Southeast Asia ranks among the most significant regions in the world for tracing the prehistory of human endeavor over a period in excess of two million years. It lies in the direct path of successive migrations from the African homeland that saw settlement by hominin populations such as Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. The first Anatomically Modern Humans, following a coastal route, reached the region at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter gatherer tradition that survives to this day in remote forests. From about 2000 BC, human settlement of Southeast Asia was deeply affected by successive innovations that took place to the north and west, such as rice and millet farming. A millennium later, knowledge of bronze casting penetrated along the same pathways. Copper mines were identified and exploited, and metals were exchanged over hundreds of kilometers. In the Mekong Delta and elsewhere, these developments led to early states of the region, which benefitted from an agricultural revolution involving permanent ploughed rice fields. These developments illuminate how the great early kingdoms of Angkor, Champa, and Funan came to be, a vital stage in understanding the roots of the present nation states of Southeast Asia. Assembling the most current research across a variety of disciplines--from anthropology and archaeology to history, art history, and linguistics--The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia will present an invaluable resource to experienced researchers and those approaching the topic for the first time.

"Southeast Asia is one of the most significant regions in the world for tracing human prehistory over a period of 2 million years. Migrations from the African homeland saw settlement by Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. Anatomically Modern Humans reached Southeast Asia at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter-gatherer tradition, adapting as climatic change saw sea levels fluctuate by over 100 metres. From about 2000 BC, settlement was affected by successive innovations that took place to the north and west. The first rice and millet farmers came by riverine and coastal routes to integrate with indigenous hunters. A millennium later, knowledge of bronze casting penetrated along similar pathways. Copper mines were identified, and metals were exchanged over hundreds of kilometres as elites commanded access to this new material. This Bronze Age ended with the rise of a maritime exchange network that circulated new ideas, religions and artefacts with adjacent areas of present-day India and China. Port cities were founded as knowledge of iron forging rapidly spread, as did exotic ornaments fashioned from glass, carnelian, gold and silver. In the Mekong Delta, these developments led to an early transition into the state known as Funan. However, the transition to early states in inland regions arose as a sharp decline in monsoon rains stimulated an agricultural revolution involving permanent ploughed rice fields. These twin developments illuminate how the great early kingdoms of Angkor, Champa and Central Thailand came to be, a vital stage in understanding the roots of modern states"--

Southeast Asia ranks among the most significant regions in the world for tracing the prehistory of human endeavor over a period in excess of two million years. It lies in the direct path of successive migrations from the African homeland that saw settlement by hominin populations such as Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. The first Anatomically Modern Humans, following a coastal route, reached the region at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter gatherer tradition that survives to this day in remote forests. From about 2000 BC, human settlement of Southeast Asia was deeply affected by successive innovations that took place to the north and west, such as rice and millet farming. A millennium later, knowledge of bronze casting penetrated along the same pathways. Copper mines were identified and exploited, and metals were exchanged over hundreds of kilometers. In the Mekong Delta and elsewhere, these developments led to early states of the region, which benefitted from an agricultural revolution involving permanent ploughed rice fields. These developments illuminate how the great early kingdoms of Angkor, Champa, and Funan came to be, a vital stage in understanding the roots of the present nation states of Southeast Asia. Assembling the most current research across a variety of disciplines--from anthropology and archaeology to history, art history, and linguistics--The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia will present an invaluable resource to experienced researchers and those approaching the topic for the first time.

A wide-ranging and accessible introduction to the origins and histories of the first agricultural populations in many different parts of the world This fully revised and updated second edition of First Farmers examines the origins of food production across the world and documents the expansions of agricultural populations from source regions during the past 12,000 years. It commences with the archaeological records from the multiple homelands of agriculture, and extends into discussions that draw on linguistic and genomic information about the human past, featuring new findings from the last ten years of research. Through twelve chapters, the text examines the latest evidence and leading theories surrounding the early development of agricultural practices through data drawn from across the anthropological discipline—primarily archaeology, comparative linguistics, and biological anthropology—to present a cohesive history of early farmer migration. Founded on the author's insights from his research into the agricultural prehistory of East and Southeast Asia—one of the best focus areas for the teaching of prehistoric archaeology—this book offers an engaging account of how prehistoric humans settled new landscapes. The second edition has been thoroughly updated with many new maps and illustrations that reflect the multidisciplinary knowledge of the present day. Authored by a leading scholar with wide-ranging experience across the fields of anthropology and archaeology, First Farmers, Second Edition includes information on: The early farming dispersal hypothesis in current perspective, plus operational considerations regarding the origins and dispersals of agriculture The archaeological evidence for the origins and spreads of agriculture in the Eurasian, African and American continents The histories of the language families that spread with the first farming populations, and the evidence from biological anthropology and ancient DNA that underpins our modern knowledge of these migrations Drawing evidence from across the sub-disciplines of anthropology to present a cohesive and exciting analysis of an important subject in the study of human population history, Farmers First, Second Edition is an important work of scholarship and an excellent introduction to multiple methods of anthropological and archaeological inquiry for the beginner student in prehistoric anthropology and archaeology, human migration, archaeology of East and Southeast Asia, agricultural history, comparative anthropology, and more disciplines across the anthropology curriculum.

The Angkorian World explores the history of Southeast Asia’s largest ancient state from the first to mid-second millennium CE. Chapters by leading scholars combine evidence from archaeology, texts, and the natural sciences to introduce the Angkorian state, describe its structure, and explain its persistence over more than six centuries. Comprehensive and accessible, this book will be an indispensable resource for anyone studying premodern Asia. The volume’s first of six sections provides historical and environmental contexts and discusses data sources and the nature of knowledge production. The next three sections examine the anthropogenic landscapes of Angkor (agrarian, urban, and hydraulic), the state institutions that shaped the Angkorian state, and the economic foundations on which Angkor operated. Part V explores Angkorian ideologies and realities, from religion and nation to identity. The volume’s last part reviews political and aesthetic Angkorian legacies in an effort to explain why the idea of Angkor remains central to its Cambodian descendants. Maps, graphics, and photographs guide readers through the content of each chapter. Chapters in this volume synthesise more than a century of work at Angkor and in the regions it influenced. The Angkorian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson who seeks to understand how this great Angkorian Empire arose and functioned in the premodern world. The Prologue and Chapters 2, 10, 15, 23, 30 and 32 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Born from the fields of Islamic art and architectural history, the archaeological study of the Islamic societies is a relatively young discipline. With its roots in the colonial periods of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its rapid development since the 1980s warrants a reevaluation of where the field stands today. This Handbook represents for the first time a survey of Islamic archaeology on a global scale, describing its disciplinary development and offering candid critiques of the state of the field today in the Central Islamic Lands, the Islamic West, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. The international contributors to the volume address such themes as the timing and process of Islamization, the problems of periodization and regionalism in material culture, cities and countryside, cultural hybridity, cultural and religious diversity, natural resource management, international trade in the later historical periods, and migration. Critical assessments of the ways in which archaeologists today engage with Islamic cultural heritage and local communities closes the volume, highlighting the ethical issues related to studying living cultures and religions. Richly illustrated, with extensive citations, it is the reference work on the debates that drive the field today.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the collapse of empires in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, analysing the ways in which European, Asian, and African empires disintegrated over the past century.

The Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology focuses on the material culture and lifeways of the peoples of prehistoric and early historic East and Southeast Asia; their origins, behavior and identities as well as their biological, linguistic and cultural differences and commonalities. Emphasis is placed upon the interpretation of material culture to illuminate and explain social processes and relationships as well as behavior, technology, patterns and mechanisms of long-term change and chronology, in addition to the intellectual history of archaeology as a discipline in this diverse region. The Handbook augments archaeologically-focused chapters contributed by regional scholars by providing histories of research and intellectual traditions, and by maintaining a broadly comparative perspective. Archaeologically-derived data are emphasized with text-based documentary information, provided to complement interpretations of material culture. The Handbook is not restricted to art historical or purely descriptive perspectives; its geographical coverage includes the modern nation-states of China, Mongolia, Far Eastern Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.

A groundbreaking history of how the Black Death unleashed revolutionary change across the medieval world and ushered in the modern age In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labour, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion. James Belich takes readers across centuries and continents to shed new light on one of history’s greatest paradoxes. Why did Europe’s dramatic rise begin in the wake of the Black Death? Belich shows how plague doubled the per capita endowment of everything even as it decimated the population. Many more people had disposable incomes. Demand grew for silks, sugar, spices, furs, gold, and slaves. Europe expanded to satisfy that demand—and plague provided the means. Labour scarcity drove more use of waterpower, wind power, and gunpowder. Technologies like water-powered blast furnaces, heavily gunned galleons, and musketry were fast-tracked by plague. A new “crew culture” of “disposable males” emerged to man the guns and galleons. Setting the rise of Western Europe in global context, Belich demonstrates how the mighty empires of the Middle East and Russia also flourished after the plague, and how European expansion was deeply entangled with the Chinese and other peoples throughout the world.