Southeast Asian early Maritime Silk Road trading polities’ hinterland and the sea-nomads of the Isthmus of Kra

Abstract

In Southeast Asia, archaeological research has recently shown that the earliest centralised polities qualifying as incipient States emerged by the late 5 th and early 4 th c. BCE (Kim 2013; Stark 2015; Bellina 2017; Bellina 2018). Understanding of their hinterland is still very limited. This essay presents the results of a regional study conducted since 2005 in the Isthmus of Kra in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, a narrow piece of land located between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. It argues that in this region, Maritime Silk Road incipient trading states' emergence went along economic specialisation, cultural differentiation and cooperation between different groups participating in local and long-distance networks. Amongst these so-called "marginal" groups emerge "sea nomads". Like those described in historical and ethnographic sources some of which are referred to here, these early sea nomads appeared to have already played a crucial economic and political role as part of these maritime trading polities hinterland. Along with an archaeology of sea nomadism, this study opens perspectives on reconstructing a more complete narrative of Southeast Asia and beyond of the Maritime Silk Road, a narrative that integrates marginal groups.

Archaeobotanical evidence of plant cultivation from the Sanbaopi site in south-western Taiwan during the Late Neolithic and Metal Age

“…It is possible that they first spread to continental China before they reached Taiwan. An alternative scenario is that the crops arrived via Southeast Asia through maritime exchange connections across the South China Sea, which intensified from the middle of the first millennium BCE (Bellina et al, 2019; Calo et al, 2020; Hung et al, 2013). Records of glass beads and stone casting moulds from the archaeological sites Beinan, Sanhe and Jiuxianglan (Figure 1b) in south-eastern Taiwan dated to around 400 BCE is currently the oldest evidence for the onset of the Metal Age on the island and constitute a link between Taiwan and Peninsular Thailand via Island Southeast Asia (Hung and Chao, 2016).…”

Angkor Borei and Protohistoric Trade Networks: A View from the Glass and Stone Bead Assemblage

“…During Phase 1, and likely before contact with South Asia, numerous coastal communities were connected to one another via the South China Sea and the exchange of prestige objects such as locally produced nephrite ear ornaments (Hung and Bellwood 2010;Hung et al 2007;Hung et al 2013) and Dongson bronze objects (Calo 2014). Several Southeast Asian archaeologists have used such models to explain the growth of sociopolitical complexity in coastal communities that ostensibly controlled the exchange of prestige objects with inland populations (Bellina et al 2019;Bronson 1977;Christie 1990Christie , 1995Junker 1994;Manguin 2002Manguin , 2009b.…”

The production technology of mineral soda alumina glass: A perspective from microstructural analysis of glass beads in Iron Age Taiwan

“…This indicates that the expansion of the South China Sea network, as well as the interaction with the Bay of Bengal network to the west of Southeast Asia, in the Iron Age took place within complex, dynamic and multi-dimensional paths, for a long duration and at variable rates. More comprehensive discussion to the exchange mechanism of artefacts made of m-Na-Al sub-type 1 glass is found elsewhere [ 7 , 9 , 10 , 12 ].…”