The Archaeology of Early Maritime Polities of Southeast Asia

Abstract

As a consequence of the epistemological and methodological leap forward brought about by protohistorical and early historical studies, the emergence of complex polities on the shores of western Southeast Asia during the early first millennium ad can now be firmly associated with regional and long-distance maritime trade networks. Some of the first coastal communities of Southeast Asia actively engaged in long-distance maritime trade are located in the Strait of Melaka. Further east along the maritime route, the complex of sites known collectively as Buni, a few kilometres inland in West Java, gained deserved fame when it yielded the first Indian rouletted wares to be identified in a Southeast Asian context. Between the third and fifth centuries ad, the appearance of foreign textual sources with specific information on Southeast Asia brings about a momentous change in the perception of the region.

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