Prehistory of Myanmar
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The prehistory of Burma (Myanmar) spanned hundreds of millennia to about 200
The Bronze Age arrived c. 1500 BCE when people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice, and domesticating chickens and pigs. The Iron Age arrived around 500 BCE when iron-working settlements emerged in an area south of present-day Mandalay.[2] Evidence also shows rice growing settlements of large villages and small cities that traded with their surroundings and as far as China between 500 BCE and 200 CE.[3] Bronze-decorated coffins and burial sites filled with the earthenware remains of feasting and drinking provide a glimpse of the lifestyle of their affluent society.[2]
Evidence of trade suggests ongoing migrations throughout the prehistory period though the earliest evidence of mass migrations only points to c. 200 BCE when the
Prehistory
Some of the earliest anthropoid primate fossils in the world, dating to about 40 million years ago,[8] were found in the Pondaung Formations in Pale Township, central Myanmar. These fossils include forms from the Eosimiidae and Amphipithecidae families and challenge beliefs that these early anthropoids originated from Africa.[9]
Timeline
Date | Event |
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750,000- 275,000 years BP | Lower Palaeolithic people of early Anyathian culture (Homo erectus) lived along the bank of the Ayeyawaddy river.
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275,000-25,000 years BP | Lower Palaeolithic people of late Anyathian culture |
11,000 BCE | Upper Palaeolithic people (Homo sapiens) live in Badah-lin caves which situated in Ywagan township in southern Shan States.
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7,000 - 2,000 BCE | Neolithic people live in Chindwin and Ayeyarwady rivers.
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1500 BCE | Earliest evidence of copper and bronze works, rice growing, domesticating chickens and pigs in Irrawaddy valley[11]
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500 BCE | Iron-working settlements south of present-day Mandalay[11] |
200 BCE | Irrawaddy valley from Yunnan
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Mesolithic age
Roughly polished stone implements of various sizes are often found in the Shan States of eastern Burma.[1][12] Pebble tools, including choppers and chopping tools, are found in the Pleistocene terrace deposits of the Irrawaddy Valley of Upper Myanmar. These complexes are collectively known as the Anyathians, thus, the culture is called the Anyathian culture. The Early Anyathian is characterised by single-edged core implements made on natural fragments of fossil wood and silicified tuff, which are associated with crude flake implements. However, domestications and polishing of stones, which are possible signs of Neolithic culture, are not known until the discovery of Padah Lin caves in Southern Shan State.[13]
Neolithic age
Three caves located near
Bronze Age
The finding of bronze axes at Nyaunggan located in
Another site is the area of Taungthaman, near Irrawaddy River within the walls of the 18th century capital, Amarapura, occupied from the late Neolithic through the early Iron Age, around the middle of the first millennium BCE.[1] Small trades and barters, as well as Animism had already begun in this age. The Taungthaman site was discovered in 1971 and bulldozed by the State Administration Council in 2023.[17]
Iron Age
Bronze and Iron Age cultures overlapped in Burma. This era saw the growth of agriculture and access to copper resources of the Shan hills, the semi-precious stone and iron resources of the Mount Popa Plateau, and the salt resources of Halin. The wealth is evident in grave items bought from Chinese kingdoms.[3] A notable characteristics of the people of this era is that they buried their dead together with decorative ceramics and common household objects such as bowls and spoons.[1]
Pre-Pagan period
The prehistory period came to a close c. 200 BCE when the
Pyu
Pyu city states' (
The city-states—five major walled cities and several smaller towns have been excavated—were all located in the three main irrigated regions of Upper Burma: the
The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing
The millennium-old civilisation came crashing down in the 9th century when the city-states were destroyed by repeated invasions from the
Mon
The
Burmans
The Burmans who had come down with the early 9th Nanzhao raids of the Pyu states remained in Upper Burma. (Trickles of Burman migrations may have begun as early as the 7th century.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g Cooler (2002): Chapter 1
- ^ a b Myint-U (2006): 45
- ^ a b Hudson (2005): 1
- ^ a b c Hall (1960): 8–10
- ^ a b c Moore (2007): 236
- ^ Aung-Thwin (2005): 16
- ^ Lieberman (2003): 114–115
- .
- ^ "Pondaung anthropoid primates paleontological sites". UNESCO World Heritage Conservation. 12 June 2018.
- S2CID 133664286.
- ^ a b U Than Myint, pp.45
- ^ Aung Thaw (1969): 15
- ^ Britannica, Anyathian
- ^ Aung Thaw (1969): 12–13
- ^ Hudson (2005): 2
- ^ Hudson (2005): 3
- ^ "Myanmar Junta Bulldozes Taungthaman Stone Age Site". The Irrawaddy. 10 January 2023.
- ^ a b Myint-U (2006): 51–52
- ^ Hall (1960): 11-12
- ^ Htin Aung (1967): 329
- ^ Hall (1960): 11
- ^ Lieberman (2003): 90
- ^ Harvey (1925): 24-25
References
- "Anyathian complex", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011
- Aung Thaw (1969). "The 'neolithic' culture of the Padah-Lin Caves" (PDF). The Journal of Burma Research Society. 52 (1). The Burma Research Society: 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2011.
- Cooler, Richard M. (2002). "Prehistoric and Animist Periods". Northern Illinois University. Archived from the original on 10 May 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2011.
- Hall, D.G.E. (1960). Burma (3rd ed.). Hutchinson University Library. ISBN 978-1-4067-3503-1.
- Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd.
- Htin Aung, Maung (1967). A History of Burma. New York and London: Cambridge University Press.
- Hudson, Bob (March 2005), "A Pyu Homeland in the Samon Valley: a new theory of the origins of Myanmar's early urban system" (PDF), Myanmar Historical Commission Golden Jubilee International Conference, archived from the original (PDF) on 26 November 2013
- Lieberman, Victor B. (2003). Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, volume 1, Integration on the Mainland. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-80496-7.
- Moore, Elizabeth H. (2007). Early Landscapes of Myanmar. Bangkok: River Books. ISBN 978-974-9863-31-2.
- Myint-U, Thant (2006). The River of Lost Footsteps—Histories of Burma. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-16342-6.