Examines the transmission of ceremonial Dong Son bronze drums from their centres of production in north Vietnam and its immediate environs along river and maritime routes throughout mainland and island Southeast Asia from the perspective of Late Metal Age exchange networks. Examining the distribution across present national boundaries, this study focuses on what type of drums are found where to identify different phases and routes of transmission.

This study focuses on the distribution of early Dong Son bronze drums, from their centres of production in north Vietnam throughout Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, as evidence of cultural contact and cross-regional exchange along river and maritime routes from the late Metal Age to the proto-historic period. This is the period just prior to, and overlapping with, the first Chinese and Indian influences in the wider region. The exchange of bronze drums established alliances between early centres favouring the trade of other goods. Such early centres allow us to identify early cultural spheres which set the stage for the process of state formation in the historic period. Adopting a synoptic view over the entire distribution across present national boundaries, the author analyses the implications of what types of drums are found where. As a working tool towards this goal, she identifies specific regional clusters. Each cluster of drums highlights and clarifies specific questions regarding chronology, routes of transmission, the geographical extent of trade networks, and new local bronze casting traditions arising from the influence of the imported bronze drums.

This study focuses on the distribution of early bronze drums from their centres of production in north Vietnam throughout Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, as evidence of cultural contact and cross-regional exchange along river and maritime routes during the late Metal Age and the proto-historic period. This is the period just prior to, and overlapping with, the first Chinese and Indian influences in the region. The exchange of bronze drums established alliances between early centres favouring the trade of other goods, and defining early cultural spheres which set the stage for the process of state formation in the historic period. Adopting a synoptic view over the entire distribution across national boundaries, I analyse what types of drums are found where by identifying a series of regional clusters. Each cluster of drums highlights and clarifies specific questions regarding chronology, routes of transmission, the geographical extent of trade networks, and new local bronze casting traditions arising from the influence of the imported bronze drums.

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.

The study of historical Buddhism in premodern and early modern Southeast Asia stands at an exciting and transformative juncture. Interdisciplinary scholarship is marked by a commitment to the careful examination of local and vernacular expressions of Buddhist culture as well as to reconsiderations of long-standing questions concerning the diffusion of and relationships among varied texts, forms of representation, and religious identities, ideas, and practices. The twelve essays in this collection, written by leading scholars in Buddhist Studies and Southeast Asian history, epigraphy, and archaeology, comprise the latest research in the field to deal with the dynamics of mainland and (pen)insular Buddhism between the sixth and nineteenth centuries C.E. Drawing on new manuscript sources, inscriptions, and archaeological data, they investigate the intellectual, ritual, institutional, sociopolitical, aesthetic, and literary diversity of local Buddhisms, and explore their connected histories and contributions to the production of intraregional and transregional Buddhist geographies.