Agricultural Change and Ethnic Succession in Southeast Asian States: A Case for Regional Anthropology

Abstract

In the first millennium A.D. mainland Southeast Asia's first great states arise, but then in the span of a few centuries these Indianized realms collapse and their Pyu, Mon, Khmer, and Cham peoples decline. In their place Burmese, Tai, and Vietnamese states arise and go on to rule the mainland as their peoples come to dominate the second millennium. Case by case these shifts appear to be ethnic and political successions wherein the strong displace the weak, but seen together regionally the similarities suggest an agricultural change whereby an irrigated wet rice specialization from upland valleys displaced gardening and farming complexes native to the lowlands.

Complete mitochondrial genomes of Thai and Lao populations indicate an ancient origin of Austroasiatic groups and demic diffusion in the spread of Tai–Kadai languages

“…As the origin time of prehistorical TK-speaking groups is unknown, we employed the existing time of the Tai in southern China of ~3 kya, similar to a previous study (Sun et al 2013). Then, some prehistorical TK groups started to separate from their common ancestor with the Chinese Dai from their homeland in southern China and spread southward to the area of present-day Thailand in the last 1–2 kya (O’Connor 1995; Penth 2000; Pittayaporn 2014). Some TK groups finally reached northern Thailand where LW groups are native inhabitants and founded their kingdom, named Lanna around the end of the thirteenth century A.D. (Condominas 1990).…”

“…Although the origin and spread of AA is debatable (Chaubey et al 2011; Diffloth 2005), AA people are generally considered to be descended from the earliest inhabitants of the region (Condominas 1990; Penth 2000). TK is generally considered to have arisen in southeast China prior to 2.5 kya and then spread to SEA between 1 and 2 kya (O’Connor 1995; Pittayaporn 2014). …”

Local and International Trade and Traders in The Straits of Melaka Region: 600-1500

“…A shared spiritual bond would have lessened the communal separation and local suspicion of merchants. On the other hand, in Thailand and elsewhere regionally there was frequently a continuing sense of separation between traders and local societies, wherein merchants, who pursue personal profit and whose cultural patterns differ from local residents, have always been outsiders relative to non-commercial community members (O'Conner 1995;Evers and Schrader 2000). In part, this social separation freed merchants from local societal reciprocity obligations, and thus allowed them to make and retain their profits; it also eliminated wealthy merchants from direct participation in local competitions for power.…”

Mobilization and state formation on a frontier of Vietnam

“…If the settlement of Southeast Asia's highland frontiers has a long history intertwined with ethnic identities, migration patterns, and forms of agriculture (Lieberman 2003, O'Connor 1995, then this paper focuses on a formative moment in the 1950s: when the DRV emerged to challenge French colonial rule in Indochina and to consolidate and centralize rule in territory that came to be known as Vietnam's Northwest (Taˆy B c). It was during this period of warfare and its aftermath when mobilization appeared as a concrete practice of militarized claim-making and a social process that did not always work as intended.…”