Prehistoric Indonesia
Encyclopedia
Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in Indonesian archipelago region, spanned from Pleistocene
period to about 4th century CE when Kutai
edicted the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia
. However, unlike the clear distinction of prehictoric—historical period in Europe and the Middle east, those periods transitions and distinctions is quite unclear in Indonesia, mostly because Indonesia geographical conditions as a vast archipelago had caused some parts — especially the interior of distant islands — were virtually isolated from the rest of the world. For example, West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo began its historical period in early 4th century, and yet in the rest of Indonesia the megalithic culture still flourished and scripts was unknown, such as in Nias, Batak, and Toraja. The Papuans in Indonesian part of New Guinea
island were virtually still lived in stoneage until the first contacts with modern world in early 20th century. Even today the living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba
and Nias
.
appeared from under the Southeast Asian seas as the result of the Indian and Australian plates collides and slips under Sunda Plate
, sometimes in the early Cenozoic
era around 63 millions years ago. This tectonic collission creating Sunda volcanic Arc
that has produced chains of islands of Sumatra and Java, and the Lesser Sunda Islands. The region is known for its unstability due to volcano formations and other volcanic and tectonic activities; as well as climate changes; resulted in lowlands drowned occasionally under shallow seas, the formation of islands, the connection and disconnection of islands through narrow land-bridges, etc. The Indonesian archipelago nearly reached its present form in Pleistocene
period. For some periods the Sundaland was still linked with Asian mainland creating the land extension of Southeast Asia that enabled the migrations of some Asian animals and hominid species.
Fossilised remains of Homo erectus
, popularly known as the "Java Man
" discovered in Sangiran
, suggest the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited two million to 500,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago. Recent discoveries on the island of Flores
were dubbed "Flores Man" (Homo floresiensis
), a miniature hominoid that grew only three feet tall, although whether this constitutes a separate species is still in dispute. Flores Man seems to have shared some islands with Java Man until only 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct.
The archipelago was formed during the thaw after the latest ice age
. The narrow land bridges and narrow seas enabled the earliest human to travel in simple canoe and spread from mainland Asia eastward to New Guinea
and Australia
. The early homo sapiens inhabited the archipelago are tought to be related to Papuan people and Aborigines
that inhabit the region possibly dated back to 125,000 to 60,000 years ago.
The later period witnessed the expansion of sea-faring Austronesian people
from Asia and spread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia
to Madagascar and Oceania. Austronesian people form the majority of the modern population. They may have arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE.
stone tool
s and also shell tools, discovered in Sangiran and Ngandong. Cut mark analysis of Pleistocene mammalian fossils documents 18 cut marks inflicted by tools of thick clamshell flakes on two bovid bones created during butchery at the Pucangan Formation in Sangiran between 1.6 and 1.5 million years ago. These cut marks document the use of the first tools in Sangiran and the oldest evidence of shell tool use in the world.
culture, such as polished stone axe and stone hoe, are developed by Austronesian people in Indonesian archipelago. Also during this neolithic period in Indonesia, the large stone structures of megalithic culture also flourished in archipelago.
megalithic cultures in past and present. Several megalith sites and structures are found across Indonesia. Menhirs, dolmens, stone tables, ancestral stone statues, and step pyramid
s structure called Punden Berundak were discovered in various sites in Java
, Sumatra
, Sulawesi
, and Lesser Sunda Islands
.
Punden step pyramid and menhir can be found in Pagguyangan Cisolok and Gunung Padang, West Java
. Cipari megalith site also in West Java displayed monolith, stone terraces, and sarcophagus. The Punden step pyramid is believed to be the predecessor and basic design of later Hindu-Buddhist temples
structure in Java after the adoption of Hinduism and Buddhism by native population. The 8th century Borobudur
and 15th-century Candi Sukuh
featured the step-pyramid structure.
Lore Lindu National Park
in Central Sulawesi
houses ancient megalith relics such as ancestral stone statues. Mostly located in the Bada, Besoa and Napu valleys.
Living and surviving megalith culture can be found in Nias
, an isolated island offcoast western North Sumatra
, Batak
culture in interior North Sumatra, Sumba
island in East Nusa Tenggara
, also Toraja
culture in interior South Sulawesi
. These megalith cultures remain preserved, isolated and undisturbed well until late 19th century.
spread to Indonesia bringing with it techniques of bronze casting
, wet-field rice cultivation
, ritual buffalo sacrifice, megalithic practises, and ikat
weaving methods. Some of these practices remain in areas including the Batak
areas of Sumatra, Toraja
in Sulawesi, and several islands in Nusa Tenggara. The artifacts from this period are Nekara bronze drums discovered throughout Indonesian archipelago, and also ceremonial bronze axe.
in Java and Bali, and stil revered in Balinese Hinduism.
equipped with stone tools to elaborated agriculture
society with grain cultivation, domesticated animals, with weaving and pottery industry.
Ideal agricultural conditions, and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BCE, allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century CE. These kingdoms (little more than collections of villages subservient to petty chieftains) evolved with their own ethnic and tribal religions. Java's hot and even temperature, abundant rain and volcanic soil, was perfect for wet rice cultivation. Such agriculture required a well organised society in contrast to dry-field rice which is a much simpler form of cultivation that doesn't require an elaborate social structure to support it.
Buni culture
clay pottery was flourished in coastal northern West Java
and Banten
around 400 BCE to 100 CE Buni culture was probably the predecessor of Tarumanagara
kingdom, one of the earliest Hindu kingdom in Indonesia that produces numerous inscriptions, marked the beginning of historical period in Java.
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
period to about 4th century CE when Kutai
Kutai
Kutai is the traditional name of a historic region in East Kalimantan in Indonesia on Borneo, a Dayak people of the region with a language of the same name and their historic states. Today the name is preserved in the names of three regencies in East Kalimantan, the Kutai Kartanegara Regency, the...
edicted the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. However, unlike the clear distinction of prehictoric—historical period in Europe and the Middle east, those periods transitions and distinctions is quite unclear in Indonesia, mostly because Indonesia geographical conditions as a vast archipelago had caused some parts — especially the interior of distant islands — were virtually isolated from the rest of the world. For example, West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo began its historical period in early 4th century, and yet in the rest of Indonesia the megalithic culture still flourished and scripts was unknown, such as in Nias, Batak, and Toraja. The Papuans in Indonesian part of New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
island were virtually still lived in stoneage until the first contacts with modern world in early 20th century. Even today the living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba
Sumba
Sumba is an island in eastern Indonesia, is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of 11,153 km², and the population was officially at 611,422 in 2005...
and Nias
Nias
Nīas is an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago, containing the Hinako archipelago....
.
Human migration
Geologically the area of modern IndonesiaIndonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
appeared from under the Southeast Asian seas as the result of the Indian and Australian plates collides and slips under Sunda Plate
Sunda Plate
The Sunda Plate is the tectonic plate on which the majority of Southeast Asia is located. It was formerly considered a part of the Eurasian Plate, but GPS measurements have confirmed its independent movement at 10 mm/yr eastward relative to Eurasia...
, sometimes in the early Cenozoic
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic era is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 mya to the present. The era began in the wake of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous that saw the demise of the last non-avian dinosaurs and...
era around 63 millions years ago. This tectonic collission creating Sunda volcanic Arc
Sunda Arc
The Sunda Arc is a volcanic arc that has produced the islands of Sumatra and Java, the Sunda Strait and the Lesser Sunda Islands. A chain of volcanoes forms the topographic spine of these islands...
that has produced chains of islands of Sumatra and Java, and the Lesser Sunda Islands. The region is known for its unstability due to volcano formations and other volcanic and tectonic activities; as well as climate changes; resulted in lowlands drowned occasionally under shallow seas, the formation of islands, the connection and disconnection of islands through narrow land-bridges, etc. The Indonesian archipelago nearly reached its present form in Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
period. For some periods the Sundaland was still linked with Asian mainland creating the land extension of Southeast Asia that enabled the migrations of some Asian animals and hominid species.
Fossilised remains of Homo erectus
Homo erectus
Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...
, popularly known as the "Java Man
Java Man
Java Man is the name given to fossils discovered in 1891 at Trinil - Ngawi Regency on the banks of the Solo River in East Java, Indonesia, one of the first known specimens of Homo erectus...
" discovered in Sangiran
Sangiran
Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site on the island of Java in Indonesia. The area comprises about 48 km² and is located in Central Java, about 15 kilometers north of Surakarta in the Solo River valley. In 1996 it was accepted as World Heritage by the UNESCO.-History:In 1934 the...
, suggest the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited two million to 500,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago. Recent discoveries on the island of Flores
Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc with an estimated area of 14,300 km² extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. The population was 1.831.000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. Flores is Portuguese for "flowers".Flores is located east of Sumbawa...
were dubbed "Flores Man" (Homo floresiensis
Homo floresiensis
Homo floresiensis is a possible species, now extinct, in the genus Homo. The remains were discovered in 2003 on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Partial skeletons of nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete cranium...
), a miniature hominoid that grew only three feet tall, although whether this constitutes a separate species is still in dispute. Flores Man seems to have shared some islands with Java Man until only 10,000 years ago, when they became extinct.
The archipelago was formed during the thaw after the latest ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
. The narrow land bridges and narrow seas enabled the earliest human to travel in simple canoe and spread from mainland Asia eastward to New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. The early homo sapiens inhabited the archipelago are tought to be related to Papuan people and Aborigines
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
that inhabit the region possibly dated back to 125,000 to 60,000 years ago.
The later period witnessed the expansion of sea-faring Austronesian people
Austronesian people
The Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian family. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia,...
from Asia and spread throughout Maritime Southeast Asia
Maritime Southeast Asia
Maritime Southeast Asia refers to the maritime region of Southeast Asia as opposed to mainland Southeast Asia and includes the modern countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, East Timor and Singapore....
to Madagascar and Oceania. Austronesian people form the majority of the modern population. They may have arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE.
Paleolithic
Homo erectus were known to utilize simple coarse paleolithicPaleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
stone tool
Stone tool
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, particularly Stone Age cultures that have become extinct...
s and also shell tools, discovered in Sangiran and Ngandong. Cut mark analysis of Pleistocene mammalian fossils documents 18 cut marks inflicted by tools of thick clamshell flakes on two bovid bones created during butchery at the Pucangan Formation in Sangiran between 1.6 and 1.5 million years ago. These cut marks document the use of the first tools in Sangiran and the oldest evidence of shell tool use in the world.
Neolithic
The polished stone tools of neolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
culture, such as polished stone axe and stone hoe, are developed by Austronesian people in Indonesian archipelago. Also during this neolithic period in Indonesia, the large stone structures of megalithic culture also flourished in archipelago.
Megalithic
Indonesian archipelago is the host of AustronesianAustronesian people
The Austronesian-speaking peoples are various populations in Oceania and Southeast Asia that speak languages of the Austronesian family. They include Taiwanese aborigines; the majority ethnic groups of East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Madagascar, Micronesia, and Polynesia,...
megalithic cultures in past and present. Several megalith sites and structures are found across Indonesia. Menhirs, dolmens, stone tables, ancestral stone statues, and step pyramid
Step pyramid
Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in several locations throughout the world. These pyramids typically are large and made of several layers of stone...
s structure called Punden Berundak were discovered in various sites in Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
, and Lesser Sunda Islands
Lesser Sunda Islands
The Lesser Sunda Islands or Nusa Tenggara are a group of islands in the southern Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up the Sunda Islands...
.
Punden step pyramid and menhir can be found in Pagguyangan Cisolok and Gunung Padang, West Java
West Java
West Java , with a population of over 43 million, is the most populous and most densely populated province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, it is slightly smaller in area than densely populated Taiwan, but with nearly double the population...
. Cipari megalith site also in West Java displayed monolith, stone terraces, and sarcophagus. The Punden step pyramid is believed to be the predecessor and basic design of later Hindu-Buddhist temples
Candi of Indonesia
Candi are the Hindu and Buddhist temples and sanctuaries of Indonesia, mostly built during the 8th to 15th centuries...
structure in Java after the adoption of Hinduism and Buddhism by native population. The 8th century Borobudur
Borobudur
Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument comprises six square platforms topped by three circular platforms, and is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504 Buddha statues...
and 15th-century Candi Sukuh
Candi Sukuh
Sukuh is a 15th century Javanese-Hindu temple that is located on the western slope of Mount Lawu on the border between Central and East Java provinces....
featured the step-pyramid structure.
Lore Lindu National Park
Lore Lindu National Park
Lore Lindu National Park is a forested protected area on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, in the province of Central Sulawesi. The area of the national park is 2,180 km² covering both lowland and montane forests. It provides habitat to numerous rare species, including 77 bird species...
in Central Sulawesi
Central Sulawesi
Central Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia located in the centre of Sulawesi. It was established on 13 April 1964....
houses ancient megalith relics such as ancestral stone statues. Mostly located in the Bada, Besoa and Napu valleys.
Living and surviving megalith culture can be found in Nias
Nias
Nīas is an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago, containing the Hinako archipelago....
, an isolated island offcoast western North Sumatra
North Sumatra
North Sumatra is a province of Indonesia on the Sumatra island. Its capital is Medan. It is the most populous Indonesian province outside of Java. It is slightly larger than Sri Lanka in area.- Geography and population :...
, Batak
Batak (Indonesia)
Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The term is used to include the Toba, Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Angkola and Mandailing, each of which are distinct but related groups with distinct, albeit related, languages and...
culture in interior North Sumatra, Sumba
Sumba
Sumba is an island in eastern Indonesia, is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, and is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Sumba has an area of 11,153 km², and the population was officially at 611,422 in 2005...
island in East Nusa Tenggara
East Nusa Tenggara
East Nusa Tenggara is a province of Indonesia, located in the eastern portion of the Lesser Sunda Islands, including West Timor. The provincial capital is Kupang, located on West Timor...
, also Toraja
Toraja
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live in the regency of Tana Toraja . Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk...
culture in interior South Sulawesi
South Sulawesi
South Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia, located on the western southern peninsula of Sulawesi Island. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi province to the north, South East Sulawesi province to the east and West Sulawesi province to the west...
. These megalith cultures remain preserved, isolated and undisturbed well until late 19th century.
Bronze age
Dong Son cultureDong Son culture
The Đông Sơn culture was a prehistoric Bronze Age age in Vietnam centered at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam. At this time the first Vietnamese kingdoms of Văn Lang and Âu Lạc appeared...
spread to Indonesia bringing with it techniques of bronze casting
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
, wet-field rice cultivation
Paddy field
A paddy field is a flooded parcel of arable land used for growing rice and other semiaquatic crops. Paddy fields are a typical feature of rice farming in east, south and southeast Asia. Paddies can be built into steep hillsides as terraces and adjacent to depressed or steeply sloped features such...
, ritual buffalo sacrifice, megalithic practises, and ikat
Ikat
Ikat, or Ikkat, is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs a resist dyeing process similar to tie-dye on either the warp or weft fibres....
weaving methods. Some of these practices remain in areas including the Batak
Batak (Indonesia)
Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia. The term is used to include the Toba, Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Angkola and Mandailing, each of which are distinct but related groups with distinct, albeit related, languages and...
areas of Sumatra, Toraja
Toraja
The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live in the regency of Tana Toraja . Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk...
in Sulawesi, and several islands in Nusa Tenggara. The artifacts from this period are Nekara bronze drums discovered throughout Indonesian archipelago, and also ceremonial bronze axe.
Belief system
Early Indonesians were animists who honoured the spirits of nature as well as the ancestral spirits of the dead, as their souls or life force could still help the living. The reverence for ancestral spirits is still widespread among Indonesian native ethnicities; such as amongs Nias people, Batak, Dayak, Toraja, and Papuans. These reverence among others are evident through the harvest festivals that often invoked the nature spirits and agriculture deities, to the elaborate burial rituals and processions of the deceased elders in order to preparing and sending them to the realm of ancestors. The prehistoric spirit of ancestors or nature that possess supernatural abilities is identified as hyangHyang
Hyang is an unseen spiritual entity that has supernatural power in ancient Indonesian mythology. This spirit can be either divine or ancestral. The reverence for this spiritual entity can be found in Sunda Wiwitan, Kejawen, and Balinese Hinduism. In modern Indonesian this term tends to be...
in Java and Bali, and stil revered in Balinese Hinduism.
Way of life
The livelihood of prehistoric Indonesia ranges from simple forest hunter-gathererHunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
equipped with stone tools to elaborated agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
society with grain cultivation, domesticated animals, with weaving and pottery industry.
Ideal agricultural conditions, and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BCE, allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century CE. These kingdoms (little more than collections of villages subservient to petty chieftains) evolved with their own ethnic and tribal religions. Java's hot and even temperature, abundant rain and volcanic soil, was perfect for wet rice cultivation. Such agriculture required a well organised society in contrast to dry-field rice which is a much simpler form of cultivation that doesn't require an elaborate social structure to support it.
Buni culture
Buni culture
Buni culture is a prehistoric clay pottery culture that flourished in coastal northern West Java and Banten around 400 BCE to 100 CE and probably suvived until 500 CE...
clay pottery was flourished in coastal northern West Java
West Java
West Java , with a population of over 43 million, is the most populous and most densely populated province of Indonesia. Located on the island of Java, it is slightly smaller in area than densely populated Taiwan, but with nearly double the population...
and Banten
Banten
Banten is a province of Indonesia in Java. Formerly part of the Province of West Java, it was made a separate province in 2000.The administrative center is Serang. Preliminary results from the 2010 census counted some 10.6 million people.-Geography:...
around 400 BCE to 100 CE Buni culture was probably the predecessor of Tarumanagara
Tarumanagara
Tarumanagara or Taruma Kingdom or just Taruma is an early Sundanese Indianized kingdom, whose fifth-century ruler, Purnavarman, produced the earliest known inscriptions on Java island...
kingdom, one of the earliest Hindu kingdom in Indonesia that produces numerous inscriptions, marked the beginning of historical period in Java.