwan: Our brother to the south. Taiwan’s relations with the Philippines date back millenia, so it’s a mystery that it’s not the jewel in the crown of the New Southbound Policy. Taiwan Times.Everington, K. (2017). Birthplace of Austronesians is Taiwan, capital was Taitung: Scholar. Taiwan News.Bellwood, P., H. Hung, H., Lizuka, Y. (2011). Taiwan Jade in the Philippines: 3,000 Years of Trade and Long-distance Interaction. Semantic Scholar.

File:Trong dong Dong Son.jpg]]

The earliest known evidence of copper and bronze production in Southeast Asia was found at Ban Chiang in north-east Thailand and among the Phùng Nguyên culture of northern Vietnam around 2000 BCE.{{cite journal|last1=Higham|first1=Charles|last2=Higham|first2=Thomas|last3=Ciarla|first3=Roberto|last4=Douka|first4=Katerina|last5=Kijngam|first5=Amphan|last6=Rispoli|first6=Fiorella|title=The Origins of the Bronze Age of Southeast Asia|journal=Journal of World Prehistory|date=10 December 2011|volume=24|issue=4|pages=227–274|doi=10.1007/s10963-011-9054-6|s2cid=162300712|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257607857|access-date=11 February 2017|via=Researchgate.net}}

The Đông Sơn culture established a tradition of bronze production and the manufacture of evermore refined bronze and iron objects, such as plows, axes and sickles with shaft holes, socketed arrows and spearheads and small ornamented items.{{cite web|url=http://www.newhistorian.com/how-and-when-the-bronze-age-reached-south-east-asia/4961/ | title =How and When the Bronze Age Reached South East Asia | publisher = New Historian |date=1 October 2015 |author= Daryl Worthington |access-date= 9 March 2018 }} By about 500 BCE, large and delicately decorated bronze drums of remarkable quality, weighing more than {{convert|70|kg|abbr=on}}, were produced in the laborious lost-wax casting process. This industry of highly sophisticated metal processing was developed independent of Chinese or Indian influence. Historians relate these achievements to the presence of organized, centralized and hierarchical communities and a large population.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Southeast-Asia |title=history of Southeast Asia |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=11 February 2017}}

File:Buni Culture Pottery 2.jpg clay pottery]]

Between 1000 BCE and 100 CE, the Sa Huỳnh culture flourished along the south-central coast of Vietnam.John N. Miksic, Geok Yian Goh, Sue O Connor – Rethinking Cultural Resource Management in Southeast Asia 2011 Page 251 "This site dates from the fifth to first century BCE and it is one of the earliest sites of the Sa Huỳnh culture in Thu Bồn Valley (Reinecke et al. 2002, 153–216); 2) Lai Nghi is a prehistoric cemetery richly equipped with iron tools and weapons, ..." Ceramic jar burial sites that included grave goods have been discovered at various sites along the entire territory. Among large, thin-walled terracotta jars, ornamented and colorized cooking pots, glass items, jade earrings and metal objects were deposited near the rivers and along the coast.{{cite book |url=https://www.academia.edu/7230641 |title=Excavations at Gò Cầm, Quảng Nam, 2000–3: Linyi and the Emergence of the Cham Kingdoms |publisher=Academia.edu |author1=Ian Glover |author2=Nguyễn Kim Dung |access-date=12 February 2017}}

The Buni culture is the name given to another early independent centre of refined pottery production that has been well documented on the basis of excavated burial gifts, deposited between 400 BCE and 100 CE in coastal north-western Java.{{cite book| last = Zahorka| first = Herwig| publisher = Yayasan cipta Loka Caraka| title = The Sunda Kingdoms of West Java, From Tarumanagara to Pakuan Pajajaran with Royal Center of Bogor, Over 1000 Years of Propsperity and Glory| year = 2007}} The objects and artifacts of the Buni tradition are known for their originality and remarkable quality of incised and geometric decors.{{cite book|author1=Pierre-Yves Manguin|author2=A. Mani|author3=Geoff Wade|title=Early Interactions Between South and Southeast Asia: Reflections on Cross-cultural Exchange|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ni9AlOLTFZYC&pg=PA124|year=2011|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-981-4345-10-1|page=124}} Its resemblance to the Sa Huỳnh culture and the fact that it represents the earliest Indian Rouletted Ware recorded in Southeast Asia are subjects of ongoing research.{{cite book| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=9xVZbxWNo40C&pg=PA246 | author = Manguin, Pierre-Yves and Agustijanto Indrajaya | title = The Archaeology of Batujaya (West Java, Indonesia):an Interim Report, in Uncovering Southeast Asia's past|isbn=978-9971-69-351-0|page=246|publisher=NUS Press| date = January 2006 }}

{{See also|Lingling-o|Marshall Islands stick chart|Polynesian navigation|Sa Huynh-Kalanay Interaction Sphere|Nusantao Maritime Trading and Communication Network}}

File:Austronesian maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean.png proto-historic and historic maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean{{cite book|first1=Pierre-Yves |last1=Manguin|editor1-first=Gwyn |editor1-last=Campbell|title =Early Exchange between Africa and the Wider Indian Ocean World |chapter =Austronesian Shipping in the Indian Ocean: From Outrigger Boats to Trading Ships|publisher =Palgrave Macmillan|year =2016|pages=51–76|isbn =9783319338224|chapter-url =https://books.google.com/books?id=XsvDDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA50}}]]

The first true maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean was the Austronesian maritime trade network initiated by the Austronesian peoples of Island Southeast Asia. They established trade routes with Southern India and Sri Lanka as early as 1500 BCE, exchanging material culture (like catamarans, outrigger boats, sewn-plank boats and paan) and cultigens (like coconuts, sandalwood, bananas and sugarcane). The trade network also connected the material cultures of India and China, as well as constituting the majority of the Indian Ocean component of the spice trade. Indonesians in particular were trading in spices (mainly cinnamon and cassia) with East Africa using catamarans and outrigger boats and sailing with the help of the Westerlies in the Indian Ocean. This trade network expanded to reach as far as Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, resulting in the Austronesian colonization of Madagascar by 500 CE. It continued through historic times, later becoming the Maritime Silk Road.{{cite journal |last1=Doran |first1=Edwin Jr. |title=Outrigger Ages |journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society |date=1974 |volume=83 |issue=2 |pages=130–140 |url=http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document//Volume_83_1974/Volume_83%2C_No._2/Outrigger_ages%2C_by_Edwin_Doran_Jnr.%2C_p_130-140/p1 |access-date=25 February 2020 |archive-date=18 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200118071139/http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_83_1974/Volume_83,_No._2/Outrigger_ages,_by_Edwin_Doran_Jnr.,_p_130-140/p1 |url-status=dead }}{{cite book|first1= Waruno|last1=Mahdi|editor1-last =Blench|editor1-first= Roger |editor2-last=Spriggs|editor2-first=Matthew|title =Archaeology and Language III: Artefacts languages, and texts|chapter =The Dispersal of Austronesian boat forms in the Indian Ocean|volume = 34|publisher =Routledge|series =One World Archaeology |year =1999|pages=144–179|isbn =978-0415100540}}{{cite book |last1=Doran |first1=Edwin B. |title=Wangka: Austronesian Canoe Origins |date=1981 |publisher=Texas A&M University Press |isbn=9780890961070}}{{cite journal |last1=Blench |first1=Roger |title=Fruits and arboriculture in the Indo-Pacific region |journal=Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association |date=2004 |volume=24 |issue=The Taipei Papers (Volume 2) |pages=31–50 |url=https://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/BIPPA/article/viewFile/11869/10496}} This trade network also included smaller trade routes within Island Southeast Asia, including the lingling-o jade and trepanging networks.

In eastern Austronesia, various traditional maritime trade networks also existed. Among them were the ancient Lapita trade network of Island Melanesia; the Hiri trade cycle, Sepik Coast exchange and Kula ring of Papua New Guinea;{{cite book |last1=Friedlaender |first1=Jonathan S. |title=Genes, Language, & Culture History in the Southwest Pacific |date=2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195300307 |page=28 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HH48DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA28}} the ancient trading voyages in Micronesia between the Mariana Islands and the Caroline Islands (and possibly also New Guinea and the Philippines);{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Lawrence J. |title=Ancient Chamorro Society |date=1992 |publisher=Bess Press |isbn=9781880188057 |pages=195 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9r0a2ww8KLcC&pg=PA195}} and the vast inter-island trade networks of Polynesia.{{cite journal |last1=Borrell |first1=Brendan |title=Stone tool reveals lengthy Polynesian voyage |journal=Nature |date=27 September 2007 |doi=10.1038/news070924-9 |s2cid=161331467 |url=https://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/070924-9.html|url-access=subscription }}

{{Further|Greater India}}

File:Hinduism_Expansion_in_Asia_2023.svg

By around 500 BCE, Asia's expanding land and maritime trade led to socio-economic and cultural stimulation and diffusion of mainly Hindu beliefs into the regional cosmology of Southeast Asia.{{cite book|author=Kenneth R. Hal|title=Maritime Trade and State Development in Early Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ncqGAAAAIAAJ|year=1985|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|isbn=978-0-8248-0843-3|page=63}} Iron Age trade expansion also caused regional geostrategic remodelling. Southeast Asia was now situated at the convergence of the Indian and the East Asian maritime trade routes, a basis for economic and cultural growth. The concept of "Indianised kingdoms", a term coined by French scholar George Cœdès, describes how Southeast Asian principalities incorporated central aspects of Indian institutions, religion, statecraft, administration, culture, epigraphy, writing and architecture.National Library of Australia. [http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/coedes2.html Asia's French Connection : George Coedes and the Coedes Collection] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111021052224/http://www.nla.gov.au/asian/form/coedes2.html |date=21 October 2011 }}{{cite web |publisher=Amitav Acharya |title=Southeast Asia: Imagining the region |url=http://www.amitavacharya.com/sites/default/files/Southeast%20Asia%20Imagining%20the%20Region.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.amitavacharya.com/sites/default/files/Southeast%20Asia%20Imagining%20the%20Region.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=13 January 2018}}

File:Vietnam, shiva, da thap banh it (torre d'argento), stile di transiz. tra my son A1 e thap mam, Xi-Xii sec, 01.JPG statue, Champa (modern Vietnam)]]

The earliest Hindu kingdoms emerged in Sumatra and Java, followed by mainland polities such as Funan and Champa. Selective adoption of Indian sociocultural elements stimulated the emergence of centralised states and development of highly organised societies. Local leaders began to adopt Hindu worship into state religion, using the Hindu concept of devarāja to reinforce divine rule (as opposed to the Chinese concept of Mandate of Heaven).{{cite book|author=Craig A. Lockard|title=Societies, Networks, and Transitions, Volume I: To 1500: A Global History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lTEeCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA299|year=2014|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-285-78308-6|page=299}}{{cite web |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |title=The Mon-Dvaravati Tradition of Early North-Central Thailand |date=August 2007 |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mond/hd_mond.htm|access-date=2009-12-15}}{{cite journal |title=Urban Morphology of Commercial Port Cities and Shophouses in Southeast Asia |journal=Procedia Engineering |volume=142 |pages=190–197 |doi=10.1016/j.proeng.2016.02.031 |year=2016 |last1=Han |first1=Wang |last2=Beisi |first2=Jia |doi-access=free }}

The exact nature, process and extent of Indian influence upon the civilizations of the region is still fiercely debated by contemporary scholars. One such debate is over the extent to which Indian merchants, Brahmins, nobles or Southeast Asian mariner-merchants played central roles in bringing Indian conceptions to Southeast Asia. Additionally, the depth of the influence of Indian traditions is still contested. Whereas early 20th-century scholars emphasized the thorough Indianization of Southeast Asia, more recent authors have argued that Indian influence was much more limited, affecting only a small section of the elite.{{cite web| url=http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399318/obo-9780195399318-0112.xml | title= Hinduism in Southeast Asia | publisher= oxford press |date=28 May 2013 | access-date=20 December 2016 }}{{cite web |url=https://prezi.com/ju-vg-e8z1zk/hinduism-and-buddhism-in-southeast-asia/ |title=Hinduism and Buddhism in Southeast Asia by Monica Sar on Prezi |newspaper=prezi.com |access-date= 20 February 2017}}

Maritime trade from China to India passed Champa and Funan at the Mekong Delta, proceeded along the coast to the Isthmus of Kra, portaged across the narrow and transhipped for distribution in India. This trading link boosted the development of Funan, its successor Chenla and the Malayan states of Langkasuka on the eastern coast and Kedah on the western.

Numerous coastal communities in maritime Southeast Asia adopted Hindu and Buddhist cultural and religious elements from India and developed complex polities ruled by native dynasties. Early Hindu kingdoms in Indonesia include the 4th-century Kutai that rose in East Kalimantan, Tarumanagara in West Java and Kalingga in Central Java.{{cite web |url=http://www.oeaw.ac.at/isa/files/working_papers/suedostasien/soa001.pdf |title=THEORIES OF INDIANIZATION Exemplified by Selected Case Studies from Indonesia (Insular Southeast Asia) |publisher=Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften |author=Helmut Lukas |access-date=14 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215113853/http://www.oeaw.ac.at/isa/files/working_papers/suedostasien/soa001.pdf |archive-date=15 December 2017 |url-status=dead }}

File:Silk route copy.jpg]]

The earliest attested trading contacts in Southeast Asia were with the Chinese Shang dynasty ({{Circa|1600–1046{{nbsp}}BCE}}), when cowry shells served as currency. During the Zhou dynasty (1050{{En dash}}771 BCE), various natural products, such as ivory, rhinoceros horn, tortoise shells, pearls and birds' feathers found their way to Luoyang, the Zhou capital. Although current knowledge about port localities and shipping lanes is very limited, it is assumed that most of this exchange took place on land routes, and only a small percentage was shipped "on coastal vessels crewed by Malay and Yue traders".

Military conquests during the Han dynasty (202 BCE{{En dash}}220 CE) brought a number of foreign peoples within the Chinese empire when the Imperial Chinese tributary system began to evolve under Han rule. This tributary system was based on the Chinese worldview that had developed under the Shang dynasty, in which China was deemed the center and apogee of culture and civilization, the "Middle kingdom" (Mandarin: 中国, Zhōngguó), surrounded by several layers of increasingly barbarous peoples.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kUn07EepBZ8C&pg=PA408|title= The Middle Kingdom: A Survey of the Geography, Government, Literature, Social Life, Arts and History of the Chinese Empire and Its Inhabitants |author= Samuel Wells Williams |page=408|publisher= Routledge |year= 2006 |isbn=978-0710311672}} Contact with Southeast Asia steadily increased by the end of the Han period.

Between the 2nd-century BCE and 15th-century CE, the Maritime Silk Road flourished, connecting China, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia and all the way to Egypt and Europe.{{cite web| title = Maritime Silk Road| work = SEAArch| url = https://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/tag/maritime-silk-route/| access-date = 25 February 2020| archive-date = 5 January 2014| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140105043328/http://www.southeastasianarchaeology.com/tag/maritime-silk-route/| url-status = dead}} Despite its association with China in recent centuries, the Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia and by Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea.

The Maritime Silk Road developed from the earlier Austronesian spice trade networks of Islander Southeast Asians with Sri Lanka and Southern India (established 1000{{En dash}}600 BCE), as well as the jade industry trade in lingling-o artifacts from the Philippines in the South China Sea ({{Circa|500{{nbsp}}BCE}}).{{cite book|first1=Bérénice|last1= Bellina|editor1-first=John|editor1-last=Guy|title =Lost Kingdoms of Early Southeast Asia: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture 5th to 8th century|chapter =Southeast Asia and the Early Maritime Silk Road|publisher =Yale University Press|year =2014|pages=22–25|isbn =9781588395245|url =https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263007720}} For most of its history, Austronesian thalassocracies controlled the flow of the Maritime Silk Road, especially the polities around the Strait of Malacca and Bangka, the Malay Peninsula and the Mekong Delta (although Chinese records misidentified these kingdoms as being "Indian" due to the Indianization of these regions).{{cite journal |last1=Guan |first1=Kwa Chong |title=The Maritime Silk Road: History of an Idea |journal=NSC Working Paper |date=2016 |issue=23 |pages=1–30 |url=https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/pdf/nscwps23.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.iseas.edu.sg/images/pdf/nscwps23.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live}} Prior to the 10th century, the route was primarily used by Southeast Asian traders, although Tamil and Persian traders also sailed them. The route was influential in the early spread of Hinduism and Buddhism to the East.{{cite journal |last1=Sen |first1=Tansen |title=Maritime Southeast Asia Between South Asia and China to the Sixteenth Century |journal=TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia |date=3 February 2014 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=31–59 |doi=10.1017/trn.2013.15|s2cid=140665305 }}

China later built its own fleets starting from the Song dynasty in the 10th century, participating directly in the trade route up until the end of the Colonial Era and the collapse of the Qing dynasty.

{{Main|Buddhism in Southeast Asia}}

File:Buddhist Expansion.svg

File:Borobudur-Temple-Park Indonesia Stupas-of-Borobudur-04.jpg stupa, central Java (9th century)]]

Local rulers benefited from the introduction of Hinduism during the early common era, using it to greatly enhance the legitimacy of their reign as devarāja. Historians increasingly argue that the process of Hindu religious diffusion in the region must be attributed to the initiative of the local chieftains.{{Citation needed|date=December 2022}} Buddhist teachings, which almost simultaneously arrived in Southeast Asia, developed during the subsequent centuries, gaining more appeal among the general population. In the 3rd century BCE, the Buddhist Indian Emperor Ashoka initiated missionary efforts to send trained monks and missionaries abroad to proselytise Buddhism, including its sizeable body of literature, oral traditions, iconography and art. To missionaries used Buddhist teachings to offer guidance in central existential questions, placing an emphasis on individual effort and conduct.{{cite web |url=http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/The%20Buddhist%20World%20of%20Southeast%20Asia_Swearer.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090358/http://ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/The%20Buddhist%20World%20of%20Southeast%20Asia_Swearer.pdf |archive-date=2015-03-16 |url-status=dead |title=The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia |publisher=Suny Press |author=Donald K. Swearer |access-date= 20 February 2017}}{{Cite journal|last=Kitiarsa|first=Pattana|date=2009-03-01|title=Beyond the Weberian Trails: An Essay on the Anthropology of Southeast Asian Buddhism|journal=Religion Compass|language=en|volume=3|issue=2|pages=200–224|doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00135.x|issn=1749-8171}}{{cite web |url=https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/silkroad/files/knowledge-bank-article/expansion_of_buddhism_into_southeast_asia_0.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/silkroad/files/knowledge-bank-article/expansion_of_buddhism_into_southeast_asia_0.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=EXPANSION OF BUDDHISM INTO SOUTHEAST ASIA |publisher=Unesco |access-date= 2 January 2017}}

File:Shwezigon.jpg in Bagan, Myanmar (12th century)]]

Between the 5th and the 13th century CE, Buddhism flourished in Southeast Asia. By the 8th century, the Buddhist Srivijaya kingdom based in Sumatra emerged as a major trading power in central Maritime Southeast Asia. Around the same period, the Shailendra dynasty of Java extensively promoted Buddhist art that found its strongest expression in the vast Borobudur temple.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fzvRAgAAQBAJ|title=Mysteries of Borobudur Discover Indonesia|last=Miksic|first=John|date=2013-02-22|publisher=Tuttle Publishing|isbn=9781462906994|language=en}} Following the establishment of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia, the first Buddhist kings of Mainland Southeast Asia emerged during the 11th century.{{cite book|author=Charles Higham|title=Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1c1UIEVH9gC&pg=PA261+|year=2014|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0996-1|page=261}} Mahayana Buddhism took hold first in Southeast Asia, as the original Theravada Buddhism had fallen out of favor India centuries before reaching the region. However, a pure form of Theravada Buddhist teachings had been preserved in Sri Lanka since the 3rd century. Pilgrims and wandering monks from Sri Lanka introduced Theravada Buddhism in the Pagan Empire of Burma, the Sukhothai Kingdom in northern Thailand and Laos, the Lower Mekong Basin during Cambodia's dark ages and further into Vietnam and Maritime Southeast Asia.{{Cite web|url=https://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/southeast.htm|title=The Buddhist World: Buddhism in Southeast Asia: Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia.|website=buddhanet.net|access-date=2018-01-14}}

File:Telaga Batu inscription.JPG a Srivijayan inscription used in ceremonial allegiance ritual (7th century)]]

In Maritime Southeast Asia, the Srivijaya kingdom on Sumatra developed into the dominant power by the 5th century CE. Its capital Palembang became a major seaport and functioned as an entrepôt on the Spice Route between India and China. Srivijaya was also a notable center of Vajrayāna Buddhist learning and influence.{{cite web |url=http://www7.plala.or.jp/seareview/newpage6Sri2011Chaiya.html |title= Śrīvijaya towards Chaiya ー The History of Srivijaya | publisher= NTT Plala Inc |access-date=10 March 2018}} Around the 6th century CE, Malay merchants began sailing to Srivijaya, where goods were transported directly in Sumatran ports. The winds of the Northeast Monsoon during October to December prevented sailing ships from proceeding directly from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, as did the Southwest Monsoon during July to September, forcing trade routes to pass through Srivijaya. However, the kingdom's wealth and influence began to fade when advancements in nautical technology in the 10th century enabled Chinese and Indian merchants to ship cargo directly between their countries. These advancements also aided the Chola dynasty of Tamilakam, Southern India, in carrying out a series of destructive attacks on Srivijaya, effectively ending Palembang's entrepôt position in the Indo-Chinese trade route. As the influence of the Srivijaya kingdom faded by about the 13th century, Sumatra came to be ruled by a kaleidoscope of Buddhist kingdoms for the next two centuries, including the Malayu, Pannai, and Dharmasraya kingdoms.

File:Bajang Ratu Gate Trowulan.jpg gate in Trowulan, the capital of Majapahit (14th century)]]

To the southeast of Sumatra, West Java was ruled by the Hindu Sunda Kingdom ({{Circa|669–1579}}) after the fall of the Tarumanagara, while Central and East Java were dominated by a myriad of competing agrarian kingdoms including the Mataram Kingdom (716–1016), Kadiri (1042–1222), Singhasari (1222–1292), and Majapahit (1293–{{Circa|1500}}). In the late 8th and early 9th centuries, the Śailendra dynasty that ruled the Mataram kingdom built a number of massive monuments in Central Java, including the Sewu and Borobudur Buddhist temples. According to the Deśavarṇana, an Old Javanese poem completed in 1365, vassal states of the Majapahit Empire spread throughout much of today's Indonesia, making it possibly the largest empire ever to exist in Southeast Asia, though the true character of its control over these territories is unclear.{{cite book |last1=Robson |first1=Stuart |title=Deśawarṇana (Nāgarakṛtāgama) by Mpu Prapañca |date=1995 |publisher=KITLV Press |location=Leiden}}{{cite web |last1=Sastrawan |first1=Wayan Jarrah |title=Was Majapahit Really an Empire |url=https://www.newmandala.org/was-majapahit-really-an-empire/ |website=New Mandala |date=9 January 2020 |access-date=10 January 2024}} The empire declined in the early 16th century after the rise of Islamic states in coastal Java, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra.

File:Inskripsyon sa Binatbat na Tanso ng Laguna.jpg, Philippines (c. 900 CE)]]

In the Philippines, the Laguna Copperplate Inscription dating from 900 CE is the earliest known calendar-dated document from the islands.{{cite journal |last1=Clavé |first1=Elsa |last2=Griffiths |first2=Arlo |title=The Laguna Copperplate Inscription: Tenth-Century Luzon, Java, and the Malay World |journal=Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints |date=2022 |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=167–242 |doi=10.13185/PS2022.70202 |doi-broken-date=12 July 2025 |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03779017}} It relates a debt granted from a maginoo (royalty) who lived in the Tagalog city-state of Tondo which is now part of Manila area. The document mentions several contemporary states in the area, including Mataram Kingdom in Java.

File:Siem Reap Reflections (CAMBODIA-REFLECTION-ANGKOR WAT) VI (1070423631).jpg, Khmer Empire (12th century)]]

The Khmer Empire covered much of mainland Southeast Asia from the early 9th until the 15th century, during which time a sophisticated architecture was developed, exemplified in the structures of the capital city Angkor. Situated in modern-day Vietnam, the kingdoms of Đại Việt and Champa were rivals to the Khmer Empire in the region. The Mon kingdom of Dvaravati was another major regional presence, first appearing in records around the 6th century CE. By the 10th century, however, Dvaravati had come under the influence of the Khmer. Nearby, Thai tribes conquered the Chao Phraya River valley of modern-day central Thailand around the 12th century and established the Sukhothai Kingdom in the 13th century and the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 14th century.{{Cite journal|jstor=2049480 |title=Siamese Attacks On Angkor Before 1430|journal=The Far Eastern Quarterly|volume=8|issue=1|pages=3–33|last1=Briggs|first1=Lawrence Palmer|year=1948|doi=10.2307/2049480|s2cid=165680758 }}{{cite web |url=http://faculty.washington.edu/plape/citiesaut11/readings/Fletcher-water%20management%20in%20angkor%20Antiquity%202008.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://faculty.washington.edu/plape/citiesaut11/readings/Fletcher-water%20management%20in%20angkor%20Antiquity%202008.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title= A Short History of South East Asia Chapter 3. The Repercussions of the Mongol Conquest of China ...The result was a mass movement of Thai peoples southwards... | publisher= Stanford University |access-date=11 March 2018}}

File:Kanbawzathadi Palace - Bago, Myanmar 20130219-01.jpg, First Toungoo Empire (16th century)]]

By the mid-16th century, the Burmese First Toungoo Empire was one of the largest, strongest and richest empires in Southeast Asia.{{Cite book |last=Lieberman |first=Victor B. |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=jc3_AwAAQBAJ&hl=en_GB&pg=GBS.PA16 |title=Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580-1760 |date=2014-07-14 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-5585-8 |language=en}}{{Cite book |title=Lieberman 2003 |pages=151–152}} At its peak, it was the dominant power in mainland Southeast Asia, exercising "suzerainty from Manipur to the Cambodian marches and from the borders of Arakan to Yunnan".Lieberman 2003: 151–152 The empire included Mon and Shan states and annexed territories in the Kingdom of Lan Na, Kingdom of Laos, and the Ayutthaya kingdom.{{Cite web |title=THAI-BURMESE WARFARE DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY AND THE GROWTH OF THE FIRST TOUNGOO EMPIRE |url=http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/2001/JSS_093_0c_PamareeSurakiat_ThaiBurmeseWarfareDuring16thCentu.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/2001/JSS_093_0c_PamareeSurakiat_ThaiBurmeseWarfareDuring16thCentu.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |page=78}}{{Cite web |title=Min-gyi-nyo, the Shan Invasions of Ava (1524-27), and the Beginnings of Expansionary Warfare in Toungoo Burma: 1486-1539 |url=https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64387.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.soas.ac.uk/sbbr/editions/file64387.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |pages=379–382}} Early European accounts describe the lower part of the Toungoo Empire as having possessed 3{{En dash}}4 excellent ports that facilitated considerable trade in a variety of goods.{{Cite book |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_nfpMkDRdOj_0S5oylpl27HUT4QgtZ9n/view?usp=drivesdk |title=Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c.1580-1760 |pages=27}} The empire supplied the port of Malacca with rice and other foodstuffs, along with luxury goods such as rubies, sapphires, musk, lac, benzoin, and gold to trade. In return, the lower part of the empire imported Chinese manufactures and Indonesian spices through its ports. Additionally, merchants from West Asia and India exchanged large quantities of Indian textiles for Burmese luxury products and eastern goods. The arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century further strengthened the empire's position, both commercially and militarily.{{Cite book |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_nfpMkDRdOj_0S5oylpl27HUT4QgtZ9n/view?usp=drivesdk |title=Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580-1760 |pages=27–28}}

{{main|Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia|Islam in Southeast Asia}}

File:Meuseujid Raya Baiturrahman .jpg in Aceh. This northern tip region of Sumatra was the earliest place where Islam was established in Southeast Asia since the Pasai Sultanate in the 13th century.]]

By the 8th century CE, less than 200 years after the establishment of Islam in Arabia, the first Islamic traders and merchants who adhered to Mohammad's prophecies began to appear in maritime Southeast Asia. However, Islam did not play a notable role anywhere in mainland Southeast Asia until the 13th century.{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264874666 |title=The Architecture of the Early Mosques and Shrines of Java: Influences of the Arab Merchants in the 15th and 16th Centuries? |date=April 2008 |last=Wahby |first=Ahmed E I |access-date=4 February 2017}}{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/islam-islam-southeast-asia |title=Islam: Islam in Southeast Asia – Dictionary definition of Islam: Islam in Southeast Asia |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=30 January 2017}}{{cite web |url=http://history-world.org/islam7.htm |title=Islam, The Spread of Islam To Southeast Asia |publisher=History-world.org |access-date=30 January 2017 |archive-date=8 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181108010414/http://history-world.org/islam7.htm}} Instead, widespread and gradual replacement of Hinduism by Theravāda Buddhism reflected a shift to a more personal, introverted spirituality acquired through individual ritual activities and effort.

In addressing the issue of how Islam was introduced into Southeast Asia, historians have elaborated various routes from Arabia to India and then from India to Southeast Asia. Of these, two seem to take prominence: either Arabian traders and scholars who did not live or settle in India spread Islam directly to maritime Southeast Asia, or Arab traders that had been settling in coastal India and Sri Lanka for generations did. Muslim traders from India (Gujarat) and converts of South Asian descent are variously considered to play a major role.{{cite book |url=https://www.academia.edu/28762910 |title=A History of Islam in the Malay-Indonesian World: between Acculturation and Rigor |publisher=Academia.edu |access-date=4 February 2017}}{{cite web |url=https://asiasociety.org/education/introduction-southeast-asia |title=Introduction to Southeast Asia – The Arrival of Islam in Southeast Asia |publisher=Asia Society |access-date=13 January 2018}}

A number of sources propose the South China Sea as another route of Islamic introduction to Southeast Asia. Arguments for this hypothesis include the following:

• Extensive trade between Arabia and China before the 10th century is well documented and has been corroborated by archaeological evidence (see, for example, Belitung shipwreck).{{cite web|url=http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/tang-shipwreck/worrall-text/1 |title=Made in China – National Geographic Magazine |access-date=4 February 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090901043146/http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/tang-shipwreck/worrall-text/1 |archive-date=1 September 2009 }}{{cite web |url=http://www.asia.si.edu/press/2011/prShipwreckedBackgrounder.asp |title=Press Room |publisher=Asia.si.edu |access-date=4 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606093628/http://www.asia.si.edu/press/2011/prShipwreckedBackgrounder.asp |archive-date=6 June 2011 |url-status=dead }}
• During the Mongol conquest and the subsequent rule of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), hundreds of thousands of Muslims entered China. In Yunnan, Islam was propagated and commonly embraced.{{cite web |url=http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Wade114.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers3/Wade114.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=An Earlier Age of Commerce in Southeast Asia : 900–1300 C.E. |publisher=Helsinki.fi |access-date=4 February 2017}}
• Kufic grave stones in Champa, modern-day Vietnam, are indices of an early and permanent Islamic community in mainland Southeast Asia.{{cite web |url=http://antiquities.bibalex.org/Collection/detail.aspx?a=184&lang=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130518190203/http://antiquities.bibalex.org/Collection/detail.aspx?lang=en&a=184 |url-status=dead |archive-date=18 May 2013 |title=Gravestone – Collections – Antiquities Museum |publisher=Antiquities.bibalex.org |access-date=4 February 2017}}{{cite web |url=https://squarekufic.com/2014/10/18/signatures-on-gravestones-two-xii-century-iranian-tombstones/ |title=Signatures on gravestones: two XII century Iranian tombstones |publisher=squarekufic |date= 18 October 2014|access-date=4 February 2017}}{{cite book|author=Tan Ta Sen|title=Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vIUmU2ytmIIC&pg=PA147|year=2009|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-981-230-837-5|page=147}}
• The founder of the Demak Sultanate in Java was of Sino-Javanese origin.{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/15646072 |title=Cheng Ho and the History of Chinese Muslims in Java |newspaper=Academia.edu |access-date=4 February 2017|last1=Qurtuby |first1=Sumanto Al }}{{cite book|author=Tan Ta Sen|title=Cheng Ho and Islam in Southeast Asia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vIUmU2ytmIIC&pg=PA239|year=2009|publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies|isbn=978-981-230-837-5|page=239}}
• Hui mariner Zheng He proposed ancient Chinese architecture as the stylistic basis for the oldest Javanese mosques during his 15th-century visit to Demak, Banten, and the Red Mosque of Panjunan in Cirebon, West Java.

In 2013, the European Union published the European Commission Forum, which maintains an inclusive attitude on the matter:{{cite web |title=International research update 62 |url=http://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/pdf/newsletter/international-research-update_62_december-2015.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/pdf/newsletter/international-research-update_62_december-2015.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |access-date=4 February 2017 |publisher=Ec.europa.eu}}

{{Blockquote|text=Islam spread in Southeast Asia via Muslims of diverse ethnic and cultural origins, from Middle Easterners, Arabs and Persians, to Indians and even Chinese, all of whom followed the great commercial routes of the epoch.}}File:Masjid Menara Kudus.jpg of the Menara Kudus Mosque, a Javanese Majapahit-style red brick tower, with Mughal-style building in the background, exemplifying the adoption and syncretism of local elements within Islam practiced in the region.]]

Unlike in other Islamic regions, Islam developed in Southeast Asia in a distinctly syncretic manner that allowed the continuation and inclusion of elements and ritual practices of Hinduism, Buddhism and ancient Pan-East Asian animism. Most principalities developed highly distinctive cultures as a result of centuries of active participation in cultural exchange situated at the cross-roads of the Maritime Silk Road coming from across the Indian Ocean in the West and the South China Sea in the East. Cultural and institutional adoption was a creative and selective process, in which foreign elements were incorporated into a local synthesis.{{cite journal |url=https://www.academia.edu/2839951 |title=Ghazwul fikri or Arabisation? Indonesian Muslim responses to globalisation |journal=In: Ken Miichi and Omar Farouk (Eds), Southeast Asian Muslims in the Era of Globalization, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, Pp. 61-85 |publisher=Academia.edu |access-date=4 February 2017|last1=Bruinessen |first1=Martin van |date=January 2014 }} Unlike some other "Islamised" regions like North Africa, Iberia, the Middle East and later northern India, Islamic faith in Southeast Asia was not enforced in the wake of territorial conquests, but because of trade routes. In this way, the Islamisation of Southeast Asia is more akin to that of Turkic Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, southern India and northwest China.

There are various records of lay Muslim missionaries, scholars and mystics, particularly Sufis, who were active in peacefully proselytizing in Southeast Asia. Java, for example, received Islam by nine men, referred to as the "Wali Sanga" or "Nine Saints," although the historical identity of such people is almost impossible to determine. The foundation of the first Islamic kingdom in Sumatra, the Samudera Pasai Sultanate, took place during the 13th century.

The conversion of the remnants of the Buddhist Srivijaya empire that once controlled trade in much of Southeast Asia, in particular the Strait of Malacca, marked a religious turning point with the conversion of the strait into an Islamic water. With the fall of Srivijaya, the way was open for effective and widespread proselytization and the establishment of Muslim trading centers. Many modern Malays view the Sultanate of Malacca, which existed from the 15th to the early 16th century, as the first political entity of contemporary Malaysia.{{cite report |url=http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/RP11-78 |title=Southeast Asia: A political and economic introduction – Commons Library briefing – UK Parliament |last1=Thompson |first1=Gavin |last2=Lunn |first2=Jon |date=14 December 2011 |publisher=Researchbriefings.parliament.uk |access-date=4 February 2017}}

The idea of equality before God for the Ummah (the people of God) and a personal religious effort through regular prayer in Islam could have been more appealing than a perceived fatalism in Hinduism at the time.{{cite journal |last1=Elder |first1=Joseph W. |date=July 1966 |title=Fatalism in India: A Comparison between Hindus and Muslims |journal=Anthropological Quarterly |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=227–243 |doi=10.2307/3316807 |jstor=3316807}} However, Islam also taught obedience and submission, which could have helped guarantee that the social structure of a converted people or political entity saw less fundamental changes.

File:Malays from the Malacca Sultanate Codice Casanatense.jpg of Malacca, 1540. Malacca sultanate played a significant role in spreading Islamic faith in the region]]

Islam and its notion of exclusivity and finality is seemingly incompatible with other religions, including the Chinese concept of heavenly harmony and the Son of Heaven as its enforcer. The integration of the traditional East Asian tributary system with China at the centre Muslim Malays and Indonesians exacted a pragmatic approach of cultural Islam in diplomatic relations with China.{{cite web |url=http://docs8.minhateca.com.br/856445015,BR,0,0,A-Short-History-of-China-and-Southeast-Asia.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://docs8.minhateca.com.br/856445015,BR,0,0,A-Short-History-of-China-and-Southeast-Asia.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=A Short History of China and Southeast Asia.pdf – A Short History of Asia |publisher=Docs8.minhateca.com |access-date=4 February 2017}}

{{main|Ming treasure voyages}}

File:2016 Malakka, Stadhuys (09).jpg in Malacca.]]

By the end of the 14th century, Ming China had conquered Yunnan in the South, yet it had lost control of the Silk Road after the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty. The ruling Yongle Emperor resolved to focus on the Indian Ocean sea routes, seeking to consolidate the ancient Imperial Tributary System, establish greater diplomatic and military presence, and widen the Chinese sphere of influence. He ordered the construction of a huge trade and representation fleet that, between 1405 and 1433, undertook several voyages into Southeast Asia, India, the Persian Gulf, and as far as East Africa. Under the leadership of Zheng He, hundreds of naval vessels of then unparalleled size, grandeur, and technological advancement and manned by sizeable military contingents, ambassadors, merchants, artists and scholars repeatedly visited major Southeast Asian principalities. The individual fleets engaged in a number of clashes with pirates and occasionally supported various royal contenders. However, pro-expansionist voices at the court in Beijing lost influence after the 1450s, and the voyages were discontinued. The protraction of the ritualistic ceremonies and scanty travels of emissaries in the Tributary System alone was not sufficient to develop firm and lasting Chinese commercial and political influence in the region, especially during the impending onset of highly competitive global trade. During the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Daxia, who later became the Shangshu of the Ministry of War, hid or burned the archives of Ming treasure voyages.{{cite web |url=http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1000ce_mingvoyages.htm |title=The Ming Voyages |publisher=Columbia University |access-date=25 March 2018}}{{cite web |url=https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/expansion-interconnection/exploration-interconnection/a/zheng-he |title= Zheng He – Chinese Admiral in the Indian Ocean |publisher=Khan Academy |access-date=25 March 2018}}

{{main|European colonisation of Southeast Asia}}

File:European colonisation of Southeast Asia.png}}
{{Legend2|#ff6a00|Netherlands}}
{{Legend2|#00ff21|Portugal}}
{{Legend2|#ffd800|Spain}}
{{Legend2|#ff006e|United Kingdom}}]]

The earliest Europeans to have visited Southeast Asia were Marco Polo during the 13th century in the service of Kublai Khan and Niccolò de' Conti during the early 15th century. Regular and momentous voyages only began in the 16th century after the arrival of the Portuguese, who actively sought direct and competitive trade. They were usually accompanied by missionaries, who hoped to promote Christianity.{{cite web |url=http://public-library.uk/ebooks/60/81.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://public-library.uk/ebooks/60/81.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title= The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian – Book III|publisher=Public Library UK |author=Thomas Wright |access-date=25 March 2018}}{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Niccolo-dei-Conti |title= Niccolò dei Conti|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |access-date=25 March 2018}}

Portugal was the first European power to establish a bridgehead on the lucrative maritime Southeast Asia trade route, with the conquest of the Sultanate of Malacca in 1511. The Netherlands and Spain followed and soon superseded Portugal as the main European powers in the region. In 1599, Spain began to colonise the Philippines via the Mexico-governed Viceroyalty of New Spain, which the Philippines was territory of. In 1619, acting through the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch took the city of Sunda Kelapa, renamed it Batavia (now Jakarta) as a base for trading and expansion into the other parts of Java and the surrounding territory. In 1641, the Dutch took Malacca from the Portuguese.For fifty or sixty years, the Portuguese enjoyed the exclusive trade to China and Japan. In 1717, and again in 1732, the Chinese government offered to make Macao the emporium for all foreign trade, and to receive all duties on imports; but, by a strange infatuation, the Portuguese government refused, and its decline is dated from that period. (Roberts, 2007 PDF image 173 p. 166) Economic opportunities attracted Overseas Chinese to the region in great numbers. In 1775, the Lanfang Republic, possibly the first republic in the region, was established in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, as a tributary state of the Qing Empire; the republic lasted until 1884, when it fell under Dutch occupation as Qing influence waned.Other experiments in republicanism in adjacent regions were the Japanese Republic of Ezo (1869) and the Republic of Taiwan (1895).

File:Retrato de Afonso de Albuquerque (após 1545) - Autor desconhecido.png, the first European to conquer a part of Southeast Asia of Malacca.]]

The British, in the guise of the East India Company led by Josiah Child, had little interest or impact in the region, and were effectively expelled following the Anglo-Siamese War. Britain later turned their attention to the Bay of Bengal following the Peace with France and Spain (1783). During the conflicts, Britain had struggled for naval superiority with the French, and the need of good harbours became evident. Penang Island had been brought to the attention of the Government of India by Francis Light. In 1786, the settlement of George Town was founded at the northeastern tip of Penang Island by Captain Francis Light, under the administration of Sir John Macpherson; this marked the beginning of British expansion into the Malay Peninsula.{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PrATTr4zRO0C&pg=PA22|title=Journal of an Embassy from the Governor–general of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China|last=Crawfurd|first=John|date=August 2006|publisher=H. Colburn and R. Bentley|edition=2nd|volume=1|location=London|at=image 52, p. 34|chapter=Chapter I – Description of the Settlement.|oclc=03452414|author-link=John Crawfurd|orig-year=First published 1830|access-date=10 February 2014|isbn=9788120612372}}Company agent John_Crawfurd used the census taken in 1824 for a statistical analysis of the relative economic prowess of the peoples there, giving special attention to the Chinese: The Chinese amount to 8595, and are landowners, field-labourers, mechanics of almost every description, shopkeepers, and general merchants. They are all from the two provinces of Canton and Fo-kien, and three-fourths of them from the latter. About five-sixths of the whole number are unmarried men, in the prime of life : so that, in fact, the Chinese population, in point of effective labour, may be estimated as equivalent to an ordinary population of above 37,000, and, as will afterwards be shown, to a numerical Malay population of more than 80,000! (Crawfurd image 48. p.30)

The British also temporarily possessed Dutch territories during the Napoleonic Wars; and Spanish areas in the Seven Years' War. In 1819, Stamford Raffles established Singapore as a key trading post for Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch. However, their rivalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarcated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. British rule in Burma began with the first Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826).

Early United States entry into what was then called the East Indies (usually in reference to the Malay Archipelago) was low key. In 1795, a secret voyage for pepper set sail from Salem, Massachusetts on an 18-month voyage that returned with a bulk cargo of pepper, the first to be so imported into the country, which sold at the extraordinary profit of seven hundred per cent.{{cite book |last=Trow |first=Charles Edward |title=The old shipmasters of Salem |chapter-url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028839152/cu31924028839152_djvu.txt |date=1905 |publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons |location=New York and London |oclc=4669778 |pages=xx–xxiii|chapter=Introduction |quote=When Captain Jonathan Carnes set sail. ...}} In 1831, the merchantman Friendship of Salem returned to report the ship had been plundered, and the first officer and two crewmen murdered in Sumatra.

File:1916 Dutch East Indies - Art.jpg representing the Dutch East Indies (1916). The text reads "Our most precious jewel."]]

The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 obligated the Dutch to ensure the safety of shipping and overland trade in and around Aceh, who accordingly sent the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army on the punitive expedition of 1831. President Andrew Jackson also ordered America's first Sumatran punitive expedition of 1832, which was followed by a punitive expedition in 1838. The Friendship incident thus afforded the Dutch a reason to take over Ache; and Jackson, to dispatch diplomatist Edmund Roberts,{{cite book|last=Roberts|first=Edmund (Digitised 12 October 2007)|author-link=Edmund Roberts (diplomat)|title=Embassy to the Eastern Courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat: In the U.S. Sloop-of-War Peacock During the Years 1832–34 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aSgPAAAAYAAJ|orig-year=1837|publisher=Harper & Brothers|oclc=12212199|chapter=Introduction|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aSgPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA5|quote=Having some years since become acquainted with the commerce of Asia and Eastern Africa, the information produced on my mind a conviction that considerable benefit would result from effecting treaties with some of the native powers bordering on the Indian ocean.|year=1837|isbn=9780608404066}} who in 1833 secured the Roberts Treaty with Siam. In 1856 negotiations for amendment of this treaty, Townsend Harris stated the position of the United States:

The United States does not hold any possessions in the East, nor does it desire any. The form of government forbids the holding of colonies. The United States therefore cannot be an object of jealousy to any Eastern Power. Peaceful commercial relations, which give as well as receive benefits, is what the President wishes to establish with Siam, and such is the object of my mission.{{cite web |url=http://www.mnh.si.edu/treasures/frame_exhibit_gallery1b_main.htm |title=1b. Harris Treaty of 1856|date=14 March 2013|orig-year=speech delivered 1856 |format=exhibition |work=Royal Gifts from Thailand |publisher=National Museum of Natural History|access-date=9 February 2014 }}

From the end of the 1850s onwards, while the attention of the United States shifted to maintaining their union, the pace of European colonisation shifted to a significantly higher gear. This phenomenon, denoted New Imperialism, saw the conquest of nearly all Southeast Asian territories by the colonial powers. The Dutch East India Company and British East India Company were dissolved by their respective governments, who took over the direct administration of the colonies.

File:Bird's Eye View of Iudiad City (Ayutthaya) c1665.jpg made by Johannes Vingboons a Dutch cartographer in 1665. During the European colonialism period in Southeast Asia, only Thailand was spared from the Western rule.]]

Only Thailand was spared the experience of foreign rule, though Thailand, too, was greatly affected by the power politics of the Western powers. The Monthon reforms of the late 19th Century continuing up till around 1910, imposed a Westernised form of government on the country's partially independent cities called Mueang, such that the country could be said to have successfully colonised itself.{{cite journal | last = Murdoch | first = John B. |year= 1974 |title= The 1901–1902 Holy Man's Rebellion |journal= Journal of the Siam Society |volume= JSS Vol.62.1e |issue= digital |page= 38 |publisher= Siam Heritage Trust |url= http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_062_1e_Murdoch_1901to1902HolyMansRebellion.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_062_1e_Murdoch_1901to1902HolyMansRebellion.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |access-date= 2 April 2013 |quote= .... Prior to the late nineteenth century reforms of King Chulalongkorn, the territory of the Siamese Kingdom was divided into three administrative categories. First were the inner provinces which were in four classes depending on their distance from Bangkok or the importance of their local ruling houses. Second were the outer provinces, which were situated between the inner provinces and further distant tributary states. Finally there were the tributary states which were on the periphery....}} Western powers did, however, continue to interfere in both internal and external affairs.{{cite journal|last=de Mendonha e Cunha |first=Helder|year=1971|title=The 1820 Land Concession to the Portuguese |journal=Journal of the Siam Society|volume=JSS Vol. 059.2g|issue=digital|publisher=Siam Society|url=http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_059_2g_Cunha_1820LandConcessionToPortuguese.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_059_2g_Cunha_1820LandConcessionToPortuguese.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=6 February 2014|quote=It was in Ayudhya that Portugal had its first official contact with the Kingdom of Siam, in 1511.}}{{cite journal|first=Peter B. |last=Oblas |year=1965 |title=A Very Small Part of World Affairs |journal=Journal of the Siam Society |volume=JSS Vol.53.1e |issue=digital |publisher=Siam Society |url=http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_059_2e_Oblas_VerySmallPartOfWorldAffairsSiamAndParisPeaceConference.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.siamese-heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_059_2e_Oblas_VerySmallPartOfWorldAffairsSiamAndParisPeaceConference.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=7 September 2013|quote=Negotiations 1909–1917. On the 8th of August 1909, Siam's Adviser in Foreign Affairs presented a proposal to the American Minister in Bangkok. The Adviser, Jens Westengard, desired a revision of the existing extraterritorial arrangement of jurisdictional authority. ...}}

File:Singapore River Stamford Raffles Statue.jpg in Singapore. The port city was the center of British rule in Southeast Asia, and has grown to become one of the world's major trading hubs.]]

By 1913, the British had occupied Burma, Malaya and the northern Borneo territories, the French controlled Indochina, the Dutch ruled the Netherlands East Indies while Portugal managed to hold on to Portuguese Timor. In the Philippines, the 1872 Cavite Mutiny was a precursor to the Philippine Revolution (1896–1898). When the Spanish–American War began in Cuba in 1898, Filipino revolutionaries declared Philippine independence and established the First Philippine Republic the following year. In the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that ended the war with Spain, the United States gained the Philippines and other territories; in refusing to recognise the nascent republic, America effectively reversed her position of 1856. This led directly to the Philippine–American War, in which the First Republic was defeated; wars followed with the Republic of Zamboanga, the Republic of Negros and the Republic of Katagalugan, all of which were also defeated.

Colonial rule had had a profound effect on Southeast Asia. While the colonial powers profited much from the region's vast resources and large market, colonial rule did develop the region to a varying extent. Commercial agriculture, mining and an export based economy developed rapidly during this period. The introduction Christianity bought by the colonist also have profound effect in the societal change.

Increased labour demand resulted in mass immigration, especially from British India and China, which brought about massive demographic change. The institutions for a modern nation state like a state bureaucracy, courts of law, print media and to a smaller extent, modern education, sowed the seeds of the fledgling nationalist movements in the colonial territories. In the inter-war years, these nationalist movements grew and often clashed with the colonial authorities when they demanded self-determination.

{{Further |Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere|List of territories occupied by Imperial Japan|South-East Asian theatre of World War II|Pacific War}}

File:Japanese light tanks moving toward Manila.jpg, January 1942.]]

In September 1940, following the Fall of France and pursuant to the Pacific war goals of Imperial Japan, the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Vichy French Indochina, which ended in the abortive Japanese coup de main in French Indochina of 9 March 1945. On 5 January 1941, Thailand launched the Franco-Thai War, ended on 9 May 1941 by a Japanese-imposed treaty signed in Tokyo.[http://www.ww2f.com/topic/12620-vichy-versus-asia-the-franco-siamese-war-of-1941/ Vichy versus Asia: The Franco-Siamese War of 1941] On 7/8 December, Japan's entry into World War II began with the invasion of Thailand, the only invaded country to maintain nominal independence, due to her political and military alliance with the Japanese—on 10 May 1942, her northwestern Payap Army invaded Burma during the Burma Campaign. From 1941 until war's end, Japanese occupied Cambodia, Malaya and the Philippines, which ended in independence movements. Japanese occupation of the Philippines led to the forming of the Second Philippine Republic, formally dissolved in Tokyo on 17 August 1945. Also on 17 August, a proclamation of Indonesian Independence was read at the conclusion of Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies since March 1942.

File:Bruce Crandall's UH-1D.jpg, November 1965.]]

With the rejuvenated nationalist movements in wait, the Europeans returned to a very different Southeast Asia after World War II. Indonesia declared independence on 17 August 1945 and subsequently fought a bitter war against the returning Dutch; the Philippines was granted independence by the United States in 1946; Burma secured their independence from Britain in 1948, and the French were driven from Indochina in 1954 after a bitterly fought war (the Indochina War) against communist Vietnamese nationalists. The United Nations provided a forum for nationalism, post-independent self-definition, nation-building and the acquisition of territorial integrity for many newly independent nations.{{cite web |url=http://projectsoutheastasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SEAS2012_OpeningPanel-Papers.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://projectsoutheastasia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SEAS2012_OpeningPanel-Papers.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Some reflections on Southeast Asia and its position in academia |publisher=Project Southeast Asia |author=Tom G. Hoogervorst |access-date= 14 January 2018}}

During the Cold War, countering the threat of communism was a major theme in the decolonisation process. After suppressing the communist insurrection during the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, Britain granted independence to Malaya and later, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak in 1957 and 1963 respectively within the framework of the Federation of Malaysia. In one of the most bloody single incidents of violence in Cold War Southeast Asia, General Suharto seized power in Indonesia in 1965 and initiated a massacre of approximately 500,000 alleged members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).

After French defeat in Điện Biên Phủ, France granted complete independence to the anti-communist State of Vietnam on 4 June 1954 before the communists took over the North in July.{{sfn|Turner|1975|p=93}} North Vietnamese attempts to conquer South Vietnam resulted in the Vietnam War. The conflict spread to Laos and Cambodia and heavy intervention from the United States. By the war's end in 1975, all these countries were controlled by communist parties. After the communist victory, two wars between communist states—the Cambodian–Vietnamese War of 1975–89 and the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979—were fought in the region. The victory of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia resulted in the Cambodian genocide.Frey, Rebecca Joyce (2009). Genocide and International Justice.Olson, James S.; Roberts, Randy (2008). Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945–1995 (5th ed.). Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing

In 1975, Portuguese rule ended in East Timor. However, independence was short-lived as Indonesia annexed the territory soon after. However, after more than 20 years of fighting Indonesia, East Timor won its independence and was recognised by the UN in 2002. Finally, Britain ended its protectorate of the Sultanate of Brunei in 1984, marking the end of European rule in Southeast Asia.

{{Further information|History of ASEAN}}File:Map_of_Southeast_Asia.png

File:ASEAN Nations Flags in Jakarta 3.jpg members' flags in Jakarta.]]

Modern Southeast Asia has been characterised by high economic growth by most countries and closer regional integration. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand have traditionally experienced high growth and are commonly recognised as the more developed countries of the region. As of late, Vietnam too had been experiencing an economic boom. However, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and the newly independent East Timor are still lagging economically.

On 8 August 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was founded by Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Since Cambodian admission into the union in 1999, East Timor is the only Southeast Asian country that is not part of ASEAN, although plans are under way for eventual membership. The association aims to enhance co-operation among Southeast Asian community. ASEAN Free Trade Area has been established to encourage greater trade among ASEAN members. ASEAN has also been a front runner in greater integration of Asia-Pacific region through East Asia Summits.

{{div col|colwidth=22em}}

• Buddhism in Southeast Asia
• Hinduism in Southeast Asia
• Islam in Southeast Asia
• Greater India
• Two Layer hypothesis
• Spratly Islands
• History of ASEAN
• History of Brunei
• History of Cambodia
• History of East Timor
• History of Indonesia
• History of Laos
• History of Malaysia
• History of Myanmar
• History of the Philippines
• History of Singapore
• History of Thailand
• History of Vietnam
• History of Asia
• Post - 1500 Southeast Asia Archaeology

{{div col end}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

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{{refend}}

• [https://www.researchgate.net/file.PostFileLoader.html?id...assetKey... A Short History of China and Southeast Asia.pdf]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050413155545/http://www.i3pep.org/archives/2004/11/18/ancient-southeast-asia/ Ancient Southeast Asia Throbbing Blood Tube]
• Wikiversity – Department of Southeast Asian History
• [http://toyoshi.lit.nagoya-u.ac.jp/maruha/kanseki 雲南・東南アジアに関する漢籍史料 ]
• [http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004329669 Citizenship and Democratization in Southeast Asia]
• [http://www.asianbarometer.org/publications/fcec32f13ab256a0262837fe2466c134.pdf Democracy and Citizen Politics in East Asia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221065515/http://www.asianbarometer.org/publications/fcec32f13ab256a0262837fe2466c134.pdf |date=21 February 2022 }}

{{Southeast Asian topics}}{{DEFAULTSORT:History of Southeast Asia}}