The history of Southeast Asia covers the people of Southeast Asia from prehistory to the present in two distinct sub-regions:Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia. Mainland Southeast Asia comprises Cambodia,Laos,Myanmar,Peninsular Malaysia,Thailand and Vietnam whereas Maritime Southeast Asia comprises Brunei,Cocos (Keeling) Islands,Christmas Island,East Malaysia,East Timor,Indonesia,Philippines and Singapore.
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders,also called shipwrights,follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.
A junk is a type of Chinese sailing ship characterized by a central rudder,an overhanging flat transom,watertight bulkheads,and a flat-bottomed design. They are also characteristically built using iron nails and clamps. Chinese junk could refer to one of many types of small coastal or river ships,usually serving as a cargo ship,pleasure boat,or houseboat,but also ranging in size up to large ocean-going vessels. There can be significant regional variations in the type of rig or the layout of the vessel.
The spice trade involved historical civilizations in Asia,Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices such as cinnamon,cassia,cardamom,ginger,pepper,nutmeg,star anise,clove,and turmeric were known and used in antiquity and traded in the Eastern World. These spices found their way into the Near East before the beginning of the Christian era,with fantastic tales hiding their true sources.
Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei,Indonesia,Malaysia,the Philippines,Singapore,and East Timor.
Sculling is the use of oars to propel a boat by moving them through the water on both sides of the craft,or moving one oar over the stern. A long,narrow boat with sliding seats,rigged with two oars per rower may be referred to as a scull,its oars may be referred to as sculls and a person rowing it referred to as sculler.
Outrigger boats are various watercraft featuring one or more lateral support floats known as outriggers,which are fastened to one or both sides of the main hull. They can range from small dugout canoes to large plank-built vessels. Outrigger boats can also vary in their configuration,from the ancestral double-hull configuration (catamarans),to single-outrigger vessels prevalent in the Pacific Islands and Madagascar,to the double-outrigger vessels (trimarans) prevalent in Island Southeast Asia. They are traditionally fitted with Austronesian sails,like the crab claw sails and tanja sails,but in modern times are often fitted with petrol engines.
Greater India,also known as the Indian cultural sphere,or the Indic world,is an area composed of several countries and regions in South Asia,East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Indian culture,which itself formed from the various distinct indigenous cultures of South Asia. It is an umbrella term encompassing the Indian subcontinent and surrounding countries,which are culturally linked through a diverse cultural cline. These countries have been transformed to varying degrees by the acceptance and introduction of cultural and institutional elements from each other. The term Greater India as a reference to the Indian cultural sphere was popularised by a network of Bengali scholars in the 1920s,but became obsolete in the 1970s.
Indian maritime history begins during the 3rd millennium BCE when inhabitants of the Indus Valley initiated maritime trading contact with Mesopotamia. India's long coastline which occurred due to the protrusion of India's Deccan Plteau helped it to make new trade relations with the Europeans,especially the Greeks,and the length of its coastline on the Indian Ocean is partly a reason why it's known as that since 1515,and was known as the Eastern Ocean earlier. The ocean was called so,due to the advent of international trade by the Europeans which still continues to this day. As per Vedic records,Indian traders and merchants traded with the far east and Arabia. During the Maurya Empire,there was a definite "naval department" to supervise the ships and trade. At the end of 1st century BCE Indian products reached the Romans during the rule of Augustus,and the Roman historian Strabo mentions an increase in Roman trade with India following the Roman annexation of Egypt. As trade between India and the Greco-Roman world increased,spices became the main import from India to the Western world,bypassing silk and other commodities. Indians were present in Alexandria while Christian and Jewish settlers from Rome continued to live in India long after the fall of the Roman Empire,which resulted in Rome's loss of the Red Sea ports,previously used to secure trade with India by the Greco-Roman world since the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Indian commercial connection with Southeast Asia proved vital to the merchants of Arabia and Persia during the 7th–8th century. A study published in 2013 found that some 11 percent of Australian Aboriginal DNA is of Indian origin and suggests these immigrants arrived about 4,000 years ago,possibly at the same time dingoes first arrived in Australia.
Malay was first used in the first millennia known as Old Malay,a part of the Austronesian language family. Over a period of two millennia,Malay has undergone various stages of development that derived from different layers of foreign influences through international trade,religious expansion,colonisation and developments of new socio-political trends. The oldest form of Malay is descended from the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the earliest Austronesian settlers in Southeast Asia. This form would later evolve into Old Malay when Indian cultures and religions began penetrating the region,most probably using the Kawi and Rencong scripts,some linguistic researchers say. Old Malay contained some terms that exist today,but are unintelligible to modern speakers,while the modern language is already largely recognisable in written Classical Malay of 1303 CE.
Archeological digs suggest a settlement on the northern bank of the Merbok River by the 1st millennium AD. The Merbok settlement was built near the estuary of the tributary river,the Sungai Batu. The early history of Kedah can be traced from various sources,from the prehistoric period,most famously the archaeological site of Bujang Valley,the early maritime trade of India,Persia,and the Arabs to the written works of early Chinese pilgrims and early Chinese records,and later to the partly-historical Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa and the Al-Tarikh Salasilah Negeri Kedah.
The Austronesian peoples,sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples,are a large group of peoples in Taiwan,Maritime Southeast Asia,parts of Mainland Southeast Asia,Micronesia,coastal New Guinea,Island Melanesia,Polynesia,and Madagascar that speak Austronesian languages. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam,Cambodia,Myanmar,Thailand,Hainan,the Comoros,and the Torres Strait Islands. The nations and territories predominantly populated by Austronesian-speaking peoples are sometimes known collectively as Austronesia.
A Borobudur ship is the 8th to 9th-century wooden double outrigger sailing vessel of Maritime Southeast Asia depicted in some bas reliefs of the Borobudur Buddhist monument in Central Java,Indonesia. It is a ship of Javanese people,derivative vessels of similar size still survived in East Java coastal trade at least until the 1940s.
Southeast Asia was in the Indian sphere of cultural influence from 290 BCE to the 15th century CE,when Hindu-Buddhist influences were incorporated into local political systems. Kingdoms in the southeast coast of the Indian subcontinent had established trade,cultural and political relations with Southeast Asian kingdoms in Burma,Bhutan,Thailand,the Sunda Islands,Malay Peninsula,Philippines,Cambodia,Laos,and Champa. This led to the Indianisation and Sanskritisation of Southeast Asia within the Indosphere,Southeast Asian polities were the Indianised Hindu-Buddhist Mandala.
The Maritime Silk Road or Maritime Silk Route is the maritime section of the historic Silk Road that connected Southeast Asia,East Asia,the Indian subcontinent,the Arabian Peninsula,eastern Africa,and Europe. It began by the 2nd century BCE and flourished until the 15th century CE. The Maritime Silk Road was primarily established and operated by Austronesian sailors in Southeast Asia,Tamil merchants in India and Southeast Asia,and by Persian and Arab traders in the Arabian Sea and beyond. China also started building their own trade ships much later,during the Song and Yuan dynasties from the 10th to the 14th centuries CE.
Bangka are various native watercraft of the Philippines. It originally referred to small double-outrigger dugout canoes used in rivers and shallow coastal waters,but since the 18th century,it has expanded to include larger lashed-lug ships,with or without outriggers. Though the term used is the same throughout the Philippines,"bangka" can refer to a very diverse range of boats specific to different regions. Bangka was also spelled as banca,panca,or panga in Spanish. It is also known archaically as sakayan.
Sampan panjang was a type of Malay fast boat from the 19th century. It was used especially by the sampan-men,or "Orang Laut". Historically,they can be found in Malaysia,Singapore,and Indonesia. This type of boat was used by Malay people as racing boat and as transport boat. The sampan panjang appeared at the first quarter of the 19th century,and disappeared at the turn of that century. These boats proved to be superior than European boats in racing purposes;they were easy winners when racing against the European yachts of that time.
Lashed-lug boats are ancient boat-building techniques of the Austronesian peoples. It is characterized by the use of raised lugs on the inner face of hull planks. These lugs have holes drilled in them so that other hull components such as ribs,thwarts or other structural components can be tied to them with natural fiber ropes. This allows a structure to be put together without any metal fastenings. The planks are further stitched together edge-to-edge by sewing or using dowels ("treenails") unto a dugout keel and the solid carved wood pieces that form the caps for the prow and stern. Characteristically,the shell of the boat is created first,prior to being lashed unto ribs. The seams between planks are also sealed with absorbent tapa bark and fiber that expands when wet or caulked with resin-based preparations.
Stern sculling is the use of a single oar over the stern of a boat to propel it with side-to-side motions that create forward lift in the water. The strict terminology of propulsion by oar is complex and contradictory,and varies by context. Stern sculling may also simply be referred to as "sculling",most commonly so in a maritime situation. In fresh water,and particularly in sport rowing,sculling is use of two oars on either side of the boat by each person,in contrast to sweep rowing,whereby each boat crew member employs a single oar,complemented by another crew member working on the opposite side with their oar.
Austronesian vessels are the traditional seafaring vessels of the Austronesian peoples of Taiwan,Maritime Southeast Asia,Micronesia,coastal New Guinea,Island Melanesia,Polynesia,and Madagascar. They also include indigenous ethnic minorities in Vietnam,Cambodia,Myanmar,Thailand,Hainan,the Comoros,and the Torres Strait Islands.
