| Not much is known
about Cambodia prior to the first century. The
earliest inhabitants came to Indochina in several great waves of
migration over a period stretching over more than a thousand years.
One wave of people came northward from the Indonesian
archipelago. These brown-skinned people's life was based on fishing
and rice cultivation.
Another great wave came southward from Tibet and
China. These yellow-skinned people possessed metal-working skills and
the tradition of domesticating animals.
Around 350 BC, these 2 waves had blended and formed
a cluster of peoples, the Khmers were one of those, living in the
north of the present-day Cambodia. |
The early Khmers lived in small settlements along the
waterways. They fished, farmed, raised cattle and pigs and hunted using
spears, bows and arrows. Some fragments of pottery and a few iron
spearheads and stone knives have survived from this prehistoric Khmer
culture.
From the first century, Cambodia is known mostly through the
Chinese imperial records and a few inscriptions. The Khmer built an empire
that included big parts of Vietnam and most of Siam, stretching even into
Laos.
After the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism,
the Khmer lost their conquering spirit and the empire collapsed. It
is an issue of controversy whether those two facts were related.
Read through the different chapters of
Cambodian history:
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