![]() By the mid 11th century Bagan began to dominate Upper Burma, and the region began a transition from a system of largely autonomous city states to a centralised kingdom. The archaeological evidence indicates that a settlement was forming at Bagan during the last centuries of the first millennium AD. The early urban system was subject over time to a range of stresses including siltation of water systems, external disruption and social changes as Buddhist notions of leadership eclipsed Brahmanical ones. The leaders of the urban centres adopted Indic symbols and Sanskrit modes of kingship to enhance and extend their authority. The appearance of the early urban “Pyu” system of walled central places during the early first millennium AD seems to have involved a spread of agricultural and management skills and population from the Samon. Increasing technological and settlement complexity in the Samon Valley suggests that a distinctive culture whose agricultural and trade success can be read in the archaeological record of the Late Prehistoric period developed there. Finds of polished stone and bronze artifacts suggest the existence of early metal-using cultures in the Chindwin and Samon River Valleys, and along parts of the Ayeyarwady plain. The archaeological landscape of Upper Burma from the middle of the first millennium BC to the Bagan period in the 13th-14th century AD is a landscape of continuity. Although such models were also available from neighboring China, apprehension about Chinese expansion led the rulers of emergent chiefdoms in Southeast Asia to prefer the adoption of Indian political and religious iconography. Subcontinental traditions became attractive at this time because of the advent of strong political entities in the Indian subcontinent, notably the Guptas, which produced coherent models of political, social and religious organization. After the fourth century, the adoption of subcontinental traditions-religious iconography, Sanskrit terminology, coinage, and terms identifying leaders-is seen throughout the area of Southeast Asia, from Bangladesh to Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand as well as the larger Indonesian islands. Prior to the fourth century C.E., Indian trade activities with Southeast Asia appear to have been relatively infrequent, when assessed through the number of items of Indian origin recovered, and the incentives for such trade from the Indian point of view. The idea that Indian "influence" was responsible for the socio-political development of early Southeast Asia is now largely discredited, but the question of the actual impact of early trade between India and Southeast Asia remains. ![]()
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