far northeastern Indonesia includes banded agate beads and black beads
etched in white, reflecting a style that originated with the Harappans.
The introduction of international trade to an area that had been largely
self-contained did have profound social and political impacts not unlike it
did in Central and Northern Europe. Some of the societies of Southeast Asia,
particularly those that were already producing substantial rice surpluses and
were well advanced in metal production, were already on a trajectory leading
to stratified class systems, urbanization, and statehood. Large-scale long-
distance trade greatly enhanced this process. In other areas where this was
not already under way, trade became a primary factor in generating it. Large-
scale trade required organization to produce the commodities foreign traders
wanted, a function undertaken by traditional leaders. A range of new pro-
ducts became available to elites who used them to enhance their status and
power, reinforcing their interest in perpetuating the system. Chiefs, in the
process of becoming kings, orchestrated theflow of goods into and out of the
areas they controlled. As local areas became absorbed into market networks
and their rulers assumed more control over the material wealth it generated,
they were able to exercise more power over their people. States emerged.
The earliest states in Southeast Asia developed at strategic commercial
locations, one of the most favored being on the northern section of the Malay
peninsula at the Isthmus of Kra, the narrowest point on the peninsula at
only 35 miles wide. Commercial communities were located here, and valu-
able resources were nearby, including tin and forest products. As the trade
network connection to India took shape, Kra became its linchpin for a while.
On the west coast of Kra, cargo was offloaded and shipped by land portage
to the Gulf of Thailand, where it was reloaded onto new ships and sent out
into the South China Sea. The monsoons determined the schedule. When
northeast winds were blowing, ships could sail from India or China to
Southeast Asia, where they had to lay over until the winds shifted and the
southwest monsoon took them home. Thus ships arrived from both directions
at the same time and departed at the same time.
The earliest state in Southeast Asia for which any substantive information
is available is known to history by the name the Chinese gave it, Funan. It
was not on the Isthmus of Kra but across the Gulf of Thailand on the
southern coast of Vietnam in the Mekong delta and upriver in southeastern
Cambodia. Nor was it a little city state like those at Kra but rather a country
with at least two major cities, a port and a capital. Or at least that is what
Chinese sources relate. Modern historians are not so sure, and current spec-
ulation is more inclined to see this region as consisting of a series of small,
competing principalities scattered along the coast and up the river, with
Funan referring either to one particular place that made an impression on the
Chinese or to the area in general. Funan’s advantage over Kra was that it
contained extensive rice lands whereas Kra had mostly forest. Thus Funan
could feed without difficulty its own population and the merchants and
114 The all-water route