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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Hello people. Sorry for taking a long time to post this up. This post is all about the civilisation of Southeast Asia. Hope you understand the history of Southeast Asia more after reading this post:
Birth of Civilisation Unlike the study of India and China, study of Southeast Asia begins at a much later time – from c.200 BCE onwards. This is because it was only from this time that records about the region began to be kept, at first by Indian and Chinese traders and later, by the local people themselves. Southeast Asia is not made up of one large piece of land with wide, open plains. Instead, it consists of two distinct areas. The first is mainland Southeast Asia, which has several great rivers, such as the Irrawaddy and Mekong. These rivers flow through present-day Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Mainland Southeast Asia also has many jungles and mountains. The second distinct area is island Southeast Asia, which consists of thousands of islands separated by seas. Such environment made travel and large-scale farming difficult. Therefore, civilisations in Southeast Asia started with small groups of people that did not have much contact with one another. Artefacts like clay pottery and beads, together with cave wall paintings, have led historians to conclude that culture in Southeast Asia began in different parts of the region as early as c.6000 BCE. At that time, people lived in small villages near the sea. They lived by catching fish, and hunting animals and gathering food in the jungles. Development of Maritime Kingdoms Over the centuries, the first few Southeast Asian villages were transformed into cities. This led to the rise of maritime kingdoms or kingdoms near the sea. Rice and trade were the main factors that led to the rise of these kingdoms. [Rice] The people of Southeast Asia might have been among the first in the world to grow rice. Certainly, they were the first to domesticate the water buffalo and use it to plough rice fields. Since rice is a source of food, rice farmers made profits by selling their rice. The growing of rice thus allowed ancient Southeast Asia to prosper and the villages to grow into cities. [Trade] By c.200 BCE, the people of ancient Southeast Asia were skilled in building boats. With these boats, the people could sail across large stretches of oceans to trade with one another. Boats from one village would sail to another, where their goods would be unloaded for trading. New goods would be loaded for the traders to bring back to their villages. The villages on the coast thus acted as small ports. Goods that were traded included ivory, coconut, rice, bronze tools, bracelets and big ceremonial drums. The coastal villages in Southeast Asia developed rapidly as maritime trade or sea trade between India and China increased after 200 BCE. Traders sailing between China and India made the coastal villages their resting places. These villages offered unique Southeast Asian products such as coral and dried fish, which traders could bring back to China or India. In this way, some of the coastal villages developed into port cities. [Earliest Maritime Kindgoms - Funan and Srivijaya] Funan Funan (Capital: Oc-eo) existed from the 1st century CE to 6th century CE. Its control was to the extent of Southern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. Funan is the first major port city in Southeast Asia seems to have been near the village of Oc-eo in present-day southern Vietnam. Scholars think that this was the capital of a kingdom that Chinese traders called ‘Funan‘. Oc-eo was located near the Isthmus of Kra. Traders from India sailed to the western side of the Isthmus of Kra and had their goods carried overland to ships on the eastern side. Thus, Oc-eo was a convenient rest stop for these traders. Funan was also a rich rice-producing area. There was enough rice for the local people and the foreign traders. Hence, its good location and the availability of food led to the rise of Funan as a wealthy kingdom. Srivijaya Srivijaya (Capital: Palembang) existed from 7th century CE to 13th century CE. Its control was to the extent of both sides of the straits of Melaka, western Borneo and western Java. By the 5th century CE, Oc-eo was no longer an important port city. Traders from Sumatra and Java no longer stopped at Oc-eo when sailing to China. Similarly, Indian traders bypassed Funan and travelled down to the Straits of Melaka to trade in Sumatra and Java. This led to the rise of a new trading centre – the kingdom of Srivijaya. It served as a convenient port-of-call for traders. Thus, trade brought wealth to Srivijaya.Srivijaya started to decline in importance during the 13th century CE, when traders sailed directly to East Java. Srivijaya was also reduced in size when its enemies took away too much of its land. Features of Early Southeast Asian Civilisations From the records of Chinese visitors to Funan and other Southeast Asian port cities, historians are able to trace the features of early civilizations in Southeast Asia. [Government] Early Southeast Asia was ruled by kings. Religion was important to the kings and every Southeast Asian port city had a religious building. This building was usually made of stone. All other buildings, including the king’s palace and the house of officials, rich traders and common people, were made from wood. Since wood rots when exposed to the sun and rain for long periods of time, those houses have not survived till today. [Different Occupations] There were many people in the port cities who did different kinds of jobs. Apart from craftsmen, fishermen, sailors, and local and foreign traders, there were priests and officials from foreign countries. There were also people who built and repaired ships, as well as officials who were primarily responsible for bringing in trade and protecting foreign traders. As a result, these port cities were crowded with people from different countries and different cultures. Many different languages were heard in the market place. [Writing] By around 200 CE, many Southeast Asian rulers and officials had begun to keep written records of important event. Unfortunately, only those carved on stone have survived till today. Records were initially written in Sanskrit, a language brought by Indian traders and priests. After the 6th century CE, Southeast Asian kingdoms began to develop their own writing scripts. One of these was the Jawi script (Malay script using the Arabic alphabet) that is still used today. This is therefore, our last post. Hope you have learnt new things and understand the history or civilisations better after reading our blog. Bye! Saturday, February 7, 2009 Dear teachers and fellow classmates, Here is our web page and blog for the history project. We will be posting about civilisation of ancient India, China and Southeast Asia. Firstly, we will be posting about what is civilisation. What do you know about civilisation? Civilisation is about cultures that are developed over a long time and becomes very advanced. When groups of people start to live together and start to have their own way of life, we can therefore say that they have the same culture. This means that they literally obey same rules, laws, traditions, consume the same kind of food, and speak in the same language. River and seas had lots of uses in the past. It provided food and water for the people that lived in the past and also provided means of transport. Therefore, the people could trade easily with one another than before. This is the end of our first post, but we will be posting about the civilisations about ancient China, India and Southeast Asia soon, so stay tuned! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello once again. Today, we'll be posting about the civilisation of ancient China. China Civilization Chinese civilization was originally from the many city-states along the famous Yellow River valley, which was in the Neolithic era. The long written great history of China begins with the Shang Dynasty which started in ca. 1600 BC – ca. 1100 BC. The ancient Chinese writing from the Shang Dynasty which was on turtle shells have been already carbon dated to as early as 1500 BC. As it develops through the years, the origins of Chinese culture, literature and philosophy was slowly developed from the late Shang Dynasty to the early Zhou (1122 BC – 256 BC). From ancient to modern, the longest lasting dynasty. Written script evolved from ancient oracle script to the beginnings of modern Chinese writing. The feudal Zhou Dynasty eventually broke apart into individual city states, creating the Warring States period. In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huangdi united the various warring kingdoms and created the first Chinese empire. Successive dynasties in Chinese history developed bureaucratic systems that enabled the Emperor of China to directly control the vast territories. The conventional view of Chinese history is that of a country alternating between periods of political unity and disunity and occasionally becoming dominated by foreign peoples, most of whom were assimilated into the Han Chinese population. Cultural and political influences from many parts of Asia, carried by successive waves of immigration, expansion, and assimilation, merged to create modern Chinese culture. That was the civilisation of ancient China. Hope it was informative to you. Friday, February 6, 2009 Hey everyone. We will be posting about the civilisation of ancient India today. INDIA In the 1920s, archaeologists discovered remains of ancient cities spread over a wide area in the north-western part of India. Their discoveries showed that Indian civilisation began much earlier than the period of 500BCE. People began to move to the Indian Plain because of the fertile soil there in c. 3000BCE. The Indus learned how to control and redirect water from the Indus River by building dams so that they could limit the damage caused by the overflowing of the river and use water from the river to water their crops. Historians have concluded that there must have been a system of efficient government. The Granary was an important public building which was used to store grains such as barley, wheat. The Great Bath was a large public bath was believed to have been used for religious bathing. The Drainage system was the world's first complex underground drainage system. Some drains brought water to houses while others carried away waste material The Citadel was a large fort which peopled use to take shelter if an enemy has attacked the city. Here are some pictures of the features of the Indus Valley civilisation. Hope you enjoy!  The Drainage System  Granary  The Great Bath  Citadel We hope you have found this post helpful. We will be posting about the civilisation of Southeast Asia soon. |